The Big Sky (6 page)

It was still early when he caught sight of a town and stopped to consider. If he circled it he might lose Jonathan Bedwell's trail, might pass him by while he was tied up at an inn. But he pulled away from the thought of entering the place, of being looked at and questioned and circled around with strangers' ways. He would eat first, anyway. Maybe eating would take the ache out of his head. Behind a small growth that screened him from the trail he built a fire and made more journey cakes and warmed two slices of his fat meat and choked the food down, against the uneasy turning of his stomach. When he got up he struck in an arc around the town.

Beyond it the road was marked more by hoofs and wheels. No longer could he feel sure that it was the tracks of Bedwell's horse he saw. There were a half-dozen sets of fresh tracks, now separate, now mixed, now blurred by the ribbon marks of tires. Boone faced toward the town, thinking again that he ought to go into it and shrinking from it again.

He traveled all day, walking even-timed, thinking now about Ma and now about Deakins and now about Bedwell and always about his stolen rifle. It hung in his mind, pulling him on. Somewhere he would come up on Bedwell. Some way he would get his gun back. The sun let itself down from overhead and looked him in the face and went on, sliding behind the far hills. He passed a two-story log house set back from the trail, and beyond it saw a lone hen pecking in the road. He looked back to see if anybody watched, then reached into his poke and drew out a handful of meal. He moved off the trail, to a tree that hid him from the house, and began scattering his hand of bait, singing a soft "Here, chuck, chuck, chuckie! Here, chuck, chuck, chuckie!" Twenty feet away, the hen canted her head and fixed one bright eye on him. She came over, waddling and suspicious, and took a long-necked peck at the nearest fleck of corn. Boone swung his hand slowly, letting the meal sift from his fingers. She tilted her head at him again, studying him for danger. He fanned out another pinch. The eye left him and fixed on the ground and the head went down with a jerk and the beak picked up another crumb, and another, and another. The neck stretched for more, and one foot moved the hungry beak ahead. "Chuck, Chuckie!" The other foot moved and then the first, while the beak did its tiny beat. Boone fell forward, smothering the bird in his arms. She started a wild outcry, but his quick fist choked it off, and she stared at him, silent and lidless and fearful, as he brought her under his arm.

He scanned the back trail again and struck off to the right toward a bunch of locusts. Through the trees he saw a sinkhole, and in the steep and rocky farther side a black triangle that he took to be the entrance to a cave. He let himself down into the sinkhole, skirted the puddle at its bottom, and climbed the small bluff and looked in. At its beginning the cave was big enough to hold a man, standing or lying. He squinted into it, and as his eyes widened saw that it choked off into two small tunnels. The place had the rank, sour smell of vixens and pups, but the floor was smooth, and the walls and roof would protect him from the night's wet chill.

Boone climbed down, took the hen from under his arm and tore her head off. While she fluttered he gathered firewood and placed it inside the cave. He kindled a small fire just inside the entrance, watching with satisfaction as the slow breath of the cavern carried the smoke outside.

At the edge of the puddle he dressed his hen and ran her through with a length of green sapling. Back at the fire he rested the sapling in the forks of two sticks raised at the sides of the blaze and made solid with stones. He went into the cave and sat down to wait, eased by the warmth that had begun to creep inside. It was good to rest, to let his muscles hang loose and aimless, to feel hunger in his stomach again, to be shut of the dizzy ache in his head. There seemed nothing so bad with him now that getting his gun back wouldn't fix it. He turned the bird on its spit.

He ate half the half-raw hen. Afterwards he restrung the carcass on the sapling and leaned the sapling against the side of the cave. He renewed his fire and lay down, and a dead sleep closed on him.

Morning came wet and dismal. He sat up and rubbed his eyes and squirmed the crimps from his muscles. He could hear rain on the stones, dropping from ledge to ledge. He looked out and saw the sky close and gray, with tatters of rain clouds beating low before the breeze. Inside the cave it was dry and windless. He felt a small, quick pleasure at being there. It would be good to stay, safe and sheltered, while the day made its gloomy turn.

He took the body of the hen from its stick and began to wrench at it with his teeth. There wasn't much left, even for a fox, when he got through. He picked up his poke and set out, hunched against the rain. By the time he hit the road he was wet to the skin but warm from moving. Ahead of him the way ran, to Paoli, Vincennes, St. Louis. He walked at its side, out of the mud, studying the tracks for some sign that Bedwell had gone before him. After a while the sun came out.

The day was drawing on to noon when he spied the man in the black coat. The man was sitting a horse which he had pulled up at the top of a rise, sitting there motionless, looking off to the north, thinking, or watching something, or waiting for somebody. While Boone paused, the man's hand went inside his coat and came out with a pistol. Boone slipped to one side of the trail behind a tree. Still holding the pistol, the man got off his horse and tied it up. While his back was squarely turned Boone sneaked closer, watching through a screen of brush. The man picked a dead leaf from the ground and walked over to a tree and stuck the leaf against it, behind a finger of bark. He walked back about twenty steps, then leveled at the leaf and fired. Bark flew from the tree, almost a full hand above the leaf. The man shook his head and began reloading.

Boone slipped deeper into the woods and edged around behind him, keeping trees and bushes between them, planning to ease by and go on. It wouldn't do to let himself be seen spying. It made a body feel small, being caught that way. Besides, he didn't know about the man. You couldn't tell about strangers. Maybe, seeing him, this one would up and shoot. Or ask questions. Or take him into a town. If Boone had his own rifle, now, he might feel different. He could drill that leaf plumb center with Sure Shot. Despite his care the man saw him, just as he was about to get out of sight. The man shouted, "Hey, boy!" Boone made out not to hear. "Hey, you! What you running fer?" But now he was out of sight, and he stopped and waited, his breath light and quick in his throat, asking himself why he ran and whether he should run again if the man chased him. He hadn't done anything -in Indiana, anyway to make him shy away from people this way, unless it was to steal a hen. After while he heard the pop of the pistol and knew the man had gone back to his practice.

He listened as he went on, and watched the back trail, ready to slip into the woods and hide, and before he had gone a mile he caught a glimpse of movement behind him. A horseshoe rang against rock. The woods were thin here, but off to the left a thick stump squatted. He ran to it and threw himself down behind it, watching through a fringe of grass, hearing a long outward snuffle of the horse before he could see it. From behind a cluster of trees rode a dove great coat and a white beaver hat, and under it a sharp, lined face. Boone saw Old Sure Shot, tied to the saddle. He lay there until the horse and man had passed him and lost themselves in the woods ahead, reminding himself as they went by that a man couldn't outrun a horse or go up against a rifle unarmed, either. Then he got up and set out after them, trotting to keep close.

He came on Bedwell suddenly an hour later. Making a turn at the edge of a grove that had hidden the way, he saw the horse drinking at a creek that crossed the road, and Bedwell on the ground with his back toward him, flicking his snug leg with the switch he carried in his hand. They were no more than a stone's throw away. While Boone watched, Bedwell opened his breeches and made water, buttoning up slowly afterwards.

Now was the time, Boone told himself, but careful, careful! His hand dropped the poke. He felt his legs running under him and a breeze fanning his face. His feet kicked up a noise in the road. Bedwell straightened his trousers and turned and saw him and set himself, waiting, not trying to get the rifle from the saddle. He stood there and met the charge, and they went down, rolling into the little stream and out of it. Boone heard the horse snort and saw the hoofs dance away. He felt the man's hand slip under his cap and clamp on his hair. The other hand came up and the thumb of it found Boone's eye, and now the two hands worked together, the one holding his head while the thumb of the second pushed into the socket. Pain was like a knife turning in his skull. The eye started from its hole. He let go of Bedwell's throat and tore himself free and scrambled to his feet. Bedwell stood blurred before him, stood dripping, his lips a little open, not saying anything, the lines making small half circles at the corners of his mouth. His eyes studied Boone. Boone lunged in, swinging at the face. Bedwell's knee jerked up, and his hands pushed Boone away as if the last lick had been struck. Boone doubled and stumbled back. A straining noise came out of his throat. He tried to straighten against the fierce pain in his groin.

"Well?" asked Bedwell. His hand brushed at the mud on his coat.

"You taken my rifle!"

"So?"

"I aim to git it back."

"Aim ahead."

"I ain't through yit."

Bedwell's eyes slid off Boone, looking over his shoulder, and a sudden glint came into them that Boone did not understand. He was smiling now, smiling on one side of his face. "Afraid, aren't you, pup?"

Boone's shoulder caught him in the chest. The man went over, easy this time, with Boone on top of him. The strength seemed to have drained out of Bedwell. He tried to squirm from under and fell back, grunting. His hands fluttered, fending Boone's thumbs from his eyes. He was yelling, making a roar in Boone's ears. "Help! Help!" Boone got his hand beneath the flutter. His thumb poked for an eye. It had just found it when a voice like a horn sounded. "Stop it, damn you! Stop it!"

A hand grabbed Boone's shoulder and jerked him loose.

The man in the black coat stood over him, and now Boone saw there was a star on the coat. "I'm the sheriff."

"Thank God, sheriff!" It was Bedwell speaking. He got to his feet and picked his white hat from the water and brushed at it. "He would have killed me." He pointed at Boone. "Must be crazy."

The sheriff's gaze went to Boone. "I seen him afore, sneakin' through the woods."

"He slipped up on me. I was letting my horse drink, and he charged me from behind."

"What's the idee, boy?" the sheriff asked, and answered his own question. "Robbery, that's what." His eyes went to Bedwell's horse, standing hip-shot across the creek. "Wanted to get the gentleman's horse and rifle and outfit, didn't you?"

"No."

Bedwell was nodding his head. "I hadn't thought of that, sheriff."

The sheriff went on, "I bet you'd've jumped me, only you seen my pistol."

"He stoled my gun. I aimed to git it back," Boone said.

The sheriff's voice was a pounding in Boone's ears. "That why you got to go sneakin' through the woods like a varmint?"

"He stoled it."

"What you doin" -the sheriff's eyes went over Boone's dirty homespun-"with a handsome piece like that?"

"He stoled it, I said."

Bedwell gave the sheriff a small smile. "Poor excuse."

"Worser than none. Come along, both of you."
 
 

The sheriff's thumb signaled the direction. "March!" he said. "No funny business, now." He had his pistol in his hand. To Bedwell he said, "You climb your horse and go ahead. We'll keep him 'twixt us." He strode back, keeping his eyes fixed over his shoulder on Boone, and caught up his own horse. Bedwell grinned at Boone. He said softly, "Looks like you won't get to St. Louis for a spell." They set off, Bedwell and the sheriff, mounted, at head and tail of the line and Boone, afoot, between them.

They came into a town a mile farther on. Boone took it for Paoli. Alongside Louisville it was a little place, but it was still big enough, and it was all eyes and moving lips.

The eyes looked at Boone from windows and doorways and the lips said things, and people closed the doors and walked over to fall in with the sheriff, and he could feel their eyes boring at his back and hear their lips talking.
"What is it, sheriff?"

"That young'n there."

"Looks rough, sure enough."

"Is there gonna be a trial?"

The sheriff's big voice said, "Could be."

"The jury ain't been excused, from yesterday."

"The president judge went off to Corydon, but the side judges are around."

"All side and no judges."

The voices cackled. They were making fun behind him, like going to a quilting or a bee. Bedwell seemed to like it. He squirmed around on his horse, smiled at the men following, and said to the sheriff, "I hope we can get this over with quick. I got to get on."

The courthouse was a long, low building, made of logs. "Tie up here," the sheriff said to Bedwell, and hitched his own horse at the rack. "I'll take the rifle, and your horn and pouch." He motioned them inside. "Git the coroner for me, will you?" he asked one of the men before he went in.

Boone found himself in that part of the room meant for judges and lawyers and the jury and people who were lawing. At the front of it were a platform and a high bench, and behind the high bench was another bench, with a back to it, to sit on. Out from the platform were three tables and some chairs, and at the side of it were places for the jury to sit. The section was separated from the rest of the room by a pole which ran from side to side and was tied to the walls. Beyond the pole were hewn benches for those who wanted to watch and listen. A few people already sat there, and more were coming, entering through a door at the other side of the pole. The sheriff motioned, "Set down." A dark little man with eyes like wet acorns touched the sheriff on the arm. The sheriff said, "Hello, Charlie. We got to get set. Seen Eggleston and the judges?"