Larry McMurtry

BOONE'S LICK

BOOK I

Mules

1 UNCLE Seth was firmly convinced that bad things mostly happen on cloudy days.

"A thunderhead or two don't hurt, but too much cloudy weather makes people restless and mean, females particularly," he remarked, as we were walking down to the Missouri River.

"They don't make Ma mean, she's mean anyway," G.T. said--he had acquired the habit of contradiction, as Uncle Seth liked to put it. G.T. could usually be counted on to do the unexpected: only yesterday he jumped up and stabbed Granpa Crackenthorpe in the leg with a pocketknife, probably because he got tired of hearing Granpa complain about the food. The knife didn't go in very far, but even so, Granpa's pallet looked as if a shoat had been butchered on it. G.T. ran away and hid in the thicket, but Ma gave him a good thrashing anyway, when he finally came in. Quick tempered as he was, G.T. was still scared of the dark.

"It's best to walk small around Mary Margaret," Uncle Seth allowed. "You just need to walk a little smaller on cloudy days."

The three of us had strolled down to the river in hopes that we could catch or trap or shoot something Ma could cook--something with a good taste to it, if possible. We had been living on old dry mush for about three weeks, which is why Granpa complained. I had a fishing pole, G.T.

had a wire-mesh crawdad trap, and Uncle Seth had his Sharps rifle, which he kept in an oilcloth sheath, never allowing a drop of rain to touch it.

He had been a Union sharpshooter in the war between the states and could regularly pop a turtle in the head at seventy-five yards, a skill but not a useful skill, because the turtles he popped always sank. If anybody got to eat them, it was only other turtles.

The clouds hung low and heavy over the big muddy river that day; they were as dull colored as felt. It was just the kind of weather most likely to cause Uncle Seth to dwell on calamities he had experienced in the past.

"It was nearly this cloudy that day in Richmond when I tripped over that goddamn wagon tongue and shot off half my kneecap," he reminded us. "If the sun had been shining I would have been alert enough to step over that wagon tongue. It was the day after the war ended. I had no need of a rifle, but that gloomy weather made me fearful. I got it in my head that there might be a Reb or two in the neighborhood--a Reb who hadn't heard the good news."

"If the war had just been over one day, then there might have been," I said. It seemed reasonable to me.

"Son, there wasn't a Reb within thirty-five miles of us that day," Uncle Seth said. "I could have left my rifle in the tent, but I didn't, and the upshot of it is that I'll be gimpy for the rest of my life."

1

G.T. had just eased his crawdad trap into the water, near the muddy shore.

"If you'd shut up I might catch some crawdads," he said.

"Why, crawdads can't hear," Uncle Seth said. "You sass your elders too much, G.T. A boy that starts off sassing his elders is apt to end up on the wrong end of a hang rope--at best you can look forward to a long stretch in the territorial prison."

He was a tall, fidgety man, Uncle Seth. No part of him was ever really still--not unless he was dead drunk, a not unusual condition for him. Pa said there was a time when Seth Cecil could walk faster and keep walking longer than any man on the plains; of course, that was before the accident, when Pa and Uncle Seth were partners in the freighting business, hauling goods from the Missouri River to the forts up in the north. Even now, with half a kneecap, Uncle Seth wasn't what you'd call slow. He could still manage a pretty long stride, if he had some reason to be in a hurry--it irked him that Pa, who was his younger brother, made him a stay-at- home partner, rather than letting him go upnver with the freight. I think it irked him so much that he and Pa might have come to blows, if Ma hadn t made it plain that she would only tolerate so muc when it came to family quarrels.

"I can still drive a wagon, you know, 1 Uncle Seth pointed out, the last time Pa was home. "Hauling freight ain't that complicated.

"I know you can manage a wagon, but could you outrun a Blackfoot Indian, if it came to a footrace?" Pa asked. "I doubt you could even o run a Potawatomi, if it was a long footrace.

"Why would I need to outrun a Potawatomi, or a Blackfoot either?" Uncle Seth asked. " be in trouble if a bunch of them closed m on r but then, so would you."

G T didn't really have the patience to be a goc crawdad fisherman. Ten minutes was all he gave before pulling his trap out. It held one crawdad-not a very large one.

"One crawdad won't go far," he said. I expect there are a million crawdads in the Missouri and here I ain't caught but one."

"They ain't in the river, they're in that slimy mud," Uncle Seth pointed out-it was just then we heard a gunshot from the direction of the house.

"That was a rifle shot," Uncle Seth said pect Mary Margaret finally drew a bead on that big bobcat that's been snatching her chickens.

"You're wrong again," G.T. said, pointing toward the house. "Sis wouldn't be running that if it was just a bobcat."

G.T. didn't exaggerate about Neva's speed. She was fairly flying down the trail. Neva was only fourteen but she had been long legged enough to outrun anybody in the family--even Pa--for the last two or three years.

When our smokehouse caught on fire Neva ran all the way into Boone's Lick before any of us could even find a bucket, and was soon back with a passel of drunks willing to try and put the fire out. Fortunately, it 2

wasn't much of a fire--all we lost was an old churn somebody had left in the smokehouse.

Still, everybody who saw Neva go flying down the road that day talked about her run for years-- some even wanted to take her to St. Louis and enter her in a footrace, but that plan fell through.

"Who do they think they're going to find in St. Louis who wants to run a footrace with a little girl from Boone's Lick?" Uncle Seth asked at the time, a question that stumped the town.

This time Neva arrived at the river so out of breath that she had to gulp in air for a while before she could talk.

"She's outrun her own voice," G.T. said. He was slow of foot himself, and very impressed by Neva's speed.

"Easy girl, easy girl," Uncle Seth said, as if he was talking to a nervous filly.

"It's a big bunch of thieves!" Neva gasped, finally. "They're stealing our mules--ever one of our mules."

"Why, the damned ruffians!" Uncle Seth said. A red vein popped out along the top of his nose--that red vein nearly always popped out when he got anxious or mad.

"We heard a shot," he said. "I hope nobody ain't shot your Ma." He said it in a worried voice, too. Despite what he said about women and clouds, we all knew that Uncle Seth was mighty partial to Ma.

"No, it was Ma that shot," Neva said. "She killed a horse."

"Oh--good," he said. "The world can spare a horse, but none of us can spare your mother."

"Gimme your rifle, I'll go kill them all," G.T. said, but when he tried to grab the Sharps, Uncle Seth snatched it back.

He looked downriver for a moment. Boone's Lick was only half a mile away.

He seemed to be trying to decide who to send for help, Neva or me. G.T.

had already started for the house, with his crawdad trap and his one crawdad. G.T. wasn't about to give up his one crawdad.

"Honey, when you catch your breath maybe you ought to run on down to Boone's Lick and bring Sheriff Stone back with you," Uncle Seth said.