Read Online The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner - Free Book Online

know he’s got it on his mind.”
    â€œNow you’ve got me curious.”
    â€œOh well,” Jud said. “I don’t know why I shouldn’t ask you. He’d get all tangled up in his tongue. How’d you like to go to Devil’s Lake next Saturday?”
    â€œFine,” she said. “What for?”
    â€œState trap shoot. Bo’s entered in the singles—would be in doubles too, but he can’t stay away that long. We thought you and Eva might come along for the day. The fair’s on, and there’s a carnival in town. Big excitement.”
    â€œIt sounds like fun,” she said. “What if Bo forgets to ask me, now?”
    â€œThat,” Jud said, “is the last thing he’d forget. He might forget his shotgun, maybe, but not you.”

5
    She saw him, from the parlor window, come up the walk with his derby already in his hand, and because they had a twenty-mile drive to make, and the shooting began at ten, she hurried to meet him at the door. He took the lunch box from her hand and held her elbow while she gathered her skirts for the step up to the axle of the buggy. “Here we go,” he said, “if these old plugs can make it.”
    Settling herself, she said in surprise, “Why that’s a beautiful team.”
    â€œBest old Handley had,” Bo said. “If they ever caught up with the times in this burg they’d have horseless carriages for rent.” He flicked the lines and the horses snapped into their collars; their trotting feet beat light and swift on the dust. Elsa knew they could make that twenty miles in two hours, easily. But it was like Bo to disparage anything he was proud of. Either he or Handley had worked over those horses. Their gray hides shone, their manes were roached, their forelocks tied, their tails curried smooth and glossy. She was glad they weren’t docked; a docked horse was a pitiful thing when the flies were bad.
    Jud was waiting in front of the hotel. Bo didn’t slow down. Jud’s great flat hand hooked the rail, his leg swung up, and he slid into the rear seat on the fly. The smell of bay rum came with him. “Must be in a hurry,” he said. He breathed on the ruby ring on his left hand, rubbed it on his sleeve.
    â€œPony Express doesn’t stop for anything,” Bo said.
    But they stopped for Eva. In front of her house Bo whistled and Jud whistled, but nothing happened. “Still snoring,” Bo said. “Go on up and break the door down, Jud.”
    Jud climbed out. “Not Eva’s door,” he said. “I prize my health.” He went up and rapped, bending to listen for movement inside.
    â€œMake some noise, for God’s sake,” Bo said. He lifted his voice in a bellow that shocked down the quiet, weedgrown street. “Hey, EVA!” The echo bounced off Sprague’s barn.
    Jud knocked again. “Must be asleep,” he said.
    â€œThat’s just what I think,” Bo said. “Eva! Hey, Eva! Wake up!”
    An upstairs window opened and Eva stuck her head out. Her left hand held a flowered kimono close to her chest. “Shut up, you big loon,” she said. “You’ll wake Ma.”
    The window slammed. They waited five minutes, ten. Jud wandered across the porch, cut off a twig from a shrub with his knife, and began peeling it. In the buggy Bo looked at Elsa, then at his watch. “Fifteen minutes,” he said, and muttered indistinguishable things under his breath.
    â€œMaybe she misunderstood the time.”
    â€œMaybe my hip pocket is a gold mine. She just likes to keep people waiting.”
    At six-thirty Eva came out in a white pleated shirtwaist and a dark sport skirt that just cleared the ground. Her mouth was very red, and she walked briskly, as if unaware that she had delayed anyone. Jud helped her in, waited while she got over her despairing little laughs and helpless attempts to get her skirts arranged. Bo