Paradise Sky

Eventually the sun burned off the mist, and we left the road and wandered between the trees. The ground was mighty clean under them trees until we got close to the river, and then the brambles started to grow.

I had bagged some grain for Jesse, and when it was good and light I stopped and let him eat some of it right out of the bag. Not so much that when he took a drink of water he’d founder. What drinking water we had was what I had put in an old whiskey jug in the barn and tied over the saddle with a cord. And there was the Sabine River, which we was about to cross. That was all-right water for a horse, but I drank from it once when I was out fishing and got the runs so bad I thought I’d be in the outhouse the rest of my life.

The Sabine wasn’t wide, but it was deep there, and Jesse had to swim it. The water was sluggish, but a couple of turtles was showing out and making good time. I watched their snaky heads as they drifted down the river and under the shadows of the overhanging trees along the bank. A fat perch swam by, and he was colorful enough and the light was bright enough so I could see him good, and just the sight of him made me hungry again.

There was a few times when I thought Jesse might tucker out, but he stayed with it, and we got to the other side. I slid down off Jesse, grabbed a handful of the rich, stinking mud from the riverbank, and slapped it on my head wound, which had opened up and was bleeding heavily. I packed some of the muck on Jesse’s bullet graze, and then I walked him until I thought he had blown well enough for me to ride. We continued then, steady as the ticking of a clock, heading out west.

2

My journey out west didn’t get much farther than the middle of East Texas on that day, and by that time I was so hungry I could almost see buttered cornbread crawling on the ground. I fed Jesse again and chewed some of his dried corn myself. It wasn’t even close to satisfying. I couldn’t figure what Jesse saw in it. It wasn’t a thought with a lot of sense behind it, but by that time I didn’t have a lot of sense. I was still sticking to the places where I was less likely to be seen, but I was so tuckered out from the events of the day before, and from sleeping only a short time, I knew only that I was following the sun. Right then, had Ruggert come up on me I would have been done for. I was covered in ticks and chiggers and itched all over, including my privates, and I knew if I stopped I might not get going again.

That’s when the woods began to thin, and I come to a place that had been cleared, though there were still stumps scattered throughout the clearing. I could see some vegetables growing beyond that on some well-plowed land, maybe twenty acres or so. On the other side of the field was a comfy-looking house and a barn and some wood fencing, a feedlot and such. It all looked well cared for, which was a thing I could appreciate. I figured I could also appreciate eating something from the garden.

It had turned off hot by this time. I tied Jesse to a tree, took the gun out of the bag, laid the bag on the ground with the gun on top of it, and crawled out to the garden. I plucked about half a dozen maters off the vines—big, fat ones—then edged my way to the corn and took down about a dozen stalks, some of them bearing several ears of corn. I felt bad for doing it, plundering a person’s crops, but I was at the point where I had to eat or pass out.

Creeping back to where Jesse was tied, I gave him the cornstalks I had pulled and ate the fresh corn. I would have adored to plunge them big, juicy ears into some boiling water with some salt. I ate the maters, or at least four of them. By that time I was full. I gave all that was left to Jesse.

We waited there during the hot of the day. I slept on the pine needles, hoping Jesse wouldn’t step on me. I slept with my hand on the old pistol.

It was cool dark when I woke up. Jesse was standing with his head held low. I got my bag and put my gun in it, led Jesse along the edge of the crops until we got to the end, and began to mosey toward the barn and corral.

The moon was thi

I got to the corral. There was some horses there. The barn was open to it, and the horses could go in and out as they pleased.

I took off Jesse’s saddle and bridle and let him loose in the corral. I took Pa’s watch out of the bag and laid it on a fence post. Right then that watch felt heavy as an anvil to me. That watch and Jesse was all I had left of him. Still, he wouldn’t have wanted me to take a horse without payment, even if Jesse and that watch wasn’t worth any one of those fine cayuses in the corral.

I petted Jesse, being sick about leaving him, but figuring whoever owned this nice place would take better care of him than I could. I wanted to leave a note about his plowing virtues and how his nature was and all, but I didn’t have a pencil or paper.

I picked up Jesse’s bridle and reins, dodged through the fence, and started easing up on the horses. I had the pistol in the bag and had tied it on my belt. The horse I chose was a big black one. I tried to calm it, but it kept moving away from me, and it was starting to snort.

I was cooing to it like a dove and was within a foot of laying hands on it when it raised up quick and kicked out with its front legs, knocked me winding. I wasn’t hurt, but it was a close call. I was trying to get up when a big man wearing a droopy hat come out of the shadows, leaned over me, showed me a big hole in the end of a pistol. Even in the moonlight, I could tell he was wearing patched Confederate pants tucked into his tall boots.

“You might want to be still,” he said, “so I don’t have to shoot you.”

He lifted from his bent-over position, and the way the moonlight laid on him I could see his face clear enough under the brim of his hat. It was a rough old face, sharp and ragged, like farm equipment. Part of that raggedness was the tangled whiskers he wore.

“I wasn’t go

“No?” he said. “You could have fooled me.”

“I was leaving a horse and a watch in trade,” I said.

“You was, was you?” He looked about, settled on Jesse. “That bag of bones there was any older it could be the Trojan horse.”

I didn’t know what the Trojan horse was, but I figured it was old.

“I left a watch, too,” I said.

“You did, did you?”

“I did,” I said, and wanted to get up bad, because I had fallen in a big pile of horse shit. Not only was it wet and coming through my shirt, it also smelled something vicious.

“How’s that watch tick?” he asked.

I made a ticking noise with my mouth.

“No, not that,” he said. “Does it work good?”

“Works fine, though the glass is a mite scratched from coins and such in Pa’s pocket.”

“But you can still see the hands well enough?”

“If your eyes are good.”

“Thing is, though, I already got a pocket watch.” After a few moments of studying on me, he said, “I ought to jerk a knot in your dick, son, out here messing in my horse pen.”

“I’m kind of desperate,” I said.

“Are you, now?” he said.

We settled in this position for a while, as if we was posing for a painting, then this fella looks at the sky, says, “You needed to come from the other side, by the barn, climb over the corral, chase the horse into the barn, where you couldn’t be seen. A horse, if he’s in the barn, isn’t so excited about being bothered or about someone trying to separate him from the others. Less likely to make noise.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said. I thought it best to be polite and let him keep the lead.

“Well, it’s a minor horse-stealing detail, but I figured if horse thieving was to be your career, you might want a few pointers.”