Boone's Lick

She started for the house, but the look on the sheriff's face must have made her feel a little sorry for him, because she turned at the cabin door and looked back at him for a moment.

"We've got a little buttermilk to spare, Eddie, if you'd like some," she said, as she opened the door.

"I'll take the buttermilk," Sheriff Baldy said.

He got off the dead horse and we all followed Ma through the door.

2 GRANPA Crackenthorpe got up from his pallet when we all trooped in. I think he was hoping for a dipper of buttermilk, but he didn't get one.

There was only one dipperful left in the crock--while the sheriff was enjoying it Granpa began to get a

"I'm the oldest--that was my buttermilk," Granpa said. "I was pla

"Hubert don't like me--I've arrested him too often," Sheriff Baldy remarked, wiping a little line of buttermilk off his upper lip.

Granpa, who didn't have much of a bladder left, had formed the awkward habit of pissing in public, if he happened to be in public when the need arose. Sometimes he made it into the saloon and peed in the spittoons, 6

but sometimes he didn't make it that far, and those were the times when Sheriff Baldy had felt it best to arrest him.

"Hubert, we've got enough troubles in Boone's Lick without having to tolerate public pissing," the sheriff said. "If you've got a minute, Seth, I'll explain why I took the mules."

"Fine, but if it's not too much to ask, we need to borrow one of them back for a few minutes," Uncle Seth said. "Otherwise we'll have to butcher that roan horse practically in Mary Margaret's front room, which is sure to bring flies. If we could borrow a mule back for half an hour we could drag the carcass over to the butchering tree."

"That's fair--the boys just took them down to the livery stable," the sheriff said. "If one of these young fellows can go fetch one, then when you're done with your dragging I can ride the mule back to town."

"G.T., go," Ma said, and G.T. went. Ma already had the whetstone out and was getting ready to sharpen a couple of butcher knives.

"I'm the oldest but nobody's listening to me," Granpa Crackenthorpe said-

-a true statement. No one paid him the slightest mind.

"It's that gang over at Stumptown--the Millers," Sheriff Baldy said. "The war's been over nearly fourteen months but you couldn't tell it if you happen to wander over to Stumptown. The Millers are robbing every traveler they can catch, and killing quite a few of them."

"I don't doubt it--Jake Miller's as mean as a pig, but what's it got to do with our mules?" Uncle Seth inquired.

"I'm going over there and clean out the Millers," the sheriff said. "You know how poorly all the horseflesh is around here. The farmers all quit, because of the war. Mary Margaret just killed the only good horse in Boone's Lick."

"I thought it was an elk," Ma said firmly, as if that subject had been disposed of forever. The sheriff just sighed.

"If the Millers see somebody passing through on a decent horse they kill the rider and take the horse," the sheriff said.

Right there I saw the sheriff's point--he was right about the poor horseflesh around Boone's Lick. But Pa and Uncle Seth were in the hauling business--they couldn't afford sickly mules. Uncle Seth went up to loway himself and brought back fodder for our mules. There hadn't been much fighting in loway; the farmers there were happy to sell what they had to Uncle Seth, the result being that our mules were the best-conditioned animals anywhere around Boone's Lick. No wonder the sheriff wanted to borrow them, if he had a hard job to do.

Ma was whetting her knives, which made such a racket that the rest of us went outside.

"I guess I can't blame you for wanting your posse to have decent mounts,"

Uncle Seth said to Sheriff Baldy. "That's correct thinking, as far as it goes, but it don't go far enough."

7

Sheriff Baldy just looked at him. It might be that the shock of having his horse shot out from under him by a woman he had once courted had just hit him. His mouth hung open again, inviting flies and bugs.

"Of course, I have no objection to you borrowing our mules for a patriotic expedition, provided the expedition is well pla

"One, so far," the sheriff admitted.

"Uh-oh, there's the incorrect part of your thinking," Uncle Seth said.

"There's a passel of Millers, and Jake ain't the only one that's mean. If you go wandering over there with an inadequate force our mules will be at risk. Jake Miller can spot a valuable mule as quick as the next man."

"I know that," Sheriff Baldy said. He looked a little discouraged.

"I expect you were counting on our fine mules to attract a posse," Uncle Seth said. "It might work, too. At least, it might if you're offering cash payment too."

"I can offer five dollars a man, and fifty dollars to Wild Bill Hickok, if he'll come," the sheriff said.

Something about that remark irked Uncle Seth, because the red vein popped out again on his nose. I don't think the sheriff noticed.

"You mean if I was to join your posse you'd offer me forty-five dollars less than you're offering Bill Hickok to do the same job, even though the two of us were commanded by General Phil Sheridan and I was the sharpshooter and Bill just a common spy?" Uncle Seth inquired.

It didn't take the sheriff but a second to figure out what he had done wrong.

"Why, Seth, I never supposed you'd want to join a posse," he said.

"For fifty dollars I'll join it and enlist Shay and G.T. too," Uncle Seth said. "The boys will work for nothing, of course."

That remark startled me so that if I had been sitting on a fence I expect I would have fallen off. Ma wouldn't hear of our fighting in the war, though plenty of fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds did fight in it; and now Uncle Seth, with no discussion, was offering to trot us off to Stumptown to take on the notorious Miller gang, an outfit filled with celebrated killers: Cut-Nose Jones, Little Billy Perkins, and the four violent Millers themselves.

The sheriff didn't immediately respond to Uncle Seth's offer, but he didn't immediately reject it, either.

"If I had you and Hickok and the two boys and myself, I don't suppose I'd need much more of a posse," he finally said.

"That's right, you wouldn't," Uncle Seth said. "Here comes G.T., leading Old Sam. Old Sam could pull a house up a hill, if somebody hitched him to it."

8

Sheriff Baldy still looked worried. "There's two problems, Seth," he said. Before Uncle Seth could ask what they were Ma came outside and stuck little Marcy in his arms again.

"You keep ru

Little Marcy was still in a perfectly good humor.

She began to wave her arms and kick her feet.

"What were the two problems, Baldy?" Uncle Seth said. He looked a little put upon.

"A hundred dollars is a lot to pay for a posse," the sheriff said. "We could build a new city hall for a hundred dollars."

"Yes, but once you got it built you'd still have the Millers to worry with," Uncle Seth pointed out. "What's problem number two?"

"I haven't asked Hickok yet," the sheriff admitted. "That's problem number two."