Chickory Worth couldn’t understand it. He had been biten twice. The bites hurt like the dickens. But he was still breathing. Even more amazing, except for where he’d been bitten, he didn’t feel anything. He wasn’t numb or tingly or itchy or in much pain.
Emala had her hands clasped to her bosom and was rocking on her knees and praying at the top of her lungs. Tears trickled down her cheeks. “Hear me, Lord. I beg you. Spare him. He’s my only boy. Don’t let him die by no serpents. Serpents are Satan’s brood and the Bible says that those who have faith are proof against their poison.”
“Please, Ma,” Chickory said.
Emala raised her hands over her head. “I pray my faith is true. I pray you will heal him. I pray for your blessin’ in this as I pray for your blessin’ in all there is. Please, Lord, help us.”
Samuel had stopped sucking and was sitting with his hands propped behind him. Spittle glistened on his lower lip and chin. “I don’t know as I got it all out, but I tried my best, Son.”
“I know you did, Pa.”
Randa hunkered and examined Chickory’s leg. “There’s no swellin’ yet. I think I heard they swell sometimes.”
“How do you feel?” Samuel asked.
“Except for where they bit, I feel fine. I don’t feel nothin’.”
“Nothin’?”
“Not a thing, Pa. It could be you got all the poison out. It could be you saved my life.”
“Or it could be there wasn’t any poison to begin with,” Samuel said. “I didn’t taste any. But then, I ain’t exactly sure what snake poison tastes like.”
“I was bit,” Chickory said.
“Sure you were. But Nate King told me that rattlers don’t always…” Samuel stopped. “What was the word he used? Oh. Yes. Rattlers don’t always inject their poison. Sometimes they just bite and that’s all.”
“Please hear me, God!” Emala wailed. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Unto thee, oh Lord, do I lift up my soul. I will praise thee, oh Lord, with all my heart. Have mercy upon me, oh Lord. Have mercy upon my son.”
“Emala,” Samuel said.
“Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King and my God, for unto thee will I pray. My voice shalt thou hear in the mornin’, oh Lord.”
“Emala?”
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table—”
Samuel gripped her arm. “Stop your caterwaulin’ and listen to me, woman.”
Emala opened her eyes and recoiled as if he had slapped her. “Did you just call my prayin’ caterwaulin’?”
“He’s all right.”
“Here I am, tryin’ the best I know how to persuade the Lord to help us, and you go and blaspheme.” Emala shrugged off his hand. “You’re beginnin’ to worry me, Samuel Worth. You truly are. Don’t you give a fig about your eternal soul?”
“Chickory is all right.”
“The Lord don’t like blasphemin’. It says so right in the Bible. He’ll forgive a heap of things but not that. You’d best get on your knees and beg him to forgive you or—” Emala blinked. “What did you say?”
“Our son is fine.”
“He is?” Emala turned to Chickory, new tears shimmering in her eyes. “Is that true? The poison isn’t makin’ you turn all blue and choke on your tongue?”
“The bites sting some, is all,” Chickory answered. “But I’m breathin’ fine.”
“Land sakes.” Emala grasped Samuel’s arm and nearly jerked him off balance. “Do you know what this is?”
“We were lucky,” Samuel said.
Emala vigorously shook her head. “None are so blind as those that won’t see. Luck had nothin’ to do with it.” She reverently put her hand on Chickory’s calf and said in awe, “This was a miracle.”
“What?” Samuel said.
“You heard me. A miracle. Just like in the Bible when Jesus healed the sick and Moses parted the Red Sea.” Emala ran her fingers over the bites as if caressing them. “Our very own miracle right here in our family. That I should live to see somethin’ so wondrous.”
“The snakes only bit him, is all,” Samuel explained.
“Of course they bit him. I can see the holes.”
“No. I mean they bit him, but they didn’t get their poison into him,” Samuel said. “Haven’t you been payin’ attention? That’s why he’s not dyin’.”
“He’s not dyin’ because the Lord heard my prayer.” Emala raised her arms on high. “We must give thanks. When we go to church we—” She stopped and her eyes widened. “Glory be. I just realized. We don’t have a church to go to.”
“Ministers don’t come to the Rockies,” Samuel said. “I doubt there will be a church hereabouts for a hundred years or better.”
“We can’t have that,” Emala said. “We need a house of worship. I bet if we had one, the Kings and the McNairs would come and maybe those Nansusequas if we asked them real nice, even if they are heathens.”
“But we don’t have one, so why bring it up?”
“We don’t have one now, but we will.” Emala beamed and nodded. “We’re going to build one.”
“What?” Samuel said.
“What?” Randa echoed.
“You heard me,” Emala declared.
Chickory groaned and put his hand on his leg as if the pain had made him do it.
“Listen to yourself, woman,” Samuel scoffed. “You can’t just build your own church.”
“It wouldn’t be just for me,” Emala said. “It’d be for everyone. Since there’s not a lot of us, it wouldn’t need to be big. We could even add a room to our cabin and have it be the church.”
“Are you sure you weren’t the one snakebit?”
Emala bristled like a kicked porcupine. “Samuel Worth, you don’t fool me. You don’t want to have to go to church every Sunday. You were a shirker back on the plantation and you are a shirker still.”
“You better ask Mr. King what he thinks.”
“I don’t need to ask Mr. King. I have my answer right here.” Emala patted Chickory’s leg. “The Lord himself has given us a sign.”
“The snake bite?”
“The miracle. It’s the Lord’s way of showing us we’re all under his care and we shouldn’t forget him just because we’re in the middle of nowhere without a church.”
Samuel stared.
“Why are you lookin’ at me like that? I’m right and you know it. King Valley needs a house of worship. Maybe we can have a bell hauled in and every Sunday morning Chickory can ring it to call everyone together.” Emala couldn’t wait. “It’ll be marvelous. We’ll have pews and a pulpit and we’ll even get our hands on hymn books.”
“What about a minister?” Samuel brought up. “Where do you expect to find one out here in the middle of nowhere, as you called it.”
“That’s easy,” Emala said. “One of us will have to take charge of the services, and there’s only one person in this whole valley who’s qualified.”
“Mr. McNair?” Randa said.
“No, silly.” Emala laughed with delight. “Me.”
Chickory gripped his leg and groaned louder.
Evelyn King stared death in its reptilian face. The rattlesnake had reared to strike. She’d heard tell that rattlers didn’t open their mouths until the moment they struck, but this one did, baring its lethal fangs. A drop of venom fell from each one. She went to fling up her arm when there was a flash of light and the viper’s head plopped to the ground. There was another flash and another and pieces of the snake joined the head. A buckskin-clad figure blotted out the sun and a hand gently touched her cheek.
“I’m here, little sister,” Zach said.