Nate bit his lower lip to keep from laughing.

"And even if I was, I wouldn't talk about it," Evelyn said defensively. "Love is personal and private."

"Do tell."

"It's true. When we talk about it, we spoil it."

"I never knew that."

"Unless it's with the one we love. Then it's all right to talk about it. Sort of like heart to heart."

"I will be sure to mention that to Blue Water Woman. We have been making a spectacle of ourselves talking about our love in public."

"You're teasing, aren't you?"

"Perish forbid," Shakespeare said, and launched into a quote. "With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls, for stony limits cannot hold love out, for what love can do, that dares love attempt."

"What are you saying? That it is all right to talk about our special love with just about anybody?"

"There is talking and there is talking. But you are right, princess. There are things we talk about with those we love that we wouldn't say to total strangers."

"Are you teasing again?"

"Never about the shrine we hold most dear. That is, if we are talking about the same shrines."

"I'm so confused," Evelyn said.

Nate drained his gla.s.s and handed it to her. "Tell your mother we'll be tr.i.m.m.i.n.g a while. And don't ever come into these woods again without your rifle."

Evelyn was reaching for Shakespeare's gla.s.s, and stopped. "I had the pitcher and gla.s.ses to carry. Besides, I have my pistols and my knife. And I heard you chopping and knew you weren't far."

"Never ever," Nate said.

Frowning, Evelyn took the gla.s.s and wheeled on her heels. "I'm not a child. I can take care of myself."

"Blue Flower," Nate said sternly, using her Shoshone name.

Evelyn glanced over her shoulder.

"I don't want to have to bury you."

She walked on without saying a word.

A gust of wind stirred the trees and farther in the forest a raven squawked.

"It has long amused me," Shakespeare said, "that when we are young we think we know everything and when we are old and look back we realize we didn't know much of anything. She's growing up, Horatio. She has a mind of her own."

"Doesn't make it easier."

"No, the older they get, the harder it is. But look at the bright side."

"I shudder to ask," Nate said.

"In a year or so you might be a grandpa."

Chapter Ten.

The chickens needed to be shooed in at dusk. Bobcats and foxes and coyotes and wolves loved to gorge on chicken flesh.

It was Evelyn's job. Or, as she preferred to think of it, her ch.o.r.e. She didn't much like chickens. When they were fresh out of the egg they were adorable. They chirped sweetly and looked so cuddly she always wanted to pick them up. But as they aged they lost their cuteness and would often as not peck anyone who tried to handle them.

When her pa first got them there were ten, but now there were eighteen, counting the rooster. Evelyn liked him, liked how he strutted around with his chest puffed out and put on displays for the hens. She didn't like how he crowed each morning at the crack of day and woke her. She would as soon sleep in.

On this particular evening, most of the sun had been devoured by the maw of hungry night. Evelyn had herded eleven of the chickens inside the coop but couldn't find the rest. She went toward the lake and spied five close to the water. One was a big hen she called Matilda. Matilda thought she was a rooster. She had her own little band that followed her everywhere and did whatever Matilda did.

"There you are," Evelyn said as she slowly circled to get behind them so they couldn't run off. They clucked and Matilda dug at the dirt and flapped her wings. "It's time for bed." Evelyn waved her arms. "Get going."

Matilda in the lead, they moved toward the coop. They took their time, as they always did, in no rush to be locked in.

Evelyn stamped her foot in irritation. "Faster, darn you. I am meeting Dega later and have things to do." A secret meeting, as they had been doing for a while now. She would tell her folks she was going to bed and slip out her window and spend an hour or so with him and slip back in again with her parents none the wiser.

Evelyn never imagined there would come a day when she would do anything so brazen behind their backs. She loved and respected them. She truly did. But she doubted they'd approve and might even try to stop her, and she couldn't have that. Dega meant too much to her. The thought made her cheeks grow warm. She hadn't been honest with Shakespeare. She wasn't too young to be in love. She had, in fact, been in love for some time and not realized it until recently. Peculiar how the heart worked, she reflected. Even more peculiar that the mind sometimes denied what the heart was feeling. She had denied hers until her feelings for Dega washed over her in a tidal wave of desire.

A short ramp led to the floor of the coop, which was raised off the ground about a foot. Matilda led her group up it and flapped her wings again before entering and gave Evelyn a look that suggested were it up to Matilda she would spend her nights outside, thank you very much.

Evelyn shut the small door but didn't latch it. Not yet. There were two chickens unaccounted for. It didn't help that their feathers were reddish brown. It made them hard to see in the murky twilight.

Evelyn went around the cabin to the corral, where the chickens liked to bathe in the dust, but the missing chickens weren't there. She walked to the rear of the cabin, where the chickens liked to peck at the tiny stones, but the missing pair weren't there either. She moved to the other side. Still no chickens.

Puzzled, Evelyn scanned the lakesh.o.r.e and the tree line. Usually they didn't wander far. Some instinct kept them close.

Evelyn knew which chickens were missing, two of the smallest. They had hatched at the same time and always went everywhere together. Sometimes they were with the rooster and sometimes with Matilda, and other times they wandered by themselves. She roved the sh.o.r.e for fifty yards and retraced her steps and went the same distance in the other direction. She crossed to the woods and moved along the border for a considerable distance.

"Where did you get to, consarn it?" Evelyn asked the empty air. She had other ch.o.r.es to do and she wanted to wash up before she pretended to turn in and went out her window to be with Dega. The thought of him, of his wonderful eyes and his handsome face, sent a tingle down her spine. Who would have thought, she asked herself, that I would ever feel this way? When she was younger she had known beyond any shadow of doubt that she was never going to fall in love and never going to marry. She had felt no need for a man and never had a hankering to have children and a family. Yet here she was, in love, and the notion of a family of her own pleased her mightily.

"Life," Evelyn said, and grinned. She sure had learned a lot about herself in the past several months. It was a mild shock to learn she was so changeable. She thought she knew herself inside and out, but it turned out she didn't know herself at all. How that could be was a mystery. If people didn't know themselves, how could they know anyone else?

Evelyn shook her head. She was tired of thinking about it. She returned to the cabin and stood near the corral tapping her foot in impatience. The two chickens had to be somewhere. She wondered if maybe they were already in the coop.

The world around her was gray fading to black as Evelyn knelt and opened the door and peered in. She couldn't make out much, but she could smell the chickens and the straw and droppings. She lowered the door and rose. "They have to be in there," she said to herself. But if she were wrong and the chickens came back later and her parents found out, she would be in hot water.

"Darned birds," Evelyn groused. She began another circle of the cabin. To the west, well past the coop and the garden, was a pile of small boulders. Her father had put them there when he cleared the ground for their cabin. She moved toward them. Occasionally the chickens strayed that way. The rooster liked to climb on top and crow and gaze out over his domain.

Evelyn walked within a few feet and saw no sign of them and was about to turn when her eye was caught by something lying in the dirt. "No," she said, and dashed over. It was one of the missing chickens, dead. She'd never much cared to touch dead things, so she nudged it with her toe. It was stiff; it had been dead a while. She bent and sought sign of why it died. There were no bites or claw marks as if a predator got at it. But then, a meat-eater wouldn't let it go to waste but would carry it off to feed on.

Evelyn went around the pile. She hadn't taken half a dozen steps when she came on the second chicken. One look at it on its back with its legs sticking out was enough. She nudged it anyway, but life had long since fled.

"What killed them?" Evelyn asked aloud. Bending, she scrunched her mouth in loathing, gripped a leg, and lifted. She would take the chicken back to her pa and let him figure it out. She turned to go and almost at her elbow something moved among the boulders. She looked, and turned to ice.

A thick, sinewy shape had reared. A forked tongue flicked and reptilian eyes regarded her with sinister intensity.

Evelyn fought down fear. The tongue had nearly brushed her arm when it licked out. She didn't dare move, didn't dare do anything that might incite it to bite.

The snake rose higher and its tail buzzed.

Sweat oozed from Evelyn's every pore. Of all G.o.d's creatures, to her rattlesnakes were some of the scariest.

The rattler was turning its head from side to side as if it were studying her and couldn't make up its mind what she was.

A drop of sweat trickled down Evelyn's nose onto her upper lip. She considered throwing the chicken at the snake to distract it and then running, and decided not to try. Better that she wait for it to lose interest and crawl off.

The snake went on staring.

Evelyn's whole body was rigid with anxiety. She felt more drops trickle down. One got into her left eye and stung like the d.i.c.kens. She resisted an impulse to blink.

From the cabin came a shout; her pa, calling her name.

Evelyn yearned to reply. She yearned to tell him of her peril and have him rush to help. He would shoot it. He was an incredible shot. She once saw him shoot the head off a grouse in flight. He shot the head so the body would be in one piece when her mother served it.

"Evelyn? Where are you?"

Evelyn didn't answer. Everyone claimed that if you stood as still as could be, a snake wouldn't bite. She hoped it was true. Another drop missed her right eye and dribbled onto her cheek.

The rattler was still glaring at her. It didn't make a sound except for the buzzing.

Evelyn swallowed and came to the conclusion she must do something. She couldn't stand there forever. Sooner or later she would involuntarily flinch or twitch.

"Evelyn? Answer me."

Her pa was closer. Evelyn started to turn her head but caught herself. Willpower was called for. Gobs and gobs of willpower. She wasn't like her brother, Zach, who could latch on to things with an intensity that was frightening, or even like her pa who when he concentrated on something devoted his whole will to it. But she was strong-minded and when she put her mind to a purpose she usually did what she set out to do.

"Evelyn? If you can hear me, give a shout."

Oh, that Evelyn could. She watched the snake, hoping against hope it would slither down into the boulders. But it didn't. It stared and rattled, stared and rattled.

"Evelyn!"

Her father was so close that Evelyn heard his footsteps. She went to whisper but her vocal cords were frozen. All that came out was a low bleat.

"Evelyn?"

Evelyn sensed he was so near she could reach out and touch him. He had to have spotted the snake, even as dark as it had become.

"When I tell you, drop the chicken and leave the rest to me. Do nothing but let go of the chicken. Don't move or yell. Just let it drop. Blink once if you are ready."

Evelyn's whole body broke out in goose b.u.mps. She blinked.

"I'll count to three. On three let go."

The strain was getting to Evelyn. Her legs started to shake. The weight of the chicken seemed to grow tenfold.

"One."

Evelyn swallowed. The rattlesnake hadn't moved, hadn't done a thing when her father spoke, as if it were ignoring him and concentrating solely on her.

"Two."

Evelyn's nerves jangled. She trusted her pa more than anyone, trusted him to do whatever it took, but she was still scared.

"Three."

Evelyn let go. Instantly, the snake struck, biting at the chicken as it fell. Simultaneously, iron hands closed on Evelyn and she was swept away from the boulders as if she were weightless and deposited as gently as a feather on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet. It happened so swiftly she had no time to react. Her father released her and she glimpsed a streak of...something...and heard a sound like metal on rock. The object streaked again and she recognized it; his tomahawk. "Careful," she said, worried the snake might bite him.

Nate grunted and straightened. In his right hand was the tomahawk. In his left was about six inches of rattlesnake, including its head. The mouth opened and closed and went on opening and closing even though most of the body was missing. "You're safe."

"Oh, Pa." Evelyn threw herself at him and hugged him. "Thank goodness you came along when you did."

"I wondered what was keeping you," Nate said, sounding as if he had come down with a cold.

"Another chicken is dead besides that one," Evelyn informed him. "I think maybe the rattler bit them both."

"Another d.a.m.n rattlesnake," Nate said.

Evelyn rarely heard him swear. A lot of men, and women, too, cussed as if their lives depended on it, but not her father or her mother or her uncle Shakespeare either. She'd asked her father once why he didn't and he said that he never got into the habit. She'd asked Shakespeare, too, and he had chuckled in that merry way he had and said that cussing was for those who "had not so much brains as earwax."

"I have half a mind to call another hunt. I should send you to fetch your brother and your uncle and make plans for tomorrow."

Evelyn's insides churned. She wouldn't get to see Dega and she dearly wanted to. "Is that really necessary?"

"You were nearly bit."

"But I wasn't. And the last hunt didn't turn up many. Another hunt won't either."

"They have to be coming from somewhere," Nate said. "If we can find their den we can put an end to them."

Evelyn thought fast. "It could be anywhere. You could spend a month of Sundays looking and still not find it."

"I suppose."

"And there are the Worths to think of. They're looking forward to their new cabin. Another delay might upset them. Emala, especially. She misses having a home. She told me so, herself. She misses it so much, she was practically in tears over it."