by A. J. Arnold
“Looks like some smallfry got to develop a callus on their hinder afore they learn how to behave. I’ve told this’un more’n once not to play in the stackyard. Now, Mr. Kirtos, you can see why I won’t never give my last name to this no-good whelp of my wife’s first man.”
He pulled Pete’s face closer to his own. His stepson could smell a sour mixture of corn liquor and garlic on the man’s breath.
“Boy,” Hamm sneered, “you get on home to the woodshed and pick out a board I can use for a paddle. And mind you’re there where you’re supposed to be when I come to find you.”
Abruptly, he released Pete’s shirt as he turned to have a further word with Alexander Kirtos. Once again the boy’s dirty bare feet slipped, but this time nobody tried to stop him. Regaining his balance, he darted off as fast as his skinny legs would carry him.
Thinking only to put distance between himself and Gerald Hamm, he took the homeward route that went through the alleys and behind the stores. If he was lucky he wouldn’t meet anyone until he made it to Uncle Ed’s
Edward Malvers, it seemed to Pete, was the only person in the world who understood him and cared about him. Certainly Ma didn’t, or she couldn’t have up and married that stinking black-bearded monster who made his boyhood such a hell.
And Hamm—the less he reflected on that man, the better. His sister Rebekah was no help at all. She was three years older, just enough that they didn’t have much to talk over. Besides, all she cared about was girl things.
Pete’s heart ached with loneliness for his father, Seth Buckow. The tears no one was around to see clouded his vision as he made his way through town. Pa had been a lot of fun, he remembered. Good and gentle, too, but firm in his own quiet way. Seth had also believed in the rightness of the law and in helping to protect his town.
Through hazed and watery eyes, as he stumbled toward home and his inevitable beating, Pete saw his father’s last moments of life....
It was an early Sunday morning, and a loud cowboy came shooting into town. The women and children huddled in the churchhouse for protection while the sheriff and his men slipped out the back door, cautiously circling the wild man who had leaped off his horse.
After an eternity, standing like he was frozen, the stranger looked around. He seemed to want to find his loose mount and ride away. Thinking it was all over, Seth Buckow relaxed his guard and stepped out in the open.
Through the arched church window where he had been watching, Pete saw the big red-haired fellow draw his gun left-handed and shoot. Pa dropped on the front steps.
The whole town went crazy. The posse took chase, but Seth’s assassin was able to get away scot-free. Things eventually settled down again, but not for Pete.
The killer was known in the area. He was a loco named Red Pierce, who would occasionally go berserk and come shooting up a town for the plain fun of it. He was a dead shot regardless of his lame right hand, and most people would back clear off his path rather than fight.
No, things were never right for young Pete after that, and he swore someday he’d get even...even with Pa’s murderer...even with Ma, for marrying a bastard like Gerald Hamm. And most of all, even with his stepfather—who wouldn’t let Uncle Ed live with them when Pete needed him most, and who treated Seth’s son like some mangy old cur to be kicked around.
None of this would have happened but for Red Pierce. If the boy could hope to get him someday, then at least everything else might be bearable.
With his head bent low as he remembered all the painful scenes from his brief past, Pete barreled down the alley back of Silver’s saloon. His shoeless feet were blotched and streaked from the loose dirt on the road as he plunged ahead, unseeing.
Feeling a heavy thud as he collided with a solid object, the boy reeled. Then he was abruptly aware that he had brought a pedestrian to the ground. The man’s muttered epithets sounded familiar, and Pete found himself staring down into the dull pewter eyes of Edward Malvers.
“Uncle Ed!” he gasped, shocked, as he hastily palm-brushed the settling dust from his relative’s rumpled clothes. “Gosh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to knock you down. I didn’t even see you coming.”
“That you, Buckshot?” The man looked up, bleary-eyed.
He tossed his long, unkempt gray hair out of his elephant-hide face. “Consarn it, boy, where was you off to at such a clip? I thought I was bowled over by a runaway steer.”
“I don’t know where I was goin’, really.” His thin face went bright red. “I was thinking to find you, I guess, and I’m supposed to be at the woodshed. Findin’ a board for that son-of-a-bitch to whale me with.”
Malvers shook his rubbery cheeks in what seemed like sternness. “Now, look, Buck. Don’t you never insult a man’s parentage like that. I know old Gerald’s no good for you, and I also know he ain’t half the man your daddy was. But that’s still no way to talk.”
“Yes, sir.” Pete hung his head while his uncle maneuvered unsteadily to his feet.
Edward, obviously, was still a mite tipsy from the heady Silver Special Brew he’d been downing all afternoon. “Best tell me what you and him are on the outs over this time, Buckshot.”
“All I did was slide down Curl-toes’s haystack. I know it was wrong. But, Unc, Hamm’s goin’ to whip me with a piece of wood! He told me to go pick it out, myself.”
The desperate glitter in his blue eyes was enough to break Ed’s heart as the boy took a deep breath and plunged on.
“Can’t I come and live with you, Unc? Things just ain’t the same at home since Pa died and Ma got herself hitched to that—that...” Pete’s whole body went rigid as he clenched his fists and steeled himself against the words he wanted to shout.
“No, you know you can’t. Why, your Ma wouldn’t let you! She says I drink too much.”
A sad, faraway look lightened his eyes. “And Buck, I’m afraid she’s not full wrong. It wouldn’t be no life for you a-tall.”
“Well, then,” Pete demanded, his chin trembling, “what should I do now? About the lickin’?”
Ed’s voice went as soft as the rest of him felt. Putting an arm across his nephew’s shoulders he advised, “If I was you, I’d just try to take my medicine like a man and get it all over with. Only, next time, try to keep out of Hamm’s way and don’t get ketched.”
“Yes, sir,” Pete said grimly, standing as tall as possible. “I guess I can handle anything that land pirate gives out.”
“Land pirate?” Malvers blinked. “Where in tarnation did you get that one? I sure as hell never heard it before.”
Pete smiled proudly. “Never got it from nobody. I made it up. See, at school once, the teacher gave me this book about pirates. One of ’em was called Bluebeard. He went all over the ocean in a big boat, just takin’ whatever he wanted from other people. Don’t Hamm do that? Just takes and never gives? Well, don’t that make him a land pirate?”
Ed shook his head. How could he argue with Pete’s logic? Anyway, he’d rather the boy called his stepfather a land pirate than a son-of-a-bitch. Although, come to think of it, they both fit.
Aloud he said, “You might have a point there, Buckshot, but it don’t change the facts none. Gerald’s still got you dead to rights, so you’d best not get his ire up no more. Go on home, now, boy, but come see me as soon as you can. We’ll talk again, and maybe go fishin’.”
Pete bit his underlip, trying not to cry again as he shuffled the short distance home. Above all, he decided as he reached the cool darkness of the woodshed, he didn’t want his stepfather ever to see tears on him, no matter how hard he hit him. Nor his sister, either, whom he had just glimpsed playing with a ball in the front yard. It would shame him for Rebekah to know he couldn’t take a whipping.
Halfheartedly, he began to look for a paddle, but then he questioned himself. Why should he? If Hamm was going to be that mean, let him find something to beat with on his own.
The faint light in the small shed grew suddenly even dimmer as a large figure
imposed itself in the doorway. Pete glanced up sharply to see his stepfather staring at him. A short, thick plank already waited in his hand. The boy backed into the farthest corner of the shed, turning his face to the wall. Gerald, without so much as a word, grabbed him and brought blow after blow down on his buttocks.
After a time Hamm stopped the punishment long enough to take a look at Pete’s white, but stonelike, face.
“Think you’re too big and brave to cry out, do you, boy?” he challenged. “Well, we’ll just have to see about changing your tune.”
Sweating, he began to beat harder and faster until Pete couldn’t stand any more, started shrieking, and couldn’t stop.
“There, that’s better,” Hamm grunted in satisfaction. He grinned, dropping the plank as he wiped his hands on the sides of his pants and wheeled around to leave.
Pete sank to the earthen floor, sobbing, grateful to be alone in the quiet mustiness of the woodshed. Then he was abruptly aware of the door creaking open again, and this time the shadow cast was from someone not much taller than himself.
“Brother?” a high, sharp voice demanded. “Brother, I know you’re in here. I could hear you screaming from ’way up in front of the house. What’s the matter?”
“Rebekah!” Pete breathed harshly, his humiliation now complete. “Just leave me alone. Don’t ask any questions. Go away, Sis. Please.”
The door squeaked softly, and the light shifted. “Thanks for being here,” he muttered bitterly at the girl, who had already gone.
Pete Buckow was unknowingly alone in his misery. “You make me feel like hell. Thanks, Sis.”
Chapter Three
“Thanks, Sis. You just can’t know how much that cool water helps.”
In the summer Sunday twilight, the fifteen-year-old shifted his bruised body against his bed. A pallet on the back porch of the house where he and Rebekah lived with their mother and stepfather.
“I sure did take a beating this time,” Pete said ruefully, wincing as he moved.
His sister’s cold gray eyes traveled without emotion from Buckow’s torn clothes to his battered face.
“Who were you scrapping with, Brother? It’s easy to see you got the worst of it.”
He tried on a grin, but it hurt. “Well, believe it or not, Sis, it was on account of you.”
“Me? What do you mean?” Rebekah’s lithe, slender body tensed as she knelt over him with the dipper from the well in her hand.
Pete was aware of her tautness, even in her firm small breasts that mounded just above his head.
“Tell me more,” she demanded, giving him another gulp of water. “Because I certainly don’t need anyone to fight battles for me.”
“Oh, yes, you do. Especially when it’s a lowlife like that Jim Gates you’ve been seeing.”
Buckow ignored her gasp of astonishment.
“Sis, you’ll have to be more careful who you go out with. Jim’s known as a pretty bad customer. After I saw him tangling with you on the porch this afternoon, I laid in wait for him. Figured he’d either treat my sister honorable, or leave you alone.”
“Peter D. Buckow!” Rebekah shrilled. “When will you learn to mind your own business and not meddle in the affairs of grownups? I tell you, Brother, one of these days you’ll come to some horrible end from your busy-bodying!”
He watched, fascinated, as some of the steely silver light faded from her eyes. She stood up straight as if remembering something. Then she wrapped her arms around herself and began to sway sensuously.
Rebekah’s tone softened as it took on a husky, feline quality that bewildered, and somehow frightened, Pete. “You were only there for the first part, Brother. You should have stuck around for Act Two, you might have learned something.”
“Sis!”
She ignored him, and purred on. “After I got the promise I wanted from Jim, I gave him what he wanted. Which, by the way, I like even more than he does. It was perfect, with Ma and Gerald gone visiting ...”
Rebekah paused, staring at the stricken, world’s-end expression on Buckow’s features.
“Oh, grow up, will you?” she snapped. “Here, maybe this will cool you off.”
Flinging the remainder of the drinking dipper’s contents into her brother’s face, she stamped away into the house.
Stunned beyond belief, Pete lay the rest of the night on his soggy pallet without even noticing the dampness. He stared up at the vast array of stars, asking questions and demanding answers that didn’t come.
Nothing was left for him, he concluded miserably. Uncle Ed was drunk all the time, Pa was dead, Ma was married to that bastard of a land pirate. And now—oh, God, Sis was a fallen woman—she’d become a soiled dove!
Angry hot tears joined the residue of well water on the soggy pallet. All Buckow had was himself, and the way he saw it right now, it didn’t count for much. In the morning the word would be out that he’d gotten himself half killed over the honor of his sister. Rebekah, who was, in fact, little better than a whore. Pete would be a laughingstock, to boot.
He’d just leave. Nobody cared about him, anyhow, nobody but Unc, and he couldn’t help. Pete would just take his odd-job money and grab the westbound stage in the morning.
He watched the first mauve ribbon of dawn struggle to lift the cumbersome layers of blackness above it. If he started now, he decided, he’d have time to say good-by to Uncle Ed before he left town.
Buckow got up too quickly, his aching legs buckling underneath him. Panting, he realized the condition he was in and wondered if he should put off his destiny until the next week’s coach. No, by God, he admonished himself. If he didn’t make a clean break now, he might never get away.
Grinding his teeth and swallowing his groans of pain, Pete sneaked through the house, gathering only what few belongings and supplies he felt sure had not been paid for with the land pirate’s money.
It was still fairly dark out when he reached Edward Malvers’s place and pounded insistently on the door. After an eternity the boy heard a thump and the shuffle of footsteps.
“Who in tarnation is tryin’ to beat my door down in the middle of the night?” the grumpy voice slurred.
“Unc, it’s me, Buckshot. Wake up enough to let me in.”
Swearing and muttering, Ed opened the door a crack. As the not-quite-daylight wedged into the aperture, Pete could see Malvers yawning and scratching his chest through the rough material of a much-used nightshirt.
“Uncle Ed, I’m sorry to bother you. But I’ve decided to leave on the morning stage, and I came to say good-by. And it’s not really the middle of the night, Unc. It’s almost dawn.”
Grumbling good-naturedly now, Malvers backed off to let his nephew in. He couldn’t help but notice the purple, swollen face as the boy turned to shut the door. Pete tried to bide from his uncle’s worried stare, but Edward lit a candle and held it under the kid’s chin.
“Here, now, Buckshot, don’t shy off. I aim to look over them bruises. Whooee, lad! Who put you through the butcher’s grinder? That the reason you fixin’ to leave town?”
Pete pulled away from the flame. By and by he managed to get out the results of his nightlong soul-search, ending with the sordid tale of Rebekah.
Uncle Ed took it all with calmness and gravity. At length he cleared his throat. “Buck, I won’t be orderin’ you about—I ain’t Gerald Hamm. But if you go now, certain people will say you’re running.”
“So what?” Pete challenged, his eyes so bright they threatened to rain a river down his face.
“So—” Malvers paused and coughed, as if to unstop the words and emotions that had gotten bottled up deep inside him.
“So it ain’t fun, nor right, to run all your life. I’m afraid I’m still running, Buckshot, even if it is only from drink to drink. And jails is full of folks who keep runnin’ and runnin’.”
“Unc, there’s nothing more you can say!” Pete shouted. “I’m going, anyways, and I’m going right this minute. Do you hear me? I�
�m goin’!”
“Go, then,” Ed said wearily, his voice as soft as Buckow’s was loud.
Pete slammed out the door and ran, just in time to save them both from seeing the unmanly wetness on each other’s faces.
Chapter Four
The stage from Pete’s home town had stopped in Dallas, and he’d had to make connections for a different one to parts further West. In his turmoil over his stepfather, his sister, Uncle Ed, and the whole situation—he took the wrong coach and found himself in Houston. Not really caring where he ended up, from there he caught a ride with some teamsters hauling freight to San Antonio.
The taciturn group gave Buckow the job of helping with the teams of mules in exchange for his meals and transportation. He had never before come in contact with this species of either beast or human, and he soon decided the mules made better company than the generally close-mouth men.
Folks around where he lived were never very complimentary to the hybrids, but Pete began to think they were wrong. The mules were allowed to graze at night, they were fed grain once a day, and were watered only when the heavy wagons came to a stream. Yet they toiled through the daylight hours without complaint.
After five days of observing their treatment and habits, Pete turned to the teamster on whose wagon he’d been riding.
“Sam, do these animals get to rest at San Antonio?”
“No, kid, mules only rest when they’re dead or when a wagon breaks down.” Then the man with the slow voice looked aside and fastened his attention elsewhere again.
Buckow stared at him. On the whole trip he hadn’t spoken more than a word or series of grunts. Pete had never met anyone who kept to himself as much as Sam did.
Well, it gave Pete a lot of thinking time. This afternoon in particular, he ruminated over where he’d been and where he might be going. One persistent notion kept bouncing back into his head. He had no real past to cling to, no family ties. Not unless he could somehow find Red Pierce and avenge Pa’s death could he make the Buckow name mean something. Could he dare hope to find Pierce somewhere, someday?