Chapter Eight #3
“How about a nice Greek salad for supper?” Meredith asked. “I make it with feta cheese and black olives and eggs. I bought the ingredients yesterday at the store. Except for the eggs, of course. I’ll get those out of the henhouse.”
“Sounds nice,” Leo said with a grin.
“Watch where you put your hands,” Rey murmured without looking right at her. “I haven’t seen my pet snake in the barn lately.”
She gave him a cold look. “If I see him, I’ll get him on a stick and put him right back in the barn,” she said with pure bravado.
Rey glanced at her with dancing dark eyes. “I’d pay real money to see you do that,” he chided.
So would I, she thought, but she didn’t say it. She just smiled smugly.
The brothers finished their last swallows of coffee and went out the door still talking business.
Later, Meredith went out to the henhouse to gather the eggs, with her straw basket on her arm. Rey had unnerved her with his comment about the damned snake. Now she was sure it was in there, waiting for a gullible victim to frighten.
She took a deep breath and walked carefully into the dim confines of the henhouse. She bit her lower lip and approached the nest slowly. She stopped dead. There was actually a snake in there. He was wrapped around the eggs. He was licking his snaky lips.
She shivered with fear, but she wasn’t going to let the stupid thing make her a laughingstock twice.
She saw a long, thick stick on the straw-covered floor. She put her basket down, still watching the snake, and picked up the stick.
“It’s okay, old fellow,” she said to the snake. “It’s okay. I’m just going to ease you out of the nest. Don’t get mad, now. I won’t hurt you. It’s okay.”
While she was talking, softly, she eased the stick under its coils and very carefully lifted it. It was very still, not moving its head except to hiss. So far, so good. She had it up on the stick. It was heavy.
As she pulled it out of the nest, she noticed that it was really quite long.
It really didn’t look much like that black and white one Rey had put in the barn.
This one had a pretty brown pattern on its back and had a white underbelly.
But, then, it wasn’t striking at her or anything, so she wasn’t worried.
She held it far out in front of her and stepped carefully out of the henhouse into the bright light. As she did, the snake hung from the stick, looking rather bored by the whole thing.
She carried it through the yard and out toward the barn. One of the men was standing by a truck, watching her progress. His jaw fell. She wondered what was wrong with him. Maybe he’d never seen a woman carry a snake around before.
“Nice day,” she called to him.
He didn’t answer. She shrugged and kept walking.
The barn was empty, except for the bales of hay that were stacked neatly on the bottom and the loft of the huge structure. Over against one wall there was a corn crib with stacks and stacks of dried corn, and a machine that shelled them.
“Here we go, old fellow,” she told the snake. She eased him over the wooden box and slid him down into the piles of unshelled corn.
He drew back in a threatening pose and hissed at her again.
Odd, the shape of his head, she thought, frowning as she studied him. It looked like an arrowhead. That other snake’s head had been rounded.
Well, it might be some other species of king snake, she supposed. Weren’t there several?
She walked back out of the barn into the daylight, whistling softly to herself as she started back to the henhouse.
She was so proud of herself. She’d gotten the snake on the stick all by herself, without screaming once, and she’d carried him all the way to the barn and put him in the corn crib.
She wasn’t afraid of the snake anymore. As Rey had said, they were beneficial.
It wasn’t right to kill something just because you were afraid of it, she told herself.
The man who’d been standing by the truck was nowhere in sight, but the truck was still running and the driver’s door was standing wide-open. She wondered where the driver had gone. He must have been in a hurry for some reason.
Meredith went back to the henhouse, put the stick down, picked up her basket and went to gather eggs.
There were no more snakes, but there were plenty of eggs.
She could boil several to go in her nice Greek salad.
The spinach she’d bought to make it with was crisp and cold and almost blemishless.
The brothers would love a salad if it had enough eggs and cheese and dressing.
She got the last egg into the basket and walked back out again, pausing to reach down and pet one of the big red hens who came right up to her and cocked its head curiously toward her face.
“Aren’t you a pretty girl?” she said, smiling.
She liked the way the chicken felt. Its feathers were very smooth and silky, and the chicken made the sweetest little noises when she petted it.
She’d never been around farm creatures. She found that she enjoyed the chickens and the cattle dogs and the endless cats that hung around outside begging for handouts.
Two other hens came up to her, curious about the tall creature in jeans and tank top. She petted them, too, laughing as they crowded close. But then one started to peck the eggs, and she stood up again.
She turned back toward the house, her mind on the snake and her bravery. She’d have to remember to tell Rey and Leo about it…
“Meredith!”
The loud, urgent deep voice sent her spinning around. Rey was running toward her, bare-headed, with the cowhand who’d been next to the running pickup truck at his heels.
“Hi, Rey,” she said hesitantly. “What’s wrong?”
He stopped just in front of her. He caught her a little roughly by the arms and took the basket away from her, setting it aside, while he looked at every inch of her bare arms and hands. He was breathing rapidly. He seemed unnaturally pale and tight-lipped.
“It didn’t bite you?” he demanded.
“What?”
“The snake! It didn’t bite you?” he snapped.
“No, of course not,” she stammered. “I just got it on a stick, like you did, and put it in the corn crib.”
“Get my Winchester,” Rey told the other man in a harsh tone. “Load it and bring it back here. Hurry!”
“I don’t understand,” Meredith said with noticeable confusion. “What’s wrong with you? Why do you need a gun?”
“Oh, baby,” he whispered hoarsely. He pulled her against him and bent to kiss her in view of the whole outfit, his mouth hard and rough against hers. “Baby!”
She had no idea what was wrong, but she loved the faint tremor in his hard arms as they crushed her against his body. And she loved the way he was kissing her, as if he couldn’t get enough of her mouth. He’d called her “baby…”
She held on and moaned under the crush of his lips.
He drew back. “I’m sorry. It was such a shock. I was scared out of my wits, I didn’t even stop to grab my hat when Whit came into the office…!”
Her mouth was pleasantly swollen. She looked up at him dreamily and smiled.
“You don’t have a clue, do you?” he asked huskily, searching her soft grey eyes.
“Mmm. About what?” she murmured, only half hearing him.
The other man came out with a rifle. He handed it to Rey. “Safety’s on,” the man advised.
“Thanks, Whit.”
He moved back from Meredith. “I’ll go kill it.”
“Kill it?” Meredith exclaimed. “You can’t! It will eat the rats, it’s harmless…!”
“Sweetheart,” he said very gently, “you were carrying a copperhead moccasin.”
“Yes?” She stared at him blankly.
“It’s one of the most poisonous snakes in Texas!”
She stood looking after him with her mouth open and her heartbeat choking her. She’d been carrying the damned thing on a stick, with it hissing at her. She felt the blood leave her head. Seconds later, she was lying on the hard ground. Fortunately she missed the basket of eggs on the way down.