Some Kind of Courage

by Dan Gemeinhart

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  I reckoned it was the coldest, darkest hour of the night. That still hour just before dawn. Mama always called it the “angels and devils hour,” on account of how only angels or demons would have any work worth doing at a time like that. I didn’t know if I was doing the Lord’s work or the Devil’s, but I knew that it had to be done and the time had sure enough come to do it.

  I’d been lying too many sleepless hours in my sorry straw-stuffed bed, waiting for the old man to finally fall dead asleep. My plan had been burning all night in my mind like the last glowing embers in the fireplace, keeping my heart awake. Truth be told, my hands were a bit shaky as I finally crept, as quiet as could be, across the cabin’s dirt floor toward where he lay snoring. And it weren’t just the cold making ’em shake, neither. But my heart was as steady as a true horse, heading toward home.

  My leather bag was already thrown over my shoulder. I’d slipped it on without him seeing, before I’d curled up under my blanket. And my boots were still on my feet. He’d been too drunk to notice me not taking ’em off.

  All I needed was the money. And the gun. And then to hit the trail running.

  The money was piled on a shelf up on the wall by his bed. I licked my lips and crept closer, my feet finding a path in the barely lit darkness. I could see the barrel of the pistol, gleaming in the dim red light of the coals, on the crate beneath the shelf. It was right within reach of the arm the old man had thrown across his face.

  Barely breathing, I took the last few steps and reached up with my left hand. My fingers closed around the crumpled stack of dirty greenbacks, and with a smooth and silent motion I slipped them off the shelf. It ain’t stealing, I told myself. This money belongs to me, by all rights. I ain’t sure I convinced myself, and doubt chewed on my insides. But there weren’t no choice.

  I crouched and turned toward the pistol, but as I did my foot kicked an empty booze bottle. It spun in the shadows and rattled against another one with a loud clink that shattered the quiet of the cabin.

  The old man’s snoring stopped in mid-breath with a snort. His arm jerked up from his face, and two red eyes glared at me, confused but already angry. They narrowed when they saw the money clutched in my hand, and his top lip pulled back in a snarl.

  “What’re you doing, boy?” he asked in his high, piercing whine of a voice. Lord, how I had learned to hate that voice of his.

  I froze, too scared to answer.

  He blinked, his drunken brain no doubt starting to make sense of what was happening. He started to sit up, then stopped. We both looked at the gun at the same time. There was one tight, breathless moment when we both knew what we were gonna do.

  Our bodies lunged and our hands struck like snakes. He was closer, but I was quicker, and when I stumbled back two steps the gun was gripped tight in my right hand.

  It was his turn to freeze, and he did.

  “What’re you doing, boy?” he asked again, but now his voice had a sure enough nervous tremble in it.

  “You had no right to sell her,” I said. I was ashamed of how my voice quivered, not at all like a man’s. Not at all like my papa’s.

  The old man grimaced like he’d just taken a suck on a fresh lemon.

  “ ’Course I did, boy. She was mine. And I need the money to pay for all the food you eat.”

  My underfed belly rumbled the truth to his lie, and I shook my head.

  “No, sir. I work for my keep, and I work hard. And that horse was mine. You got this money by selling my horse, so it’s my money. And I’m gonna use it to get her back.” And you wouldn’t be using this money for food, neither, but for more bottles of Dutch John’s brandy, I wanted to say. But my mama had taught me better manners than that, and I held my tongue.

  He slid his feet out of bed and sat up. I took another step back.

  “Give me my money and git back in bed,” he said. “You ain’t never gonna shoot me.”

  He started to stand up but stopped when I cocked the hammer of the gun back with a click that rang clear as a church bell on Sunday.

  “I will,” I said. “I sure enough will, Mr. Grissom. I ain’t never shot a man, sir, and I hope I never do. But I’m gonna get my horse back. And if you try to stop me, I swear I will put a bullet in you.” My voice still had that scared-boy shake in it, but underneath the shake was a hardness that I know we both heard. An iron hardness that sounded an awful lot like the truth.

  His eyes squinted uncertainly at me.

  “Your pa left you in my care, boy, along with your horse and—”

  “My papa didn’t have a choice. And I know he’d want me to go after her, no matter what.” I swallowed and hoped it was true. It was so hard to know.

  “But that’s my gun! You can’t take my gun!” The high whine came back into his voice.

  I shook my head again.

  “No, sir. This was my papa’s gun. He taught me to shoot with it. He—” My voice caught in my throat, and I had to stop to swallow down the sadness that was always there, ready to rise up and choke me. “He’d want it to be mine. If something needs shooting, you’ve still got your rifle.”

  I stuffed the money into my bag and backed up to the plank door. I opened it with my free hand, the gun still raised between us.

  “You can’t take all that money, boy! It’s all I’ve got! I’ll starve!”

  I knew it wasn’t true, but I paused there in that doorway. It’s sure enough hard sometimes to tell right from wrong. He’d gotten the money from selling my horse, and I knew I’d need it to buy her back. And I knew the money was more likely to go to liquor than biscuits. But I could feel my mama’s eyes on me, watching. And my papa’s. I wanted to do ’em proud, but right and wrong were lost in the dark of the cabin. I clenched my teeth. A man’s only as good as he treats his enemies, Papa had said.

  My hand slid back into my bag and found the eight ten-dollar bills. I pulled one out and set it on the handle of the ax leaning by the door.

  “There you go, sir. I’ll be going now. You won’t be seeing me again.”

  I was mostly out the door when he whined his parting words.

  “He’s long gone, you know! He’s at least twelve hours ahead, with you on foot and him riding. You’ll never catch him, boy.”

  My teeth ground hard against each other. I lowered the gun and looked him straight in his stubbly face.

  “I will, sir,” I said. “I will get her back.”

  I let the door close behind me and without a look back I walked off as quick as I could through the darkness. The sky beyond the hills was just beginning to grow pale with the coming day. The angels and the devils could all go to sleep now. But I sure enough hoped that one angel would stay up and keep by my side.

  The grass and the stones and the dirt ruts of the road were covered in an icy white blanket of morning frost, and my boots crunched with each step.

  I’m coming for you, sweet Sarah girl, I thought to myself. I would find her, and I would get her back.
I knew I would. Or I’d sure enough die trying.

  I made good time downriver, my feet eating up miles as fast as my legs would move ’em. By the time the whole round sun sat in the sky I was already halfway to Wenatchee, where I hoped to catch the man who had my horse.

  The leaves on the trees by the river were already into their fall changing, painting my path with all their reds and yellows and oranges. Funny how them colors are thought to be such a beautiful thing, when what it really amounts to is their dying. It was pretty, though, anyway. Puffy pink sunrise clouds hung in the sky above the foothills of the mountains that crowded all around me and the river. It was the kind of sight that would have made Mama put her hand to her cheek and say, “Oh, bless the world for its beauty!” I did raise my head to take it in from time to time, for her sake. But I kept my hand on the bulge of the gun in my satchel. The world sure enough ain’t all beauty.

  I was still trying to get my head around how Mr. Grissom had sold my Sarah away from me. I should have known. I kicked myself for not seeing it, for not getting suspicious at the way he and the stranger, Mr. Ezra Bishop, had been talking. How they’d whisper and hush when I came around. It had been strange, but I reckoned I knew better than to question or bother Mr. Grissom. And then he’d sent me off, on that fool’s errand to check his stock pens up on the ridge. By the time I’d gotten back, Ezra Bishop and his string of ponies were gone and night was coming on. I’d done my normal chores and duties and it wasn’t ’til after dinner, when Mr. Grissom was halfway into his first bottle, that I’d gone out to feed and brush Sarah and found her stall empty.

  My heart burned with a fierce kind of anger. I kicked at the rocks in the ruts, spitting mad just thinking about it. My sweet girl Sarah. She was all I had left in the world. I shook my head and cut away from the road, through the brush down to the river.

  The Wenatchee River was calm here, flowing smooth and quiet down to the mighty Columbia. I knelt on the smooth round stones of her bank and scooped the water up to my mouth with both hands. My ears filled with the gentle, near and far sound of the water as it bubbled ’round rocks and tumbled its way over little dips. “That’s the voice of the river,” I could hear Mama’s voice say. “A river tells a different story to every living soul. It’s got one just for you, Joseph, if you listen.” I couldn’t help but wonder what kinda story the river was telling me now, as I was heading alone down this road with a gun in my satchel and a grudge in my heart. I didn’t know if I would like it. Or if I’d like the ending.

  I drank my fill in slurping handfuls, but the water had lost some of its sweetness. It wasn’t until I stood up and turned back toward the road that I saw the great pine just in the distance, the one standing watch over the small grassy clearing dotted with crude stones and wooden crosses.

  I’d darn near missed it. I’d sure enough been lost in my thoughts, thoughts of what had happened and what might be coming. I’d darn near missed it.

  I looked down the road toward Wenatchee. I didn’t have any time to lose, but I reckoned a few minutes more wouldn’t weigh much against the hours I had to make up.

  And if I really wasn’t coming back, I knew there weren’t no way I could leave without saying good-bye to Papa.

  My anger melted away like the morning frost as I made my way over to the little graveyard. There were only a handful of graves, lovingly but clumsily marked.

  I knew right where his grave was, there in the knee-high grass. I’d visited it enough times in the months since he’d died, any time I could find when Mr. Grissom would let me slip away.

  It weren’t even a cross, just a wooden marker cut from an old door. I’d had no real money, and no way to get anything better. I’d carved the words into the wood myself.

  WILLIAM JOHNSON, it said. 1855–1890. That was it. I’d run out of room. There was too much to say, far too much, to fit on that old board. I could have had a forest of boards for carving and not had enough space to say everything that was in my heart.

  “Hey, Papa,” I whispered, looking down at his grave. There weren’t no breeze and the grass stood still, like it were listening.

  “Well, I’m off. Mr. Grissom done sold Sarah off, and I aim to get her back. I don’t know that I’ll ever be coming back here.” I blew out a bitter breath and looked away from his leaning board. It sure enough didn’t feel right, leaving him here with this sorry marker, with no family around to lay flowers or remember him. But I s’pose leaving graves behind is just something you do in this life, until you get to your own. I rubbed at my nose and sniffled.

  “I won’t never forget nothing you told me, Papa. I’ll make you proud. I swear and I promise that I will.” I took just one breath to calm the hard lump in my throat. I weren’t going to say my last words to Papa like a crying little boy. I was his son, and I aimed to live up to that.

  I sniffed again and nodded. “Yes, sir. There are things that have to be done in this world, and it’s our duty to do ’em right. Like you always said. And I intend to do this, and do it right.” I bent down and yanked up some grass that had grown too long, nearly covering his name. I saw a little stone there, round and white, resting up against his grave marker. I picked it up and slipped it into my pocket.

  “Good-bye, Papa,” I said, and then turned and walked away.

  * * *

  I knew the names of the folks in the few scattered homesteads and cabins I passed, some right on the wagon road and some farther away, tucked up by the hills. It was full morning now, and twists of smoke curled from the chimneys or pipes of most of the homes. There were some sounds here and there of chopping wood or other labor, but I didn’t slow or stop. Not until Frank Jameson’s place, anyway. It was right there by the road. He was out sitting on a stump, eating, and he saw me coming.

  “Mornin’, Joseph,” he said as I walked up. He wiped his hand on his pants and held it out to me to shake. I smelled the sweet breakfast smell of his pancakes and my mouth went right to watering but I bit my tongue and shook his hand.

  “Morning, Mr. Jameson.”

  “Mr. Grissom’s got you out on the trail early today, don’t he? What business he got you on?”

  “It’s business of my own today, sir. Me and Mr. Grissom have parted ways.”

  Mr. Jameson’s eyebrows went up. “That right? Well, that’s much more in your favor than his.”

  The sun was still rising higher and I felt the trail pulling me on, so I cut right to it.

  “Did a man pass through here last night, sir? A Mr. Bishop, with a string of ponies?”

  Mr. Jameson poked at some food in his cheek with his tongue and nodded.

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “Couple hours before sunset. Heading down Wenatchee way, he said. Asked if I had any horses to sell.” He squinched up one eye and looked at me. “I coulda swore I saw that Indian filly of yours in there with his, Joseph. The red-and-white paint?”

  I gritted my teeth and nodded.

  “Yes, sir. Mr. Grissom—” I had to stop for a step to keep my anger down and my words civil. “Mr. Grissom sold her in my absence, and I aim to catch up to Mr. Bishop and buy her back.”

  The muscles in Mr. Jameson’s jaw tightened with an angry ripple.

  “Sold your horse? That old cuss sold your horse?”

  “Yes, sir. But I reckon I’ll find Mr. Bishop in Wenatchee and have it all straightened out by lunchtime.”

  “Well. Yeah. I do hope so, Joseph.”

  “Thank you, sir. I best be going.”

  I was set to leave, but a thought had been nagging me all morning, and I had to put it to rest. I reached into my satchel, pulled out my papa’s pistol, and held it out to Mr. Jameson, grip-first.

  “Could you please return this to Mr. Grissom, sir, next time you see him?”

  “Ain’t that your papa’s pistol?”

  “Yes, sir. Well, it was. And I felt I had the right to take it. But … I reckon I changed my mind. My papa said if Mr. Grissom were to take care of me, all our supplies and goods were
his. I s’pose that includes his gun along with the rest.”

  I locked my eyes on Mr. Jameson’s, trying to keep the sounds and sights of my papa’s death out of my mind. They came back to me sometimes too strong, and I needed to keep myself steady. But I’d never forget that awful day. The wagon jerking and turning over, rolling down that hill, my papa crushed beneath it. The hours of sitting there watching him die, with no doctor and nothing to be done. The tears that had leaked stubbornly from his eyes, his ragged whisper over and over, “I’m sorry, son. I’m so sorry.” Mr. Grissom had come along, heading to his measly cabin, and I s’pose he’d done his best to help. But there was no helping what was wrong with my papa, and my papa’d known it. With his last breaths he’d begged Mr. Grissom to care for me, and promised him all our homesteading goods. I shook my head to chase them clinging ghosts away.

  Mr. Jameson looked angry, but I knew his anger weren’t for me.

  “No, son. I aim to give Mr. Grissom something next time I see him, but it ain’t gonna be your papa’s gun. That is yours, Joseph. It was your papa’s, and now it’s yours, true as anything. I wouldn’t call what that dog did takin’ care of you, neither … more like takin’ advantage.”

  His eyes narrowed and his voice got lower.

  “Listen, son. You may need that gun, up ahead. Mr. Bishop seemed in a hurry, and he’s on horseback. You may have to chase him up and over the mountains. There’s bears up there, and plenty of rattlesnakes. And you, what, twelve?”

  “I’ll be thirteen in February, sir. I ain’t no boy.”

  Mr. Jameson nodded. “Maybe not. But you ain’t quite a man yet, neither, and this ain’t always friendly country.” He pushed the gun back toward me. “You take that, and you feel good about it. Your papa would want you to.”

  His last words got me. I bit my lip and slid the gun back into my satchel.

  “Now, you listen,” Mr. Jameson continued. “You be real careful with that Ezra Bishop fella. He had an ugly way about him, and he’s got a bad name ’round here. You keep your wits about you, and don’t give him a red cent ’til he hands you the bridle to that pony of yours.”

  “Yes, sir. All right.”