Between the Rivers

CHAPTER 11

  Ain’t Your Boy

  Unscheduled Departure

  THE shiny coins were greeted with a scowl, a phenomenon to which gold was unaccustomed.

  “It’s your first wages,” Amos offered, hand extended. “You’ve more than earned it.”

  Gideon used his shirttails to wipe the sweat from his face and went on stacking firewood. He was not likely to overdo. Between the cook stove and the fireplace, wood was always in demand— today, tomorrow or next winter.

  “I ain’t your hand,” he stated.

  “The boys get paid too,” Amos explained.

  “Ain’t your boy neither,” said Gideon, starting a new row in front of the already considerable woodpile.

  “A man should be properly compensated for his labor. Cricket, the boys, everyone gets paid here.”

  “Can Cricket quit?”

  “I’d be sorry if he did.”

  “Can he?” Gideon insisted impatiently.

  “Yes,” Amos allowed, “Cricket can quit.”

  Gideon paused in his labor and his grey eyes bore into Amos.

  “There’s the diff’rence.”

  Amos stood, wages in hand. “Gideon, I wish you’d realize I’m trying to help.”

  “Hand over my gun an’ forget ya ever done see’d me. That there’s the best ya can do, ‘specially for your ownself.”

  “You really believe that, don’t you?”

  “Not b’lieve. Know.”

  Some things could not be changed. Calamity, chaos, mayhem— call it what you may— it was, by its very nature, capricious. Cajoled nor careful reasoning would not warned it off.

  “That reminds me of something my sister is fond of telling me,” Amos was saying. “Even the best of men can be wrong.”

  He scooped Gideon’s vest off the ground, dropped the coins into a pocket, and returned to the porch were his interminable ledgers lay in wait for him.

  Lee had asked Gideon once why he pushed Pa so and Gideon had replied, somewhat hotly, that it was Amos who did the pushing. ‘Well,’ Lee had advised, ‘I can tell you from experience you’d better ride a mite easier.’ But Gideon figured he had a right to speak his mind and didn’t plan to keep shut for Amos’s benefit.

  Picking up the axe, he applied himself to another log. It was an enjoyable task, one that required only muscles and allowed his thoughts to wander. To his vexation, those coins were like hobbles; no matter where else he meant to send his thoughts, they stayed stuck right there. Who paid a prisoner? For that matter, why be so hardheaded about holding onto him? That blasted judge wasn’t even around anymore. And the sheriff was miles away. Gideon could be long gone before anyone had half a notion. Well, theoretically. In reality the Rivers boxed him in at every turn.

  Can’t they see keepin’ us ‘round is dang’rous?

  How could they? Ya ain’t telled ‘em.

  No, he hadn’t. At least not directly. But how dense could folks be? Surely they realized someone like Tarlston would be hot for revenge. That is, if the bottom dweller ever figured out it was Gideon who started the fires of gossip burning. And that was an eventuality loaded with trouble. There were other men out there besides Tarlston, too.

  History had a way of repeating itself. Some people might say this was because a grand, overriding rightness to the way of things naturally reasserts itself in predictable, cyclical patterns. Gideon had his own theory: history got a kick out of thwapping slow learners upside the head. The solution was to get it right the first time. He hadn’t been much use there, but he did not intend to let history have its way a second time. Not for himself. It had never been for himself. What mattered was that he couldn’t allow it to happen again. He had a duty to make this stop.

  Duty. What a word. It squared up to Gideon, calling him out. There was no ignoring it. No pushing it aside. He did wish, in the secret part of his heart where words have no place and a man’s guts do the talking, Gideon wished he did not have it to do. But there was no one else. The responsibility was entirely his, compliments of Tarlston.

  Those coins— what to make of them? This wasn’t some passing-through job. This wasn’t even a hide-out or a hole-up. This was a jail, a high-faluting prison and he’d been taxed three years without parole. Without really understanding why, the need to escape pushed against the very marrow of Gideon’s bones.