Soul of a Crow Read Online Free Page B

called.
    â€œWell, hurry!” Malcolm ordered. “I ain’t had a chance to show you—”
    â€œHold your tongue, boy,” Boyd interrupted him to chastise. “Mama, God rest her sweet soul, would strap your thoughtless hide for talkin’ to a lady that way.”
    â€œAw, Lorie knows I ain’t but excited to see her,” Malcolm said. He came close to the tent and attempted to rap on the canvas the way he would have a wooden door, imploring, “Ain’t that so?”
    Fully dressed and hair braided, I emerged into the evening light and Malcolm caught me in an exuberant hug. I smoothed Malcolm’s shaggy hair, regarding him with deep fondness. He was tanned as brown as a batch of walnut-dye, his dark, long-lashed eyes merry. Freckles walked all along his nose and cheekbones, and he was in rather desperate need of a creek bath.
    â€œIt’s so,” I confirmed. “What did you want to show me?”
    â€œLookee,” Malcolm enthused, tugging me towards the embers over which the iron grate was propped, and where two rabbits, in addition to two prairie hens, crackled deliciously. He pointed to the ground near the shallow fire pit Boyd dug last night, where five speckled eggs were lined in a row, smooth and pretty as rocks plucked from the river bottom.
    â€œEggs!” I exclaimed in joy, already imagining the cheerful sizzle of them cracked into our pan.
    â€œNest was yonder,” Malcolm said, indicating westward; the open plains stretched as far as an eye could see in every direction around our camp, though I knew that Keokuk, Iowa waited just to the north. It would be the first we had seen of a town in some weeks, and as much as I wished to avoid most all contact with strangers, I was hopeful for the presence of a preacher.
    â€œIt’s been a piece since we’s had eggs,” Boyd said, from his seat on the ground, where he contentedly drew on a tobacco roll. Though Boyd was much taller and far more solidly built than Malcolm, they resembled each other to a marked degree, the two of them nearly the last of their family left alive.
    Before the War, the Carters had densely populated the Bledsoe holler, in Cumberland County; Boyd and Malcolm’s family had numbered six, not including aunts, uncles, cousins, and other shirttail relatives; they farmed the eastern edge of the holler, while Sawyer’s family resided just across, to the west. Sawyer and Boyd were of an age, both twenty-four, and had been raised as closely as any brothers. In the crisp late-autumn of 1862, they joined the Army of Tennessee under General Joseph Wheeler, in the company of four additional brothers, Ethan and Jeremiah Davis, and Beaumont and Grafton Carter—of the six of them, only Sawyer and Boyd returned to Tennessee alive. Boyd and Malcolm were the sole remaining members left to pass on the Carter name; likewise, Sawyer was the last Davis.
    Boyd used a sharpened stick to poke at the meat, declaring, “Any moment now. Good work, Lorie-girl. It’s right satisfying to eat what you done shot, ’specially for the first time,” and I grinned at his compliment.
    â€œThe practice has proven helpful,” I said.
    Sawyer took his customary position to Boyd’s right, sitting on a split log with one foot braced against an adjacent piece of wood. His feet were bare and dirt-smudged, as were the hems of his trousers; he held a tin cup of steaming coffee. He reached his free hand to me, angling a knee for me to sit upon. Once settled, I appropriated the cup for a sip.
    â€œYou twos are hoping for a preacher in the next town,” Boyd noted, reading my thoughts. He winked at Sawyer and me, adding, “Get you two hitched up proper-like. Aw, shit, Davis, what I wouldn’t give for a wedding celebration like in the old days.” His dark eyebrows lifted in amusement at what he could clearly discern as my skepticism at this remark. He hurried to explain,