Read Online Doubtful Canon by Johnny D. Boggs - Free Book Online

Ian Spencer Henry?”
    “He’ll be along directly, I suspect. Here, I got a candle. Let me….”
    “You ain’t lightin’ nothin’, Jack Dunivan,” Whitey Grey said. “What kept you?”
    “Nothing kept me. I’m here. I’m ready….”
    “Looks like the li’l’ girlie gots the most gumption amongst you chil’ren.” The albino cackled. “That’ll do. That’ll do.”
    The glow disappeared, then I heard his boot heel crushing the butt in the dirt.
    Silence. It lasted I don’t know how long, and I felt my way through the void and slowly squatted. I couldn’t hear a thing, not even my heart beating, not even Jasmine’s breaths, nothing. Even the wind had stopped. The sounds from Shakespeare died, the dram shops and gambling parlors falling mute. Again, this must have been my imagination, or maybe I simply concentrated on listening for Ian Spencer Henry.
    Yet he never came.
    “Ten o’clock,” Whitey Grey announced, his voice causing my heart to leap. “We gots to light a shuck.”
    “He’ll come….”
    The albino muttered something and told Jasmine to hush. “He ain’t comin’. He’s gutless. I’ve half a mind to go to that orphanage and slit his throat. Half a mind to slit you two’s as well. Don’t fancy leavin’ that boy behind to spill his guts. And I tol’ you this was an all or nothin’ deal, so iffen I was to leave you behind…which would be my right, ’cause I said I would…you could blame that yeller friend of your’n, but I gots a generous disposition, so I’ll take you two along with me. But by all rights, I should….” He struggled for the word. “I should dis-…un-…I should just gets that gold and leave you chil’ren at that orphanage. Be five thousand more dollars for me to spend.”
    “He’s coming. I know he’s coming.” I gave my friend the vote of confidence.
    “We ain’t waitin’, one way or t’uther. Let’s walk.”
    “But….”
    “I ramrod this outfit. You tots sure ain’t givin’ me no orders. Get a-movin’. That train won’t wait. It’s time.”
    “How can you tell?” Jasmine asked. “You can’t see your watch.”
    “Ain’t gots no watch to see nohow. Whitey Grey don’t need no watch to tell the time. I know.” I assume he tapped his chest, maybe his temple, for I heard a slight thumping. “I know in here. But we ain’t waitin’. So come along, or I’ll bury you in this mine.”
    For the next three miles, as we walked in the night, carrying only a canteen, war bag, and hopes, I kept wondering what had happened to Ian Spencer Henry. He had sounded as if he wanted to come more than any of us. Maybe his father had caught him trying to sneak out. Who knew? I looked over my shoulder several times, but saw only the glow of light from town at first, and then only the faint outline of the desert. No friend.
    No rattlesnakes, either, which was good.
    The old stage road carried us straight to Lordsburg, and we heard a dog barking long before we saw the flaring lights from the lantern at the depot. Whitey Grey stopped in front of us and dropped into a crouch. Jasmine and I stood, waiting, wondering.
    “Don’t likes the sound of that dog,” he said at last in a whisper. “Train comin’ should be a freight, a long one, so we’ll cut ’cross here, hide in the brush ’bout twenty yards from the depot. Town’s growed some. You chil’ren stay quiet.”
    I’d been up to Lordsburg just the past week, helping Mr. Shankin haul down supplies from the railroad, and I didn’t see how this town could have grown. It had always drawn travelers, Apaches, soldiers, and ne’er-do-wells because of the natural spring, filling their gourds, barrels, and canteens while traveling to El Paso, Tucson, or points south of the border. The Mormon Battalion marched through here, Mr. Shankin had told me, back in 1846, and I knew all about Butterfield’s stagecoaches and the Southern Pacific.
    Yet the town, established by the railroad only a year or two ago,