Tex by S. E. Hinton Read Free Book Online Page B

up, it was like all the energy had been drained out of me. I cleaned up the tub and felt so bad I did the dishes just because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Then I went outside and sat in our tire swing, staring at the empty horse pen, thinking about Negrito. Pop had given me Negrito three years ago Christmas.
    It was Monday. I’d miss vocabulary day in English. Well, Miss Carlson would be glad to know I added a new word to my vocabulary, anyway. Depressed. Man, I never knew what the word meant before. I could see where they got it. It was like everything was pressing down on you like a dead weight. I’d been sad before, not much, but some. But man, depressed! It was worse. Like you couldn’t see the use of anything, everything was just hopeless. I sat out there and twirled around in the swing, watching the dead leaves blow by. Summer over, Negrito gone, Pop gone for so long I’d just about given up on him, Mason planning on hightailing it off as soon as he could, maybe the Collins couldn’t be friends with us anymore. It was like the future was a foggy pit and I was standing on the edge, trying to see the bottom, knowing any minute something was going to shove me in. It was a real uncomfortable feeling.
    I sat out there till Mason got back from basketball practice. He brought a carton of ice cream with him, which was lucky, since one whiff of the chili we were having for supper was enough to give me the queasies again.
    I couldn’t even eat much ice cream, watching Mason wolf down the chili. He eats like a horse.
    I spent the evening cleaning all the guns in the house; my .22, Mason’s 20-gauge, Pop’s old double-barrel 12-gauge. It was something easy to do, that wouldn’t put too much strain on my aching head. Mason was studying as usual.
    Finally I got a little hungry and got out the ice cream again. There wasn’t much left. Mason had really pigged it up.
    â€œWhat the hell is all that honking about?” He looked up from his book.
    I listened. Usually it’s so quiet around here you can hear a car coming a mile off. This one was honking the horn full blast.
    It got louder and louder, then the car pulled into our driveway on one long last blast.
    â€œHey, maybe it’s—” I jumped up and ran to the door.
    â€œMason!” a voice hollered. “Tex!”
    â€œIt’s Lem!” I said. For a second I was sick that it wasn’t Pop—then forgot it because I was real glad to see Lem.
    He covered the yard in about two strides, and I jumped him in a flying tackle from the porch. He staggered, but didn’t fall down, swung me around and let go, throwing me halfway across the yard. He jumped the porch steps to give Mason a bear hug. Mason was laughing. It was the first time he’d really laughed in a long time.
    Lem Peters was a friend from way back. We’d known him longer than we’d known the Collins. In fact one of the first things I can remember in my life is hunting snakes under Lem’s house. He and Mason had been best friends for years, then they kind of split up until they weren’t best friends anymore, but still pretty good friends.
    Lem was real good with horses. When we were little kids, all three of us would pile on Lem’s white mare and go for miles across the countryside. Lem was someone who had always been there, so it had seemed strange when he got married and moved away last year. It was sort of the first time I realized that things weren’t going to stay the same all my life.
    Mason was real glad to see him. He glanced at me sideways like a wicked colt and said, “Where’s the wife?”
    â€œThe wife?” Lem answered innocently, trooping in the house with us, dropping down on the sofa, just missing sitting on my ice cream. “Well, I reckon she’s with another man.”
    Mason and me looked at each other. I had heard enough of Mason’s dire predictions about Lem’s