Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5 LATER THAT DAY AROUND 2:00 The meeting place was a pond near the creek. John got there first, so he sat at the water's edge to wait. The air was cool, but the sun warmed his back. The water was like a mirror, and it matched

the bright blue sky. As usual, the only sound was the moaning wind and the whooshing of the grass. John's eyes caught something sparkling in the dirt. He dug it out with his thumb. It was an arrowhead, a perfect, flat triangle made of dark metal. John found arrowheads all the time around here. They belonged to Sioux Indian people who used to live on this land. Probably a Sioux hunter shot this arrow at a buffalo. Miss Ruell said that there used to be thousands of Sioux people here. They lived in villages and moved across the land with the seasons. In the fall they hunted the buffalo that roamed all over the prairie in giant herds. John had never met any Sioux people. That's because the American government had made them all leave here. The buffalo were gone, too. Every last one. The giant herds trampled crops and got in the way of building the railroad. So soldiers and settlers shot them all.

John held the arrowhead in his hand. He wondered who it had belonged to. Maybe it was a Sioux boy, a kid like him, hunting with his father like John hunted with Pa. Maybe that kid had a sister like Franny. He could have sat right here, in this exact spot. Where was that boy now? John could have wondered about this all day. But just then he heard voices. It was the guys, calling his name. Rex, Peter, and Sven rushed toward him, their snake-killing weapons clutched in their hands. Rex gripped an ax, Peter had a hoe. Sven had a big stick resting on each of his beefy shoulders. He handed one to John. Peter proudly held up a little canvas bag. "Three dead mice," he said. "Snake bait." They set out for the creek, walking side by side, shoulders bumping. From the way the guys were grinning and bouncing with excitement, you'd have thought they were heading to a picnic. John's worries and heavy thoughts soon fell away. The

guys chattered nonstop about everything from baseball to girls to whether Miss Ruell would ever get married. "No way," Peter insisted. "She's twenty-five — way too old." "And too mean," Sven said. "What about the cowboy?" Rex asked. They'd all heard the rumor: that Miss Ruell was engaged to a cowboy. "I don't believe it," Peter said, shaking his head. None of them liked Miss Ruell. But Peter had a grudge because he got in trouble the most. He couldn't make it through the day without burping out loud or turning his eyelids inside out to make the girls scream. "I heard that cowboy is in Montana," Sven said. "Building them a house." "He's probably hiding out there," Peter said. "She's scarier than a grizzly bear!" "I didn't know grizzly bears wore glasses," Sven laughed.

Peter curled his fingers into circles to make pretend glasses. "Learn this poem or I will eat you!" he growled. They all cracked up, including John. He was glad he wasn't the only one who hated those boring poems. They kept up their chattering and joking until they got to the creek. The water was deep and running fast from a big rainstorm the night before. Suddenly, Rex shopped short. "That's it," he said quietly. "King Rattler's den." He pointed to a big rock with a hole underneath. They all went quiet. "Look!" Sven whispered. There was a long, wide groove in the dirt, like a track left by a fat wagon wheel. Except no one could ever drive a wagon over here. It was a snake track — left by a huge snake. It looked fresh.