The Spirit Tree Read Online Free

odds were in my favor.
    Could I shoot three moving targets from inside the house without breaking a window? I debated my options until I heard the glass break and claws begin to scratch against the metal. The darned thing had managed to get its paw inside the broken slat.
    I stuffed the barrel into the broken slat and fired. Glass shattered, but only one slat broke. The kickback wasn’t as bad as I expected. Unlike Charlie’s old gun, it didn’t knock me flat on my butt. The wolf fell back onto the wooden porch. My ears rang enough to block out sound.
    The sun broke over the horizon as two wolves retreated across the yard. On the porch, the snakes moved over the large mass of the fallen wolf. Beneath the snakes, I swore I saw skin, not fur. “What the hell?”
    I tried to get a better look, but couldn’t through the various shades of snake. I grabbed the phone and rested the shotgun against my shoulder. “Hello?”
    “I can’t hear you. I shot one of the wolves.” At least I hoped I’d shot a wolf. It looked like the snakes had moved off the body of a very naked and very dead man.

Chapter 5
    Flashing lights in the distance caused my heart to race. The first set of headlights bobbled and bumped along the dirt road. A second and third set followed close behind. Their arrival should have been a relief. Instead, I tried to remember the legalities of shooting people before they broke in. A few years ago, the Stand Your Ground laws were all over the news, if only I’d paid more attention.
    Two uniformed police officers looked between the two houses. I flipped the porch light on and off until they moved in my direction. The male officer made a sound equivalent to an eight-year-old girl getting her ponytail tugged. The female officer shook her head and pretended to ignore the snakes. When she approached the door, the snakes moved out of her way, like Moses parting the Red Sea.
    I opened the door and froze in place as the female police officer drew her pistol, shouting. The other officer noticed the dead guy on the porch and started screaming out more commands. By the time I realized what was happening, I had three guns trained on me, another cop yelling into the radio—more than likely calling for backup—and the snakes were rallying around me.
    “Drop the weapon and get down on the floor,” the female repeated.
    “Oh. Sorry.” I set the shotgun down on the porch, went to my knees, and thought better of it when the snakes moved over my calves. “Snakes! Please! Let me go inside.”
    No one knew what to do. They all stared at me with varying degrees of concern, pity, and rage. Having someone lie down in a pile of snakes had to be cruel-and-unusual punishment. I started to rise, when one of the male cops shouted to stay down.
    The female shook her head. “Whooo-weee.”
    “I’m a licensed mental-health therapist. My name is Tessa Lamar. My uncle and aunt—Charles and Dottie Nokoseka—own this house. I’m going to stand and get away from these snakes before one of them bites me.” I ignored the shouts and stood.
    I eased into the house. No snakes lurked about the living room. I bent over to look under the couch, and pain tore through my calf. Had a snake bitten me? Was that a gunshot? My ears rang. The commotion from the porch confused me, and my vision swam as my brain slowly accepted the fact that I’d been shot.
    I woke in the back of an ambulance. An IV tube stuck in my arm, and something smelled suspiciously like soured meat loaf and sweet pickles. I’d vomited down the front of my shirt.
    “Now, you listen here, my granddaughter was in fear for her life. Some crazy, naked lunatic was breaking into the house. She said there were wolves, so there were wolves. There are large tracks near the porch. A few are still there, even after your people trampled all over the evidence. She has a severe fear of snakes and was in a state of shock. Leave her be, or I’ll have the entire Cherokee Nation at the station