Free The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie Jr. Page B

picture, and got his blanket closer around his neck and went through the door, letting the moccasins dangle from his hand. The smiling man in the back was among the last to go out. Watching him, Boone saw that he was crippled. One shoulder was withered, and one leg dragged on the floor. He was still smiling as he drew closer, but smiling a fool's smile, Boone could see now, smiling without meaning, out of an idiot's face. Before he passed through the door he turned and stuck his tongue out at Boone. Bedwell tidied his beaver and after a final look around left the courtroom. Judge Test came down from the bench and cut himself a chew of tobacco. He and the sheriff began to chaff.
    After while the sheriff said, "This was just a one-drink case." He motioned out the window, to the jury coming from the tavern. Beecher shook his head but didn't say anything.
    The jurymen lagged in. Judge Test lifted himself back on the platform and sat at the bench pulling at his dewlaps. The pale judge sat with his jaw in his hand. His eyes opened slowly as the jury tramped by him. The clerk came and sat down before his book.
"Gentlemen, have you come to a decision?"
    One of the jurors got up and stood framed in the window, shutting out the woods and the sky and the bird soaring. "We have."
    "Let the court hear it."
    "Judge, your honor, we say the boy's guilty, but not too orful guilty."
    The judge pursed his lips while his red eyes waited on the speaker.
    "We figger," said the juror, "that he'll have to work it out, if'n you fine him, so we say about five dollars, or seven days."
    Judge Test whispered to the pale judge and they both nodded, and Judge Test said, "Let it be seven days." The clerk's pen scratched in his book. To Eggleston Judge Test added, "That'll give you time enough to run him down."
    Boone felt the hand of the sheriff on his arm. "Come along!" Eggleston looked up as they were about to pass him. "Maybe you can get something out of him, sheriff." One cold eye winked. The sheriff said, "Sure." As he passed out the door he said to the little man named Charlie, "Git Little Betsy, will you?"
    The jail was a log cabin with a heavy oak door. The sheriff sprang the lock with a rusty key. It was a big lock, as big as a terrapin. For a minute Boone couldn't make things out after he had got inside. Then he saw a plank bunk with a ragged cover on it, and a broken table, on which a half-burned candle was stuck.
    A voice outside said, "Here's Betsy." The sheriff said, "Thanks. Watch the door." The door whined as it closed.
    The sheriff was a big man, tall and bony, with a look of power about him. Boone hadn't noticed before how stiff his face could be. It was like a rock face, like Pap's when the devil got in him.
    "Time we get well acquainted," said the sheriff, "maybe you'll feel more like talkin'." The right hand came away from his side, holding something that for a minute dragged on the floor. "Turn around!"
    Boone cried, "You ain't going to whale me, mister!"
    Before he had finished, the whip whistled.
 
 
    Chapter VIII
    "Giddap, old boy, giddap, giddap."
    Jim Deakins timed his words to the pace of the horse under him, kicking the horse's belly when he got too poky. He was over the river at last, after waiting two days for the water to go down and the ferryman's courage to rise. Even then he had had to pay an extra dollar to get the ferryman to put out. His two mules were gone, and the old work wagon. In their place he had a horse and a bit of money in his pocket. "Giddap, giddap."
    He hadn't found any trace of Boone yet. No one had seen him. A tall, dark boy? No. Carrying a rifle? No. Seventeen or eighteen, going to St. Louis? Nope. Nope. Ain't seed such a boy. He wondered if the river had got Boone after all. From the shore they had seen the boat turn over and the head bob and then go out of sight, but a man's head was a little thing to see in the water such a piece away. Boone looked strong, and stout-winded as a pup. He was a good