The Big Sky Read Online Free PDF Page A

bed.
    "Got to take 'er slow on these here shun-pikes," Deakins explained. "Not that it hurts the old gentleman, but I can't deliver him bruised up too much. How would he feel, when they open the lid for a last look, if he had a couple of black eyes?" He grinned at Boone. "Don't hang back on them apples. That's what God made 'em for, to eat."
    They came back to the road. Swinging an already frayedout switch, Deakins got the mules to step a little faster. "They say a mule'll always get you there," he said, beating on their rumps, "but time he does, like as not you don't want to go."
    They came after a while to another tollgate and circled it and later to another that Deakins let the mules head for. "There's a crick tears through here," he explained, "and she's steep on both sides, and this here body will sure enough come out, whiskers and all, if we don't cross the bridge."
    The tollkeeper came out of the house and stretched out his hand. "Two bits."
    Deakins dug in his pocket, bringing out a thin handful of cut money. He offered a ragged, pie-shaped piece.
    The tolltaker eyed it.
    "She's cut finer'n a frog hair," Deakins said. "Quarter of a silver dollar, exact."
    The man looked as if he had his doubts, but he motioned them on.
 
    "It wasn't so short at that," Deakins told Boone when they were under way again. "Not more'n two-three cents. I had to cut 'er with a chisel, which ain't as close as shears."
    The afternoon dragged on and the winter sky came down. Darkness lay like a fog on the ridges.
    "I'd love to get shet of this here body." Deakins' voice sounded uneasy. "Maybe we could get there afore mornin' if we kep' goin' and the mules held out."
    "Got to git him there tonight?"
    "No. Tomorrow'll do, long as it's cold like this. I got feed for the mules and a bedroll and some beans and side meat cooked up and a piece of corn bread. But I'd just as leave not spend the night with a corpse." Deakins' eyes of a sudden were hopeful. "It's best to stop, though. Would you keer to stay with me?"
    "I was fixin' to say I would." Just the name of food made Boone's stomach hurt. He was dizzy and weak for want of it, and windy with the apples he had eaten.
    Deakins pulled the team over and, while Boone gathered wood, unhooked and fed the mules, tying them to the wagon wheels. When they had eaten the pan of corn bread and warmedup beans and fat meat, Deakins lifted out the bedroll and spread it on the ground. Taking off their boots, they lay down, drawing the thin cover over them. Boone stowed his rifle under the blanket at his side.
    Deakins lay on his back, his eyes open and blinking at the sky. "Here we are," he said, "a-lookin' up at the stars and feelin' good with food in our belly and talkin'. Makes a body wonder where the old gentleman's went to. Makes a body wonder what he's seein' and feelin' and doin'. Reckon he's up there listenin' to us, knowin' all that goes on? Reckon his dead women is there, or did God give him a new one? Or you reckon he's still in the box, waitin' his turn to go up, or maybe down?"
    He was silent for a breath or so, and then he asked, "Zeb, don't it make you feel kind of techy?"
    Boone was so tired he could barely keep track of the talk. His muscles had flattened out. When he closed his eyes, his mind went drifting off.
    Deakins' voice came again. "Don't it?"
    "He's dead, ain't he?"
    "That's what they say."
    "Let's git on to sleep, then. A dead dog never bit nobody."
    Even then, though, Deakins didn't sleep right away. Through a dream Boone heard him ask, "I reckon there ain't much that skeers you, be there, Zeb?"
 
 
    Chapter IV
    Louisville was busy as an anthill and bigger than all the places, put together, that Boone had ever seen. Even on the fringe of the town, where a man could still look off and mark where the river ran, the houses squatted pretty near elbow to elbow, and farther on the buildings looked to be pushing for room, trying to keep from being pinched. It put him in mind of the time he