I waited until I was a far piece from town before I rested. A relief washed over me that Pa was alive. Nothing was more important than my only family left, and I forgot about everything but him. Then, fear of what Queenie’d done hit me cold. If the Company had found her with the letter, passing notes from union men, they would have beaten her, then burned her out of her home, maybe murdered her, gone after her family. That I’d put Queenie in danger by using her and her patron to get word to Pa left me shamed, terrified for her.
It was just last year when the Company had gone to Gordon Brown’s home at the miners’ camp after they’d found his wife passed letters from her husband to gather miners for a strike. When they didn’t find Mr. Brown, they ransacked the house, destroyed every stick inside, then lay in wait all night to shoot her husband. The next day, when Brown still hadn’t come home, the Company bosses evicted the wife and their seven children. Not a week later, a sympathetic barrister in the next county went to meet with Company bosses on behalf of the Brown family and other wronged miners. Two days later, the young lawyer was killed when his motorcar was bombed.
My hands picked up a tremble and I touched my pocket, pressed my palm against the letter. Queenie was safe. Pa was safe. That’s all that mattered, I told myself. Slowly, I scanned the trees, looking behind me and all around. Twice, and then a third time to make sure I was alone.
Junia led us along a wooded path as I tore open the envelope and read as best as I could, again pausing to look over my shoulder in case Company bosses were afoot.
Pa’s letter said he was near the Tennessee line in family talks and was in good health and would be home in two nights. Family talks was code for mine meetings.
Another two nights…
Here he’d never been out of these hollers more than two minutes. I worried about these talks and the trouble he could be getting himself into—the unrest with the miners, the dangers they were stirring up.
Mama’d fretted it and loudly when she was alive. But every time I’d try to talk to Pa about it, he’d rail a bit, then walk away grumbling.
Junia halted, and that’s when I saw it in our path. The mule pawed and stomped a warning, but the rattlesnake stilled, slowly coiled itself into a tight S, rose partway up, forked its tongue, and wagged its rattler, refusing to slither away.
I pulled Junia’s reins, nudging her to circle around. But the ol’ girl weren’t having none of it. Flicking her tail, she stared off to the left and bared chomping teeth.
I snapped the reins.
The snake shook its rattler harder, raising it.
“Back, ol’ girl. Ghee around now,” I cautioned.
The mule snorted, backstepped, and teetered, raring to stomp. I tugged again, ordering her to pull back and around, like we’d done before, and to give the creature time to cross.
“Back, Junia, whoa, whoa,” I commanded, dug harder into her sides. “Easy!”
Then I was falling, hitting the earth, tumbling toward the snake. My hands went to my face, and I curled myself into a ball to ward off its deadly strike.
Hooves pounded the earth, and then a strangled cry shivered the pines. For a second I couldn’t make out if it was mine, Junia’s, or another’s.
I let out a few hard breaths and dared to open my eyes. To my horror, Pa’s letter rested next to the snake. Wriggling, I rolled over onto my belly, crawled, inched toward it, and slowly stretched out my arm, my eyes locked to the serpent, my fingers almost on the paper.
An explosion rang out, and Junia bawled into the thundering blast of gunshot. I recoiled and cradled my head, a terror striking like no other that the Company had found me out.
Dropping my face into the dirt, I wrapped my arms over my head, the weight of my crime pummeling my chest, shoveling me into a shallow grave, my flesh exposed, bait for the snake’s poison, for the Company men’s bullets. Seconds later, footfalls sounded, then quieted, and I risked raising my head slightly to peek.
Angeline stood on the leaf-scattered trail with her arm clasped over a small pouting belly, an old rope looped loosely around her swollen waist and knotted with a dead rabbit dangling against her skirts, a floppy brown hat atop her blond head, the sulk dragging her mouth, a polkstalk gripped hard in her white-knuckled hand.
“Junia, you ol’ ill-tempered Apostle. Scat!” Angeline lightly knocked the mule’s knees with the butt of her gun, tapping her away from the dead snake. “Back. That’s my supper, and you hain’t gonna smush it ’fore I can get it in the skillet.”
“Ang…Angeline,” I barely breathed, and pulled myself onto my knees. I pressed my hands to my pounding chest, took another quaking breath, and slowly rose.
Angeline latched onto my arm and helped steady me upright.
“The mule—she wouldn’t go off the trail,” I said.
Junia nickered loudly. She had her nose aimed to the side, ears flicking, looking at nothing but a smatter of rock in tall grass.
“Dammit,” Angeline said, and dropped my arm.
She broke down her single-shot, pulled out the spent shell, retrieved a new one from her skirts, and reloaded. I scrambled for Junia’s reins. Aiming the barrel over to the base of the rock, she fired, sending up dirt, grass, and a knot of baby snakes.
Burnt gunpowder filled the air.
Angeline rushed over to rocks. “Got ’em. It’s the nest, sure ’nough,” she said. “That’s why Junia wouldn’t go around, scared she’d step on it.” Angeline poked it with her gun. “That ol’ rattler was gonna make sure she didn’t either.” Angeline turned back to me. “Oh, Bluet, you hain’t hurt none, are you?”
I let out a breath. “Fine. Thanks, Angeline.” I slapped the dirt off my sleeves, flexing my hands, and inspecting for any injuries. “I didn’t expect you out here.”
Angeline plucked a torn leaf from my hair, rubbed off a smudge of dirt from my cheek. “I’m getting food now that we’s got some bullets from the tinker man passing through. Willie traded him some ginseng root.”
She looked a little wild standing there, fierce, her tanned feet comfortable atop ancient knobby tree roots like the earth was her Cinderella slipper. The loose plait in her light hair glistened in a blade of sunlight.
For a minute I envied her, wanted to send Junia home, unlace my heavy, tight shoes, and run free with her to escape Frazier, the doc and his medical tests, and everything damning me—to hunt and fish in the woods like I’d done as a child. To be wilded. Have a wilded heart in this black-treed land full of wilded creatures. There were notches in these hills where a stranger wouldn’t tread, dared not venture—the needle-eyed coves and skinny blinds behind rocks, the strangling parts of the blackened-green hills—but Angeline and hillfolk here were wilded and not afraid. And I longed to lift bare feet onto ancient paths and be wilded once again.
Angeline said, “Willie’ll be out here fetching victuals soon. He’s getting well now. Been hobbling out to the garden and back every day. Them bottles you gave us sure are curing him.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Angeline lifted my hand to her mouth and kissed it. “Thank you for saving him, Bluet.”
I snatched it back.
“You ought not do that, Angeline. Someone might see you touching me. A Blue. And they could cause you trouble. It might anger Willie—”
“Hmph. Willie totes his pride in a beggar’s cup. He wouldn’t be here if not for you. And hain’t caring a snit ’bout those that don’t care none for me and mine.” She gave a bright smile. “Here it’s already June, and Honey’ll be here next month and have herself a pa now ’cause of you.” Angeline bent over and grabbed the snake, tying it to her rope. “And I got us fine meat, more’n one supper’s worth.”
Supper. I licked my lips, tasting. There’d been so little of it lately. Tonight I’d hunt for nettles to have soup.