Текст книги "Boone's Lick"

Автор книги: Larry McMurtry

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"Then find someone sober and ask them," Ma said. "And if there's a room empty anywhere, ask them if we can use it for the night. I'm tired of sleeping with snow in my hair."

"Why, here's Johnny Molesworth–I expect he can help us," Father Villy said. "I see he's been made a captain."

A slim soldier stepped out of the gloom of smoke and snow and evening light and grabbed Father Villy by the hand.

"Villy, what a pleasure," he said. "I see your beard's matured."

Then the young captain noticed Ma and Neva, took off his cap, and made them a little bow.

"Hello, ladies–welcome to our muddy old fort," he said. "I'm surprised you got across Laramie Fork–we've had a regular stream of people who nearly drowned out."

"Some Indians helped us," Ma said. "I'm Mary Margaret Cecil–I guess you know Seth."

"He should know me, he put me in jail the last time we met," Uncle Seth said, in a chilly tone.

Captain Molesworth ignored the chilly tone and grabbed Uncle Seth's hand.

"Now, Seth, it was just for your own protection," the captain said. "I was afraid one of those thieving Canadian skunks might shoot you."

"Forgiven. Where's Dick?" Uncle Seth asked.

"Mary Margaret is his wife and she's come a far piece to talk to him. We expected to find him here."

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Captain Molesworth seemed a little startled by that information–he looked at Ma in surprise.

"No, Dick's not here," he said. "He's wood hauling up at Fort Phil Kearny–it's one of our fine new forts, just finished," he said. "Dick went up with Colonel Carrington–they're predicting a hard winter and Colonel Carrington was eager to lay in lots of wood."

"Drat the man–how far is that?" Ma asked. "Oh, it isn't far–the distance wouldn't be the problem," the captain said.

Ma just looked at him and waited. "The Sioux would be the problem," he went on. "They're testy with us over these forts."

"That's right," Father Villy said. "We ran into Red Cloud and he told us as much himself."

"The Cheyenne are fractious too–it's a dilemma," the young soldier said.

"For you, maybe–not for me," Ma said. "I didn't build the forts. Is there a room we can bunk in for the night? I expect we'll press on tomorrow." "We do have a cabin, recently vacated," the captain said. "Let me get someone to see to your livestock. We're lucky to have plenty of good fodder."

"Now listen, Mary Margaret," Uncle Seth began, as soon as Captain Molesworth walked off to find someone to tend our stock.

"Listen to what?" Ma asked. "You better not try to talk me out of going to wherever Dick is–that's the one reason I've dragged everybody all this way."

"That wasn't my point, that's another point," Uncle Seth said. "This wagon has been about shook to pieces–we need to give it over to the care of a skilled blacksmith for a day or two, or one of these days the whole bottom will drop out and we'll all be in a pickle."

"I wouldn't mind resting for a day, but no longer," Ma said. "If you do locate a blacksmith, instruct him to hurry–a day's all I can allow him."

Captain Molesworth was soon back with two soldiers who took charge of our mules. Then he showed us where we would be staying–a big cabin with a loft just like ours at home. There was a good fireplace, but no fire in it yet.

"Why, this is a palace–I'm surprised it's vacant with so many people milling around in these parts," Ma said.

"Just vacant two days–a sad case–suicide," the young officer said. "I guess some people find the winter glooms too hard to bear, around here."

"It was a woman, wasn't it?" Ma asked, looking around the room.

"Why yes–a young woman, married less than a year," Captain Molesworth said. "How could you tell?"

"It's just a feeling I had," Ma said.

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11 Two soldiers wheeled over a little cart stacked with firewood and we soon JL had a roaring fire going in our cabin. Nobody could find Charlie Seven Days–he had dropped off to visit with some of the Indians outside the fort–but Uncle Seth and Father Villy went off to pay their respects to General Slade. Captain Molesworth invited us all to partake of the officers' mess, but Neva was the only one who went–Ma even found a ribbon to tie in her hair.

I was hungry and would have liked to eat with the officers but once we were in our cabin, with the good fire going, a tiredness came over me like none I had ever felt before. I wanted food, but the thought of walking even two hundred yards to the mess hall seemed too much. I believe G.T. felt the same. Ma handed me a little piece of bear meat jerky, but when I put it in my mouth I found I was too tired to chew. Ma later claimed she had to yank the jerky out of my mouth to keep me from choking, and it was probably true. After so many weeks in the open, the warmth of the room put me right to sleep.

When I woke the next morning bright sunlight was streaming in the windows of the cabin. Neva had come home at some point–she was dead to the world, with her feet nearly in the fire. I didn't see Ma or G.T.–they were both early risers. The snow had stopped. When I looked out the windows I saw blue sky. The air outside was chilly.

I supposed Ma and G.T. had probably walked off to the blacksmith's; no doubt Ma wanted to give the man a few instructions and make sure he meant to have the work finished by the end of the day.

It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the sharp sunlight. I thought I'd just explore the fort and maybe get a better look at some of the Indians camped around it. With the snow falling and all the smoke blowing around I hadn't been able to see them well. It occurred to me that if I could locate the mess hall they might give me coffee and a biscuit–maybe even a little bacon.

I had hardly gone ten steps when I spotted Ma, way up by the north wall of the stockade. She seemed to be talking to a plump young Indian woman who had a lodge of skins built against the poles of the stockade. A girl a little younger than

Neva had a skin of some kind pegged out and was scraping it with a knife.

The snow had mostly melted, but two little girls were toddling around in what was left of it–one of them was Marcy, who had long since got her walking legs under her and could be counted on to wander off just when it was most inconvenient to retrieve her.

Ma motioned for me to come over. While I was walking across the wide quadrangle Ma squatted down on her haunches–she was watching the little Indian girl, who was just Marcy's height. The young Indian woman seemed to be enjoying the sight of two toddlers, playing in the melting snow.

"Come look at this fine little girl–she's Sioux," Ma said, still squatting.

The child was a pert little creature, with bright black eyes. She and Marcy would stare at one another, solemn as judges, and then go dashing off to the nearest patch of snow.

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"What do you think, Shay?" Ma asked. Ma didn't seem angry, as she watched the little girls. She just seemed kind of bemused.

"They're just the right age to be playmates," I said.

"I think they're a little more than playmates,"

Ma said. "Take a closer look."

It wasn't easy to get a closer look, because the two little girls were rushing around, squealing and kicking up snow whenever they came to it, but when I got them stopped and looked at them close I saw what Ma was getting at. Except for the fact that the little Indian girl was copper colored and

Marcy white, they did look like more than playmates. They looked like twins. What startled me most, once I stooped down to look, was that both girls had a deep dimple in their chins–the same as I had, and G.T., and Neva, and Pa.

"That's Dick's dimple," Ma said. "These little girls are half sisters, like me and Rosie. This is your father's other family–or one of them–

that we've come so far to meet."

It must have been true, because the young girl who was scraping the hide was using one of Pa's old knives.

"Oh, you oaf!" Neva said, when I woke her and told her the news.

BOOK III

The Holy Hills

1 THAT night it came another snow, a snow so thick and deep that it muffled the sounds of the fort. Even Ma, still eager to get north, saw there was no point in pushing off into it, though Father Villy and Charlie Seven Days did just that. Seeing them leave was almost as hard as watching Aunt Rosie sail on up the Missouri River at Omaha. I guess we all hoped they would travel on with us to Fort Phil Kearny but that wasn't the direction they wanted to go. Charlie Seven Days had to report to the Old Woman, whose son he couldn't locate, and Father Villy still had it in his head to visit Siberia, which wasn't in the direction we were going.

"We're grateful for your help in getting this far," Ma said.

Neva cried the most, when they left. She had enjoyed having Father Villy teach her those French songs.

"Don't stay long in the north," Charlie said. He spoke a little sternly.

"There will be trouble in the north."

"I second that opinion. Good-bye," Father Villy said.

With just a wave, they were gone. "People will come and go," Uncle Seth said. I think he was just trying to get Ma to ease up on him a little. It turned out that Uncle Seth had known about Pa's Indian family all along, but had never mentioned it, a fact that put Ma in a stiff mood with him, for a day or two.

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She was also annoyed with the blacksmith, an independent Yankee who refused to be hurried when it came to repairing our wagon.

"I'll fix what I can fix when I can fix it," he said, and that was all he said.

Neva and G.T. and I were glad enough not to have to rush right off from the fort. We liked watching the soldiers drill, and the Indians and trappers mill around. But the best part of our stay was getting to know Pa's Indian family, which was just about a perfect match for his Missouri family–that is, us. Marcy got to play with her little toddling half sister, Meadow Mouse, and Neva learned to scrape hides with her half sister Lark Sings, and Ma visited with Pa's Sioux wife, who was called Stones-in-the-Water. There was no language they both could talk in, but they seemed to enjoy just observing one another's children and looking at one another's things.

It was not until the evening of the day of the big snow that G.T. and I discovered that we even had half brothers, nearly our own age–one was named Blue Crow and the other He Sleeps. It was Uncle Seth who explained the Sioux names to us. The two boys wanted to take us right out hunting, which Ma allowed, although I believe she was nervous about it. Of course, He Sleeps and Blue Crow had fast horses and rode them at top speed, like those Bad Faces had ridden that day when Red Cloud made his long speech.

G.T. and I only had our mules for mounts–we couldn't really keep up, but the hunt turned out to be lucky anyway, and the wildest fun. He Sleeps spotted a big elk calf that had floundered into a deep snowdrift and worn itself out trying to escape. The calf was soon dispatched with hatchets, a bloody sight. Although G.T. and I hadn't really killed the big calf we were allowed to take a share back to Ma.

The fact that we all liked Pa's Indian family didn't make it any less a sore spot with Ma that Uncle Seth had never told her about it, even though He Sleeps was as old as me and Uncle Seth had known about Stones-in-the-Water all along.

"I'm a rattler but not a tattler," Uncle Seth said, in his own defense.

"It is not my place to go blabbing about something that's none of my business."

"I guess that means you think it's right for a man to have two wives–is that so, Seth?" Ma asked.

"Well, it's the custom out here in the baldies," Uncle Seth said.

"Oh, I see," Ma said–I was listening from the loft. "The custom–like handing out tobacco and coffee when some Indians come for a visit. I suppose you think handing out a woman is no different from handing out coffee."

"In patriarch times a man was allowed several wives, I believe," Uncle Seth said calmly. "It's in the Bible."

"What if I don't want to go by the Bible?" Ma asked.

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This shook G.T., who was proud of the fact that he had been baptized in the Missouri River.

"Everybody's supposed to go by the Bible," he yelled down. He was in the loft too. Neva was down by the fire, sitting with her new sister Lark Sings. They were playing with the porcupine quills.

"I don't need your opinion, G.T.," Ma said. "Who told you to preach to your mother?"

"You'll go to hell for sure, if you don't go by the Bible," G.T. yelled.

He had once heard a fiery preacher and had been worried about hellfire ever since.

"What I want to know is, is this the limit of it, or has he got another family up there where he's hauling wood?" Ma asked.

"I've never been to Fort Phil Kearny, it was just built," Uncle Seth said. "How would I know?"

"You said the same thing in Omaha–but you did know!" Ma reminded him.

"I don't think Dick's partial to sleeping alone in chilly weather," Uncle Seth said, cautiously. He was nursing a bottle of whiskey that he had procured somewhere. While I was watching, Ma reached over and took his bottle–it surprised him. She took a big swig and spat it into the fireplace, which caused the flames to leap up. Then she took another long swig, and this one she didn't spit out. "Do you love me, Seth?" Ma asked.

"That's my final question."

The question gave us all a start–Uncle Seth most of all.

"Mary, all these young ones are listening," he said.

"Let 'em! My children are old enough to know the facts of life," Ma said.

"All except Marcy, and she's asleep. Are you going to answer?"

"Yes," he said.

"Yes, you're going to answer–or yes, you love me?" Ma asked.

"Both," Uncle Seth replied.

"All right–it's not bold but I guess it's an answer," Ma said.

"Mary Margaret, I'm too nervous to speak of such things in front of the children," Uncle Seth said.

It was easy to see that he was in a strain.

Ma took another long swallow and handed him back the bottle.

"We all have to live for ourselves–I want my children to hear that," Ma said. "As for you, have another drink. If you get a little drunker, maybe you'll feel a little bolder."

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"Well, Dick is my brother," Uncle Seth said. "I don't care what he is,"

Ma said. "We've lived this lie too long. I want it to end and I want it to end now!"

Whether it ended or not I don't know–I'm not even sure what the lie was.

All I know is that the next morning Uncle Seth was out early, trying to get that independent Yankee blacksmith to hurry up with our wagon, so we could leave for the north.

2 THE big soft snow had nearly melted by the time we got our wagon back and got it loaded. Nearly every officer in the fort, including General Slade, came by to tiy and talk Ma out of traveling north–they made the journey seem like sure death for all of us–but they might as well have been talking to a stump.

"Madam, there's no call for this intrepidity," General Slade said. "You might at least wait for Colonel Fetterman–he's going that way soon to reinforce Colonel Carrington. He'll be happy to escort you safely in."

"No, he wouldn't be happy to escort me anywhere," Ma said. "He'd be happier if he could just knock me in the head."

General Slade didn't know that Ma and Colonel

Fetterman had had a sharp exchange in the blacksmith's shop the day before. Ma was harrying the blacksmith to finish up with our wagon when Colonel Fetterman rode in and demanded that his horse be shod immediately.

"Just let me finish this little bit of work on the lady's wagon," the blacksmith said. Ma had been riding him all day–he was anxious to get rid of her, even if it meant sending her off to get scalped.

"Damn the work and damn the lady," Colonel

Fetterman said. "I cannot fight wild savages on a lame horse, and this horse has been limping all morning due to improper shoes."

Colonel Fetterman didn't know that Ma was there–she was behind the forge, standing in the shadow, and I was with her.

The blacksmith tried to signal the colonel but the warning came too late.

"You can damn me till you're hoarse, Colonel, but I was here first and I mean to insist on service," Ma said.

Uncle Seth was some distance away, chatting with Captain Molesworth, but I guess he knew trouble was developing because he turned and came over to the blacksmith's shop.

Colonel Fetterman's face turned dark when he saw Ma, but he didn't withdraw his remark, or apologize for it either.

"You've no business interfering with the needs of the army, and I'll have no impertinent comments," he said. "This is a military fort and if I was in command of it I'd have every last one of you damn settlers driven out of it. You belong outside the walls, with the trappers and the other riffraff."

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He turned and glared at Uncle Seth, who stopped and stood his ground, but didn't speak.

I guess the blacksmith felt like he was between a rock and a hard place because he began to hammer as hard as he could on the rim he was fitting on one of our wagon wheels. He must have decided that his welfare depended on finishing our wagon in the next minute or two–any longer delay and either Ma or Colonel Fetterman would be sure to ride him hard.

The big corporal named Ned, who had fallen down drunk the day we arrived, happened to be standing nearby, trying to comb some burrs out of his horse's tail.

"Damn you, if you won't work I'll have you jailed!" Colonel Fetterman said, to the blacksmith. "Get over here, Corporal, and take this man to jail. Then find someone competent to shoe my horse."

At this point Uncle Seth decided it might be well to try and change the subject.

"Say, Colonel Fetterman, young John Moles-worth here has been telling me what a hand you are to fight Indians."

Maybe Uncle Seth thought a little flattery would improve the man's mood–

but it didn't.

"Mind your own business, sir," Colonel Fetterman said. "I have a matter of military discipline to attend to here–and it's urgent."

Uncle Seth winked at Ma–the colonel didn't see it.

"All right, but I'm anxious to know your opinion of the Sioux as cavalrymen," Uncle Seth said. "There's some out here in the windies who rate them high. I've even heard one military man say that they're the best light cavalry in the world–is that your opinion?"

The comment at least got the colonel's attention.

"Whoever said that was a goddamn fool," Colonel Fetterman said. "A bunch of naked savages on horseback don't amount to a cavalry. I could take eighty men and whip the whole Sioux nation–and I hope I get the chance."

"And I hope you don't!" Ma said. It was plain the rude colonel had raised her temper pretty high.

Colonel Fetterman's face turned nearly purple– the fact that a woman would speak to him that way left him too annoyed to talk.

"Mary ..." Uncle Seth said. I believe he meant to caution her about speaking so sharply to Colonel Fetterman, but his warning came too late.

The fat was in the fire.

"Corporal, arrest this damn woman too, while you're at it," Colonel Fetterman said–he was practically spluttering, he was so angry.

Ned, the big corporal, was still holding the curry comb he had been using to rake burrs out of his horse's tail. I'm not sure he even realized he 101

was supposed to arrest the blacksmith, but he did realize that it would be irregular if he had to arrest Ma. "What for, Colonel?" he asked. "For the use of treasonous language," Colonel

Fetterman said. I guess it was all he could come up with on the spur of the moment.

Ma walked right up to him–for a moment I thought she might slap the colonel, but all she did was stare him down.

"If a rude swaggerer like you was ever given the command of eighty men I have no doubt you'd promptly get them killed," she said.

Then she motioned for the blacksmith to get on with his work and walked away, grabbing Uncle Seth by the arm as she went.

Colonel Fetterman just stood there, black with rage. Ned, the big corporal, didn't move a muscle.

Three days later, when we were slogging up the muddy plain, Colonel Fetterman and his relief troop passed us. There looked to be about eighty men in the command.

"There goes that fellow who wanted to get you arrested for treason,"

Uncle Seth said.

"Yes–I have no doubt he would have had me shot, if it had been his say,"

Ma said.

She had changed her attitude and was letting Uncle Seth drive the mules.

I guess all the soldiers knew Colonel Fetterman was mad at Ma, because the troop passed us at a gallop and not a single soldier waved or looked our way.

3 OUR first night out from Fort Laramie we got a big surprise–just at dusk, as we were building our campfire, we heard horses coming and our two half brothers, Blue Crow and He Sleeps, came racing into camp. He Sleeps had snuck up on a fat goose, on some little skim of a prairie pond, and they brought it to us as a going-away present.

We were all glad to see them, even Ma. The goose was mighty tasty, and the boys spent the evening trying to improve our command of sign language– or at least, Neva's command. She had already learned it and could make her fingers fly when talking to Blue Crow, the more talkative of our half brothers. G.T., though, had no skill with his hands–Blue Crow laughed until he cried at G.T.'s attempts to use a few simple signs.

He Sleeps was the more solemn of the two–he was in awe of Ma and behaved very politely in her company.

"I don't need to learn sign language, I'm a Baptist anyway," G.T. said, when we got tickled at his crude efforts.

"Maybe so, but where you're going the Baptists have kind of thinned out,"

Uncle Seth said.

Despite the chill, we were all glad to be out of the fort. Some of the soldiers were civil, but some weren't. He Sleeps caught a tiny little 102

field mouse and taught us a game involving three cups. The field mouse was under one of them: the point of the game was to guess which cup hid the mouse. He Sleeps moved the cups so fast the confused little mouse didn't have time to run. Neva beat both He Sleeps and Blue Crow, which didn't please them, particularly. When G.T. tried it he got so annoyed at guessing wrong that he finally knocked over the cups and let the mouse get away.

Ma didn't play–she liked watching the two Indian boys.

"That boy's got more than Dick's dimple, he's got his mischief, too," she said, referring to Blue Crow.

He Sleeps and Blue Crow rode with us for most of a fine bright morning–

we were soon in higher country, though the big mountains were still just shadows in the far distance. Then the two boys turned their horses and went racing back toward Fort Laramie. Neva liked both of them–I believe she enjoyed having two new brothers to pester. She signed for a while, trying to get them to come north with us, but they just shook their heads. He Sleeps even made us a little speech–it may have been a warning.

"I believe he's of the same opinion as Red Cloud," Uncle Seth commented.

"The one thing folks agree about is that there's going to be trouble at them new forts."

"There sure is, and I'm going to make some of it myself, once I find Dick," Ma said.

That afternoon we started an antelope and G.T. shot it–it was the biggest thrill of his life, up to that time.

"It was just that critter's bad luck that he ran into a Baptist," Uncle Seth said.

One thing Neva and G.T. and I talked about a lot, when we were off to ourselves, was Pa's other family. We wanted to know the same thing Ma wanted to know: if he had one extra family, what if he had more? Maybe he had two or three. "Or eight," G.T. said.

"Not eight, you oaf!" Neva said. "Nobody could have eight families. There wouldn't be time."

"I wish there was eight and I wish you belonged to another one, not this one," G.T. said. He had about all he could take of Neva.

"I believe I'll start one with Bill Hickok when we get back," Neva said.

She never tired of reminding us that Mr. Hickok had bought her two beefsteaks in one night.

I didn't think Pa had eight families, but I did ponder the whole business, as we made our way north, toward the high mountains. Sometimes I got to feeling real uneasy, at the thought of what Ma might be planning, once she found Pa. I knew she wouldn't have traveled so far, through all the dangers, if she didn't have something serious on her mind. But the only person I could have asked about it, other than Ma herself, was Uncle Seth, and he wasn't as available for questions as he had been in the past.

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For one thing, since Ma had decided she was ready to let him drive the team, he seldom left Ma's side. The two of them sat there on the wagon seat all day, as we plodded along, leaving the rest of us to look after ourselves–Marcy included. She was weaned now, so Ma didn't have to pay such close attention to her. Marcy could also walk, which meant that she spent most of her time wandering off into trouble. She irritated the mules so much, pulling their tails and stomping around under their bellies, that it was a full-time job for one person, trying to keep her from getting kicked or bitten.

When it came to Ma and Pa and their differences, Neva held the most extreme opinion: she thought Ma meant to shoot Pa.

"That's what I would do if I was her and found out he had another wife–

maybe two other wives," Neva said. "I wouldn't have it for a minute, not me!"

"Sassafras," I said. "You saw Ma with Stones-in-the-Water. The two of them got along fine." "I'll stick to my opinion," Neva said.

I didn't believe that the reason we were crossing Wyoming, at a time when the Indians were angry, was because Ma meant to shoot Pa. But I did think that something hot was likely to happen at Fort Phil Kearny, if Pa was there. I didn't know what it would be but I wanted to hurry on to the fort, so Ma could get it over with.

"I don't care what they do as long as they don't make no more babies,"

G.T. said. "Keeping up with Marcy's about tuckered me out."

Three days after G.T. shot the antelope, with the sky spitting snow and the weather looking ugly, we found the first scalped man.

4M A R c Y found the dead miner while the rest of us were making camp. Uncle Seth decided he didn't like the tone of the weather, so he pulled up near a little grove of trees, where there was plenty of firewood and a little cover. Ma was rarely in the mood to quit early, but this time Uncle Seth persuaded her. While we were all doing our chores, hobbling the mules, gathering firewood, getting out the blankets, and unpacking the cooking gear, Marcy came waddling up to the fire carrying an arrow.

"Now that's unusual," Uncle Seth said. "Indians aren't usually careless with arrows–it takes too long to make one. They will even pick up arrows off a busy battlefield. Where'd you get it, honey?"

At first Marcy just sulled. She could talk a little–

"mule" was one of her words, but usually she had to be coaxed before she'd come out with a word, and sometimes she wouldn't talk no matter how much we coaxed. Ma had wrapped up a few sticks of candy, back in Omaha–I believe she was saving them for Christmas–but she had no intention of using them to bribe Marcy into telling us where she picked up the arrow.

"I am not fool enough to bribe a child," Ma said. "She'll come out with it when she thinks it's the only way to get attention."

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Ma was right. Marcy sulled for a few minutes and then led us right to the dead miner–a sight none of us had been expecting to see, just before supper. The man's head had been pounded in with his own spade; his eyes were missing and his legs had been split to the bone. A big patch of hair had been ripped off the front part of his head, which was black with blood. The dead miner was naked– no sign of his clothes anywhere. It was only because of the bloody spade that we figured he was a miner. His stomach had been opened and most of his guts thrown to one side–the varmints had been into those, already.

I got to the corpse first. What was left didn't even look like a man. I thought for a moment that I had stumbled on the carcass of some strange Wyoming critter that I couldn't identify. Somehow it was his ears that convinced me that what lay exposed on the mountain meadow were the remains of a human being.

I guess G.T. felt just as confused.

"What's that?" he asked, when he first spied the body.

"Uh-oh," Uncle Seth said, when he saw the corpse. He tried to wave Ma and Neva off.

"You don't need to see this, Mary Margaret," he said. "Neva don't either."

Ma ignored the comment and walked right around him.

"Whoa!" he said to Neva, but she walked around him too.

Then we all looked at the dead man for a while, in the thin failing light.

"Well, now I expect these young ones will have nightmares," Uncle Seth said. He was put out with Ma for ignoring his advice.

"Let 'em!" Ma said. "They've come all this way with us and they'll all be grown soon. Let them look at what happens when people get too mad to control themselves."

The snow began to fall, while we stood there looking at the dead miner.

In a minute it covered the cavity in his belly and the bloody patch on his head. "What did they do with his eyes?" Neva asked. Nobody had an opinion. Ma took Marcy by the hand and walked back to start the cooking.

I remembered all the miners we had seen tramping along, while we were traveling by the Platte. "Some people must want to get rich bad," I said.

"Yes, they do," Uncle Seth said. "Not me," G.T. said. "Not me, not me, not me." "Let's get him buried, before the ground freezes,"

Uncle Seth said.

We got a spade and a pickax from the wagon-none of us much wanted to use the miner's own spade. Soon we had a pretty good grave. Ma called us to eat before we quite got finished–she had stewed up some of G.T.'s antelope. We lowered the man into his grave, but the stew was ready before we covered him up. Somehow just thinking about him hiked our appetites.

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After supper Uncle Seth took a lantern and went back himself to cover up the dead traveler.

"Do you want to say a scripture?" he asked Ma. "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth," Ma said. "You boys go cut some more wood–the chill's coming. We're going to need a good fire tonight."

G.T. and I chopped firewood from the little grove, while Uncle Seth shoveled clods over the dead miner. G.T.'s hands were so cold that he did a poor job of hobbling our mule Montgomery, who got away during the night.