Bob clucked like a chicken. “Po’ little Angus, gettin’ scairt by a girl!”
“To hell with the girl!” Angus barked. “I’d chop her to pieces right here and now and eat her heart raw and not miss a wink of sleep over it. But iffen she really is Iron Andy’s daughter? Damn right, I’m a little nervous! Ain’t you?”
Bob spat in the leaves. “You only die once. Don’t be such a damn coward.”
“I ain’t afraid of dyin’. I’m afraid of gettin’ my tongue cut out, and havin’ my fingernails torn off, and bein’ hung from a tree by my own guts while I’m still alive as a warning sign. They say he crucified people in the Ohio Forks War. They sat he took scalps. They say he’s the one as killed George Washington, stabbed him in the heart in his sleep with Washington’s own sword.”
“All that shit you heard about the Elector jest ain’t true,” Bob said. “The Calhouns spread those notions around to make people scairt of ’em. Besides, didn’t nobody kill George Washington, John Penn bought him off with a bunch of land somewhere and he jest up and quit. Pontiac’s the one they killed, and it was hangin’, not no midnight assassination. And iffen any of it is true, it happened a long time ago. He’s jest an old feller now with a lot of rough Cracker grandsons who live out in the woods, stealin’ cattle, drinkin’ home-made corn likker and sportin’ with their own sisters.”
“You ain’t from around here,” Angus muttered. “You don’t know.”
Follow
