Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee Read Free Book Online

with a secular tune when Annamae stops suddenly and puts her arm in front of me.
    â€œRattler,” whispers Annamae. The dirt moves, only it’s not dirt, but a yellow snake with brown and red patches, thick as my arm. The head rears as if to strike.
    It weaves an S pattern, hissing. As I wait for my heart to start beating again, I notice its tail thumping the ground. “That isn’t a rattlesnake. Though it wishes it were.”
    She doesn’t take her eyes off the snake. “How so?”
    I point at the tail, ringed with black markings. “No rattle. It’s a bull snake, not poisonous. Father made me memorize all the poisonous things, berries, frogs—wait, what are you doing?” I exclaim as she inches closer.
    The snake accelerates its thumping in its best mimicry of a rattlesnake.
    â€œYou sure it ain’t poisonous?”
    â€œI’m sure.”
    â€œ
Sure
sure?” Annamae waves her left hand at the snake now, pulling its attention off kilter. She wiggles her fingers like a magician about to perform a trick.
    â€œAs sure as I’m a girl, though I wouldn’t—”
    Quick as a flash, Annamae grabs the snake with her right hand below its diamond-shaped head. It wriggles as she squeezes. Then she snaps her wrist like she’s cracking a whip and cries, “Ya!”
    I gasp and recoil, coward that I am. Being born in the Year of the Snake only means I dislike them less than the average person does.
    The snake curls up its tail, then hangs limp.
    She drapes her six-foot-long prize around her neck. “Bet you tasty on the flame.” When the tail twitches, she yanks it like a bellpull.
    â€œJust goes to show,” she says as we start moving again, me keeping my distance, “you may not look like a boy, but as long as you act like one, most folks can’t tell you’s missing your rattle.” She breaks into a toothy grin.
    We scout for a place to camp. The plains stretch before us in a slight descent, studded with teardrop-shaped junipers that remind me of jurors, silent and judging. Irregular jags of sandstone form rough hiding spots. It occurs to me we may not be the only criminal element on the trail here. Which would be worse, outlaws or lawmen? Or bears, for that matter?
    Something screams, and I nearly jump out of all my shirts, which in turn nearly scares Annamae out of all hers.
    But it’s just a blue jay jeering at us from the nearest juniper. Annamae gives me a hard look, then straightens her cuffs.
    â€œSorry. Er, how about over there?” I point to a craggy wall of sandstone smeared with lichen rising fifty yards beyond the juniper. “That might serve as a lean-to.”
    As I collect firewood, I pick dandelion greens and edible roots, freezing every time I hear a noise. Now that we’ve stopped moving, I worry again about Deputy Granger. What if he decides to double back? We’ll be easy targets.
    May night roost soon, so that she may cover us with her black feathers. He won’t be able to search for us very well in the dark.
    Annamae arranges stones to contain our blaze. She wraps a char cloth the size of a playing card around a flint, then scrapes it against her cooking pot. The ignitable cloth catches a spark and soon a fire roars before us.
    After witnessing Annamae butcher the snake and rub it with salt from her saddlebag, I doubt I will ever eat again. But once the meat starts popping on the fire with the greens, my hunger pangs return. If I’m going to survive the prairie long enough to find Mr. Trask, I must get used to blood and entrails. Father always took care of the cooking—another hobby of his. Now we only have our hands and Annamae’s saddlebag, which surely has a bottom.
    I pick at the hem of my shirt as I wait for our dinner to finish cooking. My throat aches from thirst even though I just sipped from the canteen not five minutes ago.
    I catch movement from the direction we