"Not out plain, but it was there between the lines. Can't blame her, I guess. It would be hard raising children alone."

Nate stopped and placed his hands on his hips and surveyed the stretch of sh.o.r.e they had covered. "I reckon I was worried over nothing. There aren't all that many rattlesnakes around, after all."

"Better safe than bit."

"You're standing up for me? I figured you would poke fun from now until Christmas."

"Let's further think of this," Shakespeare quoted. "Weigh what convenience both of time and means may fit us to our shape if this should fail, and our drift look through our bad performance."

Nate shook his head. "I've put everyone to a lot of bother for nothing. It was coincidence, nothing more, those rattlers appearing so close together."

"If it had been two grizzlies or two mountain lions you'd have the same cause for concern."

"You can come right out and say when I'm wrong. I'm a grown man. I can take it."

"Oh, all right." Shakespeare quoted the Bard, "In the reproof of chance lies the true proof of men." He chuckled. "How's that?"

"You call that being hard on me?"

"Later I'll beat you with a switch if it will make you feel better."

"I've inconvenienced everyone."

Shakespeare put his hand to his chest again. "A true knight, not yet mature, yet matchless, firm in word, speaking in deeds and deedless in his tongue, not soon provoked nor being provoked, soon calmed. His heart and hand both open and both free."

"I'm no saint," Nate said gruffly.

"You're human. We all are. And as humans go, you are one of the few I have admired with all that I am."

"Why are you talking like this?"

"You never know," Shakespeare said.

Nate had a thought that troubled him. "This has something to do with your age, doesn't it? All you've done lately is talk about how old you are and how you don't feel as spry as you used to."

"I don't."

"Good G.o.d. You're over eighty. How spry do you think you should be?"

Shakespeare placed his hand on Nate's shoulder and said earnestly, "I'm preparing you, is all."

"Is there something you're not telling me?"

"No."

"You sick?"

"No."

"Have a disease of some kind?"

"No."

"Then why, for G.o.d sake?"

"I'm old, Nate. Very old. You keep denying how old I am. You tell me I'll last a good long while, but there are no guarantees. So I am saying now what I might not be able to say tomorrow or the next day."

"It might not happen for years yet."

Shakespeare shook his head. "I look at myself in the mirror every day and I know what I see." He sighed and raised his face to the vault of sky, then gazed at the lake. "I have no complaints. I've had a good life."

"Now you're being ridiculous. You act as if you have one foot in the grave when you've just admitted that you are as healthy as can be."

"Why doesn't anyone listen anymore?" Shakespeare said sadly. "My wife is denying my age just like you."

"I'll have Blue Water Woman and you over for supper tomorrow night and we'll talk some more."

"We'll be happy to come over, but I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'll be the topic. What I've just said to you goes no further than right here."

Nate grinned. "You just don't want Blue Water Woman upset with you."

"No. I don't want her upset, period. I love that woman, and talking about me dying would hurt her."

"You have my word," Nate said.

Winona looked up and saw her husband and McNair talking. "I thought we were hunting for snakes. Look at those two."

Blue Water Woman was using the b.u.t.t of her rifle to move a large rock. "I hope it is not what I think it is."

Winona arched an eyebrow in a silent question.

"Shakespeare has been going on again about how no one lives forever," Blue Water Woman revealed. "He says he has a feeling, a premonition, that he isn't long for this world."

"Men can be so silly," Winona said. When her friend didn't respond, she said softly, "Blue Water Woman?"

Blue Water Woman turned. Her eyes were misting. "I am worried, Winona. It is all he talks about anymore. At first I thought it was his age. His joints hurt and he cannot get around as well."

"He gets around better than men half his age."

"You know that and I know that, but he says he is not the man he used to be. The other day he talked about how when he was younger he could swim a lake this size. Now he says he would be lucky to make it halfway across."

"Everyone grows old. It is part of life."

"It is part of dying," Blue Water Woman said. She walked to a boulder and sat. She rested the stock of her rifle on the ground and gripped the barrel in both hands and leaned on it. "In all the winters we have been together, I have never seen Carcajou like this."

Carcajou, as Winona knew, was a nickname given to Shakespeare in his younger days, before he discovered the Bard. It was French for "wolverine." Shakespeare never talked about how he got the name, not even to his wife.

"I tease him about it and he doesn't tease back," Blue Water Woman was saying. "That in itself worries me. It is as if a part of him has given up on living."

"Aren't you exaggerating a little?"

"No."

Winona sat on another boulder and placed her Hawken across her lap. "I have good ears if you want to talk about it."

"I know you do," Blue Water Woman said. "You are the best friend I have ever had." She bit her lower lip. "What I am afraid of is that Shakespeare is right. I could not live without him."

"We are getting ahead of ourselves," Winona cautioned. "When he shows more signs of his age than he has, then we should be concerned."

Blue Water Woman nodded bleakly.

"My people have a medicine we use in old age. We learned it from the Nez Perce. It is the seed of what the whites call the wild peony plant. You can chew it or drink it in a tea." Winona grinned. "Shakespeare need not know what the tea is for."

"You are a devious woman."

"Women have to be devious dealing with men. Men do not think as we do. They do not listen when we give them advice. They can be stubborn. And they have their pride."

"You do not need to tell me about pride. Shakespeare has enough for ten men."

"Men are like foals," Winona said. "They must be led. If we have to, we must trick them into thinking an idea is theirs when it is ours. When they balk, we must be patient, as we would with a foal, and coax and flatter them."

"Shakespeare does not take well to flattery," Blue Water Woman said. "He is too intelligent. He sees right through it."

"The same with Nate...most of the time," Winona said. "He is smarter than he gives himself credit for." She gazed over at the two men. They had stopped talking and were coming toward them. "Remember my offer of the tea."

"My people have a tonic, too..." Blue Water Woman said, and got no further. "Husband," she said, smiling at McNair. "We thought maybe you had stopped hunting."

"We thought the same about you." Shakespeare kissed her on the temple. "Saw you sitting over here. You must expect the rattlesnakes to crawl up and say, *Here I am.'"

"We had one do that. Then it stuck its tongue out at us and crawled off laughing."

Winona linked her arm with Nate's. "Why so quiet? Something bothering you?"

"This hunt has turned into a waste of time. We should go see how Waku and his family are doing."

Waku and his family-and one other-were seated in the shade of a large spruce at the east end of the lake. The one other raised her arm and happily waved as Nate and the others approached.

"Do my eyes deceive me or is that fair young Evelyn sitting next to fair young Dega?" Shakespeare said.

"Evelyn offered to help them hunt," Nate detailed. "She told us it was the neighborly thing to do."

"Did she, now?" Shakespeare chuckled and nudged Winona with an elbow. "I trust I'll be invited to the wedding?"

"Husband," Blue Water Woman said.

Waku and his family hadn't found a single rattlesnake, Evelyn reported. Her arm was so close to Dega's that when she moved, she brushed against him.

Shakespeare turned and whispered in his wife's ear, "Isn't she the little hussy?"

"Husband," Blue Water Woman said.

Along about then Zach arrived. He told them of the snake that nearly bit Lou.

"But you killed it?" Nate said.

"It couldn't be any more dead, Pa."

Nate nodded and faced the rest. "I owe all of you an apology. We spent all this time looking, and for what? One measly rattlesnake."

"You did what you thought was right," Winona complimented him.

Shakespeare said, "I was hankering to stroll around in the hot sun anyway. I haven't sweated near enough this summer."

Blue Water Woman rolled her eyes.

Nate held his Hawken in his left hand and hooked his right thumb in his belt. "It wasn't a complete waste of our time. We know we don't have to worry about the rattlers. There are hardly any around."

In the gully to the northwest, in the underground chamber, the female who had recently mated was entwined in a writhing ma.s.s of sinuous forms. Other females had recently given birth and hundreds of little ones were exploring the den. In her dim way the female realized that never before had there been so many of them.

So very, very many.

Chapter Seven.

In the days that followed, the rattlesnakes were largely forgotten. The folks in King Valley were busy with other things.

Nate asked the Worths to pick a site for their cabin. He rode with them around the lake, pointing out spots he thought were good, but he left the decision up to them. They made a complete circuit and when they were back where they started he drew rein and said, "Well?"

Samuel liked an area on the north sh.o.r.e midway between Zach and Lou's cabin and the Nansusequa lodge. It was flat and well back from the lake and in the shadow of tall spruce. He mentioned it, and Emala shook her head.

"What's wrong with it?"

"For one thing, I'd rather be closer to Winona. I like her. She's a fine lady and my friend."

"You can ride over to see her every day."

Emala fluttered her cheeks. "I'm not fond of sittin' a horse, thank you very much. Horses scare me. And plump as I am, it's a bother to climb on. I always have to ask you to help."

"I don't mind."

"That's not the point. I'd rather live where I can walk to Winona's cabin. It's more dignified."