Wilderness: Venom Part 7

Samuel surveyed the sh.o.r.e. "That means it would have to be between Nate's cabin and his son's or between Nate's and Mr. McNair's."

"How come you only mentioned the men?"

"What?"

"They have wives. You didn't mention Winona or Blue Water Woman or that darling little Louisa. Did you forget them?" It had been Emala's experience that men did tend to forget their womenfolk and needed to be constantly reminded of the love and devotion their women showed them.

"Good G.o.d."

"Don't blaspheme."

"I didn't forget them. I just didn't think to say them."

"That's the same thing." Emala put her hands on her hips. "You men. That we put up with you is a wonderment."

Samuel sighed and tilted his head back and stared at the sky.

"What are you doin'?"

"Countin' to ten."

"Don't you start with me, Samuel Worth. Let's walk along the lake and maybe I'll find a spot I like."

So that's what they did. They walked north. Samuel pointed out a suitable spot. Emala said it was too near the water.

"What's bad about that?" Samuel asked.

"Didn't you hear Winona? Sometimes it rains so hard the water rises. We don't want our home where it can be flooded."

Further on Samuel noticed a shaded spot near the trees.

"Too close to the woods," Emala said. "I could be out hangin' laundry and one of those big brown bears could jump out and gobble me up."

"Nate says there aren't any grizzlies in his valley. There was one, but he had to shoot it."

"It doesn't have to a grizzly that gobbles me. It could be a black bear. Or one of those tawny cats. Or a pack of wolves. Winona says sometimes at night you can hear them howlin' up on the mountain."

"They don't attack people all that often," Samuel had been told.

"I don't care. I won't be gobbled. I didn't come into this world to end up as some animal's supper. We'll have to find another spot."

Samuel stopped suggesting. They came to the northwest corner of the lake and Emala stopped to catch her breath. She saw where a giant pine cast a giant shadow and she went over to sit in the shade. A thicket fringed the woods to the right of the pine. To the left, a long stone's throw off, was what appeared to be a gully. "This is nice here."

Samuel scratched his head. "You said you didn't want a spot near the trees. This is closer than the place I picked."

"But it's nicer. There's all this shade. And it won't be easy for critters to sneak up on me with that thicket yonder."

"It's flat enough," Samuel said, and walked back and forth, examining the ground. He stared at the timbered slopes above and then at the lake. "It sure is pretty."

"It's near Winona, too." To Emala that counted for more. She liked to be around people. She liked to talk and laugh and sing. Samuel didn't. Back when they were slaves, he would as soon sit around their shack than gather at the fire with the other slaves and socialize. He stayed too much inside himself. She'd told him that a million times, but he stayed there anyway.

"All right. I'll go get Nate."

"Hold up. You're not leavin' me here alone." Emala heaved up off the ground. "Who knows what's lurkin' about?"

"You need to get over your fear," Samuel advised. "Otherwise you won't ever enjoy livin' here."

Emala regarded the towering peaks. She regarded the dark, somber forest and the high gra.s.s that could hide just about anything. "I can't help it. It's scary, and that's no lie."

"No more so than back at the plantation."

"What are you talkin' about? We didn't have bears out in the fields. We surely didn't have no wolves. And there weren't red men runnin' around wantin' to-what did Nate King call it?"

"Count coup."

"That's it. What is a coup, anyhow?"

"I didn't ask. But I don't think it's a thing. I think it's like hunters who shoot animals and put their heads on the walls."

"Whatever it is, it's not nice, and we didn't have none of it back home. So you can't blame-"

"No," Samuel said.

"No what?"

"The plantation was never ours. It wasn't our home. It was where we were forced to live, where we were treated the same as the horses and cows and sheep." Samuel gestured at the broad expanse of valley. "This is our home."

The sun was warm on Emala's face. She watched several geese come in for a graceful landing. A yellow and black b.u.t.terfly fluttered past. Finches took wing, chirping gaily. "I guess it does have its nice parts." She took Samuel's hand. "I'll do the best I can, but it still scares me."

"I won't ever let anything happen to you."

They walked a ways and Samuel said, "I want to thank you, Emala."

"For what?"

"For stickin' with me through all of this. You've had to put up with a lot."

"Well, of course I'd stick with you. You're my husband. A wife is supposed to stick by her man, even when he's wrong."

"You think it's wrong we ran away? You think it's wrong I wanted a new life for us? A better life?"

Emala knew how important it was to him. More important than it was to her. She had been born a slave and never knew anything else. She had been used to that life. This idea of freedom, of doing what she wanted when she wanted, was almost as scary as the wilderness. "You weren't wrong," she said so as not to upset him.

Nate was at his new forge. He had built it several months ago out of rocks he collected along the lake. Nate had mixed the mortar, too, using clay and dirt and water. Shakespeare had offered to help and then sat and sipped blackberry juice Winona had made and kept pointing out that this or that stone wasn't set right and there were gaps in the mortar. It wasn't fancy, but it was the next best thing to having a blacksmith handy.

Nate built it mainly to shoe their horses. Not just his, but everyone else's in the valley. It didn't matter much to Winona or Blue Water Woman since the Shoshones and the Flatheads never shod their horses. Or to Shakespeare, who shod his mare only when he expected to ride long distances. It mattered to Nate, though. A lot of hard riding wore a horse's hooves down and could cause the animal a lot of pain. Shoes spared them from suffering.

The forge had a small bellows and an anvil, ordered out of a catalog at Bent's Fort. Ceran St. Vrain had sent word to Nate when they arrived and Nate had rigged an extrastrong travois to a packhorse to haul them back.

Now, standing under a plank roof supported by four thick poles, a precaution on Nate's part to protect his equipment from rain and snow, he picked up metal tongs and was about to grip a bar of wrought iron when Samuel and Emala appeared. They had been gone almost an hour and were walking hand in hand, the first instance Nate could recall them doing that. He walked hand in hand with Winona all the time. So did McNair with Blue Water Woman. As Shakespeare once joked, "We're natural-born romantic cusses."

"I hope we're not interruptin'," Samuel said.

Nate set down the tongs and came around the forge. "Not at all. What did you decide?"

Emala fanned her neck with her hand. "Land sakes, it's powerful hot under here. It's like standin' on the sun."

"The forge has to be hot or the metal won't melt," Nate said.

"We found us a spot," Emala told him. "We'd like for you to come have a look-see and tell us what you think."

Nate undid his ap.r.o.n and set it aside. He took his Hawken from where he had propped it. "Show me."

They headed north along the lake. Nate held his Hawken with the barrel across his shoulder, his hand on the stock.

Emala nodded at the rifle. "You don't go anywhere without that, do you, Mr. King?"

"It's Nate, remember? And no, not if I care to go on breathing."

"Those things are too heavy for me. My arms get tired. I'd rather go without."

"You get used to it."

Emala regarded the wooded slopes high above. "I wonder if I'll ever get used to any of this."

"It's our home," Samuel said.

"So you keep remindin' me. But not yet it ain't. Not until I have my very own cabin. Which reminds me, how's that goin' to work, exactly, Mr. King? I mean, Nate?"

"We will all pitch in and help build it," Nate explained. "Raising a cabin, it's called."

"I never been to one of those."

Nate noticed a pair of doves in flight. He had always liked doves. His uncle once told him that when they mated it was for life. If one or the other died, the survivor never took another. He never did learn whether that was true.

"Mr. King?"

Nate glanced over. Samuel was studying him, his brow furrowed. "What's on your mind?"

"I've been meanin' to ask you somethin' and I suppose now is as good a time as any."

"Ask away," Nate said.

Emala had an inkling what her husband was curious about. They'd talked about it just the night before. "Maybe you shouldn't."

"Why not?" Samuel asked.

"People put out a hand to help, you should accept it and that should be that," Emala said.

Nate asked, "What is this about?"

"You. Your wife. Your family. Your friends," Samuel ran off a list. "But mostly you and your wife."

"What did we do?"

"That's just it," Samuel said. "What haven't you done? From the moment we met you, you folks have treated us kindly and gone out of your way to do us favors."

"For which we're grateful as can be," Emala said.

"That we are," Samuel concurred. "When we first met you all we had was the clothes on our backs, and you bought us new clothes and gave us guns and protected us all the way here."

"Your point?" Nate was unsure what they were leading up to.

"My point is a question," Samuel said. "What I would like to know is why. Why did you and your wife do all those things? And why are you still goin' out of your way to help us?"

"Because you needed our help then, and you need our help now," Nate answered.

"But we were strangers. More than that, we're black and you're white. We're used to whites lookin' down their noses at us, not treatin' us as equals. I thought you were up to somethin' but you weren't. You were just bein' you."

"I was being me when I took Winona for my wife. You might have noticed that she's not white, either."

"So skin means honest-to-G.o.d nothin' to you?"

"It's not a person's color, it's the person inside," Nate said. "Winona isn't white, but she's the most beautiful woman I've ever known. I love her more than I love anything."

Nothing more was said until they came to the spot Emala had picked. Nate walked in a circle and said, "There's plenty of flat ground for a good-size cabin, and you're close enough to the lake that it won't be too much of a ch.o.r.e fetching water."

"What about that?" Emala nodded toward the gully. "Do we need to worry it will flood if it rains heavy?"

Nate shook his head. "Even if it does, your cabin will be far enough away to be safe." He smiled and nodded. "I think you've chosen a fine spot for your new home. You shouldn't have any problems at all."

Chapter Eight.

The cabin raising got underway.

First the flat area was cleared of rocks and everything else. Nate and Shakespeare measured and pounded stakes at the four corners and strung rope between the stakes as guidelines. The foundation stones were laid. Then came the felling of the trees. Cottonwoods and firs were too slender. Spruce was scattered here and there near the site, and there were plenty of oaks, but the tree Nate liked best were pines. Pines were abundant and there were enough of them near the same size.

Nate and Shakespeare and Zach all owned axes. Nate owned two, and lent his extra to Samuel. Nate picked a cl.u.s.ter of trees and set to work. With each stroke his ax bit deep and sent chips flying.

Shakespeare was an old hand at felling trees, and Zach had learned from his father.