Tucket's Travels

by Gary Paulsen

  If there was one thing Francis Tucket knew with certainty it was that death, brutal death, was close to taking them.

  Dawn was coming and here he was, a fifteen-year-old boy in charge of two children, walking across a sunbeaten, airless plain that seemed to be endless. Francis, Lottie and Billy had no food or water or any immediate hope of getting any, and at any moment a dozen or two of the dirt-meanest men Francis had ever seen in a world full of mean men could come riding up on them and …

  He didn't finish the thought. There was no need. Besides, in surviving Indian fights, blizzards, gun battles and thieves, he had learned the primary rule about danger. It would conic if it would come. You could try to be ready for it, you could plan on it, you could even expect it, but it would come when it wanted to come.

  Lottie and Billy understood this rule too. He had found them sitting in a wagon on the prairie all alone. Their father had died of cholera and their wagon train had abandoned the family, afraid of disease. Lottie had been nine then, Billy six. Francis hadn't thought he and the children would stay together long—after all, he had to keep searching for Ms own family. He'd been separated from them over a year before, when Pawnees had kidnapped him from the wagon train on the Oregon Trail. But Francis and Lottie and Billy—well, they were used to each other. They stuck together. Unlike Francis and Jason Grimes, the one-armed mountain man.

  Jason Grimes had rescued Francis from the Pawnees and taught him how to survive in the “West on Ms own. Then they'd parted ways.

  Until last night. Last night when Grimes had helped them to escape from the Comancheros. The Comanchcros were an outlaw band, ruthless, terrifying, inhumanly tough. To escape, Grimes had had to take the packhorscs Francis and Lottie and Billy had been riding and lead them off empty, hoping the Comancheros would follow his tracks westward while the three children headed north on foot in the dark of night.

  It was a decent plan—it was their only plan—and it seemed to be working. As Francis and the two children had moved north in the dark, they had seen the Comancheros ride past them after Mr. Grimes, tracking the horses. The Comanchcros had missed the footprints of the children, pardy because it was hard to sec them and partly because Francis made Lottie and Billy walk in each other's footprints. He came last, brushing out the trail with a piece of mesquite behind him.

  But luck was the major factor in the plan. If the Comancheros caught Grimes or even got within sight of him they'd know that Francis and the children weren't with him. They'd turn and come back for the children. Children meant real money because they could be sold or traded into slavery.

  Francis knew that brushing out the tracks would only work in the pitch dark of night. In daylight the brush marks themselves would be easy to follow.

  “I'm tired.” Billy stopped suddenly. “I think we've gone far enough.”

  Francis frowned. When Francis had first met Billy, the boy wouldn't say a word. And now he'd gone from never talking at all to complaining.

  “If they catch us”—Lottie slapped Billy's head so hard Francis thought he heard the boy's brains rattle—“they'll skin you. They'll make a tobacco pouch out of you and let the coyotes have the rest. Now keep walking. If we don't keep moving they'll be on us like dogs, won't they, Francis? On us just like do^rs …”

  Lottie loved to talk, would talk all the time if she had the chance, seemed to have been talking since Francis had found her in that wagon. Lottie would explain every little detail of every little part of every little thing she was talking about so that not a single aspect of it was missed, and she sometimes drove Francis over the edge. Now, as Billy started moving again, Francis picked up the pace, pushed them as hard as they could stand it and then harder, and Lottie didn't have breath left to speak.

  Dawn brought the sun and the sun brought heat. Francis and the children were bareheaded and the sun quickly went to work on them. Billy wanted to complain, especially as the morning progressed and there was no water and the sun rose higher and became hotter, but Francis drove them until Billy be^ran to weave. Then Francis handed Lottie his rifle and, pushing her in front of him, he picked Billy up and carried him. piggyback, mile after mile, then yard after yard, and finally, step after step.

  Lottie saw it first.

  “There,” she said. “See the spot?”

  Francis was near dead with exhaustion. He had hardly slept at all for the two nights before and had been used roughly by the Comancheros in the bargain. He was close to the breaking point as he said, “What spot?”

  “There. No, more to the right. On the horizon. It's trees. I'm sure of it. A stand of trees.”

  They had seen many mirages—images of trees and water that were not there. But Francis looked where she was pointing and saw it instantly. He stopped and set Billy down. The boy was asleep, and he collapsed in a heap, still sleeping. “You're right! Trees. And trees mean water.”

  He turned and studied the horizon. He hadn't been able to look up when carrying Hilly and he was shocked now to sec a plume of dust off to the west and south. It was at least fifteen miles away, against some hills in the distance. It was so far away that it seemed tiny, but Francis knew it was probably caused by riders, many riders.

  Lottie saw him staring.

  “Could it be buffalo?” She watched the dust. “A small herd?”

  Not here, Francis thought. Not here in this dust and heat with no grass and no water. Buffalo wouldn't be that stupid. “Sure. It's buffalo.”

  “You're lying.” She sighed. “I can tell when you're lying to me, Francis Tucket. It's them, isn't it?”

  Francis said nothing but his mind was racing. So the riders were heading back eastward. But why would they be coming back so soon? Had they caught and killed Grimes already? If so they'd be looking for the children. Or had they given up the chase or just seen Grimes and found that he was alone and turned back, still looking for the children? Well, Francis had his rifle. He was ready. He would get two, maybe three of them before they were on him, and maybe that would discourage them. Or they might miss the tracks.

  He knew this was a vain hope. There hadn't been a breath of wind to blow the dust over the brush marks he'd left, and undoubtedly they had men who were good trackers, men who were alive because they could track mice over rocks. So the Comanchcros would find them and he'd get one or two and then … and then …

  He looked to the trees, which were about two miles away. He could carry Billy there. They could get to the trees in time. Then what? The riders would keep coming back until they came to the place where Francis and the children had turned off, about nine miles back. They would see the marks and turn and start north. Nine miles. The horses would be tired but they would make ten miles an hour. They had to ride maybe twenty miles back to the turn and then nine or ten miles north after the children. He let the figures work through his tired brain. Maybe four hours but more likely three. The riders would be on them in three hours.

  Francis and Billy and Lottie would need an hour to make the trees and then … and then nothing.

  It would all just happen later. He'd get one or two of them and then they'd get him and take the children and nothing would have changed except that a few horses would be very tired and he, Francis, would be dead. If he was lucky. He did not want to think of what they would do with him if they caught him alive.

  And as for what would happen to Lottie and Billy—his heart grew cold. But there was something else back there, more than just the plume of dust. There was a cloud. At first it was low on the horizon and showed only as a gray line, so low that Francis almost didn't see it. Hut it was growing rapidly, the wind bringing it from the west, and as it grew and rose he could see that it was the top edge of a thundcrhcad.

  It didn't took like salvation, not at first. He had seen plenty of prairie thunderheads but as he watched it he realized two things.

  One, it was growing rapidly, roaring along on the high winds, coming toward them at a much faster rate than the horses of the Comanchcros. Two,
it would bring rain.

  Kain that would case their thirst and cool their burning bodies and, far more important, rain that might wipe out their tracks, erase everything they had left behind them.

  Still, it was a race, and nothing was sure. The clouds had to keep coming to beat the horsemen to where the children's tracks turned north. And it had to rain.

  If the clouds turned off or didn't beat the Co-manchcros or didn't leave rain, then distance was all the children had. They needed to get to the trees and build some kind of defense.

  Francis picked up Billy, who was still sound asleep and seemed to weigh a ton. He set off at a shambling walk, abandoning the tedious brushing in their race to get to the trees. Lottie shuffled ahead, carrying the rifle and Francis's possibles bag. She was wearing a ragged shift so dirty it seemed to be made of earth. Her yellow hair was full of dust. Francis wore buckskins, but the children only had what was left of their original clothing and what they'd managed to pick up along the way.

  We're a sight, Francis thought. A ragtag mob of a sight.

  He looked at the trees and they didn't seem any closer.

  He looked at the cloud and it was still building. though it seemed to be heading off slightly to the south.

  He looked at the dust plume and it was still moving on the same line eastward, getting ready to cross their trail.

  He looked back to the trees and thought, I would absolutely kill for that old mule we had. But the mule had been taken by the Comanchcros.

  They reached the trees just as the edge of the cloud caught up with them.

  “Ten more feet and I would have died,” Lottie whispered, and sank to the ground.

  Francis dropped Hilly like a stone—the hoy fell without awakening—and studied their location. It was a meandering dry streambed with a row of stunted but leafy cottonwoods along each side. There were also stands of salt cedar, thick and green, and while no water was evident the streambed seemed moist. Francis knew there was water beneath the surface or the trees would have been dead.

  “Lottie, scoop a hole there, at the base of that rock.”

  “You want to start digging, why don't you just go ahead? I have more important things to do than scrape at the old ground.”

  “Water.” Francis was so dry he croaked. “Dig down and let it seep in.”

  “Oh. Well, why didn't you say so?” Lottie knelt by the rock and started digging in the loose sand with her hands. “When she was down two feet, she yelped.

  “Here it is! Just like you said, coming in from the sides. Oh, Francis, it's so clear, come sec.” She scooped some up and drank it. “Sweet as sugar. Come, try it.”

  Francis knelt and cupped his hand and drank and thought he had never tasted anything so good. But he stopped before he was full.

  The wind was picking up now, blowing hard enough to lift dust and even sand, and he could no longer see the dust from, the riders. The wind was blowing at the coming thunderheads and he smiled because even if it didn't rain there was a good chance the wind would fill in and destroy their tracks.

  By now the thuncicrhcad was over them, dark, so huge it covered the whole skv, and the wind had increased to a scream.

  “Over here!” Francis yelled to Lottie. “Beneath this ledge.” Incredibly, Billy was still asleep. Francis grabbed the boy and shook him until his eyes opened. “Get over by that rock ledge. Everything is going to break loose—”

  A bolt of lightning hit so close Francis felt it ripple his hair, so close the thunder seemed to happen in the same split instant, and with it the sky opened and water fell on them so hard it almost drove Francis to his knees. He had never seen such rain. There seemed to be no space between the drops; it roared down, poured down in sheets, in buckets.

  Francis couldn't yell, couldn't think, couldn't breathe. He held Billy by the shirt and dragged him in beneath the ledge that formed the edge of the streambed, away from the trees and out of the wind.

  Lottie was there already and they huddled under the overhang just as the clouds cracked again and hail the size of Francis's fist pounded down. One hailstone glanced off the side of his head and nearly knocked him out.

  “Move in more,” he yelled over the roar of the storm. “Farther back—tnoveV

  He pushed against Billy, who slammed into Lot-tic. They were already up against the clay bank beneath the ledge and could not go farther in. Francis's legs and rear were still out in the hail and took a fearful beating. He doubled his legs up but even so the pain was excruciating and though the large hailstones quickly gave way to smaller ones, Ms legs were immediately stiff and sore.

  The streambed filled in the heavy downpour. Luckily they were near the upstream portion of the storm and so avoided the possibility of a flash flood—which would have gouged them out of the overhang and taken them downstream to drown. As it was, the water came into the pocket beneath them and turned the dirt to mud and soon they were sitting in a waist-deep hole of thick mud and water. And just as soon, in minutes, the rain had stopped, the clouds had scudded away and the sun was out, cooking the mud dry.

  Aching, Francis pulled himself into the sun. The children crawled after. Water still ran in the stream but was receding quickly. The hot sun felt good, and Francis wanted to take his buckskin shirt off to hang. But he knew” that if he didn't keep wearing it the shirt would dry as stiff as a board.

  He straightened slowly, working the pain out of his legs. He looked to the west and smiled.

  There would be no tracks after that. There might not even he any Comancheros left if the lightning hit their horses, which happened often. Horses seemed to draw lightning. Buffalo too. Francis had seen dead buffalo after a thunderstorm, still smoking from lightning strikes, the meat already cooked and ready to eat…. Thinking of roast buffalo made his stomach growl.

  “I'm hungry.” It was the first thing they'd heard in hours from Billy, finally awake, a standing mudball. “I'm really hungry.”

  “Well, I hope you aren't figuring on meat for a meal,” Lottie said, holding up Francis's rifle, “because this tiling isn't going to shoot.”

  Francis took the weapon and his possibles bag from her. Both were soaked, so he set to work.

  He opened the possibles bag and spread his patch material—mattress ticking—and two cans of a hundred percussion caps each on a rock to dry in the sun. The caps had stayed mostly dry in the tight containers but he knew thev fired better when to-tally dry.

  He was surprised to find that the powder was only slightly damp. The powder horn was watertight except for the stopper on the pouring end and it had let in only a drop or two, which had been quickly absorbed by the powder near the spout and hadn't penetrated into the rest of the powder.

  He thought of pouring the powder on a rock to dry, just to make certain, but decided against it. Tt was all the powder he had, maybe enough for eighty or a hundred shots, and one puff of wind would take it all away. The balls themselves were of lead and not damaged. He had about sixty left. The ball mold was of brass and would not rust, though he dried it carefully and set it aside.

  He checked his grease pouch and found it still in good shape—the water couldn't do much to grease—and with his gear cleaned and drying he went to work on the rifle. This rifle, a beautiful little Lancaster, had been given to him by his pa on his fourteenth birthday. The same day Francis had been kidnapped.

  Francis stared at the rifle. That birthday was so far away—a lifetime ago.

  He shook his head and went back to work.

  The rush of water had taken the percussion cap off the nipple and he was certain water had worked through the nipple into the powder inside. This meant that the charge would be much reduced in power, if not completely ruined. He put a new cap on the nipple, went to the ledge where they had sheltered from the hail and fired the rifle into the mud. Nothing happened the first time, nor the second. The third time, the caps had burned enough water out so that the remaining powder charge ignited with a dull phwonk that drove the ball less th
an an inch into the mud of the bank.

  “I'm getting hungrier,” Hilly said suddenly.

  “Hush now, lizard gut.” Lottie cuffed him lighdy across the back of the head. “He's working on his tools. Drink water to fill your belly and leave him alone.”

  Francis sat on a rock, which was already dry from the heat of the noonday sun. Using only the small knife from his possibles bag, he took the rifle apart. The patch material was also dry and he ran a slightly dampened patch down the bore of the rifle, then a dry one—using the cleaning rag slot on his ramrod—and when it was completely dried out he set it up so that the sun would shine down the bore as directly as possible.

  The walnut stock had been well soaked in oil and bear grease over the years, and the water had not penetrated the wood. But he removed the lock. He wiped it dry and then greased it with a touch of grease from his bag until it cocked and snapped with an almost slick sound.

  Finally he used a small nipple wrench from his possibles pouch and removed the nipple, greased the threads and screwed it back in place. Then he smeared a tiny amount of grease on a rag and pushed it through the bore over and over until the rifling was entirely greased and there wasn't a chance of rust.

  Finally he put the weapon back together with practiced case. He measured a charge, poured it down the bore, patched a ball with a greased patch and pushed it down on the powder, pinched a cap so it would wedge tight on the nipple and put the hammer on half cock—the safety notch.

  “There.” He stood. His shirt was dry and the mud had turned to dust and flaked off the soft leather. His buckskin pants were also dry and still soft and he put the strap of his possibles bag over his shoulder and looked to the sun. “We've got a good five hours of daylight left, maybe six. This strcambed moves northwest—which is away from the Comancheros, and it's the way we want to go— so we'll follow it until dark. At least that way we'll have water and—”

  ‘Tin hungry.” Billy had locked on the one thought. “And my feet hurt.”