Light to the Hills: A Novel (2)
Sass used larger saplings as handholds to steady herself as she made her way across the slope above the holler. Thunder roared again, and it didn’t matter how long since the lightning; the storm was already upon her. The leaves she’d crunched through on the way to the sang patch turned soft and slippery with rain, and more than once, Sass struggled to keep her footing. Home was still a mile or more off. Sass sighed, wishing she could hitch a ride on Finn’s back and save herself the trouble of scraping her hands raw. She could hear his voice in her head. “Whadd’ya think the good Lord gave you legs for?” he’d tease her if he were here. Sass fixed her eyes on the far end of the slope. Once she got there, the land would level off into a clearing beyond, and she could make a run for it, rain or no.
A sound, and Sass knew before she saw it that she’d come upon a rattler. It sounded like the gourd full of dried beans they gave her sister, Hiccup, to play with when she was a baby. Sass froze midstep, her head swiveling as her eyes swept the leafy ground to find the cunning rascal. Just there to her left, it lay coiled, downslope from where she walked. She clapped and stomped her feet, issuing her own warning she hoped the snake would heed. Its tongue darted in and out of its smiley snake mouth, and she narrowed her eyes at its smug insistence that she step aside.
Sass took two careful steps uphill, trying to give it a wide berth and get back on her way. Her too-tight boots had grown muddy, and the wet leaves gave little traction. She scrabbled, trying to hold on to a branch, a rock, or anything that would let her gain purchase and stay put instead of tumbling downhill into the rocky creek bed below. One more step and she’d be far enough past the snake that she could continue on. Her slipping shoes rained a small avalanche of pebbles and leaves onto the serpent. Hateful thing. It coiled tighter, the rattles whirring like Mama’s tambourine by the fire after supper. Sass stretched her right foot forward in slow motion. One more step. Lightning flashed and glinted against the black eyes of the rattler. She raised her cane pole, ready to bring it down upon the serpent’s head if it struck.
The crack of a gunshot split the heavy air in the woods, louder than any thunder, and Sass ducked into a crouch, grabbing at the cane pole as it tumbled out of her reach and caught in the brush below. The snake flew backward into the air, the rope of its body a cracked whip uncoiling. Sass jerked her head around, searching uphill for the shooter. She clutched the sang bag to her side. Moonshiners or vagrants from the train would consider her harvest a nice surprise, but she wasn’t about to give up on that birthday present just yet.
At the top of the hill stood a tall gray mule the color of the storm clouds that roiled above. Its pale muzzle fairly glowed in the dim light of the woods. Sass squinted as the rider holstered the pistol and held up two empty hands. No moonshiner, then. She drew a breath, and when she glanced down at her feet, her eyes lit on the fresh-dug sassafras sapling lying across her boots. Snatching it up, she hustled the remaining distance across the slope and reached the level path toward home, breathing hard. The rain beat down steady, and her wet dress clung to her chest and skinny legs.
The mule and rider waited above the rise where the path emerged from the woods. It was a woman, but she wore no skirt to ride. She sat astride like a man, with trousers like Sass’s daddy. An oil-coated rain slicker draped the woman’s back, covering most of the saddle and the bags that fell on either side of the mule’s flanks. The mule regarded Sass with a blithe glance, unperturbed by the rain, the shot, and the breathless, wet girl who stared at it with wide eyes the color of winter wheat.
“You all right?” asked the woman. She had a soft, easy voice, almost hard to hear in the downpour. It wasn’t the voice Sass expected to come out of the mouth of a lady snake killer.
She nodded, wiping the rainwater out of her eyes. “I coulda managed him,” Sass said, brandishing the dripping sassafras sapling.
“That’s a fact. But I didn’t fancy having to collect you from the bottom of that creek. And Junebug, he would’ve had something to say about it, too.” The woman slapped the mule twice on his neck and peered through the rain-dark woods. “You want to look sharp out here all by yourself. There’s some who’d take advantage.” Her voice suggested she may have had some experience with such. Sass reckoned that explained the woman’s deadeye with the pistol. “You live close? I can give you a ride if you’ve a mind.”
Sass shook her head. What would her daddy say if she were to come riding up the path on the back of a strange mule with an even stranger woman? One gunshot today was a good plenty. “I can manage,” she said again. “It ain’t far, and I’m already wet.” She started down the path and had only trotted several feet before she stopped and whipped around with an audible sigh. The woman had turned the mule—what was his name? Junebug?—after her and followed along behind.
She planted her feet and stood with her hands on her hips. “You need something?” It was queer to see a stranger in these parts, especially riding a mule in a rainstorm. Since the Depression had hit hard, folks poking their noses in this area generally turned out to be revenue dogs hunting stills or vagrants wanting something from the nothing folks had to give. Junebug stopped and snorted, shaking the rain from his eyes and jawing his bit in a patient circle.
“I’m calling on folks in the hills,” she said, and Sass had to strain to hear her. “Was hoping I could pay a visit to your house if it’s not far. I have some books to share.”