A Wounded Snake: A Novel (Appalachian Fiction Series Book 6) by Joseph G. Anthony

Author:Joseph G. Anthony [Anthony, Joseph G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bottom Dog Press
Published: 2018-10-15T20:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

Lizzie Price , July 4,1899, Fayette County, Kentucky

I won’t deny it. I thought him a fool the first time I saw him—the first time I heard him—chatting me up because I knew how to hammer a nail. What did he think country girls did? Of course those with brothers might not do as much hammering as Suzie and me did, but even they did their share. And everything else there was to do. Letting a mule drag you through the fields. Mucking a stable full of cow droppings. Putting the chicken coop back up when the wind knocks down the one your daddy must have put up when he wasn’t minding business. When his mind was off in his books. After you do all that, you do the women’s chores, which is everything else as far as I can tell. Suzie could tell I wasn’t going to give him the time of day or even the back of my hand.

“He’s a nice-looking boy,” she whispered to me. “Give him a chance.”

I just looked at her. She was never what I called strong-minded when it came to men—hence the twins. Well, at least she waited until they were married.

Or near enough.

Suzie probably thinks it was the sight of him, shirtless, shouting at the deputies. But it wasn’t that. I didn’t mind looking at him—like I don’t mind looking at anything pretty—and he was pretty. But him standing there shirtless, shouting at those terrible men, just showed he had courage, that he was a fine-looking boy with fine shoulders.

But getting back into the wagon after Miz Beatty talked to him showed he was a man.

That must have been hard. Suzie says I sounded mad not scared when that man Siebrecht grabbed my braid. I would have shot him if I could have, but nobody expects a girl to face down a gun. They expect it from a man though it doesn’t make any sense. Nothing made any sense. I remember that moment: Noah was going to die and Miz Chiles was bleeding to death with her head in my lap. Suzie heard my yell, though I don’t know that anybody else did.

“Jesus! Damn it all. Are you looking at this? Are you seeing this?”

Suzie says I talk to Jesus like He’s one of our mules, the simple-minded one who keeps dragging us into rocks.

“That’s the way He acts,” I tell her and her mouth just opens wide in shock, like I’m blaspheming.

I’m not blaspheming. Jesus knows what I mean. That’s the way we talk to each other.

Anyway, I guess He heard me that time. Miz Chiles didn’t bleed to death. Noah got back in that wagon. Even that mule steers us clear of the rocks after you bash him a few times on his head.

Only Jesus didn’t clear the rocks. He just didn’t let the rocks crush us to death.

This time.

Suzie thought Noah looked silly showing up at the jail wearing that blue shirt that old man gave him. Couldn’t even move his arms practically.

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