Raintree County Read Online Free PDF

ritual way through conversations and thoroughfares, and mr. shawnessy carried on his eternal vagabondage through a vast reserve of memories and dreams. But even in dreams the carefree twin had to do devotion in strange ways to Raintree County and its gods. It was clearly the whim of mr. shawnessy to prepare a naked woman on a stone slab in the Post Office, but it was Mr. Shawnessy who timidly asked for a newspaper, trying his best to adapt himself and his puritan conscience to the bizarre world of his twin.
    Yet doubtless there was really only one John Wickliff Shawnessy, one Raintree County, one Republic, one riddle with plural masks. That was what the young woman with the catlike eyes had meant by the half-given line from a legend of antiquity:
    What creature is it that in the morning of its life—
    Mr. Shawnessy had made the turn north onto the County Road. But the insouciant twin had kept the westward bias.
    Westward the star of empire. Westward the Great Companion takes his way. Shirt open at the neck, broad hat pushed back on matted, vital hair, he walks the boulevards of westward cities, crosses the wide windrippled plains, ferries the Mississippi, and strikes out strongly through the sagebrush mesas. He climbs the sunblaze summits of the Rockies, descends deep passes to the Golden Shore.
    O, Californy!
    That’s the place for me!
    I’m off for . . .
    Firecrackers crumped in backyards. A smell of patriotism tinged the early morning air.
    â€”How long before we get back, Papa? Wesley asked.
    â€”About nine o’clock. We have to be back by then.
    â€”What yuh readin’, Eva? little Will asked.
    â€”Book, Eva muttered, absorbed.
    â€”I want to be back in time for the service, Esther Shawnessy said, as the surrey passed the Revival Tent.
    â€”We’ll be in time, Mr. Shawnessy said. We won’t be stopping in Freehaven long. And I only mean to leave a few flowers at Mamma’s grave.
    â€”Papa, what’s Senator Jones look like? Will asked.
    â€”I haven’t seen him for twenty years. When I last saw him, he was a big heavyset man, broad shouldered, deepchested, with blue eyes, dark brown hair, and a voice like a bull.
    â€”What’s General Jackson like?
    â€”The General looks like a fighting man. Of course, he’s pretty old now, but in his prime he was a fine figure of a man.
    â€”Will he have his uniform on?
    â€”I imagine so.
    â€”Will he have a sword?
    â€”A dress sword maybe.
    â€”O boy! Jiminy! A sword! How many wars did he fight in?
    â€”Just two. The Mexican War and the Civil War.
    â€”The Mexican War. When was that?
    â€”Eighteen forty-six to eighteen forty-eight. I was about your age then, Will.
    Are you Johnny Shawnessy? Yes, sir. Can you read, son? Yes, sir. Well, read this then.
    â€”Did they have a Fourth of July when you were a boy, Papa?
    â€”Sure.
    â€”Did they have firecrackers and things?
    â€”Big ones.
    Bang! Forward, boys, all along the line! Kill the damn greasers! Westward the star of empire.
    The Fourth of July was the memory of a lone white rocket rising in the purple sky above a town in Raintree County long ago. The rocket burst and feathered into burning spray and floated softly on the fields of night. The Fourth of July was the memory of a new republic, a bloody babe of destiny, waiting to be filled with soul. The Fourth of July was a war on sunbaked plains, a fighting in the high passes and in California. It was the pasteboard red of firecrackers, the blue of armies charging stiffranked in steel engravings, the white of flowers flung by girls in summer dresses for the boys who fought at Buena Vista. It was the fury and the fighting heart of a young republic, fledgling of the nations, conceived in battle and confirmed in battle. It was a lone star rising in the east and westward tending. It was a million faces pressing westward, the harshvoiced dreamers of a strange, disordered dream.
    Mr. Shawnessy jingled the reins