Kiss the Morning Star Read Online Free PDF Page A

blueberries tossed in your mouth—and I bury my face in my sleeve to stifle the noise.
    “Are you sure you’re not stoned?” She laughs, too.
    But I frown, peering into the dim space in front of us. “Are there snakes here? Like, you know. Ones that bite and stuff?” I’ve been reading a guidebook about animals in the American West, and I search my memory for the little colored maps showing rattlesnake territory. The tall grass could be crawling with danger. I see a headline: Teen Hikers Found Paralyzed by Deadly Venom—One Carrying Loaded Handgun .
    Kat shrugs. “I’m not afraid of snakes. I like them, the way they move, like a Slinky with attitude. And their sweet little tongues, darting out.” She pokes her forked fingers at me.
    “But the poisonous ones, Kat. You’re wearing flip-flops.” I think of her little shiny toenails, imagining two huge holes in them, dripping with venom. “And your ankle…”
    “Anna. I’m not afraid of the goddamn snakes.” Still, her voice has a thread of uncertainty that is new.
    “Aw, don’t be mad at me, Katy. I’m not trying to be obnoxious, I swear.” I turn around and attempt to skip backward, facing Kat.
    Kat smiles. “I’m not mad.”
    I have about a second to be happy before Kat’s face is plastered with fear, and she lurches forward and grabs me with both hands. “But you,” she says, breathless, “are about to step off a fucking cliff.” I spin around, her arms tight around me.
    It’s true. Two more steps—a step and a half, even—and I would have gone skidding off the edge and into a deep black hole, a steep, rocky abyss. I breathe, breathe. All I can do. My heart…I think I see sparks.
    “Holy shit,” I say at last, when I’ve got the breathing thing down. I can feel Kat’s pulse in her grip on my arm.
    “That would have sucked,” says Kat.
    For some reason this understatement sets us off giggling, adrenaline releasing in waves as we cling to each other.
    I hear a sound from behind us. A big sound.
    “Kat!” The air in my lungs hisses out in a terrified whisper. “Buffalo!”
    I can’t see much of it—a large dark splotch of steaming breath and glinting eyes and a sort of shaggy, heavy kind of presence there in the darkness. We hold very still, clinging together, shaking with fear and shock and leftover laughter.
    The bison snorts a little, takes a step toward us. I feel Kat tense, sense her hand moving to the small of her back. What is she… no . No, she’s not.
    “You keep a gun in your Yoga pants?”
    The buffalo, hearing my voice, stamps a couple of times, and moves a few paces closer to us. Oh shit. Not good. The beast is agitated, nervous. It’s so huge. I can feel the void yawning behind us, the edge of the cliff at my heels, and the panic stutters in my chest, tightens around all my organs as the buffalo clomps ever closer.
    Kat moves; I can’t let go of her, and suddenly the air beside us explodes, the flash searing across my retinas. The gun. Oh god, she shot it! The sound of the gunshot is so crisp and immediate. And loud. I’m blind, my ears are ringing, and I can’t move for fear of the buffalo and the cliff. So instead, I scream.
    The poor animal, nervous to begin with and then faced with the sudden explosion of sound and flame only a few feet away, turns tail and gallops or whatever it is that buffalo do when they are hauling ass to get away—and runs across the field. Straight toward the camp of the creepy guys.
    It’s remarkably loud when it crashes into their tent, stomps across their firewood, and flings their camp chairs to the side with its massive head. I wait, tense and terrified, for the sound of someone injured, but the men are reacting with a combination of shouting, swearing, and laughing.
    “Uh, Kat?” My voice is quiet in the darkness.
    “Yeah?”
    “It’s not…exactly… legal to shoot at a buffalo, is it?”
    “I didn’t shoot at it. I shot into the ground. Just to scare it.”
    “But