“Don’t you dare say anything to them,” Samuel cautioned. “They are our friends and I won’t have you carpin’.”
“Who’s carpin’, for goodness sake?” Emala rebutted. “All I’m doin’ is tellin’ you they have a heap of guns and whatnot.”
“I aim to have my own heap before too long.”
“What?”
“We each have rifles the Kings gave us. And I have a pistol. But that’s all we have. As soon as we can, I am getting a rifle for Randa and Chickory and two pistols for each of you.”
This was news to Emala. “We didn’t need guns on the plantation.”
Samuel gave her his look. “Are you addlepated, woman? They wouldn’t let us have guns. They didn’t want us risin’ up against them.” It was a subject dear to him. “When folks take it into their heads to lord it over other folks, the first thing they do is take away their weapons. You can’t lord it over wolves. You can only lord it over sheep.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Emala conceded. “But we aren’t bein’ lorded over anymore. What do we need with so many guns?”
“I want guns,” Chickory said.
“Hush, boy,” Emala said. “You’re only fourteen. You are too young to be totin’ an armory like that Zach King does.”
“I want guns, too,” Randa said.
Emala scrunched up her mouth as she had a habit of doing when she was displeased. “Listen to this. My whole family has gone gun crazy.”
“It’s not crazy,” Samuel said. “It’s practical. Out here ain’t like back at the plantation. We are in the wilderness now. The real wilderness. Not woods that have been tamed, like back there. Out here there are things that will kill us as soon as they smell us. Bears and those big cats and wolves.”
“You’re exaggeratin’. And we had bears and stuff back there, too.”
“Black bears that were so scared of people they’d run off. Out here they ain’t scared. And it’s not just black bears. There are grizzlies. There are hostiles, too. Indians who won’t care we’re black and—what is it Nate calls it?” Samuel had to think. “Countin’ coup. That’s it. Indians like those Blackfoots. They’d kill us and rip off our hair.”
“I haven’t done the Blackfeet any harm,” Emala said. “Why would they want to harm me?”
“Because you ain’t one of them.”
“That’s hardly cause.”
“Tell that to the whites who hate us because we’re black. That ain’t hardly cause, but they hate us anyway.”
“Well,” Emala said. It was the only thing she could think of to say, and that bothered her. Usually she could think of a lot more.
Nate came over. “Are you folks ready to hunt?”
“We are ready, Mr. King,” Samuel said.
“Hopes the snakes are ready,” Emala said.
“Excuse me?”
“Pay her no mind, Mr. King. She’s in one of her moods. We’ve just been talkin’ about how dangerous it is hereabouts and how we need weapons, and she thinks it’s silly.”
Nate smiled at Emala. “Your husband is right. This isn’t like back East. You never know what you’re going to run into. You can walk out the door one morning to fetch water from the lake and meet up with a griz. Or you can go for a ride with your daughter and come across a war party. You must always be prepared for the worst but hope for the best.”
“I trust that the Lord will watch over us,” Emala said.
“You take your faith seriously.”
“You can bet your boots I do. Or your moccasins.” Emala proudly held her head high. “I can read, Mr. King. I have my Bible and I read from it each and every day. And I trust in the Lord like the Bible says to.”
“That’s good,” Nate said. “I trust in the Lord, too. But trust won’t stop a hungry griz from eating you. Or an Apache or a Sioux from putting an arrow in you.”
“Faith can move mountains,” Emala said.
“This isn’t about faith. It’s about breathing. If you don’t go armed, you won’t be around for long.”
“I don’t know as I believe that.”
“Emala,” Samuel said.
“I mean, what are the odds of me walkin’ out my door and there’s one of those big bears or an Indian out to kill me? I bet it hardly ever happens.”
“It only takes once,” Nate said.
“We don’t need a heap of weapons,” Emala insisted.
Samuel gave her another of his looks. “Darn you, woman. Don’t listen to her, Mr. King—”
“Nate. Please call me Nate.”
“Don’t listen to her, Nate. She is set in her ways. I want weapons. I want weapons for all of us. As soon as I can afford them.”
“I’ve been thinking about that and I might have a way to help. We’ll talk more about it later. For right now, our plan is to sweep the entire lakeshore from end to end. We’ll each take a section. You and your family can start here and work north to Zach’s. Zach is going to do the stretch from his cabin to Waku’s lodge.”
“We are honored to help.”
Nate clapped Samuel on the arm and walked off and as soon as he was out of earshot Samuel turned to Emala.
“You are a trial.”
“What did I do?”
“Arguin’ with him like that. After all they have done for us.”
“I was just speakin’ my mind,” Emala said. “Can I help it if I have a lot of mind to speak?”
“Enough. We have snakes to hunt.”
“At last,” Chickory said, and grinned. “I can’t wait to bash a few.” He hefted a log he had taken from the woodpile to use as a club.
Randa held up her hands. In each she held a fist-size rock. “If I can bean a rabbit on the hop I can surely bean me some snakes.”
“Lordy,” Emala breathed. “My family have become killin’ fiends.”
“Let’s go,” Samuel said, and moved toward the trees. “We’ll spread out. We want to do this right so look under every rock. Every rattlesnake we find, we kill. If it’s a big snake and you need help, give a holler. Just don’t get bit.”
They spaced themselves. Samuel was near the trees. Then came Chickory with his club and Randa with her rocks.
Emala, with her rifle, was by the lake. For some reason the weapon felt heavier than it usually did. She put her thumb on the hammer as Winona King had showed her how to do. She still didn’t have the hang of loading. All that business about pouring the black powder and the patch and ball and the ramrod. Samuel always had to load for her.
Emala was glad to be by the lake. She figured there’d be fewer snakes near the water. She didn’t know much about rattlesnakes, but she was pretty sure they didn’t like water. Water moccasins did. Water moccasins terrified her. She remembered seeing one when she was little. She’d been six or seven and sitting on the bank of a pond when a water moccasin swam past. It scared her silly. She’d screamed and her ma snatched her up and backed away from the water moccasin, which paid no attention to them.
Emala checked on her children. Chickoy was looking under a rock. Randa was searching around some boulders.
Samuel looked at Emala and smiled. She smiled back, but she wondered what he was up to. He hardly ever smiled at her like that. He must want something, she decided. He was always nice to her when he wanted something. Men were sneaky that way.
Emala came to a cluster of rocks. Big rocks, middling rocks, little rocks. How they got piled that way was a mystery. She thought maybe the rising and falling of the lake might have something to do with it. Shakespeare had told her that sometimes the lake level rose when it rained real hard and that in the summer the level often dropped.