Me and Billy (9 page)

He sat there staring into the coals of the campfire, from time to time poking them with the stick to send up sparks. “It ain’t right,” he said finally. “It ain’t fair. I never killed that little girl on purpose. Probably she would of died anyway. Robinson’s got no business chasing me around like that. A man’s got a right to make a living, ain’t he?” He left off poking the coals with the stick and glared across at us. “Where’s Robinson come off telling me I can’t work this here town?”

The thing that bothered me most about it was that he didn’t seem sorry about the little girl. The only thing that interested him was throwing the blame off on God and steering clear of Robinson. It was himself he was sorry for.

Maybe it was time I branched off. Why couldn’t I? There wasn’t any reason for it that I could see. It was just my feelings. Why should I feel so strong about not
branching off from Billy? I couldn’t explain it to myself. Well, feelings or not, if he wouldn’t quit now, I was gone. I took a glance at Billy and saw he’d been looking at me. He knew what I was thinking, and he said quickly, “Prof, let’s skip Plunket City. It isn’t worth the risk.”

He shook his head. “No, Billy, this here town’s a gold mine. It’s the first real place we hit so far. We could sell a hundred, two hundred, five hundred bottles in a place like this. I know; I’ve done it. We can go sailing out of here with a sackful of money and our pockets crammed, too. You could each earn twenty bucks in this place in an afternoon.” He gave the fire a hard jab with the stick, sending a stream of sparks up into the night. “No, by glory, I’m not going to let Robinson run me out of here. He’s got no right. If he starts anything, I’ll holler for the sheriff. It’s a free country, ain’t it?”

There was no arguing with him, I could see that. I figured the best thing was to get a night’s sleep and hope that he’d calm down a little in the morning and would listen to reason. Then when we’d got safe into another town where me and Billy could find jobs, we’d tell him he was on his own.

So we bedded down, and as soon as the Professor flung his clothes into the van and climbed in after them I said, “Billy, we got to get out of this. What if we already killed somebody?”

“Possum, we haven’t killed anybody. We’d of heard of it. Besides, if anybody did die, they most likely were bound to die, anyway.”

“Billy, I’m not going to get talked into it anymore. I’m going to quit. You remember, we were supposed to be looking for that golden lake.”

He leaned up on his elbow. I could see his face from the low glow of the fire. “Stop thinking about people dying, Possum. You worry too much. Think about all those dollar bills stuffed in our pockets.”

“It isn’t worth it, Billy. I’m through.”

“You can’t quit now, Possum. Not when we’re about to hit it rich.”

“Nope. I made up my mind, Billy. I’m through. You can go down into that town with Prof. I’m not going to.”

He didn’t say anything. We looked at each other in the firelight. “You really mean it? You’d skip all those dollar bills?”

“I really mean it, Billy.”

He lay back and stared up through the trees to where a few stars peeked through. “Well, all right, Possum. If you say we got to quit, we’ll quit. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we ought to be in those mountains looking for that lake. This medicine game would be mighty small potatoes compared with a lake full of gold.”

“Then you’ll quit with me, Billy?”

“I’ll make you a deal, Possum. We’ll do it this one last time. Stuff our pockets full of money so we don’t
have to worry for a while and then head for the mountains.”

I didn’t want to do it, not even one last time. I just wanted to get up in the morning and leave Prof, the mules, and the elixir behind. Suppose this was the time when we actually got somebody killed. But I had to agree, for it was a fair bargain. “All right,” I said. “It’s a deal.”

In the morning, while we were drinking our coffee and chewing what was left of the bread—it had got pretty tough—I tried to talk the Professor into skipping Plunket City. I couldn’t do it. He’d got it fixed in his mind that he wasn’t going to let Robinson push him around anymore. “He’ll back down. You’ll see, boys. These here bullies are all the same—stand up to them and they back down.”

“What if he doesn’t, Prof?” I said.

He shifted his eyes to one side. “He better.”

So we mixed up the elixir, stretched the sign across the wagon, and around eleven o’clock me and Billy went into town to paste up the handbills. We spent an awful lot of time looking over our shoulders for a sight of Robinson, for I’d made up my mind that if the Professor wanted to back him down, that was his lookout; but as for me, I was going to run like the wind. However, he didn’t turn up.

We picked up some ham and rolls for lunch and went on back to the van. At two o’clock we set off for town, me and Billy dressed in those blame nightshirts,
me out front tooting that horn. I was thankful for one thing, at least: it was the last time I’d ever have to put on that shirt and toot that horn.

Billy had got a little better handle on the mules—at least he wasn’t poking himself in the eye with the whip handle as frequent. We sailed into town and set up in the square in front of the town hall—just the exact place where Robinson was most likely to turn up. I figured the Professor did it deliberate, just to show he wasn’t going to be pushed around.

But no Robinson; I figured he was out in the countryside doing some surveying. So we set to work.

It turned out that the Professor was right about the place being a gold mine. We pulled a crowd of a couple hundred people, way bigger than any crowd we ever had. And maybe even larger than that, for they kept coming and going. Me and Billy were taking in those dollar bills as fast as we could stuff them in our pockets. Prof was mighty set up about the way the money was coming in, but he was a lot happier when the money was in his pockets, not ours; and every little while he’d jump off the van seat, where he was spieling, reach into our pockets, and haul out a fistful of bills.

Things had just begun to slow down a little, with Prof trying to coax a few more dollars out of the crowd, when that familiar voice slammed out behind me: “Johnny McCarthy.”

Me and Billy jumped around. Robinson was standing behind the van, a little off to one side. His coat was open so’s we could see the butt of his pistol. “McCarthy,” he shouted again.

The Professor turned his head around and gave Robinson a kind of sneer. Then he turned back to the crowd. “Sorry for the interruption, folks. Don’t pay it no mind. We just got a few bottles of this famous elixir left. When they’re gone, that’s it. I want to remind you of the tremendous curative powers of this here—”

But me and Billy weren’t listening. We were staring at Robinson like mice trapped by a cat. He put his hand on the butt of the pistol. We dove headfirst under the van and lay flat. Robinson pulled out the pistol and, aiming it into the air, fired.

The crack was as loud as thunder, and it got the Professor’s attention. From where we lay we couldn’t see him, but it was clear he turned around to face Robinson, for he said, “I ain’t scared of you, Robinson. You got no right to interfere with my business. This is a free country.”

“Free country or not, Johnny...” He fumbled his watch out with his left hand and snapped the case open. “I’m giving you one minute to pick up those reins and haul that van out of here. Otherwise, I’m going to shoot you where you stand.”

Now the throng was busting up, with the people scattering in all directions—racing to the sides of the
square, babbling and squealing. But not the Professor. “You don’t scare me none, Robinson. I got my rights.”

We couldn’t see Prof, but we could see Robinson all right. He was standing there cool as you please, holding the pistol loose in one hand, and every few seconds taking a look at the watch. “Thirty seconds, Johnny.”

The square was now empty, with the crowd around the edges, mostly kneeling, not wanting to miss it if Robinson killed Prof, but ready to make a run for it if bullets started whizzing in their direction.

“Ten seconds, Johnny. One, two—”

“You wouldn’t dare. I’m going to call the sheriff to protect my rights.”

Robinson raised the pistol. “I warned you, Johnny.” He fired. The Professor let out a kind of squeal, but that was the last we knew of it, for me and Billy were flying across the empty square as fast as we could move, flinging off those nightshirts as we went.

We ran through the streets of that town like we were being chased by demons set on sending us to Hell for eternity. Our lungs burned and our legs ached, but we went on running—past shopwindows, past mule wagons and dogs that jumped up out of the dusty street and barked as we sailed by. People turned their heads to stare at us, and a few of them shouted “hey” at us, for they judged we’d been up to some mischief. But we were by them before they could stop us. On we went until we came to the outskirts of town, where there were no more shops, only houses and barns, the cobblestone street turned to dirt.

We stood by the side of the road, gasping for air, wiping the sweat from our faces with our sleeves. Our legs were trembling, and I don’t believe either of us
could have taken another step even if we saw real demons streaming toward us. Finally we got ourselves pulled together and started off down the road at a walk, looking back over our shoulders from time to time, just in case. “Do you think Robinson killed Prof?” Billy said.

It was mighty scary to think of Prof being dead—standing on that van seat spieling away only twenty minutes ago and now lying there with his eyes open but not seeing anything. It gave me a feeling of awe to have somebody I knew be dead. He wasn’t a perfect fella—you couldn’t say that. But he had his likable side. It was interesting to hear him talk, even if you couldn’t believe much of what he said. He’d been alive, and it got me to thinking what it meant to be alive—to breathe, argue with people, fry potatoes and eggs, and walk and twist and bend. He was there, and now maybe he wasn’t there anymore. “He could of just got wounded,” I said. “Or maybe Robinson missed him completely.”

Billy shook his head. “He wouldn’t of missed. He was standing too close.”

“Well, maybe he missed on purpose. Maybe he was afraid to shoot him with all those witnesses standing around.”

“I hope so,” Billy said. “I hate to think he’s dead. I got to where I liked him. Of course you couldn’t trust him as far as you could throw him. But you can’t trust me, either. Look what I did—tried to steal his purse out of his pants ten minutes after I promised I wouldn’t.”

“It was more like five minutes,” I said.

“Don’t exaggerate, Possum. I wasted five minutes trying to talk myself out of it.”

I didn’t want to get into it. “Well, Billy, some good came out of it. We’re a long ways from the Home, and we got three dollars and a quarter in our pockets. Besides, you haven’t stolen anything for a while.”

He grinned. “I wouldn’t say that. Look.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a bunch of dollar bills crunched up in a wad.

“Blame me,” I said. “Where’d you get all that?”

“From selling the elixir back there. I kept two pockets going, one Prof knew about and one he didn’t know about. As the money came in, I divided it between the two pockets.”

I should have figured it. To be honest, I was glad to see that wad of dollar bills. Three dollars and a quarter each wouldn’t have kept us going very long, and I didn’t have any idea how long it would take us to get up into those mountains and find that lake full of gold. Still, I wondered. What were the rights and wrongs of it? Was it OK to steal money that was already being stolen? Especially when we were helping to steal it? Of course the Professor would never admit he was skinning people. His line was, “If they’re dumb enough to be took advantage of, that’s their lookout. It’s the American way—
caveat empty.
That’s Latin. It means it’s the buyer’s lookout if he comes away empty-handed.” To my mind, that line didn’t follow. Why was it
the other fella’s fault that you were skinning him? It seemed to me you had to take part of the blame yourself. But that wasn’t the way the Professor thought.

Anyway, whatever the rights and wrongs of it, I was glad to see the money. “Well, I don’t know as I blame you, Billy. I wouldn’t have done it, but all the same, he never paid us what he owed us.”

“That’s right,” Billy said. “But it wouldn’t have mattered to me if he had.” He looked at me, grinning, his eyes shining. “I believe in stealing. It suits my nature.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” I said. “I just hope you don’t get us both put in jail.”

“Nah,” he said. “I won’t get caught.”

“You got caught plenty back at the Home.”

“Deacon, he was bound to catch you, for he’d whip you for no reason, so whatever you did, you’d get caught.”

Billy had a way of twisting things around so’s he was in the right of it. He was mighty smart. But I wasn’t always sure what he said was true, even though it sounded right. “Let’s see the money, Billy. How much is it?”

He hunkered down and, one by one, uncrumpled the dollar bills and stacked them on the ground. When he got them all straightened out as much as he could, he counted them out. Then he whistled. “Twenty-two dollars.”

“Blame me,” I said.

He picked up the money and counted off eleven bills. “Here,” he said. “Here’s your half.”

“Hey,” I said. “You don’t need to give me any. I didn’t steal it—you stole it.”

“Here, take it, Possum. I wouldn’t feel right about keeping it all myself.”

I looked at him, shaking my head. “Billy, sometimes I just can’t understand you. You got the blamedest way of thinking I ever saw. Here you’ll stick your hand in somebody’s pocket, but once you get the money, you’re bound and determined to give it away.”

“That’s just the way I am, Possum. I don’t care about the money so much. What interests me is stealing it. Once I got it stole, somebody else can have it.”

I folded the bills and stuck them into my pocket. We would need money for food along the way, and I reckoned we’d be better off if I took care of some of it. “Do you think you’re going to give away all the money we get for that gold?”