Victoria Bylin - Of Men And Angels

The tip glowed and faded, an orange flower blooming in the darkness, too bright to be real and too beautiful to last.

She was dreaming of cicadas chanting on a summer night, but the rattle in her ears wasn’t quite right. It stopped and started while cicadas made a noise that never ended. The crickets got louder as the night lengthened and they always sounded far away. This rattle was too close to be a dream, then she heard the click of a rifle, the baby’s sudden wail and a man’s low voice.

“Hold still, Alex, real still.”

Something slithered over her feet. Her eyelids flew open and she saw Jake Malone’s dirty boots planted three feet away from her face.

“Don’t move, honey.”

Dear God, how could she hold still with a rattler rippling over her feet? The baby was wailing now. Only the bundling kept him from thrashing and attracting the snake. His red face was next to hers, but she didn’t dare move. The rattling stopped, and the silence was more frightening than the hiss of its tail.

“He might leave, so stay still. He’s looking kind of bored right now.”

Was that supposed to make her feel better?

“I can’t shoot him from this angle so I’m going to move behind you. This fella is as good as dead. He’ll make a nice band for the hat I’m going to buy for you.”

Her legs were shaking, and her jaw throbbed. Tears squeezed out of her eyes, and she looked down without moving her head. The snake studied the baby with its slitted eyes. Its flat head swiveled, and she wondered if snakes could hear, and if the baby’s wails would make it strike.

Fresh terror pulsed through her. She would die, the baby would die, or Jake Malone would save them both.

“He’ll be tasty for breakfast once I nail him,” the outlaw said.

The man was out of his mind.

“They taste like chicken.”

Her stomach lurched. Hot tears streaked her face.

Sssss…Sssss…Sssss…

Jake’s shadow touched the coils. “I’m going to shoot on three.”

He raised the rifle and took a step. “One…”

The baby kicked inside the bunting.

“Two…”

The snake’s fangs glistened in the sun.

“Three.”

The rifle blasted hot metal. The snake lunged for its prey, and Alex flung herself in front of the baby. Razor-sharp fangs sliced through her arm. Blood and bits of the snake spattered her face and hands.

“Oh, God! Oh, God!”

Charlie’s mouth was moving, but she couldn’t hear him cry. Her sleeve was in shreds and covered with blood. She struggled to her knees. The snake was a bloody rope at her side, and Jake Malone was in front of her, pulling on her arm, ripping at the red cotton sticking to her skin.

He was talking, but she couldn’t hear him. She wanted to tell him everything would all right, that the snake was dead, but she couldn’t force the words out of her throat. She could barely breathe, and when he ripped the sleeve up to her elbow, she saw two red gashes where the rattler’s fangs had ripped her skin.

“Alex? Can you hear me?”

He was shouting, but she could barely make out the words. Not trusting her voice, she nodded to him.

He had a knife in his hand. It was short, with the sharpest silver blade she had ever seen, and his eyes were glued to her forearm where the red streaks were oozing blood. The knife shifted in his fingers.

“No!”

She tried to pull her arm away, but he had a firm grip on her elbow. The blade sliced into her flesh just above the two gashes, and a second later he was sucking the blood. He spat one mouthful on the ground, then two more. With a jerk of his hand, he tore the rest of the sleeve, made a tourniquet and twisted it just above the bite.

Wiping her blood away from his mouth, he grabbed her elbow and squeezed. “Talk to me, Alex. Does your whole arm hurt or just where it’s bleeding?”

“Just—just the bite.”

“Does your arm tingle? Is it going numb?”

She was trembling with pain and terror, but she managed to shake her head.

“Here’s the situation, honey. I don’t think the snake shot you full of venom. Those were scratches, not puncture marks. I had to cut you, though. I had to be sure.”

His eyes were as wide as hers. If the snake had shot its venom, she would die, and no amount of hope or letting of blood would stop the progress of the poison.

She blinked and saw her father’s face. She tasted ripe peaches and her mother’s homemade jam. Charlie’s wail pierced the silence, and Jake’s breath rasped as he pressed his fingers against her throat and felt her racing pulse.

A sob exploded from her chest. Regrets buzzed in her mind like insects with ugly black wings and she couldn’t swat them away. Her body was a shadow, empty and gray, but her vision sharpened and she saw the bright beauty of the arid plateau. Her ears pounded with the vastness of the silent earth. There was so much of life she had missed, so much she hadn’t tasted, touched, understood.

“I don’t want to die,” she said, choking on the dryness of her own mouth. A thunderous tremor traveled from her toes to her scalp. Her whole body shook with it, except for her injured arm being held steady in Jake’s strong hands.

“Can you still feel your fingers?” His eyes were the brightest blue. She hadn’t noticed that until now.

“My—my arm doesn’t hurt—except for the bite.”

“Are you sick? Can you breathe?”

She sucked in air and nodded. “I hear Charlie.”

“He can wait a minute.”

She saw the baby kicking on the blanket. As faint as his wail seemed to her ears, it was distinct, as welcome as the first strains of a symphony. Jake let go of her arm and went to the saddlebag. The buckle flashed in the sun, and he came back with the flask and one of his own shirts.

“Sit back,” he said. “This is going to hurt.”

She leaned against the boulder and stuck her arm out as if she were a child with a skinned elbow. Sweat beaded on her face, and she gritted her teeth against the speckled light spinning through her head. Closing her eyes, she clutched at Jake’s sleeve to steady herself. He rested her bloody arm on top of his, cupping her elbow and trapping her fingers between his chest and biceps.

He splashed alcohol over the wound, and she shrieked. She thought of her mother blowing on her skinned knees, then she felt soft cotton on her torn flesh and the heat of his hand. The wound stung terribly, but she was breathing more easily.

“We’ll wrap it up, and then we’re gonna beat all hell for Grand Junction,” Jake said. He sliced the shirt with his knife, wrapped her arm as tight as she could stand and tied the ends. “You stay still while I pack up.”

His eyes were full of a glassy blue light, and Alex knew that hers were just as watery. He wrapped the baby in a fresh petticoat and tucked him in the crook of her good arm. Then he rolled up the blanket and the slicker, kicked sand in the ashes of the fire and vanished behind a boulder.

She figured it was nature calling, but then she heard a low moan, a single cuss word, and the sound of a man losing his breakfast and his pride. She wanted to go to him, but her legs were too weak. It struck her then that some things were private, and this was one of them.

When he came back, he took a swig of water and spat it on the ground. Taking Charlie in the crook of his arm, he pulled her up with his other hand. He didn’t let go, and she didn’t want him to.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“I’m just shaken up.”

“Can you ride?’

The bay was tethered to a scraggly juniper on the other side of the campsite. It was a foot taller than she remembered and twice as skittish. She worried even more when it curled its lips and snorted at her.