Boone's Lick

Once I did persuade G.T. to go for a hunt with me on the Kansas bank.

Almost at once we spotted something that looked like a buffalo, far off in the grass.

"We'll be heroes if we kill it," G.T. said. We stalked that buffalo for over an hour, without getting much closer to it--our eyes weren't accustomed to the distances you found on the Kansas plains. The prairies looked flat, but had a slow roll to them, a kind of grassy wave.

Then the buffalo turned out to be nothing but a stray milk cow, a development that made G.T. furious.

"Let's kill it anyway," he said--of course I wouldn't let him.

"Heroes don't kill milk cows," I pointed out.

At close range the milk cow, which was brindle, looked more like a mule than a buffalo.

I turned around and started tramping back to the river, only to discover that G.T. thought the river was in the opposite direction.

"The river's this way," he insisted, pointing.

"You fool, it's this way, of course," I said.

The fact was, neither of us knew where the river was. The sun was hidden by some clouds as thick and gray as the grass we were walking on. There was not a single tree in sight, and no way to tell one direction from 72

another. The harder we tried to choose a direction, the more confused we became. Instead of buffalo killers and heroes we were two lost hunters, with no idea how to get back to our boat.

"If the Blackfeet Indians show up they can scalp us pretty quick, I guess," G.T. said. The remark showed how little attention G.T. paid to what Uncle Seth said.

"The Blackfeet Indians live in Montana," I reminded him. "This is Kansas we're lost in."

"Maybe it is and maybe it isn't," G.T. said. He would never admit to being wrong.

"The boat's probably a hundred miles away by now," he said. "They'll never find us. We'll starve." When G.T.'s spirits started to slide they usually slid a long way quick.

What saved us was that Ma had a cowbell. She thought we might acquire a milk cow, somewhere on our travels, so she packed our old cowbell. When she decided we were lost she began to ring it, and we could just hear that bell, ringing far to the east. It gave us a direction, and we started walking toward it. If Ma hadn't kept ringing the bell we would have probably drifted off line and been lost all night, but she kept ringing. Then Charlie Seven Days came walking out of the dusk and led us home.

"I guess we'll have to hobble you boys, if you can't manage your directions," Uncle Seth said. That night I finally worked up to asking Charlie

a question I had been wanting to ask him since he decided to travel with us: it was about Ma mistaking a horse for an elk. I explained what Uncle Seth told me the Cheye

"Your uncle must think the Cheye

"What I think is that your mother needed to feed her family, and knew there was a lot of meat on that big horse."

"Then you don't think she really thought the horse was an elk?" I asked.

"A horse is not an elk," Charlie said. It was his final comment--I guess it might be that my mother was a liar after all.

4 AS soon as Aunt Rosie got over her beating she began to pine for her old life. Her bruises cleared up and her split lip healed. Her ribs mended more slowly, but by the time we had edged upriver past St. Joseph and were close to White Cloud, she was well enough to bend over and lift a bucket of water out of the river.

It got colder as we traveled on into October. The ducks and geese were so noisy that sometimes we all wished Ma would unload the wagon and take us overland.

The day we were due to strike the Platte River Aunt Rosie came over to Ma and told her she wanted to get off and try life again on her own.

73

"I believe I'll try my luck in Council Bluffs," she said. "I've heard Iowa's nice."

"I don't agree with your decision," Ma said. She didn't say it angrily--

she said it sadly.

"I got used to having my sister around again," she said.

Aunt Rosie looked sad herself, when Ma took that tone.

"I know, Mary Margaret," she said. "I've got used to having you, too.

I've even got used to Seth, and he's a lot to get used to."

Uncle Seth didn't answer. He knew Rosie was just joshing.

"I need a town, Mary," Aunt Rosie said. "I'm no river girl and no country girl, either. I like a saloon with a piano--and maybe a few gentlemen callers."

"It was a gentleman caller who nearly beat you to death," Ma reminded her.

"No, that wasn't a gentleman caller--that was a sheriff," Rosie said.

"Sheriffs are a hazard, particularly if there's a new preacher in town.

But blizzards and wild Indians are hazards too."

"We didn't take you prisoner," Ma said. "We'll all miss your company, but you can go whenever you want."

We all felt sad, when we heard Ma's decision. We all loved Aunt Rosie, though we hadn't had her in our lives very long.

"Seth, what kind of town is Omaha?" Ma asked.

"Hilly," Uncle Seth said.

"I didn't mean that," Ma said. "You do irritate me sometimes, Seth."

"She means is there a sheriff there who is likely to beat me up?" Rosie said.

"I have not been there lately," Uncle Seth said. "It's just a town, filled with good men and bad, I expect. You might ask Villy--he's thoroughly informed."

Aunt Rosie walked off to quiz the priest. We all sat around, gloomy.

"I wish we'd never left home," Neva said. "If we was home I'd probably catch a fine mess of crawdads, since it's fall," G.T. said, not that the comment made sense.

Before we could get even gloomier a fracas broke out among the boatmen.

We all took Aunt Rosie's decision hard, but Joel, the shortest and ski

Several of the boatmen were in love with Rosie, but Joel was so violently afflicted with love sentiments that he began to butt his head against the side of the boiler. We thought he'd surely stop, after two or three butts, but Joel didn't stop. Uncle Seth finally grew alarmed enough to 74

intervene. "Here now, son, don't do that," he said. "I will do it!" Joel said. "I want to crack my head! I can't live without Rosie!"

We were all riveted by his effort to crack his skull against the boiler.

Already his head was pretty bloody.

"Stop him, Seth!" Ma commanded. It took Uncle Seth and Father Villy both to pull Joel away from the boiler, and then the minute they turned him loose he went racing right off the boat into the Missouri River.

"Then I'll drown!" he yelled.

We were tied up for the night--it was pitch dark when Joel went overboard. We heard one splash and then nothing--none of us could see a thing.

"That poor fellow's in the grip of a fit," Father Villy said.

"Yes, a love fit," Uncle Seth said. "I doubt we're rid of him, though. It takes determination to drown yourself in a river this shallow. I doubt he's got that much determination."

Uncle Seth was right. Joel slunk back on board a little later, shivering in his wet clothes.

The Platte River, which we came to the next day, looked just as muddy as the Missouri, but it wasn't as wide. There was no town to speak of, just a few shacks. A boat was stuck on a sandbar, a half mile or so up the Platte. The men who were struggling to pull it off looked like moving gobs of mud.