Chapter Five #2
The next morning, Harlan Pike put Clay to work helping shift a wagon wheel sunk in a muddy patch near the creek. Clay went without complaint. He wedged a length of timber beneath the axle, then called for two men to take the other side. The wheel came free with a sucking sound.
By midday, he had mended a broken trace strap with rawhide from his own kit, tightened the loose iron band on a barrel, and shown a young father how to keep his flour dry beneath the wagon bed.
It was work he knew. If a thing was broken, you looked at it closely and put your hands to it.
Still, when the men gathered after dinner near a line of cottonwoods, Clay felt himself standing outside their circle.
They talked of Missouri farms, prices in St. Louis, gold strikes that might already be played out, and soldiers they had known. Clay sat on a log with his hat in his hands. He had no farm to speak of. No father’s stories. No land he had left behind.
A heavyset man named Dyer took out a tobacco pouch and papers.
“You smoke, McCall?” he asked.
Clay looked at the pouch. “No, sir.”
Dyer grinned. “You’re old enough.”
“I suppose I am.”
Everett stood near a wagon wheel with two men Clay had not yet met. He watched with a faint amusement that Clay did not care for.
Dyer handed over the pouch. “Roll one.”
Clay had seen boys at the orphanage make cigarettes from corn silk and stolen scraps of tobacco. He had never done it himself. He took a paper, pinched tobacco into it, and tried to fold it as Dyer had.
The first spill went into his lap.
A few men laughed.
Clay brushed the tobacco from his trousers. “Seems wasteful.”
“Try again,” Dyer said.
The second held together, though it looked crooked as a fishhook. Dyer struck a match against his boot sole and held the flame out.
Clay bent to it. The tobacco caught. He drew in smoke.
It went down hot and bitter. His chest clenched at once. He kept his face still for half a breath, then turned aside and coughed into his fist.
Dyer slapped his knee, laughing. “There he is.”
Clay wiped his mouth. His eyes watered, which did not help.
“Tastes like burnt rope,” he said.
“That’s because it is burnt rope, near enough,” said a voice beside him.
The speaker sat on the end of the log. He was a dark-haired man in his thirties, plain in dress, with a trimmed beard and steady gray eyes. He had been watching the others more than talking. A rifle lay across his knees, well cared for but old.
Clay held up the cigarette. “You want it?”
“No.”
“Then I reckon I’m stuck with it.”
The man gave the smallest smile. “Samuel Ross.”
“Clay McCall.”
“I’ve been told.”
Clay took another cautious puff, less this time. “That good or bad?”
“Well, it means the big man has an eye on you.”
“That seems fair.”
Samuel looked out toward the brush beyond the creek. “You shoot?”
“A little.”
“Good sign; if you were a dead shot, I’d be worried you’re a no-good.”
Clay smiled. “I ain’t trouble, but my aim might surprise you.”
Samuel nodded toward the woods. “I saw deer tracks this morning. You want to come?”
Clay looked toward the camp. Tucker sat beneath Charlotte’s awning, his bad ankle propped on a folded blanket, while three children crowded around him. He was holding court with a stick in his hand, pointing at marks he had drawn in the dirt.
Clay stood.
“I’ll come.”
They left camp with Samuel carrying his rifle and Clay his. The forest swallowed the wagon noise after a quarter mile. Pine needles softened their steps. Sun came through the branches in narrow bars. A squirrel scolded from somewhere above them.
Samuel moved without hurry. He did not speak unless there was reason. Clay liked that.
They found fresh tracks quickly. Two deer, maybe three. Samuel crouched, touched the edge of one print, and looked uphill.
“You learned your woods in Natchez?” he asked.
“Some there. More from Jesse.”
“Who’s Jesse?”
Clay felt a prickle on his forehead. “Friend of mine. Little older than me. He went to war.”
Samuel waited.
“He didn’t come back.”
“I’m sorry.”
Clay shrugged. “Been years.”
Samuel seemed to weigh his words in his hands before saying, “You got family waiting for you in California?”
Clay nearly laughed. “No.”
“A young woman, maybe?”
“No woman either.”
Samuel glanced at him. “That surprises me.”
“Why?”
“You look like you can talk slick.”
Clay pushed a low branch aside. “Never had much chance for it.”
Samuel nodded as if that was answer enough.
Clay said, “You got a wife?”
“Had one.”
Clay stopped.
Samuel’s face did not change. “Fever, four winters ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be. That was God’s doing, and you ain’t him.”
Clay did not know what to say after that.
He thought of the girls he had known at the orphanage, mostly younger children with scraped knees and tangled hair.
He thought of women in Natchez walking past the gates, carrying market baskets, belonging to houses and families and lives that had no place for him.
“I’d like a wife someday,” he said at last. “A home, too. Land maybe. Kids running about and making trouble.”
Clay felt heat rise in his face and wished he had kept quiet.
Samuel only said, “Nothing wrong with wanting it.”
A crack sounded in the brush ahead.
Both men froze.
A doe stepped between the trees, slender and brown, her head lifted. Behind her came another, then a young buck with small antlers.
Samuel lowered himself slowly and pointed.
Clay eased his rifle from his shoulder. Jesse had taught him not to rush. Breathe. Settle the butt into the hollow beneath the shoulder. Let the sight stop wandering before you touch the trigger.
The buck turned broadside.
Clay fired.
The shot broke through the woods. The doe sprang away. The buck ran three strides, stumbled, and went down behind a clump of brush.
Samuel looked at Clay.
“Only a little, huh?” he said.
Clay worked the rifle’s action, though his hands had begun to shake after the shot. “I said I might surprise you.”
Samuel’s mouth twitched.
They found the dead deer, shot cleanly through the chest. Samuel nodded once when he saw the wound.
“Good shot. This Jesse taught you well.”
***
They took another deer before the afternoon had gone; Samuel brought it down with one shot near a creek bed. They set to dressing the animals beneath a stand of cedar.
Samuel had his knife out when Clay knelt by the first buck.
“You know how?” Samuel asked.
Clay glanced up. “I know how.”
“Show me, then.”
Clay cut carefully at first, then faster as he found the seams beneath hide and muscle. Jesse had stood over him years ago behind the orphanage woodpile with a rabbit between them, correcting his grip, telling him not to hack at good meat like a fool.
Use the knife where it counts. Let your hands do the rest.
Clay pulled the hide free in long steady strokes. He separated the meat clean. Nothing wasted. When he finished the first deer, Samuel was still working at his.
Samuel looked over, then back at Clay’s neat pile of cuts.
“You done that before.”
“Rabbits. Squirrels. A hog once.”
“Here I was thinking you were just some stray kid.”
Clay grinned. “You asked me to show you.”
By the time they brought the meat into camp, the light had gone amber across the wagons. Children came running. Tucker limped after them as fast as he could.
“You got one!” he shouted.
“Two,” Clay said.
Tucker’s eyes widened. “Did you shoot them both?”
“Samuel got one.”
Tucker looked at Samuel with deep approval.
Samuel handed him the smaller rack of antlers. “Don’t poke anybody.”
Tucker took them like a treasure. “I won’t.”
The women came to take the wrapped cuts for supper. Charlotte thanked Clay and Samuel. So did a young woman Clay had not met, with a baby on her hip.
Men began building up the fires. The camp shifted around the food; the smell of fresh venison pulled everyone closer.
Harlan Pike clapped Clay on the shoulder as he passed.
“Fine work today, McCall.”
Clay nodded. “Glad to do it.”
Across the camp, Everett stood beside his wagon with Anna. He had a cigarette between two fingers. He watched Clay for a moment, then said something low to the two men near him that Clay didn’t hear.
Samuel came up beside him, wiping his hands on a rag.
“You’ve made an impression,” he said.
“A good one?”
Samuel looked toward Everett. “Not on everybody.”
Clay followed his gaze. Everett turned away at last.
Tucker came limping up and pressed the antlers against Clay’s leg.
“Can I keep these?”
“You can.”
“And can I sleep in the Grangers’ wagon tonight?”
Clay looked toward Charlotte. She was stirring a pot while Noah set out bowls. She lifted one hand without turning around.
“He’s already asked,” she said.
Clay rested a hand on the boy’s hair. “Then you mind your ankle. And don’t keep them talking all night.”
“I don’t talk all night.”
Charlotte gave a dry laugh.
The fires brightened as darkness settled over the hollow. People moved between the wagons with bowls, blankets and tired children in their arms.
Clay stood beside his wagon with blood dried beneath his fingernails and smoke in his shirt. For the first time since he had left Natchez, the road ahead did not look empty.