Tucket's Travels

by Gary Paulsen

  “Would you be looking for getting shed of that mule? It seems about to The on you.”

  Francis looked at the mule and thought how much better it looked now than it had when he first saw it and smiled. “That mule will still be going when you're done, mister. He stays with me.”

  “Just as you say.”

  “I could work for you,” Francis said. “To pay off other supplies.”

  “Don't need it now.”

  “Well then, that's it.”

  The man went back into one of the huts while Francis watered the mule and mare, and he came out in a couple of minutes carrying a cloth feed sack with ten pounds of flour and handed it to Francis to tie on his saddle.

  Francis handed him Dubs's rifle and mounted the mare and took the lead rope from the mule and rode off into the dust without looking back, forcing himself to not look back.

  He made it nearly ten miles. The wind stopped and the dust abated somewhat and he kept riding until just before dark. He had angled north, still following the trail but looking for grass and water, and when he was some five or six miles north of the trail, he started to find grass for the animals, and just before dark he hit a spring.

  There was wood for a fire, and he shot a rabbit on the way in to the spring and made stew and sat by the fire and was miserable.

  Jason Grimes came back to him, the memory of the man, his rough humor and final viciousness. It seemed years ago yet it wasn't a month since the fight with Braid, and Francis had changed almost daily.

  He was nothing like the boy who had started West and he thought of that, was dismayed to realize he couldn't remember how his mother and father looked, how his sister Rebecca sounded. They'd had a dog, a little feisty dog, and he couldn't remember how the dog looked.

  Lottie and Billy were there suddenly, cutting into his thoughts. He lay back and looked at the stars—they seemed to be all around him, somehow under him as well as over—and he thought of Lottie with her sunbonnet flopping down all the time and Billy sitting backward on the mule and they were more real to him than Jason Grimes or even his family.

  And something the man had said. What was it? Something he had said about Francis working to pay for trade goods. Francis sat up, trying to remember, but it didn't come and he finally could fight the exhaustion no longer.

  He put more wood on the fire and took his bedroll and moved back in the grass with his rifle to where a small hummock provided cover and settled in for the night. I am fourteen, he thought, no, wait, maybe I'm fifteen. I'm fifteen and I sleep on the ground with a rifle and I am alone in the world and I am ready to rest …

  But sleep wouldn't come, didn't come, and by the time the eastern sky started to gather light he was already saddled and moving.

  If I keep going, he thought, and get farther away, if I just keep going it will go away, this feeling. But it didn't. The uneasiness grew until it became real, something in back of him, and he actually turned twice to see the mule plodding along expecting, fully expecting to see Lottie riding and Billy sitting backward.

  But of course they were not there and he went another mile, riding more and more slowly and finally without meaning to his hand pulled back on the mare's rein and she stopped and he sat. Thinking.

  Then it hit him. What the man had said. He'd said he didn't need any help now. It was a strange way to put it and Francis remembered how he had pinched the children's arms, how the woman felt them as well.

  They were going to work the kids, just use them. Like stock. He was sure of it.

  He turned the mare. It was wrong, leaving them. Francis should have found them a good family or should have stayed to protect them.

  Should protect them now.

  He kicked the mare in the ribs and took her up to a distance-covering tror. He had come slowly after leaving the post and if he kept her moving they should get back in three or four hours.

  He'd just make sure the children were all right and then he could turn around and come away again. And if they weren't … well, he'd cover that when he got there. He was probably wrong. They were probably fine and it was all in his head.

  But soon the mare was moving faster, into a canter and the mule thundered to keep up.

  When he was still four or five miles from the post he could see that it had all changed. The wagon train that had forced them to stay out had come to the post and were pulled up to camp nearby. There was no wind, but the stock had churned the ground and clouds of dust floated in the air obscuring the people.

  As he rode closer he could see that the wagon train was keeping well away from the compound. They must have found out that Lottie and Billy were here, he thought, and they're scared ot taking the sickness. He smiled.

  Then he rounded a corner near the corral and saw Lottie and Billy, and the smile died. They were each carrying two buckets of water—in Billy's case the buckets looked as big as he was and he dragged more than carried them—and they were both crying. Even in the endless dust he could see streaks down their cheeks, and when Lottie saw Francis she dropped her buckets and ran toward him.

  Francis swung off the mare and she hit him about when he hit the ground. Billy had done the same—both his buckets spilled—but he stopped about three feet away and turned his back.

  Lottie moved back and pushed her bonnet up. “It's right good to see you. Time was I never thought it would be good to see someone again, except Pa, of course, and Ma, but then you went and left us here …”

  “What's the matter? Why were you crying?”

  Lottie shook her head. “No reason. Just happy to see you …”

  “He beat us.” Billy spoke with his back to Francis. “He took a cane rod and he beat Lottie and when I tried to stop him he beat me.”

  “Beat you? Why?”

  “For not working hard enough,” Lottie answered. “I wasn't moving buckets of water fast enough out to where the train people could get them for the stock and like Billy said he took a cane to me. But it wasn't much. Like a bee sting …”

  She stopped talking because Francis had picked her up and put her on the mule. Then he reached for Billy and had him halfway up when a voice stopped him.

  “What you doing with them children?”

  Francis finished setting Billy on the mule—backward—and turned. The trading-post owner was there, twenty feet away. His wife had come out of one of the huts as well and stood with one hand on the doorway, staring at him.

  “I'm taking them.”

  “No, you ain't. Them are my kids now and I'll keep ‘em. You gave ‘em to me fair and square and I've got an investment in them. I'll be taking them back now. They got to work off their ‘debtedness. It's the law.”

  Francis was by the mare and he stopped with one hand on the saddle horn, his rifle in the other, half turned toward the man. “You touch them, either one, one more time and you'll pull back a bloody stump.”

  “Oh, you're tough, are you? Just a regular bobcat.”

  And it all swirled through Francis then. Captured by the Indians, beaten, escaping, living with Jason Grimes, trapping, blizzards—all in a sudden flash it went through him. All that, and he was still alive and had both arms and legs and he smiled. “Why, yes, I believe I am.”

  He swung up on the mare and caught up the mule's catch rope and they rode away silently and they were a good two miles away from the trading post, angling north to find the grass and water so they could camp, just over two miles when it hit Francis.

  “Billy talked,” he said to Lottie. “Back there he talked just fine.”

  Lottie nodded. “It was the first time he felt like he had something to say. I told you he could talk, but you don't listen to me. Just like I told you it was wrong to leave us with that awful man …”

  “You didn't tell me.”

  “Yes, I did. Or I meant to and it's the same thing. I meant to tell you and you should have known it. But it doesn't matter now ‘cause we're back together and the whole thing reminds me of the time our neighbor lady, Na
ncy, lost all her chickens and thought it was a wolf come to her coop but it wasn't, it was one of the Mayfield boys took ‘em as a joke except when Nancy found out she put a load of rock salt in his butt with a shotgun and he didn't laugh so much. She was something, Nancy. I recollect the time she made biscuits and didn't get the shortening right and they were so heavy they would sink in water …”

  Francis steered the mare with his knees, his rifle across his lap, and smiled, letting the words wash over him. Away from the trading post there was no dust, the afternoon sun was warm on his back, and the weather looked to stay good for some time. He had no plans other than to keep moving west and no hurry to get anywhere. He'd take meat later— maybe a buffalo—and they could stock up.

  It was all in all, he thought, his smile widening, a good day to take his family for a ride, maybe go see the country.

  A very good day.

  TUCKET'S RIDE

  For Angenette, still.

  Francis Tucket lay on the ridge and watched the adobe hut a hundred yards away and slightly below him. He had his rifle resting on a hump of dirt, the sights unmoving, pointed at the doorway to the hut.

  “Are we going to stay here forever? I mean it's really cold. I've been cold before but not like this.” A small girl and boy stood ten yards to his rear with the horse and mule, all hidden below the level of the ridge. “It just seems that since you haven't seen anything, we could go down there and get warm. There might be a stove …”

  “Please be quiet, Lottie.” Francis turned and held his hand out. “Now. We're going to wait. I heard something somewhere down there that sounded like a scream. We're going to wait and watch. Be quiet.”

  There was a horse in front of the hut, tied to a half-broken hitch rail. Some chickens walked around the sides pecking at the dirt. There was no dog. Three goats were tied to stakes in back of the house. The horse had a familiar saddle on its back—military cut with the bedroll in front. The horse didn't look wet, so it hadn't worked hard getting here. Then, too, Lottie was right—it was cold, so the horse wouldn't show much sweat.

  All this went into Francis's eyes and registered in his thoughts automatically—along with the direction of the wind, the fact that a coyote was off to the side a couple of hundred yards away eyeing the chickens, and a hawk was circling over the yard doing the same thing. All of it in and filed away.

  There. A scream—short but high. Not a man. Maybe a child or a woman.

  Well. That was all Francis thought: Well If it was somebody needing help, he was in a bad place to give it. One fifteen-year-old boy, a young girl and a boy with him, a horse and a mule and one rifle.

  Still. He couldn't stay and not help.

  It was what he got for not going west, he thought—for not taking the two children and just heading out along the Oregon Trail to find his parents and the wagon train he had been kidnapped from more than a year ago. He and the children had made a good start west, then had gotten sidetracked as they crossed trie prairie, and before he knew it an early fall had caught them short of the mountains. Snow had filled all the passes.

  Somebody at a trading post on the trail had said that there was a southern route down in Mexico that stayed open all year, so Francis had started south. They couldn't hope to winter in the northern prairies. He hadn't realized that taking on Lottie and her htdc brother, Billy, would slow him down so. He had found them, alone on the prairie, after their father had died of cholera.

  It had grown warmer as they had moved south along the mountains. Still cold at night, but they had picked up some wool blankets at the trading post, and Lottie had sewn pullover coats for all of them as they moved down into the territory belonging to Mexico.

  There. He heard a thump, then a scream.

  “You two stay here,” he called softly to Lottie. “And I mean stay here. I'll be back.”

  He slid to the left where there was a thin brush line and followed it down to the hut. The building did not have a window, which was good, because the brush line was sparse scrub oak and the goats had long before stripped away the leaves.

  Now Francis was barely concealed, and ran quickly, trying to keep his moccasins quiet.

  He held himself still at the side of the hut, listening. Again, a muffled sound. He checked the cap on his rifle, cocked it, and moved to the side of the door.

  He was five feet from the door when he noted that the saddle on the horse had a large us stamped on the sides, and the horse had the same brand on its shoulder. It was a United States Cavalry mount. Half a question formed in his mind—what was a United States Cavalry mount doing in Mexican territory?—when the door blew open and a young woman ran out, a large man behind her. He grabbed her shoulders.

  “Get back in here!”

  Haifa second: Her eyes were wide with terror; she had a scuff on her face where she'd been hit. The man's blue uniform shirt was ripped. He had a bloody scratch on his cheek. He was wearing a military belt with a flap-covered holster, and he saw Francis, threw the woman aside, and clawed at the holster.

  “Wait …,” Francis got out, then saw the flap of the holster come up, the hand catch the butt of the revolver, the barrel swing toward him as the man cocked it, an explosion of smoke and noise.

  Francis felt the ball cut his cheek and burn past and he shot from the hip. His rifle recoiled in his hands and he saw the ball strike the man high in the chest. He saw everything: a little puff of dust from the blue shirt as the ball hit; no blood, but dust, and then the man went backward and down to a sitting position. He looked up at Francis and said, “You've killed me,” and settled on his back slowly and died.

  All in three seconds. Francis stood in silent horror. He felt the sun on his back, the terrified woman standing in front of him, the goats bleating nearby, the smoke from the shots drifting off to the side. He stood there and knew that nothing would ever be the same again.

  He had killed a man.

  “Oh, Francis, what have you done? I knew I shouldn't have let you come down here alone. Seems like if I take my eyes off you for a minute you get into all sorts of trouble. It reminds me of a cousin I had. He was always …” Lottie had come down the hill and started talking before she'd seen what had happened. She stopped when she saw the body.

  Francis stood, still in shock.

  “iHabla espanol?” the woman said.

  Francis looked at her. “What?”

  “She's speaking in a different tongue,” Lottie said. “Could be French. I heard a man talk French once back home. He could rattle it off so fast it made your brain blur …”

  “Is Spanish,” the woman said. “Do you speak?”

  Francis shook his head. “No. Just English.” He was still staring down at the dead man. “What happened here? I mean why …”

  “He is soldier from the north.” She spat the words. “He came wanting me. Dirty pig. I say no, Garza fight. He hurt Garza. Help me witli him.”

  She moved into The hut and Francis followed. Inside there was only the light from the door. There was an earthen floor packed hard and swept, whitewashed walls, a small fireplace in the corner, a table, two chairs and a bed. A young man lay on the floor unconscious.

  “Help me,” she said. “He is hurt …”

  The woman and Lottie took the man's legs and Francis took him by the shoulders. They put him on the cot. He was breathing but had blood on his head. A piece of firewood lay on the floor witli blood on one end.

  “Husband,” she said. “Man hit him with pilon.” She went to a shelf in one corner where an earthen jug held water. She poured some into a clay bowl, dipped a rag in it, and began wiping away the blood and dirt.

  “I don't understand,” Francis said in bewilderment. “What is an American soldier doing here?”

  She stopped wiping and squinted at him in the dim light coming through the door. “It is the war, no?”

  “War? What war?”

  “There was war between Mexico and the United States.”

  “A war? But how can
that be? I mean—”

  “You did not know?” Francis shook his head. “Never heard a word about it.”

  “You know,” Lottie started, “come to think of it I believe I did overhear some men talking about trouble with Mexico at the trading post. Of course they weren't talking to me. Nobody talks to me. But I think one of them said to the other that he'd heard there was a problem with the borders or something. T couldn't hear well because someone was telling me to hurry up and leave. But I think they were—”

  “And you didn't tell me?” Francis turned to her. “We're riding down into Mexico and you didn't say a word?”

  “It slipped my mind. What with having to hurry and all the time having to keep quiet about things it just slipped my mind.”

  “Where's Billy?”

  “I left him with The horse and mule.”

  “Maybe you'd better go check on him.”

  “You're just trying to get rid of me.”

  “No I'm not. Now go check on him while I try to figure out what to do.”

  “Do? Why, you've got that huge body out there to deal with, that's what you've got to do. I don't see any muddle on that score. Have to dig a big hole and bury him.”

  “Lottie …”

  “I'm going.”

  Francis turned back to the woman. Her husband was breathing more regularly and starting to move his arms.

  “When did the war start?” Francis asked.

  She shrugged. “One day Mexican soldiers come by going to Taos. The next day norteamericano soldiers come by and say there is war. I hear of big battle between Santa Fe and Taos. Mexican soldiers leave, americano soldiers stay. Then this pig”—she pointed out the door at the body—“he came back for me. Then you come and shoot him. And now it is now.”

  And now, Francis thought, I have killed an American soldier. He was a bad man, true, and he shot first, but even so, I have killed him.

  “You are bleeding.” The woman came to him and used a clean corner of the damp cloth to wipe his cheek where the bullet had creased him.