Free So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger Page B

supper, its drafty construction and air of paucity. He told of peering round a corner to see the farmer close by in the field, encouraging his draft horses in a clay-dusthaze. In Glendon’s tone were sadness, acceptance, and finally humor—this as he told about the snapping turtle escaping in the hailstorm, only to take warmth and comfort from the very fire on which we’d planned to roast him. The irony made me chuckle.
    “Monte, you’re awake.”
    This may have been the first time he used my Christian name.
    “Yes. I’m sorry to eavesdrop. I didn’t know you were devout,” I said.
    “Oh, no.” He was much entertained. “Devout, ha! Nope, I got no such claim. Though I did get myself baptized, once upon a time.”
    “As a boy, I suppose.”
    “No, later, when I was staying at Hole in the Wall,” he said, so offhandedly you might’ve thought it was a colorfully named hotel and not the infamous lair of Cassidy and Longabaugh plus dozens of less likable bandits. “I know what you’re thinking,” he added, eyeing me.
    “Hardly a spot for church doings,” I admitted.
    “That’s true, and the fellow who dipped me was hardly church material. Crealock was his name; he’d been a thief, then a preacher, then came back around to thief again. But he’d preach sometimes at the Hole. He had a firm grip on Hell, yes he did.”
    It was a serene night on the river, and Glendon told me of his salvation in some detail. Crealock had described Hell in upsetting similes until Glendon asked what he must do to keep from its torturous flames. There was a grassy stream flowing through the Hole and there Crealock baptized the young penitent, asking his name and receiving Glen Dobie; and Glen Dobie wept along with the preacher, who thanked him for his amenable heart and gave him a paperboard copy of Proverbs, although he could not read. Then the preacher instructed him to rest awhile and implore with God and taught him a short prayer to say. The new convert went to his bedroll rejoicing. He uttered the prayer a number of times and cried several times, feeling the mercy of God pour out like cleansing oil upon his limbs, and late in the day he arose and ate a sustaining meal of frijoles with side pork and rode out from the Hole with his friends and robbed the Union Pacific as it climbed the Wyoming foothills.
    Then “Hold on, Becket,” he said. “Do you hear a noise?”
    He held the oars still in the water for maybe a minute. There came a faint yawp or roar—an alarming, abrasive sound. As we listened it resolved to coarse laughter.
    “Is there a boat?” Glendon asked. “Can you see anyone?”
    The clouds had moved off the waxing moon. It was bright enough that dips in the land appeared as shadows. Looking upriver I saw a yellow light I had moments earlier taken for someone’s cabin window—now I could see it was an oil lamp hung on a black line sliding swiftly downriver.
    “It’s a barge or raft,” I said. “See that light?”
    “I’m afraid I don’t,” he replied, though between our progress upstream and theirs down, the distance was shutting dramatically.
    “Look more to the left.” It was a big raft carrying the shapes of men. I couldn’t tell how many. They were laughing again, though with more reserve—some new note had entered their revelry.
    Glendon said, “Hang these eyes of mine, what a disappointment they are.”
    “There. Right there. See how close they’re getting?” Because now in the moonlight I could make out three or four men squatting at the near edge of the raft. Another was standing aft—from his motions I judged he was steering with a pole or long oar. “Look,” I said, “there must be a strong crosscurrent. They’re coming straight this way.”
    But even at close range Glendon couldn’t see them, for abruptly their lantern was extinguished. Onward they came. There was no laughing now aboard that raft, nor talking either. The man astern poled hard across the current, and the others