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By Root 1652 0

into the shop, and some little girls jumping rope. Across the road was a less prepossessing place, with a small cabin for a house, and a shed for a barn, and no one around. I did what I would have done in a band of marauding boys: I turned in where it was most likely I would find abundance. The farmer came out of the shop to greet me, and all the females stopped what they were doing to look. Everyone seemed immediately suspicious—further evidence that the band of marauders had passed this way. I touched my hat but didn’t take it off. I whispered, "Good morning to you," and the farmer stepped closer. "What was that, boy?" he said.

I dared to croak a little louder. "Morning, sir! Name’s Lyman Ar-Arquette. I work for Mr. Morton, who has the paper. We were wanting to find out if some boys came by here a day or so ago. I’m looking for them."

The husband and the wife glanced at one another across the yard, but the girls went back to their game.

"Maybe," said the husband.

"You Mr. Welch?" I croaked.

He nodded.

"Well, we heard a bunch of boys came through here and asked you for a meal."

"Maybe."

"They did," piped up the wife. "Spent the night in the barn, too." She looked defiantly at the husband, who scowled.

"Believe me, Mr. Welch, I an’t going to do nothing to them boys or to you. I’m just from the paper. I’m looking for them boys to see about them. It’s just that the last report of them was that they were hereabout."

"Still are," said the wife.

Now this struck fear into me. My plan had been to talk to the Welches. I hadn’t let myself think much beyond that, because I didn’t think my disguise would hold up under the scrutiny of boys, in a group, already suspicious, and without much to do except to inspect me. I tried to sound eager. "They are?"

The man gestured across the road. "Holed up in that old claim. Them people moved away to Texas. An’t nobody took it over, so them boys went in there."

"I saw ’em last night at sunset," said the oldest little girl. "They was chasing something."

"Hog, no doubt," said Mr. Welch. "Them folks didn’t catch all their hogs before they left, and now the hogs had some shoats. There’s hogs all around here."

I cleared my throat. "How many boys are there?"

"Half a dozen, maybe; maybe not quite."

"Good eaters, too," said the wife, ruefully.

"Did they, uh, did they threaten you with weapons?"

"They surely had ’em along. We could see that plain as day," said Mr. Welch. "They asked where our niggers were, and when we said we didn’t have none, they didn’t like that. But they didn’t actually threaten us, and they an’t crossed the road since."

"I wish they’d move on," said the woman. "Over supper, they said they was gonna go out to K.T, but they an’t yet."

Now the both of them turned away. They were finished talking to me, and I remembered that I hadn’t taken any notes of this conversation, as had been my plan, just to flourish my profession a bit. The wife went into the house and the husband into the shop again. The four little girls were now playing "statues," a game I had played endlessly as a child. I turned Athens and went out to the road, then turned back toward Kansas City, rode a few yards, and stopped to look at the cabin across the road. No sign of life. Of course, these were boys, so I pulled out my pocket watch. It wasn’t even eight-thirty in the morning, so it could be they were sleeping. I put "my" watch carefully back in "my" pocket—I was suddenly painfully aware that I wasn’t who I looked to be—and then I gave old Athens a kick in the ribs and rode across the road and into the yard, the way you do when you think, Why not? and then don’t let yourself answer that question. A horse whinnied from behind the cabin, putting to flight my last little hope that the cabin was empty, but no shots rang out, no shouting, no descent of boys upon my helpless self.

Athens went of himself around the corner of the cabin, and I saw that four horses were confined to a corral in the back. Its fence was intact, but it looked like the rest of the fences had been cannibalized to repair that