Boone's Lick

the more I realized that the main puzzle had to do with Ma and Pa and Uncle Seth. If Aunt Patty, the older sister, had turned Pa down, why did Ma pick him? After all, she already had Uncle Seth, who was probably just as partial to her then as he was now.

Ma could see that I was wrestling with a lot of complicated thoughts: it just seemed to amuse her. I tried to work up a set of questions I could ask her, but Ma put me off with a look. I had the feeling that she had said what she wanted to say about these matters and had no intention of saying another word--or at least not a word that made sense to a person my age, who didn't know much.

Next day when she and Neva and I were in the garden, digging spuds and putting them in a sack, several crows came flapping over the barn--they soon flew on toward the river, cawing as they went.

Ma pitched a potato into the sack and gave me a little smile.

"I pity the fate of the carrion crow," she said. "Those black birds mate for life."

"Who cares what a crow does?" Neva said. A little later she took herself off to Boone's Lick. The news was that Wild Bill Hickok was back in town.

12 WOMEN will even sniff bread," Uncle Seth informed me. We were out hunting Little Nicky, the biting mule. He had had a wild, biting fit during the night; in order to get clear of him Old Sam and the other mules had kicked down the pen and went ru

They had gone in the general direction of Stumptown, which led Uncle Seth to speculate that Little Nicky might have gone back to try and bite the bear.

"Why do women sniff bread?" I asked. It was something I often noticed Ma doing, when she made bread.

"To see if it's fresh, I expect," Uncle Seth said.

"I have never sniffed bread in my life, which is the difference between me and a woman.

"And when a woman comes to decide who to marry it comes down to the same test," he added.

"You mean they sniff men?" I asked. I could not imagine what it would feel like to have a woman sniff me.

"Yes, to determine if the fellow's fresh," Uncle Seth said. "I guess I don't smell fresh, which is why I'm a bachelor still."

"That's pretty peculiar," I said.

"Oh no, I expect it's a fine method," Uncle Seth said, trying to make out Little Nicky's tracks on the trail.

"Women don't know why they choose who they choose," he went on. "If they say otherwise it's a lie. A good fresh scent's probably the best thing they got to go on."

38

I was wanting to tell him--since we were on the subject--that I knew he had once courted Ma, but seeing how partial he was to her still, I wasn't sure how he'd take it.

"Damn a mule that will wander," he said. "I could be in Boone's Lick, playing cards and wi

We had just heard the news that Sheriff Baldy Stone had quit his job.

That bullet that bounced off his saddle and hit him in the stomach had done more damage than it seemed at the time. Sheriff Baldy had so much trouble just holding down his food that he lacked the energy to go out and arrest bandits. I thought it was a pity. I liked Sheriff Baldy, although his untimely faint had nearly got me killed.

G.T. was on the mule hunt too, only he was lagging so far behind he couldn't take part in the conversation.

"Maybe they'll make Mr. Hickok sheriff," I said.

"Oh no, Bill couldn't be bothered to keep a jail," Uncle Seth said.

"Anyway, he's a half criminal himself, which is what you find in a good many of these sheriffs.

"I expect they'd offer the job to me, if I wasn't leaving," he went on.

"It's bad luck for the town that Mary Margaret's got her mind set on this expedition. She's determined to find Dick if it kills us--which it might."

"I expect Pa will be glad to see us," I said. I didn't want to think about us all getting killed--in my thinking it would just be a nice fall trip, with lots of buffalo for us to chase.

Uncle Seth gave me a strange look, when I suggested that Pa would be glad to see us.

"Shay, you have not been around your father enough to figure out the first thing about him," Uncle Seth said. "The truth is he won't be glad to see us--it's more likely to make him boiling mad."

"Why?" I asked. "We're his family."

"That's why!" Uncle Seth said. "One reason Dick's a wagoner is because he's got no tolerance for family life. Your pa ain't sociable--at least not with white people. He didn't leave me behind because I'm a little gimpy--that was just his excuse.

He never wanted me hauling with him anyway. Too much company."

"If he don't like white people, who does he like?" I asked.

"Cheye

39

It seemed I was learning something new about my family almost every day now. I always thought we were just an ordinary family--and maybe we were; but then, maybe we weren't.

"If Pa doesn't want us to come, then why are we going?" I asked.

Uncle Seth never answered that question. We weren't far from where we'd seen the bear, a fact which made G.T. nervous. He came thundering up to join us about that time, but what really distracted Uncle Seth was something he noticed on the ground.

"Somebody's found our mules," he said. He dismounted and walked around on the trail for a few minutes, studying the tracks. There were a lot of tracks, but they were just a blur to me and even more of a blur to G.T.

"Well, Little Nicky ain't traveling alone anymore, and neither is Henry Clay," Uncle Seth said, after a thorough examination of the trail. "That damn Newt Tebbit must have come upon them and decided he'd help himself to two fine mules--the damn scoundrel.

"I should have whacked him harder, when I whacked him," he went on, swinging back on his horse.

"What makes you think it's him--it could be anybody," G.T. said.

"I was not born a fool, like you, G.T.," Uncle Seth said. "I noticed when we were following the Tebbits that Newt's horse was shod. Few people around here can afford to keep their horses shod, though it was common until the war. Bill Hickok keeps his shod, but then he's in a profession that might require rapid flight and a surefooted horse. But Bill ain't a mule thief. Newt Tebbit's our mule thief."

"I guess we'll have to get up another posse," G.T. said.

"Having to educate you is a heavy burden, G.T," Uncle Seth said. "We are the posse, this time. Be sure there's a cartridge in your gun."

Then he went loping off. Soon we were past Stumptown and were in the wooded country where the Millers were said to live. Uncle Seth didn't study the tracks much--he just kept going.

"I wish I'd brought a biscuit," G.T. said.

We were well into the wooded country before Uncle Seth slowed down.

"I believe some of the Tebbits are married to some of the Millers, and vice versa," Uncle Seth said. "I expect we'll find the bunch of them in camp together. I feel confident we can lick a barn-ful of Tebbits, but I'm a little worried about Ro

He's the one whose horse flipped, remember?"

I remembered the horse flipping, of course, but I had never had a good look at the rider--I just remembered that he hadn't moved for a while.