Birdie quit flinging his foot about and whimpered a prayer. Del couldn’t get over the behavior of the snake. It made a chewing movement on Birdie’s foot, like it wanted to eat it.
Del gripped the barrel of his shotgun and smacked the stock over the lower end of the snake. It released Birdie’s foot and Birdie stumbled backward, bumping into Preacher as Del flipped the gun around, aimed, and pulled the trigger. Where the head had been disappeared. The body rippled and curled as if still alive. Birdie pointed a shaky finger at his foot. Both Del and Preacher bent down, studying two tiny puncture wounds with twin spots of blood not much bigger than a pinprick.
Del said, “Don’t move.”
Birdie was too scared anyway and could only nod. Del removed his belt and used it like a tourniquet, cinching it just above Birdie’s knee.
When he was done, he said “Kin you walk?”
Birdie had calmed down some, his fear turning to wonder as he said, “I can’t tell I been bit. Ain’t no pain. Don’t feel nuthin’.”
Preacher said, “Maybe it didn’t get you too bad.”
Del said, “Damndest thing I ever seen, how it chewed on him.”
They returned to the work area and Birdie, who apparently had recovered from his initial fright, described to some of the other workers how he’d come upon it. Del listened to him tell his story, and he seemed all right, but a snake bite was a snake bite.
“He was hanging on me like a Christmas ornament on a tree not five minutes ago.”
Big’Un bent over and examined Birdie’s foot.
He said, “Can’t see nothing.”
Birdie said, “He done got me all right. I ain’t feeling so bad, though.”
Del said, “Look, if you can’t work . . .”
Birdie was quick to say, “Oh, I gone work. I ain’t wantin’ no whip.”
Del said, “It ain’t what I mean. Hell, I don’t even own a whip. What I meant was, you been snake bit, might want to take it easy.”
Birdie frowned as if Del spoke to him in another language.
He bent down, undid the belt, and handed it to Del. “Naw suh, I got to work.”
“All right. It’s up to you, but take it easy.”
“Yessuh.”
Del walked to the designated drifts to see what the other workers had done, and as the afternoon progressed, he kept thinking one of two things would happen. Somebody would come and tell him Birdie was sick, or Crow would make an appearance to run his mouth. Neither happened, but still, it was midafternoon before Del’s shoulder muscles eased. The day came to a searing end and as they gathered back in the hang-up area to grab their dinner buckets and load into the wagon, Del spotted Birdie, moving a bit slow, but otherwise the man appeared unfazed by his earlier encounter. As he drew closer, Del noticed his dark skin had turned ashen, and his eyelids drooped. Still, he’d worked all day and was probably just tired.
Del said, “You done all right today?”
Birdie said, “Yeshuh.”
Del frowned. When Birdie worked through the afternoon, he’d seemed fine, but now he sounded like he’d been drinking. Del reckoned any of them could sneak a little juke’n juice, but it wasn’t something he wanted them doing. He didn’t need a bunch a drunk workers getting hurt because they couldn’t see straight.
He said, “You been drinking?”
“Naw shuh.”
Del couldn’t be sure if he was lying or if it was something else. Birdie weaved about.
“You sure? ’Cause if I catch you lyin’, I’m gonna have to dock your pay.”
He’d learned from his pap it hurt a man the most when you hit him in his pockets.
Birdie held both his hands up. “I ain’t. I shwear.” And he stumbled and weaved some more as he talked.
Del was hardly convinced.
Preacher said, “He ain’t never touched a drop I know of. It’s what killed his daddy. He ain’t about to touch it.”
Right before Del’s eyes Birdie slowly crumpled to the ground. Del rushed to his side and the man’s body convulsed. The workers circled around him, muttering amongst themselves, unsure of what was happening.
Del said, “I ain’t ever known nobody bit by a coral snake. Anyone of you here know anything about it?”
There were a few mumbled no’s, then Big’Un said, “Mrs. Riddle, she do.”
Del said, “Let’s get him back to the camp.”
Preacher and another worker helped put Birdie in the bed of the work wagon and climbed in beside him. Preacher held Birdie’s head on his lap. Del retrieved Ruby from where he’d left her and rode behind the wagon. When he saw Birdie having trouble breathing, Del skirted around the wagon and put Ruby at a fast trot toward the commissary to give Cornelia Riddle a heads-up. He rushed inside, the bell on the door jingling. She was the only one behind the counter, stocking can goods. Otis was nowhere to be seen.
Before she could speak, he said, “You know anything about coral snakes?”
She frowned at him and said, “Who?”
“One of my men. Birdie.”
She reached under the counter, grabbed a bottle of turpentine, and followed Del outside.
Del said, “He didn’t act like he’d even been bit right after it happened. He worked all afternoon, but now he sounds like he’s been drinking.”
Cornelia said, “With them kind a snakes, it hits’em later.”
As they went back to the wagon, Del noticed a woman with dark hair shot through with gray. She talked with lots a hand gestures to Crow, who stood, arms folded, eyes on the ground. Del didn’t have time to dwell on them, but it appeared like Mama Sweeney had arrived for a visit, and neither of them looked happy about it.
Chapter 16
Rae Lynn
She lay soaked with sweat, yet shivering. The crack above her, the one she couldn’t look away from, told her all she could take in about the outside world through the half-inch-wide space. Her fear for what was to come rose with the sun. It had been so hot the day before, when Ballard died. She didn’t know what to expect of today, and while she was used to the heat of summers, it wasn’t while cramped inside something the size of a pig trough with a lid on it. Without food. More important, without water. She’d have to do like she done at the orphanage when she’d been forced to work in the laundry all them ungodly hours the summer. Try to think positive, and not about how much time she had left inside.
She hadn’t been at Swallow Hill long enough to know if anyone in her predicament ever made it out alive. She hadn’t wanted to ask. Right now, she was already so thirsty her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and her throat was just as dry. Her stomach had cramped off and on all night. She found she could roll a little, side to side, and in the desire for movement she did this until her muscles spasmed, so she stopped. She was losing the internal argument about the need to urinate. Why hold it when she’d have to go at some point, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. Not yet.
Somehow she fell asleep again, and the next time she woke, the inside had become an oven. Sweat ran off of her, little rivulets of distress along with her ever-increasing thirst. She attempted to lick her arms, the salty perspiration drying on her tongue. She laid her palms against the lid. It was hot to the touch. Each time she swallowed, she coughed. What was odd was her sense of urgency to urinate was gone, but now her head hurt, and though she hadn’t moved, she was dizzy. A distant rhythmic banging matched the heartbeat she heard in her head. Voices ran out in song occasionally somewhere in the belly of the camp. She strained to hear the tune until it stopped and was replaced by yelling. She rolled her head to the left, to the right, twisted each foot the same, left then right. A cramp seized the calf muscle of her left leg, and the pain made her grit her teeth.