The High Missouri Read Online Free Page A

most precarious situations offered the greatest possibilities. Now to see if he could convince the lad.
    He’d go into the loft and wait for his chance.
    Dylan eased through the shadow toward the door. It was a wretched night, raining harder now, black as the souls of the godless, and no one was about. He was getting soaked making this careful and quiet approach to the barn. He was trying to be stealthy. With his mind shrieking at himself:
    I have struck my father. I have struck my father.
    His body shook, trying to slough off this impossibility. The fingers of the guilty fist trembled.
    I have struck my father.
    His soul shuddered.
    He touched the edge of the big, wide-swinging barn door.
    Cre-e-ak!
    Holy Mary Mother of God, and I only touched it.
    He waited for some irate proprietor or a watchman making rounds to holler out an alarm, or just to bash the head of the intruder.
    Which he deserved. Shame raged in him.
    No proprietor. No watchman.
    Boldly he swung the big door a couple of feet. The hinges squalled like a stepped-on cat. If no one came, no one was around. Probably the rain killed the sound anyway.
    Shame.
    He went into the hay barn, with its smells of fodder, mold, manure, and the sweat and flesh of horses. The animal smells came from the front, where the horses were stabled. The rear of the barn was for storing hay. He knew it well enough—as a lad he’d often mucked out the stalls for a few pence. It would get him out of this nasty night. He closed the door behind him.
    Pitiful accommodation, but welcome enough to unaccommodated man, he mused. The aggrieved old king, Lear, had to weather the storm on the heath, a terrible storm with howling winds—something about cataracts and volcanoes and oak-cleaving thunderbolts, as Dylan recalled. The old man called on the thunderbolts to singe his white head, and they did, and drove him mad.
    If truth be told, he was an old man who wouldn’t get out of the way and let the young live. So Dylan said to himself, anger sidling in on shame.
    Now Dylan was unaccommodated—no family, no home, no lodgings, no job, no money, nothing.
    Bloody hell, it was dark.
    He groped forward until he felt one of the big supporting posts, and sat with his back against it. He looked around in the dark. He was not looking for avenging furies, he told himself.
    He was starved. He took half a loaf of white bread out of his pocket, and an apple. He tore at them with his teeth, savaging them. In a minute or two all was gone. Not enough to eat. But then he had only a few bob left, mustn’t waste it on luxuries like food and lodging, he thought sardonically.
    Probably Claude would have sneaked him into the flat if he’d gone back and asked. But he’d be damned if he would. Ask the MacDonalds for aught, no more than ask Ian Campbell.
    He’d make this place more congenial with a light. Since he couldn’t afford a candle, he had bought a can with some oil from the grocer, and flint and tinder. He fished his handkerchief out of a pants pocket and mucked it around in the grease. Out of a coat pocket came a small box with his flint and tinder.
    He struck sparks.
    Came a voice from above, “Bloody idiot!”
    Dylan shot the light high over his head.
    A dark form dropped out of the loft above, like a giant bat, arms webbed.
    Dylan lurched back against the post.
    The bat figure lit on the dirt floor easily, as though floating to a perch. Leaned into Dylan’s eyes. An old, leathery face, more or less human, a face that had seen many weathers. Grabbed the tinderbox and spat on it.
    “Idiot,” the creature repeated in the dark.
    Dylan stammered, “I’d really like some light.”
    “Sit down and be still and close your eyes for a couple of minutes.”
    A hand guided Dylan down, his back against the post. The hand stayed on his arm, comforting.
    “Can’t you see the floor’s covered with straw? Bloody good tinder to torch us all. Are your eyes closed?”
    “Yes. Us all?”
    “You and me and the