The Gentleman Outlaw and Me-Eli (2 page)

It didn't take more than a minute to sneak across the grass and grab a pair of overalls and a shirt. I picked the oldest and shabbiest ones on the line. Surely nobody'd miss them or want them either.

'Least I hoped not. I didn't like stealing, but how else was I going to get a disguise? I sure couldn't afford to leave one of my gold coins in exchange for some raggedy old clothes.

As soon as I was safe in the woods, I slipped out of my dress and undergarments. Never in my life had I been stark naked outside in the moonlight. Whooping like a banshee, I kicked up my heels and did a little dance to celebrate my freedom. Caesar ran around in circles, wagging his tail and grinning. He was just as happy as I was.

When a cold breeze tiptoed up and down my bare
spine, I gave up dancing and shivered into my new clothes. The overalls were a mite big, but that meant I had growing room, which I sorely needed. Lately I'd been shooting up faster than Jack's beanstalk.

I pulled on my shoes, thanking my stars Aunt Mabel was of a practical mind. When you have a niece waiting on you hand and foot, fetching and carrying, cleaning and scrubbing, you don't go wasting money on fancy slippers for her. She'd given me an old pair of Uncle Homer's boots and stuffed the toes with rags so's they wouldn't fall off. Frankly, they looked a sight smarter with my overalls than they had with my dresses.

Next I used my jackknife to hack off my braids. The blade was rusty and it hurt like the very dickens, but I managed to get my hair as short as a boy's.

The only thing I saved from my life as a girl was the locket hanging around my neck. Inside it were Mama's and Papa's pictures. As long as I kept the chain hidden under my shirt, nobody would see it.

Gathering up my dress, petticoat, and braids, I carried them to the railroad bridge just outside Clark Summit and tossed them over the edge. When my dress hit the water, it puffed up with air as though someone was still wearing it. I watched it float away taking my old self with it—an odd sensation but not altogether unpleasant.

"Good-bye, Eliza Yates," I whispered.

Though it was probably nothing but a muffled echo, I swear the river murmured, "Elijah Bates."

Elijah Bates—it was the perfect name for my new self. Enough like Eliza Yates to make it easy to remember, yet fit for a boy.

Repeating the name with every step, I ran across the bridge toward the Clark Summit train depot. Caesar raced ahead, looking back every now and then to make sure I was still behind him. That old dog didn't care what I called myself or what clothes I wore. Eliza Yates or Elijah Bates, I was the one he loved best in the whole wide world.

B
Y THE TIME THE TICKET AGENT OPENED THE
depot, the sun was just coming up. Caesar and I had been waiting on the platform for about two hours. To pass the time, we'd eaten all our food except an apple. Even though I was tuckered out from walking instead of sleeping, I was too excited to be tired. After all, this was the first day of my new life as Elijah Bates.

The ticket agent peered at me through his little window. "Well, well, you're up bright and early, sonny. What can I do for you today?"

I grinned when I heard him call me "sonny." Knowing I'd passed my first test, I shoved one of my gold coins under the grill. "I want a ticket on the first train heading west," I said, mimicking Little Homer's gruff voice.

The ticket agent studied the coin as if he thought it might be counterfeit. Raising his eyes but not his
eyebrows, he frowned at me. "Where did you get this money, young man?"

I stared at him, guessing what he suspicioned. Lordy, he thought I'd stolen that ten dollars. "It's mine," I said, feeling my newfound confidence in my boyhood slip away.

The ticket agent slid the gold eagle round and round with one stubby finger. His nails were as dirty as if he'd spent the morning digging a hole in the earth with his bare hands.

"Well, now," he said thoughtfully, "I don't normally see raggedy boys with a ten-dollar gold piece in their pocket. Maybe you better take a seat over there while I send for the sheriff. Surely you won't mind cooling your heels till he gets hisself on over here. Not if this is really and truly your money."

I looked at the ticket agent. If the sheriff got involved in this, I was deader than dead. Who'd take the word of a child against a full-grown man like the ticket agent?

Reaching under the grill, I grabbed my money and ran.

"Come back here, boy!" the ticket agent hollered. I believe he meant to chase me but thought better of it when he saw Caesar.

"With that red hair, you won't get far!" he yelled. "I'll give your description to the sheriff, and he'll do up a poster with your face on it!"

Without looking back, I headed for the woods as
fast as I could go. Didn't slow down until I'd put at least a mile between Clark Summit and me. Even then I kept up a good pace. For all I knew, the sheriff had nothing better to do than chase after boys like me.

By late afternoon, I was hot and thirsty and hungry and tired. I'd never walked so far in Uncle Homer's big old boots. They were rubbing my heels raw. Finally I found a shady spot and flopped down in the grass, too weary to take another step. Hard as the ground was, it felt good to lie still.

Caesar collapsed beside me and panted in my face, not an altogether pleasant experience. I guess he was as hungry as I was, but all I had was the apple. When I showed it to him, he sniffed and turned his head away. I went ahead and ate it, but I swear I was hungrier after I'd finished it than I'd been before.

I lay in the grass, trying to ignore the ants crawling up and down my arms like I was their own private thoroughfare, and wondered what I should do next.

Overhead, thrushes were singing, showering me with music that fell like drops of gold from the treetops. Their song reminded me of a sad, sad story Mama once read to me. "The Babes in the Woods" it was called. It told of two poor children who lost their way in the wilderness. The birds took pity on them and covered their little bodies with leaves, but the children starved to death anyway.

Soon I began to think Caesar and I might end up like that boy and girl. We'd die here, and the birds would cover us. And then Papa would take it into his head to come back to Kansas. He'd be walking along this exact same trail and he'd stumble on my skeleton in the leaves, see the shiny locket round my neck, and know it was me, his own daughter, the child he'd abandoned so long ago.

Papa would gather the bones, not knowing, which were mine and which were Caesar's, and bury us together. Above our grave, he'd put a stone sculpture of a girl and a dog. The inscription would say H
ERE LIE POOR
E
LIZA
Y
ATES AND HER ONE AND ONLY FRIEND
, C
AESAR, A NOBLE DOG.

Thinking these thoughts made me so sad I cried myself to sleep. When I woke up, I was surprised to see the sun had set. Pink light lingered in the western sky, but the woods were darkening fast and the air was cold.

Belly empty, I shivered and got to my feet. At the same time, a gust of wind rustled the leaves overhead, bringing with it the smell of woodsmoke and beef stew. My stomach growled so loudly Caesar barked.

"Hush," I whispered. "We'll sneak over to the fire and see who's doing the cooking. If they look kindly, we'll ask if we can please have a bite."

Caesar and I crept through the trees and underbrush like Indians, scarcely making a sound. Not
that it mattered much. The three men gathered around the campfire were raising such a ruckus they wouldn't have heard a runaway circus elephant on the rampage. As if whooping and hollering weren't enough, one of them fired a gun every now and then. The sound made their horses whinny and rear up. Startled the birds too, especially the crows roosting right over my head who added their caws to the racket.

It was plain to see the men weren't the kindly sort who'd share their food with a poor boy and his dog. The best thing to do was to wait until they fell asleep and then help ourselves to whatever was left in the pot.

Caesar and I hunkered down behind a big tree. The more the men drank, the louder they talked. The cuss words flew, too bad to repeat. If you're a poet of profanity, most likely you can imagine them for yourself.

When it was good and dark, a tall, skinny man with a face as flat as a shovel said, "Are we going to kill him or just leave him here to die on his own?"

For a second, I thought the man meant me, but before I gave myself away by begging for mercy, I realized some poor soul was lying on the ground on the other side of the fire. It was him they were talking about, not me.

The leader laughed the nastiest laugh I ever heard. "We got his money, his horse, and his gold watch. He ain't worth a bullet now."

"Don't forget he seen our faces, Roscoe," Shovel Face said. "If we don't kill him, he's bound to head straight for the sheriffs office. We're worth a lot of reward money."

Roscoe pulled out a pistol and looked at it like he was studying what to do. While he was deciding, he took a couple more swigs from a jug of whiskey.

Shovel Face started waving his pistol. "I swear if you don't kill him, I will. I ain't ready for the hanging tree." While he spoke, he listed to one side like gravity was pulling hard in that direction.

The third outlaw, a runty, bowlegged man with a bald head, was sitting on the ground watching. He'd look from Roscoe to Shovel Face and back again to Roscoe just like he was at a tennis game. Every now and then he hiccuped so hard his whole body shook. Then he'd giggle real high like a nervous girl.

Strangest of all, the man lying on the ground never said a word. Maybe he was asleep. I hoped he was. That way he wouldn't know when they shot him.

"If there's going to be any killing, I'm the one to do it." Roscoe pointed the gun at his chest, for emphasis I guess, and almost shot himself.

Staggering over to the man on the ground, he nudged him with his boot. "You got any last words, Featherbone?"

I leaned forward, hoping to see the doomed man's face, but it was too dark. I heard his answer, though.
"I wouldn't waste my precious breath on an ignorant lout such as yourself," he said.

Though the words he spoke were brave, Mr. Featherbone's voice quavered, making him sound like a boy playing a game of bluff with the school bully.

Roscoe scowled most fiercely and swore a long string of curses, most of them having to do with Mr. Featherbone's cheating ways. Then he aimed right at the poor man and pulled the trigger. The gun made a terrible sound, flashing fire and smoke. Mr. Featherbone cried out like the rabbit Little Homer once shot, a shrill, terrible sound I knew I'd recall to my dying day.

Forgetting myself, I screamed and hid my face, but the outlaws were too busy shouting and swearing to hear anything but themselves. Jumping on their horses, they galloped off into the dark, passing so close to my hiding place they nearly trampled me. They were riding so fast that Roscoe's old felt hat blew off. But he didn't stop to reclaim it.

For a long time Caesar and I stayed where we were, listening to the sound of the horses fade away into the night. When the woods were quiet again, I picked up Roscoe's hat, thinking it would make me look even more like a boy. Then I crawled a little closer to the campsite and peered through the bushes. The fire had burned down to glowing embers, but I could still smell the stew. It seemed
being witness to a killing hadn't taken away my appetite.

The trouble was, I had to walk past Mr. Featherbone to get to the stew. Till then the only dead person I'd ever seen was my poor, dear mama, and she'd been laid out neat and tidy in a coffin in the parlor. She'd gone peaceful, slipping out of her body as quiet as a butterfly leaving its cocoon. I was sad almost to dying myself, but I wasn't any more scared of Mama dead than I'd been scared of her alive.

Mr. Featherbone was a different case altogether. There hadn't been anything peaceful about his passing. From what I could tell, he'd been blown out of himself like a fish when you throw a stick of dynamite in a pond. If ever a dying man had left a vengeful spirit behind, it would be Mr. Featherbone.

My empty stomach growled louder than ever, though. Desperate with hunger, I crept toward the fire, keeping my eyes on the stew pot so as not to see anything else. I bent down to get it, thinking I'd run as fast as I could once I had it in my hand. But just before I touched it, cold fingers wrapped around my ankle and a voice whispered, "For the Lord's sake, help me."

F
OR THE FIRST TIME IN MY WHOLE LIFE I
understood what people mean when they say their blood runs cold. Here I was just twelve years old, and a dead man had a hold of my ankle. I was frozen to the ground. Couldn't move. Couldn't cry out. Even Caesar seemed scared senseless. Didn't bark or growl. Just stood there with his tail between his legs, whimpering.

The dead man groaned, but he didn't let loose of me. "Help me, please," he whispered again.

I swallowed hard and looked down at Mr. Featherbone. His face was mighty pale, and there was a powerful lot of blood dabbling his shirt, but he wasn't dead. What's more, he didn't appear to be more than seventeen years old. A boy, that's all he was. Curly haired, kind of thin, and delicate featured. What Aunt Mabel would call refined. Maybe even handsome.

Why, there was nothing to be scared of after all, except the blood—which was more than enough to make a squeamish girl like Millicent faint. Not me, though. Even before I became a boy, I wasn't the swooning type.

I knelt beside Featherbone. "I don't know a thing about bullet wounds," I admitted. "But if you tell me what to do, I'll help you. For surely you don't deserve to die."

He grimaced. "First bind my arm to stop the bleeding. Use the handkerchief in my coat pocket. Then clean the wound. There's a kettle of water by the fire."

Following his directions, I knotted the handkerchief around his left arm as tight as I dared and then washed the blood away. The poor fellow clenched his teeth, but every now and then a little moan slid out between them. I knew I was hurting him, but he made me keep on.