Dorothy Garlock by High on a Hill Read Free Book Online Page B

Corbin never heard a gunshot, Boone brought back a wild turkey that he quickly cleaned and put in the oven of the cookstove.
    Another day after Boone left the cabin, Corbin got up the nerve to strip naked and ease down to slide into the stream. The water was cold, but nothing had ever felt as good as washing his entire body. He sat for a long time while the sun dried and warmed him. Later he hobbled back to the cabin, found a razor in a dresser drawer and shaved, observing that nothing restored a man’s confidence like a bath and a clean-shaven face.
    That same day he watched his companion coming toward the cabin in long purposeful strides. Over his shoulders was stretched the burden of a full-grown stag. Boone came to the stream’s edge and cast down the two hundred pounds of fresh meat.
    “Brought ya a little snack to eat before supper.”
    “Good of you. I suppose you expect me to clean it.”
    “’Less you want to eat it with the hide on. Gut it here by the stream, then I’ll string it up so you can skin it.”
    “My days of lazing around are over.”
    “Ya got it. I ain’t feedin’ no freeloaders. Like a little fish first?”
    Chuckling, Boone picked up the little spear he’d fashioned from a straight shaft of seasoned ash. On the end of it was a barbed head of steel. He went upstream and knelt on a rock. Swift death shot down to meet the movement of a fin in the furtive shadows of the pool formed in the bend of the stream.
    Later Corbin watched and marveled as his companion prepared a spit on which to turn the saddle of venison. It was not the skill alone, it was the quiet, quick way he moved that amazed Corbin and made him wonder how long Boone had lived this life in the hills along the river.
    “What are you going to do with all this meat?” Corbin asked.
    “It ain’t nothin’ for ya to worry ’bout.”
    On the fourth day Corbin felt his sap rising, but still the soreness in his leg and the limited use of his arm held him back. And so he ate and slept while the red blood in his veins grew richer.
    Corbin was alone at the cabin for long hours at a time. When the two men were together, they did not talk a great deal. There seemed to be no need for it. Corbin had not thanked Boone for saving his life, nor had he asked for his reason for wanting to take it.
    When at the cabin, Boone constantly worked at something. He caulked the cracks in the cabin walls with clay to make them tighter. He chopped several cords of wood and stacked it beside the house.
    One afternoon he cleaned his two guns and the one he had taken from Corbin’s car. He took them apart, cleaned and oiled them and reassembled the parts with hands that could have done it if he were sightless.
    “Are you expecting Geronimo to ride out of the woods and attack?” Corbin casually asked that evening as they sat in front of the cabin.
    “It’d more likely be a nosy lawman,” Boone answered without looking up.
    “You hiding something?”
    “Ain’t ever’body?”
    “I’m not a lawman.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Is that why you’re going to shoot me? You think I’m a Fed?”
    “Ain’t decided yet.”
    “Have you heard of a boy named Jack Jones?”
    “What’s he look like?”
    “Sandy hair, blue eyes, strong for a kid his age. He’s got a real hankering to be a baseball player.”
    “Can’t say that I have.”
    “His folks asked me to look for him. Last letter they got was from St. Louis.”
    “Big town.”
    “But I found him. Fellow told me he was there trying out for their team. He said the kid was good, but not good enough, and told him to go home and come back again in a year or two. He thought he headed north.”
    “Yeah, well—”
    “Jack didn’t go home. That was four months ago.”
    “Maybe he didn’t wanna go home.”
    “His folks want to know if he’s all right.”
    “I didn’t think it was the business of the law to look fer kids what didn’t want to go home.”
    “I’m not a lawman now. I’m a friend of the