The Gentleman Outlaw and Me-Eli Read Free

you won't mind cooling your heels till he gets hisself on over here. Not if this is really and truly your money."
    I looked at the ticket agent. If the sheriff got involved in this, I was deader than dead. Who'd take the word of a child against a full-grown man like the ticket agent?
    Reaching under the grill, I grabbed my money and ran.
    "Come back here, boy!" the ticket agent hollered. I believe he meant to chase me but thought better of it when he saw Caesar.
    "With that red hair, you won't get far!" he yelled. "I'll give your description to the sheriff, and he'll do up a poster with your face on it!"
    Without looking back, I headed for the woods as
fast as I could go. Didn't slow down until I'd put at least a mile between Clark Summit and me. Even then I kept up a good pace. For all I knew, the sheriff had nothing better to do than chase after boys like me.
    By late afternoon, I was hot and thirsty and hungry and tired. I'd never walked so far in Uncle Homer's big old boots. They were rubbing my heels raw. Finally I found a shady spot and flopped down in the grass, too weary to take another step. Hard as the ground was, it felt good to lie still.
    Caesar collapsed beside me and panted in my face, not an altogether pleasant experience. I guess he was as hungry as I was, but all I had was the apple. When I showed it to him, he sniffed and turned his head away. I went ahead and ate it, but I swear I was hungrier after I'd finished it than I'd been before.
    I lay in the grass, trying to ignore the ants crawling up and down my arms like I was their own private thoroughfare, and wondered what I should do next.
    Overhead, thrushes were singing, showering me with music that fell like drops of gold from the treetops. Their song reminded me of a sad, sad story Mama once read to me. "The Babes in the Woods" it was called. It told of two poor children who lost their way in the wilderness. The birds took pity on them and covered their little bodies with leaves, but the children starved to death anyway.
    Soon I began to think Caesar and I might end up like that boy and girl. We'd die here, and the birds would cover us. And then Papa would take it into his head to come back to Kansas. He'd be walking along this exact same trail and he'd stumble on my skeleton in the leaves, see the shiny locket round my neck, and know it was me, his own daughter, the child he'd abandoned so long ago.
    Papa would gather the bones, not knowing, which were mine and which were Caesar's, and bury us together. Above our grave, he'd put a stone sculpture of a girl and a dog. The inscription would say H ERE LIE POOR E LIZA Y ATES AND HER ONE AND ONLY FRIEND , C AESAR, A NOBLE DOG.
    Thinking these thoughts made me so sad I cried myself to sleep. When I woke up, I was surprised to see the sun had set. Pink light lingered in the western sky, but the woods were darkening fast and the air was cold.
    Belly empty, I shivered and got to my feet. At the same time, a gust of wind rustled the leaves overhead, bringing with it the smell of woodsmoke and beef stew. My stomach growled so loudly Caesar barked.
    "Hush," I whispered. "We'll sneak over to the fire and see who's doing the cooking. If they look kindly, we'll ask if we can please have a bite."
    Caesar and I crept through the trees and underbrush like Indians, scarcely making a sound. Not
that it mattered much. The three men gathered around the campfire were raising such a ruckus they wouldn't have heard a runaway circus elephant on the rampage. As if whooping and hollering weren't enough, one of them fired a gun every now and then. The sound made their horses whinny and rear up. Startled the birds too, especially the crows roosting right over my head who added their caws to the racket.
    It was plain to see the men weren't the kindly sort who'd share their food with a poor boy and his dog. The best thing to do was to wait until they fell asleep and then help ourselves to whatever was left in the pot.
    Caesar and I