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

Ma and now about Deakins and now about Bedwell and always about his stolen rifle. It hung in his mind, pulling him on. Somewhere he would come up on Bedwell. Some way he would get his gun back. The sun let itself down from overhead and looked him in the face and went on, sliding behind the far hills. He passed a two-story log house set back from the trail, and beyond it saw a lone hen pecking in the road. He looked back to see if anybody watched, then reached into his poke and drew out a handful of meal. He moved off the trail, to a tree that hid him from the house, and began scattering his hand of bait, singing a soft "Here, chuck, chuck, chuckie! Here, chuck, chuck, chuckie!" Twenty feet away, the hen canted her head and fixed one bright eye on him. She came over, waddling and suspicious, and took a long-necked peck at the nearest fleck of corn. Boone swung his hand slowly, letting the meal sift from his fingers. She tilted her head at him again, studying him for danger. He fanned out another pinch. The eye left him and fixed on the ground and the head went down with a jerk and the beak picked up another crumb, and another, and another. The neck stretched for more, and one foot moved the hungry beak ahead. "Chuck, Chuckie!" The other foot moved and then the first, while the beak did its tiny beat. Boone fell forward, smothering the bird in his arms. She started a wild outcry, but his quick fist choked it off, and she stared at him, silent and lidless and fearful, as he brought her under his arm.
    He scanned the back trail again and struck off to the right toward a bunch of locusts. Through the trees he saw a sinkhole, and in the steep and rocky farther side a black triangle that he took to be the entrance to a cave. He let himself down into the sinkhole, skirted the puddle at its bottom, and climbed the small bluff and looked in. At its beginning the cave was big enough to hold a man, standing or lying. He squinted into it, and as his eyes widened saw that it choked off into two small tunnels. The place had the rank, sour smell of vixens and pups, but the floor was smooth, and the walls and roof would protect him from the night's wet chill.
    Boone climbed down, took the hen from under his arm and tore her head off. While she fluttered he gathered firewood and placed it inside the cave. He kindled a small fire just inside the entrance, watching with satisfaction as the slow breath of the cavern carried the smoke outside.
    At the edge of the puddle he dressed his hen and ran her through with a length of green sapling. Back at the fire he rested the sapling in the forks of two sticks raised at the sides of the blaze and made solid with stones. He went into the cave and sat down to wait, eased by the warmth that had begun to creep inside. It was good to rest, to let his muscles hang loose and aimless, to feel hunger in his stomach again, to be shut of the dizzy ache in his head. There seemed nothing so bad with him now that getting his gun back wouldn't fix it. He turned the bird on its spit.
    He ate half the half-raw hen. Afterwards he restrung the carcass on the sapling and leaned the sapling against the side of the cave. He renewed his fire and lay down, and a dead sleep closed on him.
    Morning came wet and dismal. He sat up and rubbed his eyes and squirmed the crimps from his muscles. He could hear rain on the stones, dropping from ledge to ledge. He looked out and saw the sky close and gray, with tatters of rain clouds beating low before the breeze. Inside the cave it was dry and windless. He felt a small, quick pleasure at being there. It would be good to stay, safe and sheltered, while the day made its gloomy turn.
    He took the body of the hen from its stick and began to wrench at it with his teeth. There wasn't much left, even for a fox, when he got through. He picked up his poke and set out, hunched against the rain. By the time he hit the road he was wet to the skin but warm from moving. Ahead of him the way ran, to