The Whipping Boy Read Online Free PDF Page B

goods here, he was getting to be one of the best general merchants in the Nation.” Jake shook his head. “Today ain’t the time for collecting. Not with what’s going on here.”
    Tom watched the owner. He had dark bags under his eyes. When he sold something he didn’t ask for cash; he just wrote the figures in his big account book, larger in size than the “book of sins” kept by Reverend Schoot but with the same thick black cover. In all the confusion of traffic, people were asking the storekeeper for loans of this and that, help, or advice. He tried to accommodate them, but he looked debilitated and strained. Nervously, fussily, he checked the buckets he’d set around the room to catch drips.
    A thin, wavering cry came from the porch, and everyone in the room fell quiet—statues in a dimly lit room marbled with smoke. Several of them moved at once, crowding out to the front porch, and Tom followed, just in time to see the hotel they had slept in last night jolt and shudder and be swept away by the flood. The old woman cried out again—a thin, high, eerily familiar sound. The big building pivoted sideways and headed ponderously downstream on its foundation of logs, floating for some distance like a ship before doing a slow, staggering dip, tipping over and starting to break apart. Another building nearby was being shaken and torn by the force of the current. The warehouse next to the hotel had already collapsed into the river, and the downslope half of Tuskahoma appeared to be pretty much gone. Mrs. Oke’s cry cut through the rain.
    Tom was standing painfully close to the young woman, who gave off a heat that he could feel through the wet air. She turned and looked at him—slowly, actually raking her eyes up across him—and he backpedaled a step, tripped over a boot scraper, and fell hard on his tailbone. Humiliated, he got up quickly.
    Mr. Jaycox came over. “I think we’re going to have to call this trip a bust and try to catch a train back. The bridges are either going to be under water or blocked by ballast trains pretty soon. We’d be floating around out here till the cows come home. I’m just going to say hello to John Blessing. Come over and meet him.”
    Tom saw the young woman move a step, as if about to speak to Mr. Jaycox, but he didn’t notice her.
    The owner was behind his counter, wet and grim. He was a stout man, at least half-blood, with a scar cut deeply into his chin. When they walked over, Blessing stayed behind his counter, looking unfriendly. “What are you doin here, sellin rowboats?” Blessing said without preface, swallowing his words off short, as if they tasted bad in his mouth.
    Mr. Jaycox held out a hand to shake, and Blessing barely touched it. “No sir. This is still Dandy’s territory.”
    â€œYou travelin Guthrie?”
    â€œGuthrie and north of there,” Mr. Jaycox said.
    â€œMakin a lot of money in the white settlements?”
    â€œNot lately.”
    â€œThat’s where all the money is. Sure ain’t down here.”
    Mr. Jaycox smiled and shook his head. “Most of the money in Oklahoma Territory stays on the keno tables, John. Half the people in Guthrie moved out a couple of weeks ago for the Outlet rush.”
    â€œThe free land,” Blessing said sarcastically. “They’ll have ours soon.”
    â€œMeet Tom Freshour, John. He just came on with us.”
    Blessing looked morosely toward the door. “So Dekker is hiring Indian boys to sell hardware? Must be in a bad way.”
    Mr. Jaycox looked taken aback. “Well now, John, that’s a heck of a thing to say.”
    The storekeeper looked suspicious. “You ain’t here to collect money from me, are you?”
    â€œI’m just stopping off to say hello. I’ll talk to you later.”
    â€œBut that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it,” Blessing