Boone's Lick

Father Villy was cooling his feet in the river.

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Neva wouldn't stop dancing, although the only musician left was Granpa and he was a scratchy fiddler. Neva wanted me to jog with her, but my feet had begun to feel like I had lead in my socks.

I had lived on the Missouri River all my life, and I liked having it near--only then it had just been a part of home, and now it wasn't, anymore. Pretty as it was, with the moonlight shining on it, it had stopped seeming like our old friendly river. Uncle Seth told me it was more than two thousand miles long, which was a lot more miles than I could imagine. A river that ran on for such a stretch could easily swallow a little wagon full of Cecils.

Ma knew that I was prone to glooms--thick, heavy glooms that settled on me and slowed me down so that I had a hard time moving, or thinking, or doing much of anything. When she saw me standing on the deck of the boat, something about the way I looked or the way I stood must have told her one of my glooms had come on me.

"Sherman, come here," she said--it was only at such times that Ma called me by my full name.

It made G.T. jealous, because she never called him by his full name, which was Grant Thaddeus Cecil.

"You're homesick, I guess," Ma said, once we had walked a little way down the riverbank, out of the hearing of the others.

I was homesick, but my feelings were so mixed that I couldn't find words for them--I don't think Ma even expected me to. She rubbed my neck and tried to hug me, but I stepped away. Even though I was glad Ma called me over, I didn't want anybody hugging me, just then.

"Sherman, would you just give it a chance?" Ma asked. "Wyoming might be a fine place to live, for all you know."

Then baby Marcy began to holler--Uncle Seth couldn't soothe her, and neither could Aunt Rosie.

"She's hungry--she wants the teat," Ma said. "That's one thing I've never been shut of for long--hungry babies."

"That Indian Charlie can talk to snapping turtles and have them mind him," G.T. said. He had seen Ma walk off with me--of course, it made him jealous, immediately.

"Was he talking to it in Indian language, or in turtle language?" Ma asked, before walking off to nurse Marcy.

"What do you think, Shay?" G.T. asked. The question had not occurred to him.

"I expect it was Indian language," I said, taking a guess. "I don't think turtles have a language."

"Maybe not, but they can listen," G.T. said. "That one was listening to every word Charlie said."

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Pretty soon Uncle Seth took his horse and all the mules up the street to the town--he was hoping to find a livery stable. Aunt Rosie went with him. I imagine both of them were really hoping to find a saloon.

The rest of us made pallets under the wagon and soon bedded down. Father Villy slept with us--he had a snore that made Granpa's seem like a bird-song. I believe Charlie Seven Days slept in his canoe, which was tied up by the big flatboat.

The next morning, as soon as there was a shading of light in the east, the boatmen began to rattle around in on the boat, determined to get an early start. Cocks were crowing, up on the hill where the town was. It was so misty for half an hour that I couldn't see Aunt Rosie or Uncle Seth, but I heard some wild geese honking, high overhead, and a bull bellowed from somewhere way upstream.

"It's a bear, I can hear it plain," G.T. insisted.

"You oaf, it's a bull," Neva said, and for once she was right.

Ma routed us out--the priest too--and pretty soon we had the mules hitched and the wagon solidly settled on the flatboat, with a chain around the axle and chunks of wood under the wheels to keep it from rolling around.

A few minutes after sunup we left the Glasgow shore: Ma and Uncle Seth, Aunt Rosie and Granpa Crackenthorpe, me and G.T. and Neva and baby Marcy, big-bearded Father Villy and Charlie Seven Days, the man who could talk to turtles and whose real name meant the sound a beaver makes when it slaps its tail on the water.

It was good-bye to Missouri--I didn't know if we'd ever be back.

BOOK II

The Holy Road

1 I EXPECT one reason most boatmen are stumpy little fellows is that there's no great amount of room on a boat. There were four boatmen on our boat, besides ourselves; when all was fine and fair, everybody lolled around on deck, fishing or playing cards or doing whatever they wanted to do. But it was not always fine and fair--we'd not been gone from Glasgow two hours when some clouds came scudding in, almost as low as a flight of ducks--big raindrops began to splatter down. There was a little shed of sorts, at one end of the boat, which was where we all huddled when the downpour came. The only travelers who didn't seek cover were Father Villy and Charlie Seven Days. Charlie stood on the edge of the deck with his shirt off--to him the rain was just a refreshing bath.

"I hope you have a better opinion of Mr. Seven Days now," Ma said, watching the rain splatter down. I believe she was bored by the lagging conversation, the result of the fact that Uncle Seth and Aunt Rosie had had a late night.

"I have no opinion of anything or anybody," Uncle Seth replied.

"Being surly is no way to start a trip, Seth," Ma said. She herself seemed to be in first-rate spirits.

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"Well, I didn't expect it to cloud up so quick," Uncle Seth said.

"It's just a shower," Aunt Rosie said.

"Yes, but fish don't bite when it's this wet," one of the boatmen said, the ski

"Joe, that's erroneous," Uncle Seth said. "It's wet all the time for a fish, remember?"

"Go to hell, this ain't your boat!" Joe said. He was a testy little fellow.

While we all watched, Father Villy walked to the edge of the boat, stripped off his robe, stood there naked for a minute, and then dove in the water. Before we knew it he had swum all the way to the east bank.

"I guess a priest can just go naked when he wants to," Aunt Rosie said, a little shocked.

"Villy was always that way," Granpa said. "He shucks off when he feels like it."

"Do you like him, Seth?" Ma asked.

"Well, he's large--that could be useful if there's a fight," Uncle Seth said. "Another advantage is that he can marry people. On a long expedition like this cnmphnHv micrVit p-pt the itrh tn be hitched."

"It won't be me, if that's what you're thinking," Aunt Rosie said.

"A man Seth's age who has never been married doesn't know what he's talking about," Ma said.

Ma and Uncle Seth went on joshing and bickering, just as they would have if we'd been at home. Charlie Seven Days had just eased his canoe into the water--I walked over to watch.

"I am just going to look for snags and sandbars," he said. "You're welcome to come if you're not busy." The problem of snags and sandbars is one boatmen have to deal with every day of their lives, if they happen to be on the Missouri River. Trees wash down and wedge themselves in the cha

if not worse. Of course, Charlie couldn't see beneath the surface any better than anybody else, but he was quick to probe with his paddle if he suspected a snag, and more often than not he was right.

The shower soon blew on through, and a bright sun came out. The sky above the river got bigger and bigger and bluer and bluer. Birds of all sorts flitted around the water's edge--the sky above was thick with ducks and geese, one bunch flying right behind another. I stopped feeling homesick and began to feel lively. We were finally on our way up-river, headed for a big adventure.