Nebraska, eh? And walked all the way! Well, there's cold water in the barrel. Help yourself. Dipper's right there. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, son, but if you're looking for work, you've come to just about the worst place in the Republic. There's absolutely nothing happening in Twenty-Mile. And that's on busy days. This is a town without history. Its past is only eleven years long, and it has no future at all. I'd offer you a little tide-over work, but what I make handling donkeys for the Lode is barely enough to keep my soul from leaking out of my body. I wouldn't even be able to afford old Coots here, if he wasn't willing to work for just bed, vittles, and my eternal gratitude. Isn't that right, Coots?'
The wiry old Black-Cherokee didn't look up from scraping rot out of the hoof of the donkey whose foreleg was folded up onto the leather apron on his lap. 'And piss-poor vittles they are,' he muttered.
'Sorry I can't help you, son. But you're welcome to a cup of coffee.'
'A cup of coffee'd do me nothing but good, sir.' The boy grunted as he slipped off the straps that had dug into his shoulders during his all-night walk up the railroad track from Destiny.
'Fetch our guest a cup of joe, Coots,' B. J. Stone said grandly.
'You want to take over scraping out this hoof?' Coots asked.
'No, no, you're doing just fine.'
'Then you fetch the goddamned coffee. You ain't done nothing all morning but sit there with your nose in that paper, grumbling about imperialism and jingoism and Christ only knows whatotherism! While me, I been busier'n a one-legged man in a ass-kicking contest!'
B. J. Stone leaned toward Matthew and whispered, 'I'm afraid poor old Coots is a miserable excuse for a host. And as for his coffee…!'
'If you don't like it, don't drink it!' Coots snapped.
'Touchy old bastard, too,' B. J. confided behind his hand.
The young man smiled uncertainly; he'd never heard a black man sass a white man like that before. B. J. Stone stood up with a martyred sigh and disappeared into the kitchen, where a pot of coffee simmered on an iron stove, growing thicker and blacker since its grounds had been sunk with egg shells first thing that morning.
The young man set his shotgun beside his pack and gently pressed his sore shoulder with his fingertips as he watched Coots's skilful, pale-palmed hands work at the donkey's hoof. He was intrigued by Coots's face: the blend of Negro features and Cherokee eyes.
'Where'd you get that gun?' Coots asked without looking up from his task.
'My pa's.'
'Hm! And he must've got it from his great-grandpa, who must've bought it off Methuselah! Where do you find ammunition for an old monster like that?'
'Pa used to make it himself.' He untied the thongs of his backpack and rummaged in it for a canvas bag containing the shells he had taken with him when he hit the road. 'Here's one. Ain't she a dandy? Pa, he'd cut open two ordinary double-ought shells and leave the primer and powder in place in one, then he'd make a longer jacket with stiff paper and add the powder from the other shell and the shot from both, then he'd tamp everything down tight-that was always the spooky part, the tamping- then he'd crimp the paper and dip it into wax to make it stiff and waterproof. They came out real good. But I'll admit the gun has a pretty fair kick.'
Coots turned the waxy, double-size shell between his fingers and shook his head. 'I'll bet! A man'd get tuckered out, having to pick himself up and walk back to the firing line each time he shot it!' Coots tossed the shell back. 'Seems a waste of time, making shells for a gun that's no good for hunting. You hit an animal with that cannon and there'd be nothing left but a tuft of fur and a startled expression.'
The boy laughed. 'Pa only shot it once in a blue moon. He'd blow old barrels apart, making the staves fly ever which-a-way. Showing off. He liked having a bigger gun than anybody else.' He returned the shell to his bag. 'To tell the truth, Pa didn't have all that much he could brag on.'
'But that antique's dangerous, boy! And with handmade ammunition… whoa there! And you lugged that old monster all the way from Nebraska?'
'Yes, sir. I don't rightly know why I brung it along. I just didn't want to leave it behind. But heavy? A hundred times I thought about dropping it off along the trail.'
'But you didn't.'
'No, sir, I didn't.'
'Why not?'
'I don't rightly know.'
'You must like it a lot.'
'No, sir, I don't like it. Fact is… I hate it.'
'I don't blame you. Sooner or later that old thing's going to blow somebody all to hell.'
'Yes, well… that's just what happened. It was this old gun that done for my pa.'
Coots's knife stopped moving in the donkey's hoof. 'I'm sorry, boy. I never… I mean, I was just blathering. Sorry about your pa.'
The boy lifted his shoulders and said dully, 'Things like that happen. They just… ' He lowered his eyes and shook his head. '… happen.' He idly picked up an old leather-bound book from the bench. It smelled like his mother's Bible, but he couldn't figure out the words.
'That's Latin, son,' B. J. Stone said, returning with a tin cup in one hand and the coffeepot in the other, its hot handle swathed in a clump of rags. 'It's a collection of Roman satire from Lucilius to Juvenal. I don't suppose you read Latin.' He gave Matthew his cup.
'No, sir,' the boy said, putting the book back gingerly, then holding out his cup to be filled.
'Satire deals with our vices and our-whoops!' B. J. Stone absent-mindedly over-filled Matthew's cup. '… deals with our vices and our absurdities-in short with the bulk of human activity.' He turned to Coots. 'Well, do you want some of this miserable sludge, or are you just going to keep on fussing with that hoof?'
'Somebody's got to do the work around here,' Coots retorted, holding out his cup to be refilled.
'You wouldn't be interested in the Romans by any chance, would you, boy?' B. J. Stone filled his own cup.
'No, sir, I can't say I am. I know that one of them just washed his hands and let them kill Jesus, and… well, that's all I know about the Romans. To tell the truth, I don't read all that much.'
'That's too bad. A book's a good place to hide out in, when things get too bad. Or too dull.' This last seemed to be directed at Coots, who ignored it.
The tin cup was so hot that Matthew had to suck in a lot of air to keep from burning his lips, but the coffee felt good going down into his empty stomach. 'What I said about not reading all that much? Fact is, we moved around a lot, and I was snatched from school to school so much that I can barely recognize my name.'
'And what is your name?'
'Well, sir… they call me the Ringo Kid.'
Coots and B. J. Stone exchanged glances.
'Do they, now?' B. J. Stone said. 'The Ringo Kid, eh? So when your ma wants you for chores, she shouts out, 'Hey, Ringo Kid! Come here, and chop me some kindling!' Is that it?'
'No, sir, she doesn't say that.' He paused a moment before adding quietly, 'My ma is dead.'
'And his pa's dead, too!' Coots hissed in a tone that accused his partner of lacking tact.
'Oh. ' The teasing tone leached out of B. J.'s voice. 'Have you been on your own for long?'
'About two weeks. After my folks died, I decided to pack up and go west and…' He shrugged.
'I see. Hm-m. ' B. J. Stone took a long sip of coffee to conceal his discomfort.
After a silence, the boy volunteered, 'My ma named me Matthew. She wanted to have four boys. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.'
'And what became of the other three evangelists?'
'The fever took Luke when he was just a baby. And Mark, he ran off about two years ago.'
'And John?'
'There never was a John. My ma stopped having kids after Luke died. I guess it didn't seem worth the trouble, if the fever was just going to come along and take them off.' The boy drew a long breath and stared out toward the cliff that ended Twenty-Mile. Then his focus softened into a gentle eye-smile. 'Truth is, I ain't really called the Ringo Kid. I just said that because… well, I don't rightly know why. It just seemed like a good name to start my new life with. I got it out of the books by Mr. Anthony Bradford Chumms. You know the ones? The Ringo
