The Big Sky (9 page)

"I'm obliged to ye." Jim kicked the old horse.

It was a cold day, cold and unfriendly, with a little wind that worried at a man and let him be and then came back
and worried him again, as if it couldn't put him out of its mind.

Jim came to a mill, lying silent except for the gurgle of water by its side. It was streaked where the rain had washed channels in the dust. "Hello, the mill." He heard footsteps inside. A man came to the door and looked out and slapped his legs and stomach, sending out puffs of dust. His eyes peered out from whitened lashes for the bag that a farmer would carry on his saddle.

"It ain't business."

The man leaned against the side of the doorway. "Mean day."

"Looked this morning like it was fixin' to fair off."

"Signs lie, just like everybody. You can't put no trust in signs."

Jim brought one leg over and sat sidewise in his saddle. "Reckon not. I got me once right spang at the end of a rainbow, but there wasn't nothin' there but me. You taken any notice of a boy goin' by here afoot, last day or two?"

The miller chewed on a grain of corn. "A lean boy? Tall?"

"That's him."

"A plain-dressed boy?"

"Uh-huh."

"A sull young'n?"

"Quiet-like, anyways."
 

"Sull is what I said."
"When was it?"

"I hollered at him, friendly, but he went by with his eyes down like he was deef. Young'ns got no manners these days. You got to beat manners in a boy. No beatin', no manners."

"When'd you say it was?"

The miller put another grain in his mouth and tried it with his teeth. "Yesterday."

"What time o' day?"

"Round about this time. No, come to think on it, it was earlier." The miller spit out a husk. "Runaway?"

Jim shook his head. "He's my brother. I'm just tryin' to catch up. This the road to Paoli?"

"One of 'em."

Jim grinned at him. "One at a time is a plenty. Obliged." The miller stood in the doorway, chewing on his corn, as the horse plodded away.

Farther on, a dog ran out from a house and planted himself with his legs wide apart, barking. "Anyone to home?" The door of a shed whined open. A man came out and leaned on a manure fork. He'd seen a boy, yesterday, a mean boy who kicked at his dog and went on without a how-de-do. Rifle? No, he didn't have a rifle, just a little sack. It wasn't until Jim rode away that it occurred to him Boone wouldn't have his rifle. A man couldn't swim carrying a gun.

Jim bought himself a bite to eat at the store in Greenville. The storekeeper hadn't seen a tall, dark, plain-dressed boy?

The man rested his hands on the counter and shook his head while his mouth came out like a snout. 'Course, he could have missed him. A store job was half bending over, lifting and opening. A lot of folks went by a body didn't see.

At the tavern across the road they hadn't seen Boone either. He hadn't been in there, hadn't passed by, far as they knew. Jim went to the hitch rack and untied his horse and mounted and rode on, wondering. There wasn't any place for a man to lose himself between the mill and town.

He put up at a farmhouse that night and rode on the next morning in the rain. The farmer had given him a square of canvas to drape across his back, and the rain pattered on it and ran down and wet the saddle and the saddle wet his breeches. He would be something to see when he got off the horse, with his seat sopping as a baby's.

Along toward the middle of the day the rain let up, and the sun got itself from behind the clouds. Jim heard a redbird whistle. It was a prime day for going west, after all, he decided. If only he could find Boone, everything would be slick. Anyone taken notice of a boy, hoofin' it? Could be they missed him. Could be he went by early, or after dark. Giddap! Giddap!

It was growing dark when he arrived at Paoli. He reined up to a tavern and hitched his horse next to a chestnut standing with his head down. Under an antlered skull wired to a board above the door a sign said "White Stag Tavern." There was a bar inside, and a fireplace and tables and chairs, and a little white-haired man with a stomach like a melon who came from behind the bar, his eyes saying, "Well?"

"Kin you put me up?"

"Supper, breakfast, bed, one dollar, hard money."

"I got a horse outside."

"Twenty-five cents more. Hay and a feed of corn."

Jim got out his money. "When's supper?"

"Directly. Your room's first door to the right, upstairs. There's a place to wash in back. You can see the backhouse from there. Make yourself to home."

Jim looked around. An old man sat in a chair by the fireplace, holding a paper that trembled in his hand. His cane was angled against the chair.

The little man went back behind the bar and started to wrestle with a keg.

"I better have a drink," Jim said.

"Whisky? Common, rectified, or Monongahela?"

"Common'll do." Jim leaned against the bar, picked up his whisky and tasted it while his eyes held the little man's attention. "Been a boy by here, last day or two, seventeeneighteen year old?"

The little man stood still. His hands settled on the bar, and his eyes went blank as a dead fish's, as if he were waiting. "Might be," he said.

The old man in the chair rustled his paper. "'Course we seen such a boy, Shorty," he said in a voice sharp and high with age. "He's the one in the jailhouse. Where's your mind gone?"

Jim turned half around. The old man's eyes looked at him over the edge of his paper. The old man's voice asked, "You run into trouble, too?"

Jim said, "No. No trouble."

"What might the boy be like?" Shorty asked.

"You seen him, Shorty," the old man persisted. "Tall, he is, and got a deep, mean look in his eye."

Jim shook his head and sipped again at his whisky. "Mine's middlin'." Shorty was looking at the old man. "Middlin', with a blue eye, and like as not whistlin'. He whistles all the time, like a bird."

The old man said, "'Tain't this 'un, by a damn sight. This 'un tried to rob a man. Went after his horse and rifle. He pounded him around some, too."

"So?„

"That's a fact. There's the rifle, standin' in the corner."

Jim took his glass and walked over to the corner. His eyes went to the gun, studied it, slid to the little man, and came back to the rifle again.

"What did the boy allow?"

The old man answered. "Said the rifle was his'n. Said the man snitched it. He was lyin'."

"What might be the name of the boy you're lookin' for?" Shorty asked.

Jim drained his glass before he answered. "William. Bill Williams. Give me another, will you, mister? He'll be along. He's around somewheres, askin' about mules."

"Mules?"

"Mules." Jim nodded his head and kept his eyes on his refilled glass while Shorty's gaze questioned him. Finally Shorty said, "No mules for sale around here. None that I know of." He turned and gave his attention to the keg again.

"That's the man's horse, outside," the old man volunteered. "So? Reckon they'll put the boy away for a spell."

"Court's already sat. Seven days. They think he's a runaway. That'll give 'em time to see." The old man's head
went behind his paper.

Shorty had the keg in its standard now, and the spigot driven in. He looked up as the door creaked open. "Evenin'. See the door's closed, will you? Damn that dog!"

"Whisky, Shorty."

The customer lifted his drink and looked at it and downed it all at once, with a snap of his head. He paid for it and went out, giving no attention to the dog that had followed him in. The dog sniffed at the corner of the bar, and the little man called Shorty leaned over and yelled, "No, you don't! Goddam you, Curly Locks, git away from there!" It was a big brown dog, furred from toenails to topknot with long, slim rings of hair that joggled when he walked.

Jim said, "I never seed a dog like that."

"Never will another time," Shorty promised. "That there's a piss hound."
"Never heerd of such."

"He's the only one. He ain't mine, but he comes in here a hundred times a day, and, first off, he makes for the corner there and gives it a smell, and up comes his leg."

"So?"

"Look!" said the little man. "He kin come in here and sprinkle and I put him out, and directly someone lets him in, and what you think?"

Jim shook his head.

"By God, he goes right there and smells again, and don't even recognize hisself, from just a wink before. So up his leg comes. . . ." The little man trailed off.

"Why'n't you knock him one on the head?"

"He belongs to the sheriff."

The old man rustled his paper. From behind it he said, "And the sheriff leaves money aplenty here."

Shorty came from behind the bar and put the dog out. "Take a chair. Time Ma had supper ready." He went through a door. Jim heard him say, "Ready, Ma? Good God, what you been doin'?"

A woman's voice answered, hot and high-pitched. "You git back in there, Shorty Carey. I been workin', that's what, workin' and wearin' my fingers to a nub while you're in there drammin'. Supper'll be ready when it's suppertime."

Shorty came back, shaking his head. "Maybe you want to wash first. There's time to put up your horse. You'll see the barn. Take the third stall."

"I'll let the horse go for a spell. Reckon I could stand a wash though."

When Jim came back, a table had been set and bowls of food were sending up little clouds of vapor. Three men were at the table. One of them had on a black coat on which a metal star shone. The other wore a cutaway and had dropped a gray greatcoat over the back of his chair. The third was the old man who had been reading a paper. His hand shook with age as it carried food to his mouth. Shorty motioned Jim to a chair at the table. "Set up and eat." A woman in an apron came from the kitchen, carrying more food.

The men looked at Jim as he sat down. "Evenin'," he said. The sheriff had a bruise under one eye, which would get black, likely. The man in the cutaway said, "Good evening."

Jim realized, when the sheriff turned to speak to him, that the man had some drinks under his belt. "I don't recollect seein' you around before."

"First time."

"Passin' through?" The sheriff's eyes questioned him.

Jim asked, "Heerd what St. Louis's offerin' for mules?"

The old man said, "Plenty. Got some?"

"I know where some are, anyways. If it was me, I'd have a piece of meat on that there eye, sheriff."

"Don't amount to nothin'." He said to his companion, "That boy fit, Bedwell, like a b'ar, as I been tellin' you. Jesus!"

They were quiet for a while, and then the sheriff added, "He ain't going to feel so pert tomorrow. Second day's the worst, by a whole lot."

"Get anything from him?" Bedwell asked.

"Not more'n two or three words, and they was cuss words. A little more leather'll loosen his tongue."

The sheriff pushed his plate away from him. His voice rolled out strong as any hound's. "Bring a bottle over, Shorty. I can spit more'n your glasses hold."

Shorty filled a bottle from a keg. He brought it over, and two glasses with it. "Drink?" the sheriff asked of Jim, as if he didn't mean it. "Not now. Obliged." The old man got up, clearing his throat, and went back to his chair by the fireplace.

As the sheriff poured the drinks Bedwell said, "I got no business idlin' here thisaway, sheriff. It's the company, I reckon."

The door at the front opened, and Curly Locks came in behind the man who had opened it. The dog eased over to the corner of the bar. Shorty came from the kitchen just then and said "Git!" and made as if to kick him, and Curly Locks dropped his leg and backed up. He padded over to Jim, his tongue rolling out of the side of his mouth, and stopped while Jim's hand rubbed his ears.

"Shorty's awful damn particular," the sheriff said, refilling the glasses. "Won't let my dog piss on his bar, but what he sells you out of his bar'ls is the same stuff."

Shorty grunted.

Bedwell got out a pipe and puffed on it slow and deep. Jim leaned over and talked to the dog while he scratched the furry head. The sheriff, by littles, was getting quiet with the drink in him. His eyes were unwinking and fixed, and Jim could tell he wasn't seeing anything, except what was in his mind. He just grunted and went on drinking and staring when two more men came in . and walked over to him. One of them said, "Hear you're still champeen, sheriff." When he didn't answer they went to the bar. By and by the sheriff said, "I ought to take some supper to that there boy." His hand reached into the pocket of his black coat and came out with a key through which a whang was looped. It was a long, rusty key, which the sheriff kept turning under his thumbs, looking at it but not really seeing it. "Serve him right if I left him empty." He put down the key and lifted his glass, and then put the glass down and picked the key up and fiddled with it some more.

"Why not?" asked Bedwell.

"Got to keep him strong, so's he can work on the road."

It was a big key, too big to hide easy, even if a man could sneak it off the table. Jim's hand explored Curly Lock's head. "I ought to take him some victuals." The sheriff didn't move, except to fill his glass.

Might be a man could slip the whang around the dog's neck and make an excuse to go out, whispering Curly Locks out with him. But it was risky. Like as not someone would see the key dangling. Jim's hand pulled a curl out to its full length. The key would show some, for all that hair.

The sheriff felt of his eye again. Jim could see his eyeballs were getting red. Bedwell was humming a little song to himself. The key was out on the table, the whang lying in a circle from it. Wouldn't do to ask about the key. Wouldn't do to eye it too much. Jim got up and strolled to the bar and bought himself a drink, and then went out to the backhouse. Sometimes a man could think best when his breeches were down, he reflected as he lowered himself. What if he started a blaze in the privy and went running in yelling fire? No good. A man didn't have no excuse for firing a privy. What if he touched off the tavern? Jesus, they'd lock a man away for a coon's age if they caught him.