Free Dorothy Garlock by Annie Lash Page A

to wander off alone.”
    “I knew there was no danger.”
    “No danger? This island is crawling with snakes, not to mention the hostiles that could beach a canoe and carry you away before you had time to take a deep breath.”
    “You’re just trying to frighten me because you know my fear of snakes!” It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell him Maggie had even been in the river, but she held back, knowing he was in no mood to listen. “I’m sorry for being a bother to you. It won’t happen again.” She turned and marched stiffly back through the thick stand of trees toward the glowing coals of the campfire, very much aware that Jeff stalked angrily along beside her.
    “Here she is, Zan. I’ll thank you to keep an eye on her until we get home.”
    “Where ya been, Annie Lash?” Zan was on his feet. Light and the Cornicks were not in sight. “You ain’t ort to be goin’ off by yoreself.”
    “Don’t you go jumping on me, too. I just went over there to wash myself and to brush my hair.”
    “Ya warn’t dirty. All ya done all day was sit on that raft. Gawd amighty! Ya coulda brushed yore hair here,” he insisted impatiently.
    “Well, I never—” she sputtered. “If you gentlemen will excuse me I’ll go to bed and you can rest your minds about me for the rest of the night.” She tossed her head defiantly and was grateful for the darkness that hid her flaming face and the tears that sprang to her eyes on hearing Zan’s rebuke. She strode briskly toward the raft, her head high, litheness and grace in every line of her body.
    Zan chuckled. “She c’n get her back up quicker’n scat. She ain’t no namby-pamby, my gal ain’t.”
    “She’s . . . headstrong,” Jeff snapped, and kicked dirt onto the coals with his moccasined foot.
    Zan looked at him sharply. “Ya got a burr under yore tail ’bout somethin’?”
    “Godammit, Zan! Why’d you say that? It was foolhardy for her to go off like that and you know it as well as I do.”
    “Yup, ’twas. But hit didn’t call fer no lashin’ out like ya done. Air ya gettin’ stuck on my little gal?”
    “You ragged ol’ son of a grizzly b’ar! If you wasn’t so damned old I’d knock that chaw of tobacco down your throat. Don’t go reading any meaning in my words. Women! They’re just a mess of trouble anyway you look at it.”
    Zan doubled over laughing. “I don’ know as I ever seed a man bit so hard.”
    Jeff stared at him in cold silence, then turned on his heel and walked away.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Darkness lay upon the river. It had been a relief when, in the middle of the afternoon, they had glimpsed the low-roofed cottages of the little French settlement of Saint Charles, the first and last white habitation of any consequence on the river. They beached the raft a half-mile upriver from the town, and the men unloaded it, stacking the goods back from the shoreline. Silas and Isaac left immediately to bring the teams and wagons for the trip to the homesteads.
    Dusk came and they built a fire. Almost before the fire had a good start they heard shots, six in all, and Light loped into camp. He knelt beside the water with six plump mallards, their heads neatly shot off. He disemboweled the birds with one stroke of his knife, washed them, and then plastered the carcasses with river mud. Jeff scooped a hole in the sand beside the fire and pushed a part of the burning embers into the bottom of the hole. He dropped the clay-covered birds in, scooped in more embers, and filled the hole with sand.
    Jeff came to hunker down on his haunches beside a second fire Zan had built well back from the river. He was glad to have his feet on solid ground. The river to him was a means of getting from one place to another and nothing else. He had no romantic illusions about the river that knew no recognized banks. Yet destructive as it was, it was permeated by fertility. It teemed with life. In the tributary creeks were trout, in the pools, bass and pike. And in the