Woe to Live On - By Daniel Woodrell Page 0,3

beard and answered, “Because you are loyal to here and not there. Uncommon.”

My eyes met Jack Bull’s, then he shrugged and ate on, looking down.

Soon I had eaten my fill. I tapped Jack Bull on the arm and bid him come with me.

“Where?”

“The barn. There is a son hiding out in the barn.”

The barn had been part burned down, and only one half stood strongly. Some hay was put by there, but little else.

“Halloo inside,” Jack Bull called as we entered. “We are friends, Clark. Show yourself.”

From our backs came some sniggering in a thin tone that was eerie. We turned toward it and instinct had our hands on our pistols.

The sniggering continued while we saw from where it came. A smallish man lay on a hay pile behind the door, a shotgun at his side. The roof half that was gone from flame let in plenty of light. But there was an unwell scent to the room.

“Bushwhackers,” Clark said between sniggers. “I could’ve killed you both.” His hand tapped the shotgun. “But it ain’t even loaded.”

“No need of that,” I said. “We are friends.”

“You s’pose so, do you?” Clark asked. “I don’t.”

His left leg was absent from near the hip down. A red neckerchief was tied to the stump. He looked a hard ride beyond Grim.

“You were at Wilson’s Creek,” I said. “Who with?”

“Why, General Price,” Clark said. He had blue eyes. “The fat glory-hound rebel himself.”

Jack Bull hunkered down and pointed at the stump. “Didn’t see that one coming, eh?”

This set Clark to sniggering again with such force that it ended in coughs. Breathing was a tussle. His face reddened.

“I saw it comin’. I see everything. Don’t think I don’t. I saw it rollin’ past little piles of kindlin’ stuff that I once knew by name. I watched it roll right up to me.”

Jack Bull laughed and spit, then courteously calmed. “You weren’t too quick with both legs, were you?”

“I was plenty quick.” Clark stopped with the mirth and looked dour. “Don’t you believe I wasn’t. But nature borned me smart and that changes things.”

In that war one-eyed, one-eared, two-stumped warriors were not uncommon, so Clark’s pathetic qualities failed to be as touching as he supposed.

“General Price is a good man,” I said. “Would you have us fetch you something to eat?”

“I have a mother for that,” Clark said. “I don’t eat anyway. I’m tryin’ somethin’ different.”

Jack Bull still squatted, staring at the air where the leg once grew, chewing a straw end as he contemplated something. Soon he pointed a finger at the stump and slowly spoke: “Now, tell me this, Clark. If you were plenty quick and saw it coming, how could you not avoid the cannonball?”

Clark tossed his head back deeper in the hay, and gazed up at the sun through the half roof.

“It looked like good luck. There was arms in trees and rebels dropped in sections all about.” He breathed whistly, like a sick bird might sing. “We never been well off here. Never. We never even owned so much as a single spavined nigger. Oh, mister—there was neighbors gone to Kingdom all around me.”

“Wilson’s Creek was a hot one, wasn’t it?” Jack Bull said. He then looked at me. “Arch and Cole were in it. They describe it like that. Hot.”

“Yes,” I said. Then, “But, Clark—your leg.”

“Aw,” he said and part pulled himself up. “I wanted my foot broke so I could head home. The damned little cannonball was goin’ slower’n a fevered rabbit. Do you respect me? I was there, and I put my foot out just hopin’ for a bone to snap.”

“Why, you are a fool,” I said. “A cannonball will rip your leg right—”

“Ho, ho, ho,” went Clark, then followed it up with more of those eerie sniggers. The sound wafted eloquently about the barn and required no accompaniment of further conversation.

Experience had prepared me for all manner of ridiculous misfortune befalling a man. Gopher holes killed governors and tick bites emptied neighborhoods. But this man Clark’s misfortune had been to be who he was and think himself smart in the wrong era for delusions.

“Well, now,” Jack Bull said as he stood, no longer interested. “Perilous times do not make us all stronger. It is sad to see.”

I stared down at Clark, a cripple by bad choice, and felt certain he would not last long, as death offers so many opportunities to nitwits.

“You will be killed,” I said to him. “Jayhawkers or militia, someone or the other will stop