Part 12

I didn't dare run away without Swatty, because I guess I was as scared as Bony had been, and I didn't dare go back to the shanty boat, so I just stood, and all at once I began to shake all over, the same as a wet kitten shakes in cold weather. I couldn't help shaking. I felt pretty sick. But most of all I was scared.

I thought Swatty was going to stand there forever, looking into the shanty boat, but pretty soon he went inside, and that shows he's as brave as he always brags he is. I wouldn't have gone in for a million billion quadrillion dollars. In a minute he come out and he dropped off the end of the deck and sort of crouched low. He kept crouched low as he come up the railroad bank, and he crouched low when he dodged down the other side, so I crouched low, too, and went down the other side of the railroad bank. And when Swatty come up to me I saw he was scared, too, but he wasn't scared the way I was. I was just scared because I'd seen a dead man, but Swatty was frightened.

There was a lot of tall ragweed and a pile of railroad ties in the bottom of the cut along side the railroad track, and Swatty went right in close to the pile of ties where the ragweed hid everything and he sat down there. He looked pretty frightened.

“Well,” he said, “we killed him.”

That was the first I'd thought that we'd killed the dead man; but the minute Swatty said it I knew we had killed him by shooting through the windows of the shanty boat. I couldn't shake any more than I had been shaking so I just kept on shaking like I had been, but I got sicker at my stomach. When I was through being sick Swatty he got mad.

“Stop shaking like that!” he said. “We've gone and done it and we've got to think what we 're going to do about it. Stop shaking and help me think.”

“I c-c-c-can't stop sh-sh-sh-shaking!” I said. “I w-w-w-would if I c-c-c-c-could, w-w-w-wouldn't I?”

“Well, you've got to stop shaking,” Swatty said. “If you go shaking all around town like that everybody will know we did it. If you don't stop shaking I'll lick you!”

I began to cry. I didn't cry because Swatty said he'd lick me but because I just had to cry. So Swatty tried to make me stop shivering. He took the backbone of my neck in his thumb and fingers and pinched it hard, because you can stop hiccoughs that way; but it didn't do any good. So he got madder.

“What are you shaking for, anyway?” he asked. “I ain't shaking.”

“W-well, y-y-you h-h-haven't got r-r-religion,” I said. “It's w-w-worse for anybody that's g-g-g-got r-r-religion to kill anybody.”

Well, he hauled off and hit me. He hit me in the jaw, and then he said what I wouldn't let anybody say about my getting religion, and I fought him. Then we stopped fighting and I was still shaking, but not so bad.

“Yah! Little sissy boy got religion!” he said. “Little sissy boy went and got religion 'cause he's stuck on Mamie Little!”

Well, that did make me mad! I lit into him, and we had another good fight, and pretty soon he said, “'Nuff!” and I stopped. So I started to tell him what I'd do to him if he ever said that again. I was crying, I guess.

“That's all right,” he said; “I just said it on purpose. I just said it to make you fight. You ain't shaking now.” And I wasn't. I'd got so mad I forgot to shake. So, as Swatty had just said what he said on purpose, I didn't care. So I stopped crying.

“Now you've got some sense,” Swatty said. “Don't you get that way again. We don't want to get hung, do we?”

I hadn't thought of that. Of course they would hang us if they found out we'd killed the man in the shanty boat, and it made us pretty sober. I guess I began to cry again.

“Oh, shut up!” Swatty said. “If you're going to blubber all the time, and not try to help, I wish I'd killed that man all by myself. You shut up and try to help me think what to do, or I'll go and tell everybody you killed him.”

“You won't do it!” I said.

“Yes, I will,” he said back. “And I'll prove it on you. You didn't look at that man and I did, and I know what kind of a man he is.”

“What kind of a man is he?” I asked.

“He's a tough kind,” Swatty said. “And if you don't shut up your bawling I'll say you and him got into an argument about religion, and you shot him because he wouldn't come and join in with you and get it. And folks will believe that, because you've just got it, and there ain't any other reason why any of us should kill him. I haven't got religion, have I?”

“Well,” I said, for I saw Swatty could do like he said, “what are we going to do, anyway?”

“We've got to keep from getting arrested and put into jail and hung,” Swatty said. “I don't know how, but we've got to. We've got to be careful, and not let anybody know we shot that man. If they find it out they'll hang us sure.”

“We didn't mean to shoot him,” I said. “We had a right to shoot outside the city limits.”

“We didn't have a right to shoot anybody,” said Swatty. “We had a right to see if there was anybody in the shanty boat before we shot at it. We'll all three be hung if they find out we did it.”

Well, I had an idea just then, but I didn't say it to Swatty. I didn't really think it, it just come. I knew as soon as I thought it that I wouldn't be so mean, and I knew Swatty wouldn't either. But it would have been easy enough for me and Swatty to say Bony did it. We was two to one. Maybe I would have said it if I hadn't got religion. But it made me feel better for a while to think that I'd thought it and hadn't said it. So the next thing I thought was that it would be mighty noble and true and religious if I'd go to the mayor or somebody and just say: “I killed a man up there at the old shanty boat on the river, but nobody is to blame but me. Swatty ain't and Bony ain't, so go ahead and hang me. I did it, and it was my target rifle.” But I thought that if I was going to be hung I'd not feel as lonesome if Swatty and Bony got hung too. Anyway, Swatty started to talk, and I forgot it.

“If Bony hadn't gone off with the skiff,” he said, “we'd be all right. We'd get in the skiff and row out to the middle of the river and lay flat in it, and nobody would see us. We could float down the river as far as we wanted to and hide in a cane-brake or somewhere. Or maybe, we'd row up the Missouri and hide in the Rocky Mountains. If they got after us we could turn bandits or something.”

“You could,” I said, “but I couldn't.”

“I forgot you'd got religion,” he said. “You'd have to start a ranch. But we can't do that, because Bony went off with the skiff.”

What we decided was that nobody would be apt to find the dead man that day. Maybe they'd never find him. Unless somebody like us happened to go into the old shanty boat he might never get found, and then, the next spring, when the Mississippi had her spring flood, or that same fall, if the water got high enough, we could come up and float the old shanty boat out of the mud and take her out in the river and sink her. We talked over a lot of things, and the more we talked the more it didn't seem so bad. It looked as if we had a chance not to get hung, after all.

I wanted to cut across the cornfield to the hill and go home that way, so that if anybody saw us they'd think we had been up in the woods and not near the shanty boat, but Swatty said that wouldn't do because our footprints would show in the cornfield, and detectives would trace us by them if they started out to find who murdered the man. He said it would be more innocent to go right down the railroad track, and if anybody asked us anything to say we hadn't been as far up as the shanty boat, and that Bony had got a stomach ache or something and gone home first with the boat. So we did that. We walked down the track. We talked about the murder all the time, and the more we talked the surer we were nobody would think we did it.

Well, we got to my gate all right, and Swatty and me crossed our hearts we wouldn't say anything about killing the man, and I tried to think how I'd act so nobody at home would think anything different than they always did, and I went into the house. It was pretty late. They were eating supper. So I went in and sat down, and Father scolded me a little for being late, like he does nearly every day, and then he said something else.

“Son,” he said, “after supper you'll get that target rifle of yours and turn it over to me.”

Well, I almost jumped out of my skin, I was so scared.

“Now, you needn't begin any of that,” he said. “I mean what I say. Do you know who was shot today?”

I was so scared I couldn't swallow my piece of meat. I choked on it.

“No, sir!” I said, pretty weakly.

“Well, Benny Judge shot his little sister,” said my father. “Only by the greatest luck she wasn't killed. As it is she has a bullet in her arm. Now, mind! I want that rifle.”

Well, I was glad and I was scared stiff, too.

I had left the target rifle on the rocks up by the shanty boat. I began to shake again because I knew somebody would find the target rifle and it had my initials on it, and when they found the dead man they would know I killed him. I guess my teeth chattered. Anyway I couldn't think of anything at all. I just wished I was dead, because after supper Father would want the rifle, and I didn't have it, and some one would find it and I would be hung.

Then Mother saw me shake, and she said, “What's the matter? Are you cold?”

“Y-y-yes'm,” I said. Well, it wasn't a lie. I was sort of cold.

“Father, the poor child is sick,” Mother said. “See him chatter his teeth.”

So Father looked at me. “Malaria,” he said. So he asked me if I had been up to the Slough, because he had been reading in a magazine about Slough mosquitoes biting you and giving you malaria. I didn't know what to say. It didn't look good to say I had been up there so near the old shanty boat, and I didn't like to lie about it, because I was on probation for getting religion. So I didn't say anything. I just shivered and chattered my teeth.

“Huh!” my father said. “I knew well enough something was the matter with that boy when he got religion. He's had this malaria spell coming on. Put him to bed and give him a big dose of quinine.” And then he said to me, “Just let me catch you up near that Slough again, understand? Get to bed, and quick! This family is just one thing after another!”

I got to bed pretty quick and Mother gave me one of the big capsules. She heated the scorched blanket at the kitchen stove and wrapped me up in it and put all the bed covers she could find on top of me. I started to sweat right away. So she said, “If you want anything I'll leave the door open and you can call me,” and she went down again. She told Father she guessed I was pretty sick because I looked like it, and all he said was, “Huh! boys!” And I guessed he was right, and I made up my mind to live a better and truer life, but I kept thinking of the man we had killed. I never sweat so much in my life.

All at once the doorbell rang and I sat right up in bed. I thought the police had come for me. But it wasn't the police; it was something just as bad--almost. It was old Higgins, the skiff man. He was talking to Father. He asked him if I had got home all right. So Father said I had, and I was sick and in bed. Then old Higgins said, “Well, I don't know what to make of it. Nobody brought my skiff back. Your boy and two other boys hired it off of me, and when it got late and they didn't bring it back I got frightened. You ask him where he left my skiff, and if they lost it somebody's got to pay me back for it.” Well, I was mighty scared. I guessed Bony had been so scared he had upset the skiff and got drowned, and maybe me and Swatty would get hung for that, too, though we did throw rocks at Bony to try to get him to come back. But, anyway, me and Swatty would have to tell why Bony had gone off in the skiff alone, and then they would know everything, and take us to jail and hang us. I crawled down under the covers and pretended to be asleep, but it wasn't any use, because Father shook me by the shoulder.

“Now, what?” he said, cross. “Here's Higgins, the skiff man, and he says you hired a skiff and didn't bring it back. What's the meaning of all this? And are you putting on this malaria on this account? Explain, young man!”

So I sat up and I said, “Bony took it.”

“Come, now, explain!” my father said.

“Well, we was up the river,” I said, “and me and Swatty and Bony got out of the skiff and--and we went ashore. So--so--then me and Swatty, we run down the railroad track a little way and--and when we looked back Bony was going to get into the skiff, and we hollered for him to wait for us, but he wouldn't. He got into it and rowed away.”

“And left you there?”

“Yes, sir.”

I guess he didn't believe it. I guess he thought I was just trying to put it onto Bony, to get out of it myself. He forgot I'd got religion, I guess. So he snapped his fingers the way he does when he's mad.

“Get out of that bed and get into your clothes and make haste about it!” he said, and I said, “Yes, sir!” and I got out of bed right away. I dressed quick.

Mother cried because it was wrong to make a sick boy dress and go over to Bony's house out of a sweat and I'd catch pneumonia; but I had to go. So nobody said anything on the way over, except Mr. Higgins tried to talk about what nice weather we were having, but Father wouldn't talk. I didn't like to go, because--well, I thought all Bony's folks would be crying because he was drowned when we got there; but of course if you think about it, they wouldn't know. So when we got to their house they weren't crying, but Mr. Booth--he was Bony's father--just come to the door in his socks and said, “Well, what is it now?” because I was there, and he knew something was the matter or I wouldn't be there with my father. So Father said, “Did your son come home?”

“Yes, he come home,” Mr. Booth said, “but he ain't well, and Ma put him to bed.”

I was glad he wasn't drowned, anyway. Unless he'd told about the dead man, and then maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if he had been drowned. So Father and Mr. Higgins told about the skiff, and Mr. Booth sent Bony's ma to up ask Bony. Pretty soon she came down.

“He's pretty sick,” she said. “He's complaining of pains in his arms and back and he's shaking like he had the ague; but I hope not, because his temp'ature ain't high. I guess maybe he caught a chill. And he tied the skiff under the creek bridge. He left the oars in it. But he shall never again play with those two boys! Never again! The idea of them running off and leaving my poor child to row home all alone!”

Well, that was a lie, but I wasn't sore at Bony because he's a coward and it was better for him to tell a lie like that than to blab about the dead man. Anyway, a fellow has to tell some lies until he gets religion. After that it's different.

“So you've been lying to me again!” Father said to me, but I didn't say anything. Saying it was a lie didn't make it a lie, and all he could do was lick me, anyway. But he didn't lick me, because he thought maybe I did have malaria because I'd got religion. I guess that was what he thought. So Mr. Higgins said, “Never mind, I'll get the skiff, but it will be about a dollar.” So Father paid him and said he would take it out of my allowance; but he hardly ever paid me my allowance, anyway, so that was all right. He just gave me an allowance so he could say he wouldn't pay it to me, I guess. Anyway, we went home.

Well, I stayed awake for hours, thinking about the murder and what we had better do about it, but maybe it was only a few minutes, and the next morning Swatty came over before I was out of bed. He waited for me in the side yard until I come down.

“Well,” he said, “have you thought of anything to do?”

I hadn't thought of anything except maybe I'd better go to the minister and tell him all about it. So Swatty said if I did that he would knock my head off, and I knew he would, if he could.

“Well, have you thought of anything, then?” I asked him.

So he told me he had sat up all night thinking about it. He said he had paced the floor with his hands behind him and his brow knotted in thought throughout the still hours of the night until cockcrow. I thought he was lying, but I didn't tell him so. I told him I went to sleep, and I told him about Bony and Mr. Higgins. I told him about the rifle we had left on the rocks. He said that complicated matters, but we would have to make the best of it.

Then he showed me the braided horsehair bridle he had in his pocket that his uncle had brought back from Texas, and the wooden tobacco pipe he had in the other pocket. He said we might have gone to Texas, only somebody in Texas might recognize the bridle and know it was the one his uncle had had, and then know him and connect him up with the murder in the shanty boat, so we would go to Montana or maybe New Mexico. He was n't sure which we would go to, but that it would be better to start right away.

Well, I didn't like to leave home and never come back until I was a big man with a beard, and the murder was forgotten about, but it seemed the only thing to do. I talked and Swatty talked, and it seemed the only way we could keep from being hung, because “murder will out,” as it says in our reader. I only had twenty-five cents that I hadn't paid Mr. Higgins for the skiff, and Swatty only had fourteen cents. We knew that was n't nearly enough money. We didn't know what Bony had, but afterward we found he only had a dime. But Swatty said we could get work to do in some of the places we would get to, and we could steal green com and roast it--only he would have to steal it, because it wouldn't be right for me.

We thought the best thing to do would be to start out of our back gate and go due west, and keep going west until we came to Montana or New Mexico, or wherever we got to, only we had to get the rifle first, because if we left it, it would be evidence against us, and anyway we might kill some game with it. We had it all fixed up how we would do, and just then Bony came over the back fence, and we told it all over again. We didn't think he would go with us, but he said he would.

So we talked it all over, and it wasn't like any other time we had ever talked anything over. Most times we just talked about running away but we didn't mean it, but this time it was a mighty serious thing and we meant it. Other times when we talked we were afraid to run away, but this time we were afraid not to. It was almost noon when we got ready to go, and just as we were going Mother saw us and called us back. She asked me if we were going to the woods, and we were, so I said we were, and she said we oughtn't to go without lunch, so she made us sandwiches, and we were glad to have them. I said “Good-bye, Mother,” and she said “Good-bye, son,” and she didn't know that maybe it was the last time she'd ever say it to me, but I knew it because maybe she would grow old and die before I ever came back.

Well, we started off. We didn't talk much--even Swatty didn't. We went past his barn, and he went in to say good-bye to his dog, but we didn't dare take him along, because somebody might know us by him, so he whined and cried when we went away. We didn't say anything much until we got to the city limits and then Swatty said, “Well, anyway, now the town police can't touch us, because we are out of town, and they can't touch anybody out of town”, and Bony began to cry.

But he didn't cry loud--he just sort of sniggered to himself and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. I guess maybe I cried, too, but not very loud, either.

If it hadn't been for being hung I would have gone back, and I would have told the minister all about killing the man, because I kept thinking about Mamie Little and that some other boy would play with her and grow up and marry her, and maybe I'd never see her again, even if he didn't marry her. Swatty was the only one that didn't cry a little. He didn't have to, because he let on to be mad at us for being mushies, and he swore instead. He swore at me and Bony, and I could have kept from crying, too, if I could have swore, but I couldn't because I gave it up when I got religion.

After we got beyond the houses that are beyond the city limits we went across the vacant lots and across the old fair grounds and down over the hill. We got down to the river road and climbed over the fence and got under the bob-wire fence on the other side of the road and went through the cornfield. We forgot about our footprints.

When we got to the edge of the cornfield Bony wouldn't go any farther. He was scared to go any nearer the dead man. Swatty and me crawled under the wires and went across the railroad track, and before we were across them we dodged back into the cut alongside the track, and Swatty dropped flat in the weeds. So I dropped flat, too. The reason was that there were eight or ten men on the front deck of the shanty house, and I don't know how many more inside.

They had found the man we had murdered.

We just lay there and held our breath. I couldn't think of anything, I was so scared again. I just remembered how “murder will out,” and how a murderer will always come back to where he murdered anybody, and that there we were, and that as soon as they saw us they'd know we were the murderers, because we had come back. I don't know what Swatty was doing, and I didn't know what I was doing, but I guess as soon as I was able I-started to try to dig a hole in the railroad embankment with my finger nails, to crawl into and hide, because that was what I was doing when I heard the men come up the other side of the embankment.

They were coming up from the shanty boat, and one of the men was saying, “Steady now! Keep that door level, can't you?” So I couldn't dig any more. My fingers wouldn't work. My arms and legs felt as if they were full of cold ice water, and I couldn't lift up my hands to put my hat on tighter, which I wanted to do because I could feel my hair lifting up and lifting my hat up. I didn't think about being hung or anything, but just how awful it would be if the men let the door tip and rolled the murdered man down on top of us. I guess I ought to have thought of how innocent I was, but I didn't. I didn't even think of being religious. I just felt my backbone creep and my hair lift up and my arms and legs get colder and colder.

We heard the men carrying the dead man away. I couldn't move, and I guess I would never have dared to move again if it hadn't been for Swatty. As soon as we couldn't hear the men any more Swatty lifted his head and crawled up the embankment and looked. I wouldn't have done it for a million billion quadrillion dollars. He looked, and when he saw they weren't thinking of us, but were all looking at the dead man on the door and going away from us down the railroad track he scrabbled up the rest of the embankment and scrabbled across the track and down the other side. He was back right away, with the target rifle, and then he told me to get up and get away from there, but I couldn't get up. So he kicked me two or three times hard, and when he kicked me on my hip bone I got mad and forgot to be so scared and got up. We ran through the cornfield and got Bony, and all three of us got across the road and ran up the hillside into the woods as hard as we could run.