Over on the Dry Side Read Free

with the work and all to keep a man’s hands busy. But not his mind. It’s by way of protection, too, for there’s two ways to think if they were white men. Either they come to rob him of what he had, and robbed him, or they come lookin’. For something else.
    â€œNow if they came lookin’ for something else and didn’t find it, they’ll be comin’ back.” Pa glanced at me. “I think the boy’s been thinkin’ of that, and it worries him.”
    â€œIt is a thing to consider,” the stranger said. “I think your son is wise.”
    â€œIt ain’t only them,” I burst out of a sudden. “It’s
her!
”
    â€œHer?” The stranger looked at me.
    â€œThat girl…that…woman! If she comes back, this place is hers. All Pa’s work’ll be for nothin’.”
    â€œIf she returns,” the stranger replied, “I think she would be pleased that her friend had been buried and the place cared for. I should believe she would be very grateful, indeed.
    â€œI cannot presume to speak for her, but do you stay on without fear and, if she returns, you will find you have lost nothing and perhaps gained much.”
    â€œThey didn’t get her,” I said then. “She got away.”
    Pa looked at me, surprised. The stranger stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. Slowly, he lowered it. “How can you know that?”
    â€œI seen tracks out back. They were old tracks, but a body could read ’em. Somebody came up, ridin’ easy…cantering. Of a sudden that horse was pulled up awful sharp, his hoofs dug in an’ he reared, then that horse turned in his own tracks and took off like lightnin’ for the hills.”
    â€œDid you see any other tracks?”
    â€œYessir. They taken out after her. There was two, three of ’em…maybe four. But she had a good horse an’ a good lead.”
    â€œThey still might have caught her.”
    â€œThey never done it. She got into them hills, and she knowed them hills like her own hands. She…”
    â€œHow d’you know that?” Pa said.
    â€œThe way she taken to them hills, no stoppin’, no hesitatin’ like. She rode right into them hills and she got to the little valley yonder an’ when she got there she drove a bunch of cattle—”
    â€œWhat cattle?” Pa said. “I ain’t seen no cattle!”
    â€œThere’s cattle,” I insisted. “She drove ’em up and then she started ’em back the way they come, wiping out her trail. Then she went into soft sand where she wouldn’t leave no tracks.”
    â€œStill, they might have found her.”
    â€œNossir, they didn’t. They followed her into them hills, but they lost her trail under the hoofs of them cattle, like she figured they would. They hunted a long time, then they come back.”
    â€œAre those tracks still there?”
    â€œNossir. There ain’t no tracks of any kind. On’y rains before that was soft and gentle, not enough to wipe out good tracks.”
    â€œDoby,” Pa never called me by name an awful lot, so he was almighty serious, “Doby, why didn’t you ever tell me?”
    I could feel my neck gettin’ red. “Pa, you was so set on this place. You takin’ to it like no other an’ all. An’ me, I liked it, too. I was afeared if you knowed you might pull out an’ leave. You might just give up an’ we’d be ridin’ the wagon agin, goin’ nowhere much. I want to stay, Pa. I want to stay right here. I want to see our work come to somethin’, an’ I want a place I know is home.”
    â€œStay on,” the stranger said. “I think I can safely say it will be all right.”
    â€œBut how?” Pa asked. “How can anybody?”
    â€œI can,” the stranger said, “I can say it. My name is Chantry. The dead man you buried was my