The Devil's Paintbox Read Free Page A

massacres in Kansas over the slavery issue.
    “To Africa. To their homes,” Maddy went on, oblivious.
    “Reckon so,” Jackson said slowly. “I suppose. Far way back to Africa, though.”
    “But there must be some like you ready to take them.Must be logging in Africa too. There's plenty of jungle. I can show you in the
Atlas of the World.”
    This child could talk the bark off a tree, Jackson thought as he tipped his hat back to let the sweat cool on his brow. If he couldn't find some decent men, why couldn't they just be ordinary children?
    “Look, I don't know about Africa, but I'll take you into town,” he said. “Missionaries or whoever, you can sort it out yourselves from there.”
    “I'll go for the logging,” Aiden said.
    “You?” Jackson laughed. “I don't recall making you that offer.”
    “I can swing an axe.”
    “Boy, you'll do good to swing a full spoon to your mouth.”
    “Don't you mock me.” Aiden's hands curled into fists.
    “I ain't, son,” Jackson said. “I don't mean no insult, and do say I apologize.” Jackson looked at Maddy almost kindly. “What's he look like when he ain't all starving? Strong?”
    Maddy nodded. “He beat our grown brothers half the time they fought. I sewed them up, though Ma guided how I did. See there under his eye, that pretty scar? Was split this big”—she held her fingers an inch apart—”and deep to the bone. We sewed up all the fights, but Pa was surely mad that time—”
    “That's enough!” Aiden said. “Man doesn't need to hear our business.”
    “You aim to fight everyone you meet?” Jackson asked.
    “Only those asking for it.”
    “Well, I certainly ain't asking,” Jackson said. “Just offeringa ride into town. The horse will carry the two of you easy enough, and the walk will do me good.”
    “What will it take to join with your wagon train?” Aiden pressed. He felt dizzy and urgent, like the earth had stopped spinning for a minute just to give him one more chance. A wagon train would be safe for Maddy Someone would surely need a girl to help with chores and children. They might even keep her hired on at the other end.
    “Boy, I ain't talking about a buggy ride to Sunday school. We're walking two thousand miles across some of the roughest country in the world.”
    “You been all around the world?” Maddy asked eagerly. “What's it like?”
    Jackson squeezed his eyes in exasperation. When he got back to town, he was going to smack hell out of the man who told him there were three or four grown men out here.
    “Costs money to travel that far. You got any money?”
    “No.”
    “Got any livestock?”
    Aiden shook his head.
    “Mule?”
    “No.”
    “We ate it,” Maddy said. “Boiled.”
    “What about the hide?” Jackson looked around hopefully.
    “Wasn't so good. Real hard to chew.”
    Jackson sighed. He didn't need a couple of starving orphans, and he certainly didn't want penniless ones.
    “You got any tools?”
    “Yeah, we got tools,” Aiden said. “Plow. Shovel, axe, some hoes.”
    “Don't have handles, though,” Maddy added unhelpfully. “We burned them in the stove over the winter after the furniture was gone.”
    “Got a stove,” Aiden pressed. “We could sell that.”
    Jackson laughed.
    “It's a good stove.”
    “Boy, there's fifty stoves sitting out here, left behind by busted homesteaders. There's stoves took root out here and
growing
by now. What you got is called scrap metal.”
    “Handles are easy enough,” Aiden said. “All I need is some wood.”
    “So you got nothing. What you're telling me—you got nothing.”
    “I can sell the land. It ain't a homestead—we bought it clear.”
    “No one's buying land out here, son. God himself wouldn't buy this land now.”
    “I can teach you all the foreign countries of the world,” Maddy offered.
    “Well, I ain't moving to any foreign country any time soon,” Jackson said wearily.
    “I can doctor some,” Maddy said.
    “So you said.”
    “I can