pay back a loan from a certain lady over to the Gulf coast soon as I could make it up there again. Stealing from me was one thing, and it done a pretty good job of gettin’ my dander up all by its ownself. But takin’ something I’d thought of as belonging to a partic’lar good friend of mine was just addin’ insult to injury.
There was goin’ to be some settlin’ of accounts over this here business today, or my name wasn’t Tate Barkley. And it ain’t ever been anything else since my Mam an’ Pap brought me into the world.
It’s a name folks in some circles has found reason to fight shy of here an’ about. I been spoke of all the way from Arizona to the Florida panhandle as a feller what can become mighty unsociable once his toes get stepped on hard enough. And I could feel my corns startin’ to pain me, right about now.
Some might of thought it foolish for me to be havin’ ideas like that, considerin’ the shape I was in just then. And maybe they’d be right. Good sense ain’t never been commented upon as a partic’lar Barkley trait.
But on t’other hand, stubbornness is. And they’s only one way I ever heard of for a man to get from here to there, no matter where “here” an’ “there” turn out to be. That’s by hitchin’ up his galluses and startin’ in to set one foot before the other.
So once I’d put on my hat and stomped back into my boots, I just pointed my nose in that southward direction where them bushwhackers rode off after they got finished leavin’ me for dead, and I set out to walkin’.
If I passed that settlement Lila mentioned this side the river, I never did see it. They was a few scattered cabins here an’ about, most of ’em well back off the road. But nothin’ what struck me as lookin’ anything like a town. And no folks I could see close enough to holler to.
Not that it concerned me a awful lot right at the moment. I wasn’t in no mood for idle conversation, and there weren’t anything I wanted to know about them outlaws what couldn’t be read in the sand road at my feet. Their sign was plain enough, ’specially since Jube ’peared to be ridin’ a mule. And I’d of recognized the tracks of my Ole Roan horse anyplace.
I reckoned it was maybe nine or ten o’clock in the morning when Purv first stepped out from the trees with his shotgun to get my attention. And I didn’t figure the whippin’ and the robbin’ I’d got took much over half a hour afterwards. By the time I’d passed by the store at Old Leno and started makin’ my way south ’crost the Natural Bridge of the Santa Fe River, the sun had climbed up to where it was pretty near direct overhead.
I was some grateful for the coolness of the deep woods all around me ’bout then, ’cause that late September sun was hot enough to make the sweat run down into the cuts an’ hurts ole Jube had put on my face, which didn’t give me much pleasure a-tall. And Lila hadn’t even left me with a kerchief in my pockets to sop up the worst of it with.
The hills an’ ravines northwest of Newnansville was beginnin’ to get my feets’ attention too before long. I’d already covered maybe six, seven miles by the time I reached ’em, and those western boots I wore wasn’t exactly made with walkin’ comfort in mind. My earlier thoughts about achin’ corns was startin’ to take on a more realistic meaning as I imagined them blisters on my toes an’ heels beginnin’ to grow larger with ever step.
Weren’t much I could do about it though, since I’d a mind to keep close an’ steady on those bushwhackers’ trail as long as I was able. You never could tell when it might cloud up to rain in this Florida land, which would wash out their tracks completely.
I might of took off my boots and gone barefoot. But seemed like ever time I’d a thought about doin’ that, I’d come acrost a big patch of sandspurs or poison ivy or somethin’ else along the road, like a fresh snake trail windin’ through the sand, which just had a tendency to change my mind.
I managed to keep from dwellin’ on my present miseries so much by lettin’ my thoughts roam back over what-all was said an’ done there amongst Purv and Lila an’ Jube after they’d jumped me — things I might not of paid real close attention to the first time around. I knew pert’ near anything I could recall would be a help in runnin’ ’em to earth, ’cause it trackin’ ain’t so much a matter of readin’ sign on the ground, as it’s knowin’ where to look for the sign in the first place. And that means understandin’ the ways of whatever critter it is you’re huntin’, be it animal or bird or human.
Some of that talk back yonder I couldn’t hardly make no sense of. Like how come Purv had called me “Barkley” right off when he seen me, and what Barkley he thought I was that I turned out not to be. It ain’t a uncommon name, I reckon. But I didn’t know of no others in this Florida country my ownself. My folks been dead quite a number of years now, and the only brother I had took off from home pretty soon after Pap was killed back in ’63. Last time I heard from him was just after the war, when he was on his way to California with a deck of cards, a fast horse, and high hopes.
Anyhow, it seemed like that Barkley feller they’d mistook me for was somebody they knowed right well once upon a time — leastways Lila had — and they wanted him back mighty serious now, wherever they come from. What was it Purv had said? ’Bout leadin’ ’em a merry chase for more’n a hundred miles? I thought that over whilst I stopped by the side of the road and pulled out my shirt-tail to try dabbin’ the sweat away from my eyes with it.
Tell you the truth, I didn’t know my way about the central an’ south part of this Florida peninsula worth a hoot, for all that I was born an’ brought up in Taylor County and spent my first eighteen years of livin’ in the state. That cow hunt down to Otter Creek a couple weeks ago was the furthest south I reckon I’d ever been. Right now I was tryin’ to picture the rest of it in my mind, from travelers’ talk and a occasional peek at a map in some general store or railroad depot here an’ there.
’Peared to me a hundred mile ought to put the place them three started out from somewheres north of Tampa Bay on the west coast, or between Mosquito Inlet and Cape Canaveral in the east. That still left a heap of country to go huntin’ round in if I happened to lose sight of their tracks. But it could of been worse. I reckoned it was near four hundred miles from where I stood right now to Cape Sable at the farthest end of the state.
Purv’s earlier words to Jube about takin’ me home to the “hammock” didn’t mean a thing of course, ’cept their place was more’n likely somewheres back up in the woods. They was more high hammocks an’ low hammocks than you could shake a stick at, all the way from the St. Marys River to the Florida Keys.
After mullin’ things over a mite longer whilst I tucked in my shirt and started makin’ tracks again, I couldn’t think of nothin’ else that was said what would be any special use to me. Lila’s remark about her uncle Ravenant’s “rules,” an’ the fact they’d somethin’ to do with not takin’ nobody along what had friends or kin anywhere about, was enough to stir up a feller’s curiosity. But without a heap more knowledge than what I’d got at the moment, I couldn’t begin to make head nor tails of it.
’Peared like the best thing right now was to not waste no more time worryin’ about all them questions I didn’t have answers to, but to start lookin’ for ways to solve the problems which was closer at hand. Like what I meant to do when and if I managed to catch up to Lila an’ Purv an’ big Jube.
I could see from the way they was travelin’ south, keepin’ up a steady pace without pushin’ their mounts no more’n they had to, that they wasn’t too concerned about bein’ followed. Which didn’t surprise me, considerin’ they figured I was dead and there weren’t no witnesses to explain how it happened.
Oh,
