In Darkest Depths Read Online Free PDF Page B

The stairs will be outside, on the west end of the cabin, so we do not disturb you with our comings and goings.” Shakespeare bestowed a smirk on her. “See? I can be considerate, your broadsides to the contrary.”
    â€œI think I will go visit Winona,” Blue Water Woman announced. “I need a drink and we are out of brandy.”
    â€œGood riddance to you and small pox,” Shakespeare shot back. “Stay most of the day if you want, and when you ride home you can admire your new steeple. It will be the envy of the neighborhood.”
    â€œI have always suspected it, but now I am sure. You are a lunatic.” Blue Water Woman sniffed and raised her chin high. “I must get my shawl.” She marched into the cabin.
    â€œWomen!” Shakespeare declared. “If God were not drunk when He created them, then He is the lunatic.”
    Nate lifted planks and carried them toward the ladder. “Weren’t you a little hard on her?”
    â€œDo you see these claw marks?” Shakespearetouched his perfectly fine neck. “She came near to drawing blood. I am lucky to be alive.”
    â€œYou are lucky she puts up with you.”
    Shakespeare aligned a nail and raised the hammer, then glanced down at Nate. “The Bard had it right when it came to women. We should all do as he says and we will have a lot less indigestion.”
    â€œWhat did he say?”
    â€œWoo her, wed her, bed her, then rid the house of her.”
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    Winona King was outside her cabin skinning a rabbit. She had caught it in a snare that morning, and by evening it would be chopped into bite-sized morsels and simmering in a stew. She loved rabbit stew. When she was little her mother had made it now and again, but nowhere near enough to suit her. Buffalo meat was their staple. They also ate venison a lot. Rabbit and other small game was resorted to only when buffalo and deer meat were not to be had.
    Laying the rabbit on its back, Winona made slits down its hind legs. She peeled back the hide, slicing ligaments and muscle and scraping as required, careful to keep the edge of the knife toward the body, until she had the hide bunched around the rabbit’s neck. The hide would make fine trim for a couple of her buckskin dresses.
    Absorbed in her work, Winona was startled when a shadow fell across her. Her husband had gone off earlier, and her daughter was across the lake visiting Degamawaku’s family.
    Winona spun, her hand dropping to one of the pistols wedged under the leather belt she wore over her dress. Hostile red men and renegade whites roamed the mountains, and meat-eaters were abundant. Perilswere so commonplace that she never ventured outside the cabin unarmed. Bitter experience had taught her the folly of doing so.
    But now, about to unlimber a flintlock, Winona stopped with it half-drawn, and smiled.
    â€œ Tsaangu beaichehku ,” Blue Water Woman said.
    â€œ Tsaangu beaichehku ,” Winona said, which was Shoshone for ‘Good morning.’ While her friend knew some of her tongue and she knew some Salish, they usually used the language both knew almost as well as each knew her own. Decades of living under the same roof with a white man had made them fluent in the white tongue, so much so that both their husbands liked to boast they spoke English better than most whites. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
    â€œI had to get away for a while,” Blue Water Woman said. “I hope you do not mind that I came here.”
    â€œMind?” Winona said, and laughed. “You are the sister I never had. Why would I mind?”
    Blue Water Woman folded her arms across her bosom and poked the ground with the toe of a moccasin. “It is that husband of mine. There are times when I want to pull out my hair.”
    â€œWhat has he done now?” Winona asked.
    â€œYou have not heard?” Blue Water Woman said. “He and your husband are building a steeple