The Big Sky Read Online Free PDF

and Dan and Pap and Ma all slept in one bed after Pap had come in drunk and set fire to the other bed with his pipe. In and out of the buildings men and women, whites and niggers, kept popping. They made a stream along both sides of the street. Wagons loaded with lumber and ropes and hides, and carriages drawn by high-stepping horses with heads strapped back rolled east and west and crosswise. A canvas-topped wagon rattled across the street in front of them, showing the faces of three children who stared from its tail with solemn, wondering eyes. There were chimneys everywhere, all breathing out a slow, black smoke that came down in a regular fog, except that it bit at a man's lungs and set his nose to running.
    "Godamighty!" said Boone.
    "She's big," agreed Deakins, and spit over the wheel. "Twenty thousand, last count." He thought for a moment, then added, "I can't figger why folks'll do it, less'n they don't know no better."
    Boone shook his head. "I don't hanker to live in no anthill."
    "Me neither."
    "I aim to go west into Injun country and trap me some beaver."
    "Sure enough?" asked Deakins, his face lighting. "Now, that there is what I call man's talk. Leave the piss ants swarm!" He sobered and fell silent, studying the rumps of his mules while the wagon creaked ahead.
    Boone stole a long look at him. There was nothing to shy away from in the mild and open face, he decided, but a talker like Deakins could get a man into trouble.
    "All I got's these here mules," Deakins observed, as if to himself. "Them and maybe a couple dollars' worth of meal and salt meat." His glance came to Boone. "I reckon they'd look pretty piddlin' once a man got hisself out there."
    "I reckon."
    "There ain't nobody to keer. Not even a dog. 0l' Rip got tore up in a fight and bled hisself to death."
    Boone asked, "You thinkin' about going your own self?"
    "Well," Deakins answered, talking slow now that the question had been put, "I do' know. All I got's these here mules, and a man don't learn no love for a mule."
    Boone broke a long silence. "I wouldn't raise no holler at company, I reckon, if it was company a body could trust."
    "Meanin'?"
    "He would have to stand by a man, come whatever."
    Deakins' inquiring blue gaze went again to the rumps of his mules. "I ain't no half-horse, half-alligator. I been whopped, plenty of times, and I reckon I will be ag'in. But I never laid down yit on a friend, regardless."
    "He would have to know to keep his tongue."
    There was a stiffness in Deakins' manner when he answered. "I ain't askin' to go with you, anyways." He clucked to the team.
    "Would you, Jim?"
    "Are you askin'?"
    "I'm askin'."
    Deakins' sorrel beard riffled to his grin. "Wrap 'er up and charge 'er down, then," he said. "Zeb, I'm your parcel. I been lookin' for someone p'inted west myself, and you suit me, longways and sidewise."
    "My name ain't Zeb Calloway."
    "The handle don't matter."
    "It's Boone. Boone Caudill."
    "Pleased to meetcha."
    "I'm runnin' away from Pap. That's why I said a man would have to keep his tongue."
    Deakins nodded. "A pry pole couldn't git it out." He added abruptly, "Here we are." He reined the mules to the side. "I'll pull over and find someone to help old gentleman in. You watch the mules. They ain't used to city life." He jumped from the wagon and headed for the undertaker's door.
    Boone waited, holding the reins while his thoughts ran ahead. He would be safe before night, safe across the state line, beyond the river. The Ohio would lie yonder, and across it was country a man could get his breath in. They figured wrong if they thought they'd lock him up for the lick he had given Mose Napier, even if it killed him. He would go over the river and laugh at them, him and Jim Deakins would, taking their time, then, to St. Louis. It was a right smart of a river, though, wide and deep. They would have to find a way to cross it.
    While his mind ran on, he studied the people that thumped up and down the board walk, the city