The Big Rock Candy Mountain (57 page)

Chet yelled, cheered, waved to Frankie far down below. When he took his eyes off the flying white figure and woke up to where he was, Mrs. Angus was only a few rods away, bearing down on him with her face puckered in anger. Like a scared antelope Chet cut for the woods. At first he didn't really fear her much. Then, a little way inside the aspen, he glanced back to see her almost upon him. She was almost as fast as Angus. Fear put a spurt of speed in Chet's legs, but he couldn't shake her. He heard her feet pounding on the path behind, close upon him. In a minute her hand might reach out ...

Like a flash he dropped to hands and knees. Mrs. Angus' heavy knee hit him solidly, knocking his wind half out, and she went over him ponderously, grabbing for him as she fell. But Chet scrambled loose and escaped like a limping, winded fox into the brush.

 

When Chet got home from that expedition he hid the six-shooter in the cellar and kept his mouth discreetly shut, waiting to see what would happen. A time or two he slipped home from school at noon, when he knew his mother would be down at the postoffice seeing if there was a letter from Pa, and took out the gun to snap and fondle it. But it came Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and nothing happened. Angus wasn't going to raise a fuss, or maybe he didn't know who to raise it at.

He and Frankie had started building an elaborate shanty in the brush by the east ford. Pete came in, over Frankie's protest, when he produced a full bag of Bull Durham stolen from his father. Bill came in too on the strength of half a raisin pie he had got from home. They camouflaged the shanty with brush, disguised the path in. And on Thursday afternoon Chet proposed that they take the six-shooter down and have some target practice. Shells for a .44 probably cost plenty, so everybody'd have to divvy in.

A quick foray under the plank sidewalk in front of the hotel turned up a dime and a good deal of tea lead. Crawling out, they scattered to their homes to see what could be raised.

In half an hour all were back. Bill had a dime. Pete had hooked seventeen cents from his father's second-best pants. Frankie had only four pennies. Mr. Lipscomb wouldn't give him any money, and he was scared to hook any. Chet had bummed a dime from his mother. Altogether they had fifty-one cents.

“I should think that'd be enough,” Chet said. He shifted his pants, because the .44 was inside them and kept slipping down. On their way to the hardware store they ran into Bruce, going. to mail a letter for Ma. That was the second one she had sent in two days.

“Don't you go following us,” he warned Bruce.

“Why? What you gonna do?”

“None of your business. You just stay away, is all.”

“I guess I can walk where I want to,” Bruce said.

“You're too little to hang around with us,” Chet said, and hitched his pants. The string that hung the gun around his neck was cutting into him; he walked a little spraddling to keep the pistol from banging against his stomach.

They ditched Bruce and went into the hardware. Mr. McGregor‘s, pale egg-like bald head came forward along the dark counter. On a nail keg sat Jewel King, hugging his knees.

“Hi, Mr. King,” Chet said.

“Hi, boy,” King said. “Been throwing any parties lately?”

“No sir,” Chet said. He wished he could forget that Mr. King was town marshal, and he wished he hadn't brought the gun along in here. It was so dark that probably the little bulge it made wasn't noticeable, but it bothered him anyway, and he crowded against the counter. “Have you got any .44 cartridges?” he said to Mr. McGregor.

Mr. McGregor bent over the counter. “You mean .45, don't you?”

“No..44.”

“That's an old-fashioned size,” Mr. McGregor said. “If you really want anything that big you must want .45's. What do you want them for?”

“It's for a gun of Pa‘s,” Chet said. “It's .44, I know.”

Mr. McGregor looked across at Jewel King. His toothless mouth wrinkled up like the mouth of a paper bag. “You ever see a .44, Jewel?”

“Sure,” Jewel said. “They make ‘em, all right.” He let his knee down and said to Chet, “You haven't got the gun handy, have you? Maybe we could tell.”

Chet swallowed. Jewel King was looking at him from one side, Mr. McGregor from the other. Bruce had come in and was standing by the door. “No,” Chet said. “I haven't got the gun. I just wanted some to ... to ...”

Jewel's hand came out suddenly and patted him around the waist, felt the gun, dragged it out, broke the string. He looked the pistol over and showed it to Mr. McGregor. Mr. McGregor nodded his head up and down. “Give themselves away every time,” he said.

Jewel spoke sadly to Chet, who was standing frozen, not trying to run. “I'm sorry to do this, boy,” Jewel said, “but I've got to arrest you. You stole that gun from Tex Davis' place. Didn't you?”

Chet swallowed. The door slammed and he turned his head quickly. Frankie and Pete and Bill had all skipped, and only Bruce stood inside the door.

“Yes sir,” Chet said.

Mr. McGregor munched his gums together and cackled. “ ‘Y God it's funny,” he said. “Both in jail the same time. That's a funny one.”

“What?” Chet said.

Jewel King looked at him soberly. “Don't you know?”

“Know what?”

“Never mind,” Jewel said. “I'll have to take you over to the jail, and then I'll have to go see your mother. I don't like to see you in a mess like this, Chet. I had a pretty high opinion of you, up till now.”

As they started for the door Bruce, pale and weeping, turned and fled. When they got out on the street Chet saw him streaking along the irrigation ditch toward home.

“He said that?”

Elsa rose slowly from the chair in the kitchen and stared at Bruce. He nodded, sniffling.

“But how could he know,” she said, half to herself, “when I just got the letter today?”

“He just took hold of Chet and said, ‘I'm sorry, boy, but I've got to arrest you,' and then Mr. McGregor said that about both of them at the same time. Is Pa in jail, Ma?”

Elsa put her hand in her apron pocket and felt the letter. “No,” she said.

“What are they going to do to Chet?”

“Never mind,” she said. “You run out and play. I'll go get Chet straightened out.”

“I want to come, Ma.”

She said, “You stay as far out of this as you can get. I'll be back pretty soon.”

Along the ditch bank, as she went uptown, there were purple crocuses, and the primroses were just beginning to fold their petals together. A chilly little wind blew in from the river. So now everything's falling apart, she said. Now Bo's in jail in Havre and Chet's in jail at home, and we're right back where we started in Dakota,
only worse now,
with the kids in it.

Walking, she pulled out the letter and read it again. Two policemen had been waiting at the line, picked him up before he could get across. He was full of shame, he couldn't blame himself enough for bringing this on her. They had confiscated the car and the load and had him charged with smuggling. “I should have listened to you, Sis,” he wrote, “but I wanted so damned much to get out of the hole. If I could have made a good stake at this we could have gone anywhere you wanted, and settled down to some steady business. I was just sick of living on sowbelly and beans in a dirty little jerkwater town, I guess. They've got me in jail with a nigger, but I'm not complaining. I'm no better than a nigger, the way I've made you live. I hope you won't think you have to tell the kids. If this turns out all right I'll make it up to you, that's a promise ...”

She put the letter away again. Don't tell the kids.

At the jail she found Jewel King. “I was just going to call you,” he said, “but I thought I better let Chet stew a while in the jail-house.” He chuckled, and his belly shook. “He's got guts, that kid,” he said. “Most kids would of bawled, but he just sits there and grits his teeth. I like to see a kid like that.”

“Do you like to see a boy steal?”

“Oh, steal,” Jewel said. “This wasn't really stealing. Any kid would snitch a gun if he found it in a deserted shanty. He's just full of beans. I wouldn't of put him in the cooler only Angus MacLeod was pretty hot, said a bunch of them swiped the gun and some other stuff and then tried to burn the house down.”

“Oh Lord!” Elsa said. “Did they?”

“Naw. Angus come along and put it out.” Jewel fished up a bent cigar. “I wouldn't worry, Elsa. Chet wasn't the only one. We got the gun back, and if you give Angus four-five dollars damages everything's all right.”

“Who are the others?”

“I don't know. Chet wouldn't tell.”

“But he stole the gun himself.”

“I guess so. He had it on him.”

“All right,” she said. “I'll give you five dollars for Angus. Chet was the ringleader. He always is. I want him to spend the night in jail.”

“Oh now, that ain't necessary,” Jewel said.

“I want him to stay in jail anyway,” Elsa said. “I want him to learn what it means to break laws and get in trouble.”

She met Jewel's queer, sidelong look steadily. “Now can I see him a minute?” she said.

He led her into the little cell back of the firehouse, where Chet slumped on a bench. He rose when the door opened, and Elsa felt a pang at the sight of his face, white and set and too old for him. Like father like son, she thought. Shame and sullenness and eagerness for sympathy and determination to act like a man whatever happened—his face said exactly the same things as Bo's letter.

“Well, Chet,” she said.

“Hello, Ma.”

“I never expected to see you in a jail,” she said.

He stood sullenly silent. He would not, she saw, attempt to deny his guilt or plead with her. There again he was like Bo. He was what he was, and he wouldn't pretend to be anything else. Bruce would have lied, in the same situation. Chet might much more likely go clear wrong, but he'd go in his own way, with a kind of pride.

“I hope you realize what you've done,” she said. “I wouldn't like to see a boy of mine grow up a thief.”

She stopped then, because she didn't want to add the humiliation of tears to his punishment. “Mr. King will let you out in the morning in time for breakfast,” she said. “You come home and eat and get ready for school.”

Chet turned and sat down on the bench, and to keep from crying herself she brushed past Jewel and went outside. “I'd rather spend the night in there myself than make him do it,” she said.

“Yeah,” Jewel said. “Well, I'll see that Diamond Dick gets back home all right. Don't worry about the jail. That's a good clean jail. No bugs or anything.”

“Will he have to sleep on that bench? I didn't see any bed.”

“Bed in the firehouse part,” he said. “He'll be okay.”

“All right.” She looked hard at Jewel. “But don't you be too easy on him. Don't give him the idea that what he's done is smart, or manly, or anything. I want him to know that being in jail is a disgrace.”

 

So now there would be waiting again, as it seemed to her she had waited all the time she had known Bo. Now there would be sitting day after day busying herself with little unimportant things, but jumping at the slightest noise, running to the window at the slightest flash of movement along the south road. There would be getting through the day somehow, anyhow, getting the boys to bed, sitting in the evenings to do fancy work or to read, and her ears twice as alert as in daylight, her mind twice as receptive to frettings and worry. There would be dragging off to bed with the worries waiting for her to lie down, hanging over her like mosquitoes on a warm night.

There would be the escapes she had used before, the daydreams and the memories of childhood that sometimes were so similar that they confused her: pictures of quiet streets, apple trees heavy with fruit or white with blossoms in a green back yard, her children scuffling leaves under the maples and running to greet Bo when he came down the sidewalk on ‘a summer evening, coming from work with his coat on his arm and the six-o'clock sun on his face. That dream expanded indefinitely: neighbors dropped in for rootbeer and whist, Bo told stories, did card tricks, sang songs, kept them all laughing. There were good nights of tenderness and love, and in the mornings Bo's voice singing a fool song.

She didn't want much. Yet it seemed to her sometimes as if life had conspired to keep from her exactly that one thing that she desired, and as if her husband and her children, who were the single indispensable part of her day-dreams, should be the ones to destroy what she had been working for.

 

One night she sat reading a novel that someone had loaned her. It was all about castaways on a cannibal island, and war with wooden swords between the tribes, and it was romantic and exciting and a little silly, but she kept at it because if she didn't she would have to think. Once her head lifted: it sounded like someone out behind. But there had been too many of those false alarms lately. Her ears were like the ears of a dog pricking in sleep at phantasmal noises.

Then she heard it again, distinctly. She stood up just as the door between dining room and kitchen opened and Bo's grinning face looked in.

She dropped the book and ran to him, was swept into his bear-hug. When he set her down and she could look at his face his eyes were sly and warm.

“Hi, Mama,” he said. “How've you been?”

“Oh, all right,” she said. She had him by the arms, looking him over. There was something different about him, something gayer and younger. His clothes ...