Far as the Eye Can See by Robert Bausch Read Free Book Online Page B

look on Preston’s face out of my mind. That rope made his jowls stick out, but his eyes looked out in sightless wonder, and his mouth a little round hole—like he was getting ready to whistle a tune. He was just talking to me not more than a month ago. I seen guys drop next to me in the war, but you expect that because you’re in battle and ain’t nobody trying to do nothing but kill you, and you’re trying to kill them. If I’d of seen Preston on the ground with a bunch of arrows sticking out of him, I’d of thought, Well, he went looking for that. But to see him hung up there in that tree, and not knowing what could of put him there . . . It was a mystery that made me sick.
    Sometime near the end of the night, Theo come over to where I was getting ready to bed down.
    He said something as he approached, but there was still enough noise from the revelers that I didn’t hear him. When he got to me I said, “What?”
    “Tomorrow.”
    “What’s tomorrow?”
    “A few of the families want to press on.”
    “How many wagons?”
    “Nine.”
    I waited.
    “So, can you take them out?”
    “What? No. I mean, why me?” I was fairly shocked.
    “You seem to know where you’re going, and you got that repeater.”
    “I’m completely new in this country,” I said. “I have no idea where I am half the time.”
    “You found your way back when you went looking for Joe Crane,” he said. “Most new folks would’ve got lost.”
    “I know how to find north and south,” I said. “East and west.”
    “Just take them west,” Theo said. “Follow the river until you get to Fort Wallace. It’s about a hundred miles directly west from here. They got somebody waiting for them there that will lead them the rest of the way. You can wait at Fort Wallace until we come along.”
    “How long?”
    “We’ll probably be leaving here in a week or less.”
    “Why don’t we just all go now?”
    “I want to buy more horses and a few more head of cattle,” he said. “The army’s bringing in rations for the Indians and the troops and there’s plenty to be had for our trip.”
    I didn’t like it a whole lot, but then I got just a little bit impressed with myself too. “Why can’t you send Big Tree?”
    “He stays with me.”
    “I don’t know none of them folks,” I said.
    “Just keep the river on your left as you go along.”
    “And I ride out in front.”
    “It’s not hard,” he said. “You been doing it for us.”
    “I been doing it with Big Tree,” I said. “Next to a target like that, I’m pretty invisible.”
    “You can pick whichever body you want from the train to ride with you. A few of them Swedish teamsters grown up a fair size.”
    He stood there waiting for me to say something. When I didn’t, he turned and started back toward his wagon.
    Two men, both bald, both carrying their wide-brimmed hats in their hands, passed him and approached me.
    “You agree to take us out tomorrow, ya?” one said. I never heard nobody who sounded like him. I nodded.
    The other one said, “Ve don’t vish to be any trobble .”
    “We’ll gather in the morning,” I said. “Have your wagons in a train and we’ll cross to the south side of the river at dawn.”
    “You say the south side? Ve take the vagons across the river?”
    “We do.” They both nodded and bowed as they backed away from me. It was good to see that they would trust me and follow me. I figured I’d lead them the way Theo seemed to lead us—quietly, and like I had firm knowledge of both the terrain and our destination, even though I had no such thing.
     
    What Theo said was “Keep the river on your left,” but I remembered that he said I should stay to the left of the river, so the next morning, before the sun was above the horizon, I started out to find a place to ford the river. I rode for about a mile upstream and found where the water run only a few inches above a gravel bed. It was perfect. By the time the sun was fully up, I’d