Boone's Lick

"No, the bullet hit the back of my saddle before it hit me, which is a good thing," the sheriff said. "The ball fell out. I'm bloody but I ain't in danger."

"Then let's go handcuff this crew before they run off," Uncle Seth said.

"I see Jake Miller," the sheriff said. "He's squirming around as if he's hurt, but it could be a trick."

"If he ain't hurt, and it's a trick, then I'll hurt him," Uncle Seth said. "I resent being ambushed by a Reb who won't admit his side lost."

"We need to be careful, Seth," the sheriff said. "Cut-Nose is on his feet but he's favoring one ankle--I believe he lost his rifle in the fall."

"I'm always careful, Baldy," Uncle Seth said. "You supply the handcuffs--

I'll supply the caution."

10 CUT-NOSE Jones seemed dazed-- he was under the impression that he wasin Ohio. He put up no fight when the sheriff handcuffed him.

"His own horse kicked him in the head--I seen it," Lester Miller said.

"Them horses was in a hurry to get away from that bear."

Two of the ambushers had hobbled off, but Lester, a boy the same age as G.T., had stayed to help his brother Jake, who had broken his leg in the fall. Even with Uncle Seth pointing his rifle right between the man's eyes the sheriff had a tussle getting him securely handcuffed. Jake Miller hissed like a snake the whole time.

"Don't let him grab your gun--he's got fight in him yet," Uncle Seth warned; but Sheriff Baldy, despite being round as a barrel, was expert at handcuffing dangerous criminals: he gave Jake Miller a short sharp kick in his broken leg and got the cuffs on him while the man was yelling.

Lester Miller was no problem to handcuff--I think he was glad the fight was over.

"They gave me a poor gun," he said. "The hammer's just wired on, you see."

"I wasn't allowed much in the way of guns when I was your age," Uncle Seth said sociably.

"Shut up, you whimpering brat!" Jake Miller said--then he actually tried to butt his little brother with his head.

32

"Who were the men who ran away?" Sheriff Baldy asked.

"Jody and Lyle, I don't know their last names," Lester said.

With Jake Miller and Cut-Nose Jones safely handcuffed and disarmed, Uncle Seth got back on his horse and rode off toward Stumptown--some of the horses had run themselves out and were standing there looking tired. That left me and G.T. and the sheriff to watch the prisoners. Even though they were securely handcuffed and we had all the guns, I didn't feel particularly comfortable with this responsibility, and neither did G.T.

Jake Miller was about as mad as a man can get--he looked at me with little hot eyes, the way a boar hog looks at you just before he charges.

Just looking at him made me want to back up a step or two.

"You two Yankee boys have made a big mistake," he said.

"No, I have never made a mistake in my life," G.T. informed him. It was G.T.'s disputatious side coming out.

"Don't let him rattle you, boys," Sheriff Baldy said--for some reason his voice trailed off, when he said "boys."

When I looked around Sheriff Baldy was lying flat on his back on the ground--he had either died or slipped into a faint.

"He's dead--good," Jake Miller said matter-of-factly. "The son of a bitch was fatal shot and didn't know it. Now you Yankee boys get these handcuffs off me, if you want to live."

I looked down the hill, hoping Uncle Seth was on his way back. But he wasn't. The horse he was trying to catch was skittish, and wouldn't quite let himself be caught. Uncle Seth wasn't even looking our way, which meant that he didn't know Sheriff Baldy had fainted or died.

"You stay right where you are," I told Jake Miller. I tried to sound determined, like Ma would have sounded. But I wasn't Ma, and Jake Miller knew it.

"Do as I say, you damned Yankee pup," he said. "You pups had no business coming after me in the first place. Turn me loose or when I get out I'll track you to the ends of the earth and cut your throats."

"I guess he'd do it, too," Lester Miller said--he seemed a little shocked by his big brother's savage talk.

"We better shoot him, Shay," G.T. said. "He's got them mean eyes."

"No," I said. "What can he do? He's handcuffed and he's got a broken leg."

I had no more than said it than Jake Miller launched himself at me, somehow--made a wild lunge. Broken leg or no broken leg he managed to jump at me and grab my gun barrel. But I had my finger on the trigger and when Jake tried to yank my gun out of my hand the yank caused me to pull the trigger. The shot hit Jake right in the chest and knocked him back across Sheriff Baldy's body. "Good shot," G.T. said.

33

"Uh-oh, Jake's kilt!" Lester Miller said. "That's going to make Ro

But Jake Miller wasn't kilt. His eyes were wide open and he was still mad. He even started to try and pull one of Sheriff Baldy's pistols out of its holster, but the sheriff came back to consciousness just in time to roll away from him.

"Help me, boys--drag me off, I'm faint," the sheriff said. G.T. and I caught his arms and tried to drag him well out of the way of Jake Miller, who was crawling after us, still hoping to grab a pistol, the fire of hatred in his eyes.

"Get back! How come you ain't kilt?" G.T. asked.

I would have liked an answer to that question too, since I had shot Jake point-blank, right in the chest. If that wasn't enough to kill a man, what did it take?

"You pups--I aim to cut your throats, and yours too, Baldy," Jake Miller said, and then he began to curse; but his cursing wasn't quite as vigorous as it had been when the sheriff was handcuffing him, so at least my bullet had taken a little bit of the ginger out of him.

Just then Uncle Seth loped up--he had finally caught the skittish horse.

"My goodness, can't nobody but me do anything right?" he asked.

He jumped down, grabbed Jake Miller by the hair, and slammed his head into the ground a time or two, real hard--it was enough to take the fight out of Jake, at least for a while.

"The sheriff fainted and while he was out Jake grabbed my rifle barrel and I shot him," I said, in a rush. "I don't know why he won't die."

"Because he don't want to, son," Uncle Seth said. "Folks are tougher than they look, and quite a few are unwilling to die unless they just can't get around it."

"But I shot him point-blank," I said. I was shocked that the man wasn't dead.

"So I see," Uncle Seth said, opening Jake Miller's shirt. There was a hole in his chest but not a very big one. Uncle Seth rolled him over and pulled up his shirt--there was a bigger hole in his back, where the bullet came out, but it still wasn't the size hole I was expecting to see.

"The bullet went right through--it didn't hit nothing vital," Uncle Seth said. "If you're going to make a habit of shooting at these surly outlaws, then you need to learn where their vitals are."

"What's a vital?" G.T. asked.

"Heart, lungs, stomach, gut," Uncle Seth said.

34

"If I had a tablet I could draw you a picture." Since he didn't have a tablet he rolled Jake Miller over on his back and proceeded to give us a quick lesson, pointing with his finger at the places we ought to aim for.

"Now, the heart's here, and the lungs here, and the stomach down here, and the liver and the kidneys kind of tucked around in this area," he said.