The Big Sky Read Free

ain't mad at me."
    "I knew you wouldn't."
    "Where you goin' to?"
    "Ain't sayin'." Boone turned and made for the cabin, from which came the gleam of a new-lit candle. Before he got to the door, Dan came running up and pushed ahead of him into the kitchen.
    Ma was taking the bird from its spit.
    "Boone done for Pap, most likely," Dan told her.
    She had started for the table with the bird. The words stopped her. Her eyes turned to Boone.
    "Goddam him!" he said.
    "What?"
    "I hit him a lick with a club."
    Dan added, "He's lyin' out there with the rain beatin' n him and he don't even know it."
    Ma put on a bonnet and started to pull on the rag of a coat.
    Boone asked, "Wait'll I git gone?"
    "Gone?" She stood again without moving, as if letting thought sink into her. "You ain't really leavin', Boone? He'll put the law after you."
    Boone walked across the kitchen and out the door to the dog trot and went into the other cabin and took a hickory shirt and cotton underwear and hand-knit socks from a chest. Back in the kitchen, he spread the shirt on the floor and dropped the other things on it and rolled them up.
    Serena watched him. From underneath the water shelf she dug out a small sack and handed it to him without speaking.
    Dan said, "You sure fotched him a dandy, Boone."
    "You go see about your pap," Ma told him. "I'll be there in a shake." Dan shuffled toward the door. To Boone she said, "I do' know why you want that there strop, nor the hair, neither."
    Boone held up the strop and scalp that Pap had got in the fight with the Prophet. The strop was a muddy brown and had commenced to crumble at the edges, but it was an honest-to-God Indian-skin strop all the same. The hair on the scalp had lost its shine, and the little patch of skin that held it together had shriveled and curled and lay lost in the hair like a bur in a dog's coat.
    "I know," answered Dan. "He wants to make a show of 'em, like Pap always done." He snickered. "I reckon he'll favor a leg, too."
    Boone said, "I don't hanker to be like Pap, and I won't take much off'n you, neither, Dan. Hear?" He unrolled the shirt and put the strop and scalp with the rest and rolled the bundle tight again, dropping it into the bag Ma had given him. He looked about the room afterward, moving to the corner by the door as his eye fell upon Pap's rifle with its powder horn and pouch.
    "I don't know what your pap'll do without that there rifle gun," Ma said.
    "If'n you didn't kill him with the club, you'll kill him by takin' Old Sure Shot," Dan put in.
    Boone slung the horn and pouch from his shoulder and picked up his rifle and bundle. He looked at Dan and then at Ma.
    "Best hurry, Boone," Dan said, looking at the door. "Can't tell when Pap'll come to hisself." Underneath his funning and his go-easy way Dan was a good-enough boy.
    Serena turned from Boone and all at once seemed to see the hen lying forgotten on the table. She picked it up and rolled it in a rag and handed it to Boone. Her eyes wouldn't come level with his; they fixed themselves on his chest. Of a sudden he saw that she looked like a tired, sad rabbit, her eyes round and watery and her nose twitching. He felt his face twist suddenly and his throat knot and the tears about to come. He said, "Goodbye."
    Her voice was a rusty whisper. "Good luck to ye, Boone."
    Dan followed him to the door. Night had closed down outside, so wet and black a body felt almost like drawing back. Dan spoke just with his breath. "To St. Louis?"
    Through the murmur of the rain there came to them the beat of a horse's hoofs. The Caudills' old dog began to bark. "You shut your mouthl" Boone said, and stepped into the dark.
 
 
    Chapter II
    All night Boone walked through the rain, feeling the steady drip of it on his head and shoulders while his eye poked for the dark trail among the trees and his mind kept going over the fight at the store and the later trouble with Pap. He reckoned he'd broke Mose Napier's face all right. He could see him, with