Boone's Lick

6 WHEN I got home Ma was in the graveyard. I was feeling a little better by then--it was a pretty night and I had walked off the loneliness. There was no sign of Granpa and his pistol but as I was passing the graveyard I 17

saw Ma sitting on a little wooden bench, by the graves. One of Ma's sisters was buried there, and Granma Crackenthorpe, and my four little brothers who hadn't made it through the winters. There were some pretty bad winters in Missouri, and our cabin wasn't chinked too good. G.T.

nearly died himself once, but with the help of an old woman who knew about poultices, he pulled through.

Ma had little Marcy with her--the baby was snoring in the quiet way little babies snore.

Sometimes I would get a knot in my throat when I came upon Ma sitting in the graveyard. I don't think a person would sit in a graveyard unless they were sad, and I didn't want to think about Ma being sad.

But there she was, not saying a thing, just sitting on her little bench, amid the graves. "Hi, Ma," I said. She looked behind me.

"Seth didn't come back with you?" she asked. "I think he wanted to play cards," I said. Ma motioned for me to sit down beside her on the bench, something she rarely did. When Ma went to the graveyard she usually made it clear that she wanted to be left alone.

"Don't be lying for him, Shay," she said. "Let him lie for himself, if there has to be a lie."

I didn't know what to say to that. I didn't even know why I lied--it just came out. I don't know whether Ma cared or not, what Uncle Seth did with Rosie McGee.

It seemed to me the best thing to do would be to change the subject, to something I felt sure would get Ma's attention.

"Uncle Seth wants to take G.T. and me with the posse," I said. "The sheriff's getting up a posse to go arrest the Millers, over at Stumptown, and Uncle Seth thinks me and G.T. are old enough to go along."

"Did you hear me, Shay?" Ma asked, ignoring my statement completely. "I said don't lie for your Uncle Seth--and don't lie for your Pa, either, if he ever comes home again. Let grown men do their own lying--I mean it."

"Yes ma'am," I said meekly. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I said it."

Then Ma put her head in her hands and cried. The baby woke up and began to cry too. I didn't know what to do, but I didn't dare leave the bench.

I put my arm around Ma, but she kept crying. I knew that when Ma went out to the graveyard at night she went there to do her crying. We all knew that, and took care to give the graveyard a wide berth, if Ma was in it.

But this time I had been careless and here I was. Ma cried and the baby cried--I felt for a minute like I might cry too, although I didn't know of anything I needed to cry about. Mainly I just wished Uncle Seth would show up. He was the one person who could get Ma feeling better, when she was low.

It felt like Ma was going to cry forever, but I guess it wasn't forever.

She stopped crying and then the baby stopped. Once they were both calmed down, Ma let Marcy nurse a little.

18

"I'm glad you didn't leave, Shay," Ma said, when she was herself again.

"The ability to stay put when a woman's crying is not one most men have.

"You're fifteen," she added. "I expect you'll soon have a woman of your own. Take my advice and just stay put when she cries. You don't have to say anything: just don't leave. If you can just keep your seat until the crying's over it'll be better for both of you."

I had no comment on that. At the moment I didn't expect I'd ever have a woman of my own--I probably wouldn't need to worry about the crying part.

"I guess your uncle ran into Rosie," Ma said.

I didn't answer, so she gave me a little poke in the ribs with her elbow.

"Mind your ma

"He was going to try and see if she'd pay him fifty dollars to go with the posse," I said. I didn't think Uncle Seth would mind if I told that much.

"What? Say that again?" Ma asked, so I said it again.

"You're just a babe in the woods, Shay," Ma said. Then she chuckled, kind of deep in her throat.

"Rosie don't pay men fifty dollars," Ma said. "It's the other way around-

-men pay Rosie fifty dollars. Maybe a little less, maybe a little more, depending. But Rosie don't pay men."

I had thought the notion that Rosie McGee would chip in fifty dollars to send Uncle Seth with the posse was a little far-fetched, myself. If the sheriff was only willing to pay him five dollars to go shoot at the Miller gang, why would Rosie McGee want to pay him fifty dollars to do the same job? Of course, the fifty dollars only came up because that was what the sheriff offered to pay Wild Bill Hickok. It seemed like a world of money to me.

"What was she supposed to pay Seth the fifty dollars for?" Ma asked. She seemed a lot more cheerful now that we had started talking about Uncle Seth. Even without being there, he was helping to cheer Ma up.

"He seemed to think she'd want him to catch Jake Miller," I said. "That's what he and Mr. Hickok were talking about. Uncle Seth wants to take me and G.T. along with the posse when they go to Stumptown."

"I heard you slip that in the first time," Ma said. Marcy was wide awake-

-she had been trying to crawl lately. Ma put her down on the ground on her belly, to see if she was making any progress with her crawling. Marcy hadn't made much. She just waved her arms and grunted.

"You can do it!" Ma said, to encourage her. "Get up on your hands and legs and crawl."

Marcy continued to wave her arms and legs and grunt.

"She'll figure it out in a few more days," Ma said. She left Marcy to struggle with the problem.

19

"Your Uncle Seth don't know anything about women," Ma said, looking at me. "He's God's fool, where women are concerned. Rosie McGee won't give him a cent, although it is a fact that she hates Jake Miller."

"Why?" I asked.

She didn't answer, which meant that in her opinion, why wasn't any of my business.

"Can we go with the posse, then?" I asked. I was excited at that prospect, but Ma had been so careful about us during the wartime that I didn't know if there was much hope.

"If Seth wants to take you, you can go," Ma said. "But I can't bear to lose no more boys, so you've got to promise to look after G.T."

I expected her to tell me to be careful and look after myself--when she only asked me to look after G.T. I got my feelings hurt, for a moment.

G.T. had always been an expert at looking after himself. Didn't Ma care about me?

"You're the mature one," Ma said, as if in answer to the question I hadn't asked. "Seth don't know anything about women but otherwise he can take care of himself. But G.T. don't know anything about anything, and besides that he's reckless. You make sure he don't get hurt."

"I'll do my best, but he don't mind me," I reminded her.

Ma looked at me a long time, then.

"Here's a piece of news for you, Shay," she said. "The reason I'm letting you boys go with the posse is because you're going to need a little exposure to the wild side of things."

I didn't know what to say.

"I've got some news for you all," Ma said. "I'm tired of sitting here in Missouri, going hungry and losing weight. When we finish eating this horse I shot, we're going to take a trip--all of us."

That was startling news. The bunch of us had always lived in the same place. G.T. and me had only been up and down the river a town or two from Boone's Lick, and the towns weren't very far apart. Other than that we had always just lived in the cabin near the river.