Free The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana) by Robert Lewis Taylor Page B

to brag about, not yet. But I was alive, and madder than a hornet, which I’ve noticed can serve as well as courage in a pinch. I had my hatchet that I’d lifted from the farmer stuck in mybelt, and I figured that when we stopped to sleep, I’d get up in the middle of the night and bash in their heads. I was just sore enough to do it. But the more I thought it over, the better it seemed to wait and work my original plan.
    When we pulled up to camp, the old man said he called it about seven miles to St. Louis and that we’d ride in early in the morning to collect the reward. I wailed and took on and begged him not to do it, but he quoted four or five verses from the Bible, mostly having to do with a man named Joab, who had a fight in a tree, and told me to shut my trap.
    That night, sitting around the fire, drinking “coffee” made from evans’-root, he fell to talking about the old days, and he said: “No boy ever had the advantages of upbringing that I did, and I thank God for it. A blessed mother is heaven’s earthly reward, and mine was a jewel. She was the wife of a boneheaded innkeeper, and she taught me to steal before I was ten. It was her guidance that made me rise up to success. She had the flair for hospitality, and when she tucked in a guest, she generally bottom-warmed his bed, to be sure he’d sleep, and then I would prize my way in and empty his pockets. She gave me my start, you might say.
    “At the height of my nigger-stealing I was that genteel you wouldn’t have recognized me. I bought my boots and hats in Philadelphia and had my clothes tailored in New Orleans, meanwhile laying over at Mother Surgick’s to frolic with the girls. My pantaloons were strapped on, top and bottom, and my shirt was fastened with ribbons and buttons of gold. I had a silk hat with a rim three quarters of an inch wide and boots of pure calf on my feet. And if it ain’t too much for your stomick, have a look at me now.”
    Leaning forward, he seized a brand and stirred up the fire, and in the upward shower of sparks he looked as pious as old Moses himself, with his white hair flying and his eyes crazy and hot. I could see Shep glance at Slater, who was gazing broodily at the embers, and then at the girl, who sat as white and still as death. “Yes, sir,” said John, “I was a roarer, born and bred, and I flung money both to the right and to the left—I was famous for it. There wasn’thardly a law I didn’t break, from murder to treason, and do you know what first laid me low?”
    He began to rip and rave and foam and grit his teeth and haul at his hair till I thought he’d tumble over into the fire.
    “—why, they took me up for horse-stealing, like a common beggarman in the street, me that was plotting to rule an empire. They sentenced me to twelve months in jail, gave me thirty lashes on my bare back at a public whipping post, made me sit two hours in the pillory three days running, and at the end of the third day brought me into court and branded my left thumb with the letters ‘H.T.’ for Horse Thief.”
    Leaping to his feet, he flourished the thumb with a shriek that made the woods ring. Both Shep and Slater jumped back out of the way, and the girl woke up with a whimper.
    So it was true, then. The mark, now fine white lines, showed up clear against the dark grime and broken nail of his thumb, and I fancied I could see dried crusts of blood from his work earlier in the day. He
was
Murrel, just as he’d said all along, and here I was stuck with him. Shep and Slater must have had something like the same idea, for they stood back staring, as sober as gallows birds facing the noose.
    “All right, John, all right,” said Shep nervously. “That’s over and done, so why don’t you turn in and get some sleep? Another screech like that and you’ll have half of St. Louis on our necks.”
    “They strapped my hand to the railing at the judge’s bench, and brought in a tinner’s stove and set it beside the