Shot in the Back (8 page)

“Frank, I'm going to be leaving here in a couple of days,” Jesse said over breakfast the next morning.

“Leaving? Where are you goin', Pa?”

“I'm not sure. I just want to do some traveling around. The thing is, I'm signing the farm over to you, lock, stock, and barrel.”

“You don't have to do that, Pa. Heck, I'll keep things going here. And I'll bank your share when I get the crop in.”

“You don't understand, son. I'm not going to be here to get the crop out, and I'm not going to be here for the harvest, so I won't have a share. It's all yours,” Jesse said. He looked over and smiled at Ethel Marie, who was feeding the baby. “Besides, you'll be needing more money, what with the baby and all. You can handle the farm by yourself, can't you?”

“Well, yes, sir, I'm sure I can.”

“I'm sure you can as well.”

“You'll keep in touch with me, won't you, Pa?”

“I'm not very good at writing letters, Frank, I never have been. But, from time to time, I'll write.”

“That's more than we can say for Billy. We haven't heard a thing from him from the moment he left.”

“Maybe I'll try and find him,” Jesse said.

“If you do, you'll let me know if he's all right, won't you, Pa?”

“I'll let you know,” Jesse said.

 

 

Eight days later, Jesse checked into the Cattleman's Hotel in Dallas.

“Frank Alexander,” the clerk said as he read the registration book. “That's funny.”

“Funny because you have another Alexander registered here?” Jesse asked.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Because Billy Alexander is my son. What room is he in?”

“He's in room three twelve. If you would like, I can put you in three fourteen, which is next door to him.”

“Yes, thank you.”

 

 

Jesse did not go to room three twelve right away. Instead he went to his own room and changed clothes. No longer wearing the three-piece suit he had worn on the train, he was now wearing blue jeans, a denim shirt, and a belt with two holsters and two pistols. Stepping next door, he knocked lightly on the door.

“Who is it?” a muffled voice called from the other side of the door.

“It's your pa, Billy. Open the door.”

The door opened. “I waited here for you just like you—” Billy started, then seeing the way his father was dressed, he stopped in midsentence. “Pa, why are you dressed like that?”

“I've come to take you to school,” Jesse said.

“School? Pa, what are you talkin' about? I don't have enough education to go to college. I never got beyond the eighth grade, and at my age, I sure don't plan on ever goin' back. I'm damn near twenty-two years old.”

“That's not the kind of school I'm talking about. Get your gun and come with me.”

“My gun?”

“You haven't hocked it, have you?”

“No, I've still got it.”

“Then strap it on and come with me.”

“Come with you where?”

“Out to McKamy Creek. I'm going to teach you to shoot.”

Billy laughed. “Pa, come on, really?
You
are going to teach
me
to shoot?”

“I was in the war, remember.”

“Yeah, I know you've said that. But I wasn't always too sure you were telling the truth. I mean, sure, you were probably in the war, but I always figured that maybe you took care of the horses, or something.”

“Or something,” Jesse said. “Speaking of horses, I know you said you sold Dancer. Have you got another one?”

“He's in the hotel stable. Same as yours, I reckon.”

“I don't have a horse; I left everything with Frank. Let me take a look at your mount.”

Billy led Jesse to the stable, where he examined the horse's feet and legs. He also looked into the animal's mouth.

“No,” he said. “He won't do.”

“What's wrong with Patch? He's a good horse.”

“You think he could do fifty miles in a single day?”

“I don't know.”

“I do know. He can't.”

“Well, why would he have to?”

“You never can tell. The time might come when we'll have to cover fifty, maybe even sixty, miles in one day. You need another horse.”

“Pa, even with the money you gave me, I don't have enough to buy another horse.”

“I do,” Jesse said.

 

 

An hour later the two men, having ridden out on the just purchased horses, were standing alongside McKamy Creek, a quickly flowing stream just north of Dallas. It was an ideal place to practice shooting, as it was over five miles from downtown.

“Let me see you shoot,” Jesse said. “I want to know what I'll be working with.”

“What do you want me to shoot at?”

“I'll let you pick your own target,” Jesse said.

“All right. Look over there. Do you see that can?” Billy asked, pointing to a rusty can on the other side of the stream. “I'll shoot it.”

Billy pulled his pistol, raised it to eye level, aimed, and shot. He hit the can and turned toward Jesse with a broad smile on his face. “What do you think about that?”

“You took too long,” Jesse said.

“What do you mean, I took too long? I aimed at it; I hit it. What more do you want?”

“You don't always have time to aim,” Jesse said. “Most of the time you just have to pull your gun and fire.”

“What good does it do to pull your gun and fire if you can't hit anything?”

“Oh, I'll hit something,” Jesse said.

“All right, pick the target. Let me see you pull your gun, fire without aiming, and hit something,” Billy said with a challenging smile.

There were a couple of dragonflies hovering about four feet over the edge of the opposite side of the creek.

“See those snake doctors?” Jesse asked, pointing.

Billy laughed. “Don't tell me you are going to try and shoot one of those.”

“I'm not going to shoot one of them,” Jesse said.

“I wouldn't think so. You couldn't, even if you did aim.”

“I'm going to shoot both of them,” Jesse said.

“Wha—” Before Billy could get the word out, Jesse drew both pistols and fired. The two dragonflies disintegrated right before Billy's eyes.

“Damn!” Billy said. “How the hell did you do that?”

“Point your finger at me,” Jesse said.

“Why?” Billy replied, pointing his finger even as he asked the question.

“How did
you
do
that
?” Jesse asked. “You didn't raise your hand and aim your finger at me.”

“No, I didn't have to. I just knew where you were and where my finger was pointing.”

“That's how I shot the dragonflies.”

Billy shook his head.

“I'll never be able to do that.”

“Sure you will,” Jesse said.

“Shoot snake doctors out of the air?”

“Maybe not that. But before we go back to the hotel today, I'd be willing to bet that you can put more holes in that can, without aiming.”

 

 

“I never thought I'd be able to do that,” Billy said that evening over supper in the hotel dining room.

Once again, Jesse was wearing a suit.

“You're not very good at it yet,” Jesse said. “But I have no doubt that as I work with you, you will get better.”

“You know what really surprises me is that you can do that. I mean, I've never known you as anything but a . . . pardon me for sayin' it, Pa, but sort of a milksop kind of a guy. I mean, well, you remember the time on the train when that man tripped over you. It was his fault, but you apologized to him.”

“It doesn't hurt to be nice to someone,” Jesse said. “And it isn't always good to let people know who you are.”

“Ha! You say that, but as soon as Jim Corbett said who he was, that man sure turned and ran away, didn't he?”

“I reckon he did.”

“Didn't you feel embarrassed by that, Pa?”

“No.”

“Not even a little bit?”

“No, not even a little bit. Did you feel embarrassed?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because you are my pa, and that man was having his way with you.”

“He just thought he was. Being embarrassed about something is just a waste of time.”

“I don't know. I guess I just thought you should have done something.”

“Billy, if I had gotten into a fistfight with that man, I would have been beaten up.”

“There, you see what I mean? And you don't think that would have been embarrassing?”

“No, because I would not have gotten into a fistfight with him.”

“What if Jim Corbett hadn't been there? And what if I hadn't been there? What if it had been just the two of you, and being nice to him wouldn't stop him? What would you have done then?”

“I would have killed him,” Jesse said calmly.

“What?” Billy's eyes narrowed as he stared across the table at his father, as if seeing him for the first time. “Pa, are you serious? You really would have killed him?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“Yes.”

“Have . . . have you ever killed anyone before?”

Jesse picked up the menu. “Look, they've got black- and blueberry cobbler. I know it isn't as good as the cobbler your ma used to make. But I bet it'll be good enough. What do you say we have that for dessert?”

Billy nodded, knowing that Jesse wasn't going to answer his question.

“You're right, it won't be as good as Ma's. But let's try it anyway.”

Every day for two weeks, Jesse and Billy went out to McKamy Creek to practice shooting. Before long, Billy could shoot at a can, or a rock, or a tree, and hit it, even without taking specific aim at it.

“What do you think, Pa?” Billy asked after they concluded one of their shooting exercises. “I'm getting pretty good, huh?”

“Passable,” Jesse answered. “Let's get back to town.”

The two men mounted and started out, with Jesse in the lead. A short distance after they got under way, Jesse left the trail.

“Pa, where you goin'? Town's that way,” Billy called to him.

“Just follow me, and do what I do,” Jesse said.

Shortly after turning off the trail, Jesse broke into a gallop, and Billy had no choice but to match his pace. After about two minutes at a dead gallop, Jesse stopped, dismounted, and led the horse into some grass. There, after leading the horse for a few minutes, he remounted and made a big circle, not getting out of the grass for about a mile. Then, he turned back, crossed the trail and the tracks they had left earlier, and continued to ride for at least a mile before turning back to retrace the path they had taken at a gallop. Then, turning off the trail again, he started back toward Dallas, rejoining McKamy Road about three miles from the creek itself.

“What was all that about?” Billy asked as he moved up to ride alongside Jesse. It was possible to ride alongside him on the road, though it hadn't been possible to do so on the narrow trail.

“Someone was following us,” Jesse said.

Billy turned in his saddle. “I didn't see anyone. Who was following us?”

“It doesn't matter whether you saw anyone or not,” Jesse said. “As far as you are concerned, from now until I tell you otherwise, someone is always following us.”

“Oh,” Billy said. “Oh, yes, I see what you mean.”

“Do you? Because it might save your life someday.”

“Yeah, Pa. I see,” Billy said.

 

 

“You need to know how to build a fire,” Jesse said a few days later.

“Pa, I can build a fire.”

“All right, make a fire, right now.”

“I don't have any matches.”

“Have you ever eaten a rabbit raw?”

“What? No! Why would I want to eat a raw rabbit?”

“Well, if you don't know how to build a fire without matches, the day may come when you have to eat a rabbit, or a squirrel, or a bird, raw. And I can tell you for a fact, raw game isn't very tasty.”

“You mean you've eaten raw rabbit?”

“Yeah.”

Billy laughed. “So you can't build a fire, either, without matches, can you?”

“Didn't say that. I just said that I ate raw rabbit. It wasn't that I couldn't build a fire, it was because at the time, it just wasn't convenient to build a fire.”

“Do you have matches now?” Billy asked.

“No.”

“Can you build a fire?”

“Yeah, I can build a fire. What you need is a spark, something to catch the spark, wood, and air. Gather some dry grass and little pieces of dry sticks. Then a few larger pieces of wood so that once the fire starts, there will be something to burn.”

It took but a minute to get everything gathered.

“A match is the easiest way to start a fire, and when we start out on our adventure, we'll always have matches with us. You can also use flint and steel. That works, but it isn't really all that easy.”

“You've built a fire with flint and steel?”

“I've built a fire by rubbing a stick in a hole, dug out of a piece of wood,” Jesse said. “And that's even harder to do.”

“You said you don't have any matches, so how are you going to build a fire?”

“Next to having a match, this is the easiest way,” Jesse said. “And you'll more than likely always have this way with you.”

“What way is that?”

“Just hold your horses and I'll show you,” Jesse said.

Jesse took a round from a cylinder chamber of one of his revolvers. Removing the bullet, he poured half of the gunpowder onto the little pile of tinder, then he tore a little piece of cloth from his handkerchief and stuffed it back into the cartridge. Replacing the cartridge in the chamber, he held the gun over the powder and tinder, and fired. The little piece of cloth came out burning. Jesse bent over quickly, shielded it from the wind, then started dropping sticks onto it until it was a pretty good blaze. He put on larger, and gradually larger sticks, until finally he added a substantial piece of firewood.

“There,” he said with a smile. “We won't have to eat our rabbit raw.”

“What rabbit?”

Jesse lay back and, lacing his hands behind his head, smiled up at Billy.

“Why, the one you're going to bring to cook,” he said with a broad smile.

An hour later, having finished their meal, Jesse put out the fire.

“Are we goin' back to the hotel?” Billy asked.

“Not yet.”

“When are we going back?”

“I'll be going back this afternoon. Whenever you get back depends on you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You've got more schooling to do.”

 

 

It was almost two hours later when Jesse dismounted. He had been leading Billy's horse. Billy was mounted, but his hands were tied to the saddle horn and there was a blindfold around his eyes.

Walking back to his horse, Jesse untied Billy's hands. “All right, you can take off the blindfold.”

“You didn't have to tie my hands to the saddle, Pa. All you had to do was tell me not to take off the blindfold.”

“I was just keeping you away from temptation is all.” Jesse slipped Billy's rifle from its scabbard. “Climb down,” he said.

“Now what?” Billy asked as he rubbed his wrists.

“You can go back to the hotel now.”

“Good.” Billy started to remount.

“No. I'll ride, and I'll take your horse. You're going to walk back.”

“Walk back? How 'm I goin' to do that? I don't know how far it is. I don't know where it is. I don't even know in which direction I'd need to start out in.”

“You'll figure it out.”

“What if I don't figure it out?”

“If you haven't shown up at the hotel in three days, I'll come find you.”

“What if you can't find me?”

“Then you'll be on your own,” Jesse said.

“Pa, that ain't right. I could die out here.”

“You're right. Get mounted, and we'll go back.”

“Good. They're havin' roast beef at the hotel tonight.”

“Oh, we aren't goin' to the hotel. We're goin' back to Chandler, and the farm. Only thing is, the farm isn't ours anymore, so I reckon that means we'll both be working for Frank.”

“Pa, no! You know I won't do that! I can't do that!”

“Yeah, to tell the truth, boy, I don't want to do that, either,” Jesse said. “But it's either that, or you let me continue to teach you.”

“Teach me what?” Frank said. “I mean, I know, you've taught me how to shoot, 'n how to make a fire, but what's all this leadin' to, Pa?”

“Billy, you're the one that chose the owl hoot trail.”

“The owl hoot trail?”

“You're wantin' to be an outlaw, aren't you?”

Billy grunted what might have been a laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess I do.”

“If you were to ask me, I'd tell you don't go down that trail. But you're a man now, full grown, and my telling you isn't going to make that much difference. So, if you're bound and determined to do this thing, the least I can do is teach you enough to keep alive. Now, are you going to listen to me, or not?”

“All right, I'll go along with it,” Billy agreed reluctantly. “But, don't you even have any instructions for me? Are you just going to cut me loose like this?”

“You'll need water,” Jesse said. “First thing you need to do is find a stream.”

“How do I do that?”

“Animals need water, and they'll always go toward it. Use them as a guide, and listen for it. Most water in the wild makes a noise that you can hear. And if it is a fast-flowing creek or river, why, you can sometimes hear it from a mile away. You can smell it, too.”

“How do you smell water? Water don't have no smell.”

“You can smell fish, and you can smell wet wood, and grass.”

“Yeah,” Billy said with a grin. “Yeah, you can, can't you?”

“All right, I'm going to leave you now. Billy, if you survive this on your own, you'll be ready for just about anything. If you don't survive it”—Jesse smiled—“well, if you don't survive it, it won't make much difference, will it?”

Despite himself, Billy chuckled.

“I guess you're right, Pa.”

“I'll see you in three days.”

Jesse put Billy's rifle back in the saddle scabbard.

“Ain't you goin' to leave me my rifle?”

“Nope. It'll just get in your way,” Jesse said as he swung into his saddle. “Remember, boy. Find the water.”

 

 

Billy watched Jesse ride away.

“Find the water,” Billy repeated aloud.

“Water. My canteen!” Billy realized then that his canteen was hanging from his saddle.

“Pa!” he called. “Pa! My canteen!”

His pa didn't answer.

For a moment, Billy felt panic, then he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn't going to do himself any good scaring himself to death.

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then decided to take stock of the situation. The first thing he needed to figure out was which way it was to the hotel.

Which way was north?

Looking around, Billy saw nothing but trees and low-rising hills. Climbing up to the top of one of the hills, he saw that the sun was directly overhead. That didn't help a whole lot, but at least he knew that he didn't have to wait too long before the sun would show him which way was west. And if he could find west, he could find the other directions.

Not that that would do him any good. What difference did it make if he knew which way was north if he didn't know which way it was to town?

The overhead sun was blistering hot, and the land was radiating the heat back up from the ground. Billy was getting very thirsty, and he believed most of it was because he was just thinking about it.

The vegetation was dry and brown, and as he looked around, waiting for the sun to start its afternoon slide, he saw a little strip of green snaking its way through the brown. For just a moment the sight puzzled him; then he realized what it was.

“Water!” he said aloud. “Glory be! I've found water! And I didn't have to follow any animals or smell it!” He started toward the strip of green.

He could hear the water before he reached it.

“Pa was right,” he said. “You can hear the water.”

Then he was there, and nothing had ever looked more beautiful to him. Lying down on his stomach, Billy lowered his lips into the water, then sucked it up in big gulps.

“Ha! No wonder he said find water,” he said aloud. This, he decided, was McKamy Creek. All he had to do was follow it to where he and his pa had been earlier in the day, then it wouldn't be that much of a walk back to the hotel.

One hour later, he realized he had made a mistake. This creek had run into another creek. Had he gone the wrong way? Was this new creek McKamy? Or was it another creek altogether?

He ate nothing the first day and, because he didn't want to lose the water, spent the first night on the bank of the creek. He thought about making a fire but decided to wait until he had something to cook.

The next afternoon, he managed to snatch a fish up from the water. For a moment or two, he was puzzled as how to cook it. He had no skillet with him. Then he decided to lay it open into two halves, skewer them from head to tail, then put them close to the fire. Soon the air was permeated with a most enticing aroma.

 

 

About four hundred yards away from where Billy was cooking his fish, Jesse was watching him through a pair of field glasses. He had kept Billy under observation from the moment he rode off the day before. He put the glasses down.

“Well, I'll tell you this, Billy,” Jesse said quietly, “you're eating better than I am.”

Jesse took out a piece of jerky and began to eat. In anticipation of this very exercise, he had packed enough in his saddlebags to sustain him for the three days he had allowed.

It didn't take three days. Billy followed the new creek east for a while, then he saw something that gave him a big smile. It was the rusted-out tin can he had shot the first day he and his pa had come out. He knew exactly where he was, and he started south, toward Dallas.