Bone Coulee Read Online Free PDF Page A

eight Oh Henry!s and a Coca-Cola.”
    John Minski smiles. He likes dealing with Indians. He will even let them charge on their purchases. They’ve always paid their bills, even if he has sometimes waited as long as two years. They don’t forget, and when they get hold of some money and are back in town, they come in to pay up.
    But Thomas doesn’t have to charge. He pays cash up front, and in minutes he’s back with his friends, heading up the back alley that leads from the hotel past the machinery-strewn back lot of Rigley Motors. It’s filled with an assortment of tractors, plows, cultivators, seed drills, hay rakes and, separate from the farm equipment, a neat line of five new Ford cars.
    “But look at that!” Charlie says. “Airplanes!”
    “Salvage airplanes,” Thomas says. “Old Harvards from the training base in Moose Jaw. They make good snowplanes.”
    They continue up the alley all the way to the dance hall. A continuous crowd of people moves in and out of the open front doors. Cars are parked everywhere along both sides of the street in front of the hall, on each side of the hall and in the alley, where car trunks open and shut and bottles rattle.
    “Let’s go in,” Ben says.
    “No, I don’t think so,” Thomas says. “Kokum will be worrying already.”
    “I’m going in,” Ben says. “Here Thomas, take my case of beer with you.”
    “I’d better go with you,” Charlie says. “To keep you out of trouble. And Harry, you tell Nancy that we won’t be long.”

    At the camp, Nancy is the first to ask. “Where are Charlie and Ben?”
    “Ben wanted to see what they do at their dances,” Thomas says. “Charlie went with him to keep him out of trouble.”
    “I wish that I could go to their dance,” Roseanna says.
    By midnight they are still not back. Harry thinks they should go look for them, but Stella doesn’t want her husband to leave.
    “Charlie will be here soon,” Nancy says. “I know. But maybe someone should go and see anyway.”
    “The music has stopped,” Kokum says.
    “They stop for midnight lunch,” Thomas says. “Maybe Ben and Charlie will come now.”
    “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer…, if one of the bottles should happen to fall, ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall…”
    Mac sits in the middle of the front seat, jammed in beside broad-shouldered Pete, his bull head out the window sniffing at the air. Sid pokes his head out his side window as if he wants the whole world to hear him sing. Nick sings too, a curly-haired crooner, the only one who can hold the melody.
    Jeepers doesn’t sing. He’s scrunched down in the back, but still able to peer over the front seat with his good eye, as if he’s watching out for danger ahead. Mac doesn’t sing either; he’s thinking about what he’s going to say to the girl. The car stops and Pete’s out the door like a bull out of a gate. He bellows. “Where’s that horny-looking heifer? Hey? Hey?”
    Everyone is out of the car except for Jeepers. Pete’s in the lead, holding on to his quart sealer.
    “Some homebrew for your women? Hey? Hey?”
    The Indians draw back into the shadows. Mac looks over the fire, trying to pick out the girl.
    “Girls want to come for a ride?” Pete says.
    “Get the hell out of here!” a voice says. It could be the Indian who hit the home run. Mac can make out his face in the firelight. The broken tooth.
    “Trade for homebrew? Hey? Hey? Like I said, the heifer, or the older one.”
    “You’re talking about my wife,” another voice says.
    “She’ll do,” Pete says, but then yells, “Hey!”
    Mac turns around to see an Indian with a knife in front of the car. He stalks Pete, backing him up against a wagon loaded with fence pickets.
    “Let’s get out of here!” Jeepers yells from the back seat of the car. Both Sid and Nick climb in. A knife slashes Pete’s hand as he turns to grab a willow picket from the wagon. Mac grabs a picket a nd