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

she thinks she’s got a lifetime lease on him.”
    â€œJud doesn’t seem to mind.”
    â€œHe never minds anything. If you went up and kicked him he’d turn around and beg your pardon for having his back turned on you.”
    â€œOh well,” Elsa said. “What do you have to do now?”
    â€œJust have to register and get a number. There’s a half hour yet.”
    â€œLet’s go get it done,” she said. “Jud says you’re going to win a prize.”
    â€œI guess not. Too many good shooters here.”
    â€œYou’re a good shooter too.”
    He grinned. “Got confidence in me, hey?”
    â€œOf course,” she said.
    With the shotgun case under one arm, he steered her toward the screened street of carnival tents. Though she was tall herself, she felt his size beside her, and it pleased her to be walking with him. It wasn’t just his size, either. It was the width of his chest, the smooth nut-brown of his skin, the way he walked as if everything in him moved on ball bearings. She hummed, almost skipping, and laughed when he looked at her.
    At the white tent marked “Shooting Headquarters,” under a limp American flag, she waited while he registered. He came back with a big paper 13 pinned on his back. “Slipped me the unlucky number,” he said. One eyebrow was raised in an expression of querulous protest.
    â€œWhy, are you superstitious?”
    â€œNo, but I’d just as soon have another number.”
    â€œFriday the thirteenth is my lucky day,” she said. “I’ll loan you my luck.”
    His shoulder bumped hers as he swung to look around at the white and brown and yellow tents, the sheds housing fair exhibits, the banners of linen-paper, the pennants, the flags. The barkers were opening up all down the street, the calliope had started again, the little painted horses of the merry-go-round were rising and falling through the yellowing leaves of the cottonwoods. At the far end of the grounds a great wheel began to turn, curving up against the cloudless sky, and a girl’s squeal cut through the jumble of crowd-sound.
    â€œWhat in heaven’s name is that?” Elsa said.
    â€œFerris wheel. Haven’t you ever been on one?”
    â€œI never saw one before.”
    â€œTake you for a ride when the shooting’s over,” he said. The corners of his eyes crinkled with a smile of pure delight. “God,” he said, “I like the smell of a place like this, even. When I was a kid I was always going to run away and join a circus. Minute I get near one I start snorting and pawing the ground.”
    They were in the midst of a pushing crowd. For a moment their eyes met, and they stood foolishly smiling, oblivious to the push of shoulders and the jabber of voices and the danger of having an eye put out by a parasol rib. Then he grabbed her arm and pulled her along behind him. “Come on. I don’t think I can miss today.”
    â€œYou’d better not,” Elsa said. “I’ll take a sandwich out of your lunch for every one you miss.”
    â€œGive me a kiss for every one I hit?”
    â€œNinny on your tintype,” she said, and pulled her arm away. Ahead of them, dropping toward the low shore of the lake, was a dike of earth, and behind it a little distance a crowd was lining up, sitting on newspapers, robes, bare ground. They were men mostly, but there was a sprinkling of women bright against the yellowing trees and the gray earth. Below them, on the level ground behind the five dugout traps, three men sat at a table. Men with shotguns in their hands and numbers on their backs clustered around the shooting ground. A clay pigeon hissed in an experimental arc over the water and fell.
    â€œI mean it,” Bo said, and they were stopped again. A faint, teasing smile hung on his mouth. “I won’t even shoot unless you promise.”
    â€œYou might as well not unpack