The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie Jr. Read Free Book Online Page A

his mouth. He rubbed the tears from his cheeks and picked up his poke of meal, dropping the bit of meat into it. "Goddam him!" he said aloud.
    The morning mists were rising. Above the knobs to the east the sun appeared, its shine spread out and heatless. A lean hog nosed into the clearing and halted, its round snoot twitching as it sampled the air. "Git!" said the boy, and it gave a grunt and lumbered off.
    Boone lagged to the trail and stopped and looked back. Home seemed a far piece now, beyond the knobs, beyond the great river, through the hills. His ma would be wondering about him, he reckoned. Maybe she grieved, hearing from Pap that the river must have got him. Maybe she said, "Boone! Boone!" to herself while her wet eyes leaked over. Of a sudden, weakness came on him again, taking the strength out of him and the grit. It wasn't any use trying to run away. Everywhere people picked on a boy, chasing after him like they'd chase a wild brute, or playing friendly and stealing from him. Better to go back to Ma and let Pap beat on him. Better to have something to eat and a home to lie in. Only, the law was after him now, and maybe home would be the jailhouse, and Pap would want to kill him, or come nigh to it. He straightened. Anyhow, he'd even things with Bedwell. He aimed to get Old Sure Shot back one way or another. He turned around and started west again, his head pounding to his step, his eyes following the horse tracks on the trail.
    Boone wondered about Jim Deakins. Had Jim crossed the river? Would he really come? He saw the open, friendly face, the sorrel beard sprouting, the mild blue eyes. A man got lonesome, all by himself in a strange country. When Boone saw a gristmill, though, and the miller busy with his sacks, he put his head down and passed on, only muttering to the friendly hail. The few houses along the road he passed by, too, indrawn and distrustful. A lean brown and white dog ran out from one of them, nagging at his heels, and he turned and kicked at it, ignoring the promise of a man at the door who called, "He won't bite ye, boy."
    He was in country different from home. The hills were smaller and more rounded, and there were more oaks and beech groves, but there were hickories, too, and walnuts, elms, wild cherries, and a few pines. In the smaller growth he made out dogwood, pawpaws, thorns, and persimmons. If it happened to be fall, now, he could find ripe pawpaws aplenty and shake himself down a bellyful of persimmons. He had ought to eat, regardless. Pap always said food was good for whisky fever. Not pawpaws or persimmons, though. They gagged a man, just thinking about them. Ham and parched corn and shucky beans would go better, and fresh meat better yet. If he had Old Sure Shot he could get himself some meat. Just having Old Sure Shot, without the meat, would make him feel tolerable -just having it, without the horn and pouch that Bedwell had stolen, too.
    It was still early when he caught sight of a town and stopped to consider. If he circled it he might lose Jonathan Bedwell's trail, might pass him by while he was tied up at an inn. But he pulled away from the thought of entering the place, of being looked at and questioned and circled around with strangers' ways. He would eat first, anyway. Maybe eating would take the ache out of his head. Behind a small growth that screened him from the trail he built a fire and made more journey cakes and warmed two slices of his fat meat and choked the food down, against the uneasy turning of his stomach. When he got up he struck in an arc around the town.
    Beyond it the road was marked more by hoofs and wheels. No longer could he feel sure that it was the tracks of Bedwell's horse he saw. There were a half-dozen sets of fresh tracks, now separate, now mixed, now blurred by the ribbon marks of tires. Boone faced toward the town, thinking again that he ought to go into it and shrinking from it again.
    He traveled all day, walking even-timed, thinking now about