Me and Billy (15 page)

“I ain’t gonna let that fella scare me,” he said, looking around like he hoped nobody was listening. “I picked up this here little pistol awhile back. Still, I wouldn’t like him to get the drop on me when I was
alone out in the woods like this. I wouldn’t trust what he might do if there wasn’t any witnesses around.”

As far as I was concerned, the farther away he was from us the better. “Well, he’s looking for you.”

He squinched up his face so that everything was pulled toward the middle. “Blow it all.” He unsquinched his face and gave the pan a shake. “Do you reckon he’s got an idea where I am?”

“It didn’t seem like it,” I said, “or he wouldn’t of been asking. But he may have found out by now. It didn’t take us long to find you. There isn’t but one road out of Wasted Gulch. Maybe you better pack up and move on.”

“I hate to always keep running from that fella. It don’t set right inside me. Gives me a low opinion of myself.” He sighed. “Still, he has all the advantage—spot the van somewhere, sneak up on me at night, and plug me through the window.”

“That’s what I mean,” I said. “It isn’t worth taking the chance.”

He squinched his face up again. “I wish he’d give it up.”

By now the ham and potatoes were sizzling and giving off a fine smell. The Professor dished it out, and we fell to eating—you couldn’t hear any sound but lips smacking. When we got done and were sitting there resting, with our backs up against the trees, the Professor said, “What’ve you been up to, since I last seen you? And don’t give me none of that about
searching for me night and day.” So we told him about the farm and the woman with the chunk gone out of her head. When we finished, he looked down at his hands and back up at us again. “The way I calculate it, I come up twenty-two dollars short after you boys run off and left me getting potted by Robinson. I reckon you figured I wouldn’t notice, as I would be dead.”

“What?” Billy said. “Didn’t you find that money? We left it right under the van before we skedaddled.” Quickly he shifted the subject. “You can’t blame us for running, Prof. Did you expect us to wait around there until he got done with you and had the leisure to shoot us, too?”

“Getting back to the twenty-two dollars, Billy,” the Professor said. “If I was to believe you left twenty-two dollars lying on the ground, they’d lock me up for sure. How much do you reckon you got left?”

“Honest, Prof, we didn’t take it. All we got is the three dollars each we earned on that farm.”

“I’m ready to believe you only got three dollars left. That part I’ll believe.” He looked sour and shook his head. “Honest to Pete, you can’t trust nobody these days. When I was kid, a man’s word was his bond.” Suddenly he stood up. “I reckon it’s time to move. There ain’t any point in sitting here waiting for Robinson to turn up.” He looked off through the woods. “I was just thinking. I’m not a hard-hearted fella. I ain’t one to carry a grudge. ‘Let bygones be bygones’ is my motto. I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you
come back to work for me, and we’ll forget about paying me back the twenty-two dollars. You can work it off as we go along. I reckon by the end of summer we’ll be even.”

I jumped in quick. “That’s mighty kind of you, Prof, but me and Billy have our hearts set on finding that golden lake before we do anything else.”

“Possum, let’s not be in a—”

I snatched up the plates. “Come on, Billy, let’s go down to the creek and wash our plates.”

There was a little stretch of rocky beach along the edge of the water. I knelt down and began to scrub off the tin plates with a handful of sand. “Now listen, Billy, you promised.” I turned my head up to look at him. “You got to keep your promise.”

“I didn’t exactly promise that,” he said. “All I promised was if we didn’t find him, we’d head for the mountains. I didn’t promise what we’d do if we found him.”

I couldn’t remember exactly what he’d promised. “Well, that’s so,” I said. “But you knew what I meant. We’re supposed to be looking for that lake.”

“If we hadn’t of stuck around that farm so long, we’d of already found it,” he said.

“You wanted to stay until you got a look at Ma Singletary. Right along you agreed we were going after that gold. You can’t go off with Prof instead.”

He knew I was right, and he stood there struggling to get himself loose of it. “Possum, suppose we don’t
find that lake? Then we’d of missed a good chance to go off with Prof.”

“I don’t see what’s so good about putting yourself in the way of Robinson.”

“Oh, Prof’s sure to move to a new territory—”

Then through the woods came a shout. There weren’t any words to it, just a sharp, sudden howl. I jumped up, and we stood looking at each other. “Robinson’s got the drop on him,” Billy whispered. “Sure as we’re standing here. We got to save him.”

My heart began to race, and I could feel a drop of cold sweat drip down my side under my shirt. All I wanted to do was leap into the creek, swim across, and run off through the woods as fast as I could. “Robinson’s going to kill him in five minutes, sure as anything,” Billy said.

There wasn’t any doubt of that. Robinson had got Prof in the woods off a quiet road. He’d shoot him, drag the body off into the woods where the animals would get him soon enough, and disappear.

Why did it matter to me? The truth was, it didn’t. I’d just as soon see the Prof dead where he wouldn’t be luring Billy away all the time. But I didn’t want to have a dead man on my conscience. I saw what it did to Pa Singletary—ruined his whole life and Betty Ann’s, too. “How do you figure to do it, Billy?”

He looked quickly around at the trees, the ground, the creek. “Stones,” he said. “Grab up a shirtful. If we
get his attention, maybe Prof’ll have a chance to go for his gun.”

We stripped off our shirts, piled eight or ten stones into them, bundled up the shirts, and started slipping through the woods toward the van as quiet as we could. My arms and legs felt all trembly, and my breath was going fast. One thing was in our favor: we were on the creek side of the van, and they were on the road side of it. We could make out the shape of the van through the woods dead ahead. On we came until we weren’t more than twenty yards from it. Now we could hear their voices, but we couldn’t make out much of what they were saying.

We stopped. “We got to figure out which way he’s facing, so we can come up on him from behind,” Billy whispered.

“If we go closer and lay flat on the ground, we can look under the van and see which way his boots are facing,” I said.

We slipped forward. Now we could hear their voices better. “The boys,” Robinson said. “Where’d they go to, you piece of rubbish?”

“Now be reasonable, Robinson,” Prof said, his voice sort of quavery. “You got a Christian duty not to murder people. It says so in the Bible. How you going to face the Lord on Judgment Day with a murder on your soul?”

“I should think you could answer that question for yourself. Where are those two little crooks? I’d
just as soon bury them alongside you—spare the world their presence when they’re grown up and can do real damage.”

There was a little silence. We heard Prof take in a big gulp of air. “How’d you come to find out where I was?”

“Your little crooks. The fellow in the general store told me a couple of boys had been asking about you. I knew at once it was them. I kept my eyes open and, sure enough, I spotted them heading out of town. I just tracked them here. I’ve been sitting out in the woods for the past half hour, watching you stuff your faces. Where’d those boys go?”

I kind of shuddered: he could of popped us off sitting there with a mouthful of ham and potatoes. I looked at Billy. We didn’t dare speak, but I could see a frown flicker across Billy’s face. We didn’t have any time to worry about it. I dropped to the ground and looked under the van. I could see two pairs of boots. I didn’t have any trouble figuring out which were Robinson’s—I’d seen the Prof’s often enough, sitting on the ground beside him while he snoozed.

“Where are those boys, rubbish?” Robinson said again.

“No need to make insulting remarks,” Prof said. “Like as not they saw you coming and have run off to get help. I expect the sheriff’ll be along any second now.”

“Ha, ha,” Robinson said. “Or else they’re crouched
in the woods watching the whole thing. No jury would convict me on their testimony.” He raised his voice so it would carry through the woods. “Besides, if I catch them out there I’m going to plug them, too.”

I didn’t doubt that he would. I scrambled to my feet and pointed to show Billy which way Robinson was facing. Without saying a word, we slipped off through the woods, crouching low, circling around maybe fifty feet back from the van. When we got around far enough, we could see them, standing on opposite sides of the little campfire, which was down to embers. Robinson was standing there with both arms outstretched. In one hand he had his pistol; in the other he had Prof’s gun. I went cold, looked at Billy, and pointed. He nodded. We eased the shirtfuls of stones to the ground and picked up two stones apiece. Billy made the shape of “one” with his lips, then “two,” and “three,” and we let fly, getting our second stones off before the first ones hit. I saw one hit Robinson in the middle of his back and another one his shoulder.

“Hey,” he shouted. He started to swivel around but thought better of it. We snatched up more stones and let fly a second round. Robinson made a half turn and, keeping his face toward Prof, stretched his right arm out toward the woods and fired a shot. I near jumped out of my skin. He wasn’t likely to hit us firing blind, but it was mighty scary getting shot at, anyway.

“We’re not hitting him hard enough, Possum. Let’s get closer.” He dashed forward ten feet. “Try to hit his
head.” Robinson fired again, and I heard the leaves over my head whisper. I raced up to Billy, dragging the shirtful of stones, and threw again. This time I actually heard the stone hit his head with a clunk. He staggered and turned toward us. A stone caught him dead in the chest. The pistol went off, and then Prof charged through the campfire, embers flying, and jumped on him. He pitched forward on his face, both guns going off at once. We dropped the stones and ran forward. By the time we got there Robinson had twisted around under the Prof and was lying face upward. Prof was flat on top of him, his arms wrapped tight around Robinson, to keep his arms pinned tight. “Smash him, boys, before he kills us all,” Prof shouted. We dove in on the pile, searching for the guns. Then suddenly there came one more shot, this one so loud it seemed to go off in my head. Robinson gave a long, deep sigh, stopped struggling, and lay still.

Slowly we climbed off him, watching him close. He lay still, staring upward. A little splotch of blood on the side of his coat was growing wider. I figured the bullet had gone through his ribs at an angle and hit smack into his heart.

We dragged Robinson a good ways back into the woods. Prof got a shovel out of the van and set me and Billy to work digging a grave, while he went back to the van and covered up signs of the fight. The sweat was pouring off me like a faucet. It was hot work digging that grave, but that wasn’t where all the sweat was coming from. I’d helped to kill a man. It made me feel awful inside, like something was rotting in there. I don’t know how that gun went off, and I don’t reckon anyone else did, either. But I’d been in on it; there was no way around that. I felt terrible. I wished I was somebody else. Finally I said, “Billy, I can’t stand him staring up at the sky like that. Let’s turn him over.” So we did, but it didn’t make me feel much better.

“How deep do you figure we got to go?” Billy said.

“Six feet is what they always say, but I reckon we don’t need to go that deep. Just so long as the animals can’t smell him and dig him out.”

“We’ll pile rocks on him. We don’t want some dog carrying his arm home to the sheriff.”

It took us a good hour to get the hole deep enough to where we figured the animals couldn’t smell him. It was the worst hour I ever spent in my life. I’d rather Deacon whip me the whole hour than dig a grave for a fella I helped to kill. I wondered if I’d ever get over it, or if I would go on feeling like this for the rest of my life. I hoped I’d get over it; for if I didn’t, I’d have to kill myself, too.

Prof kept coming back to see how we were doing, but he said he had to keep an eye out for people coming along the road and would go away again. He’d got the mules hitched up and was ready to move the minute the body was buried. Finally we got the job done. Prof took the gold watch out of Robinson’s coat and a handful of bills out of his pocket. Then we slid the body into the hole, piled on such rocks as we could find, and shoveled in the dirt. In fifteen minutes we had the hole filled in and covered over with leaves and broken branches. Prof looked it all over real careful. Finally he nodded. “That ought to do it,” he said. “So long as the animals don’t get him, it ain’t likely anyone’ll be traipsing around here soon. In six months nobody’ll be able to recognize him.”

“Possum,” Billy said, “we got to get away from this town for awhile. Once word goes out that Robinson disappeared, they’ll be suspicious of us. We better go with Prof.”

“Billy, blame you—”

Prof held up his hand. “Boys, I guess I got to rescind that there generous offer I made a while back. It won’t do for you fellas to come along with me.”

It was clear enough why. Prof saw that back in Wasted Gulch we were connected to Robinson. If anyone ever found Robinson’s body, the blame would fall on us, not him. That suited Prof right down to the ground. The last thing he wanted was to have us as partners anymore. If anything about Robinson ever came up, he’d say he was halfway across the state at the time and didn’t know anything about it. Like as not he’d throw in something about us having it in for Robinson for some reason. Oh, he’d hang us with it if he could. But it suited me, too, so I said, “I agree with Prof, Billy. Better if we branch off from each other.”

Prof nodded. “Possum’s talking sense, Billy. You boys don’t want to get mixed up in it. Robinson’s got family back home. Sooner or later they’ll trace out that he was up here in Wasted Gulch and put two and two together. You boys go on up into the mountains and find that there lake full of gold. Come down out of there rich as creases, I expect.” He wiped himself off again. “Well, we best get moving before someone comes along
and sees us. If anything comes out, we don’t want anyone to recall seeing us here.”