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sure he don’t get hurt.”
    â€œI’ll do my best, but he don’t mind me,” I reminded her.
    Ma looked at me a long time, then.
    â€œHere’s a piece of news for you, Shay,” she said. “The reason I’m letting you boys go with the posse is because you’re going to need a little exposure to the wild side of things.”
    I didn’t know what to say.
    â€œI’ve got some news for you all,” Ma said. “I’m tired of sitting here in Missouri, going hungry and losing weight. When we finish eating this horse I shot, we’re going to take a trip—all of us.”
    That was startling news. The bunch of us had always lived in the same place. G.T. and me had only been up and down the river a town or two from Boone’s Lick, and the towns weren’t very far apart. Other than that we had always just lived in the cabin near the river.
    â€œWhere will we go?” I asked.
    â€œTo wherever your pa is,” Ma said. “I’m out of patience with him. This baby’s about ready to crawl and he’s never laid eyes on her. He’s not been homein fourteen months, and then it was only for two nights. If he won’t come and see us, then we’ll go and see him. And if he don’t like it I’ll leave him.”
    Then she scooped up Marcy and headed for the cabin, leaving me where I sat, with thoughts buzzing around in my head like bumblebees. Just the fact that Ma was going to allow us to go off with the posse would have been enough to think about, but on top of that came the news about a trip to see Pa, wherever he was. Once the fact of it sunk in a little I got so excited I wanted to run around in circles. I wanted to wake up G.T. and tell him the double good news, about the posse and the trip, but it turned out I didn’t have to wake him up. Just as I was trying to think of some way to work off my excitement, G.T. came walking up from the river, carrying a dead coon by the tail.
    â€œI slipped up on him while he was cracking a mussel,” G.T. said. “Coon meat’s just as good as horse meat—there just ain’t as much of it.”
    I was dying to spill my news but I knew I had better take a minute to admire G.T.’s kill, or he’d pout for a week.
    â€œWhat’d you do, chunk it?” I asked.
    â€œChunked it,” G.T. said.
    â€œGuess what, we’re going on a trip—two trips, that is,” I said, unable to hold the news a minute longer. “First we’re going with the posse, and then we’re going upriver to look for Pa.”
    â€œYou’re lying!” G.T. said. Then he stomped off in a sulk, because I hadn’t paid enough attention to his coon.

7
    G.T . and I had a fistfight—a short one—before the night was over. I crawled up in the loft of the cabin, where we kids slept, and was trying to calm down and get some sleep when G.T. shot up the ladder and started punching me. That was the way G.T. started all his fights—he was a firm believer in getting in the first lick. He got in about three licks and I managed two before Neva woke up and yelled at us. Ma heard Neva and got into it right away.
    â€œG.T., do you want me to come up there?” Ma asked.
    G.T. definitely didn’t, so that was the end of that fight.
    â€œI’ll beat the stuffings out of you tomorrow,” he whispered, before settling down to snore.
    It was only then that I remembered that Ma hadsaid she would leave Pa, if he didn’t welcome our visit—that was an unsettling thought, for sure.
    It seemed like only a few minutes later that the racket started in the freight yard. When Uncle Seth shook me awake the world was white, with a close, chilly mist off the river.
    â€œBring your brother,” Uncle Seth said, which was easier said than done. G.T. was a sound sleeper. I shook him and shook him—finally Neva stuck a pin in his toe, two or three times, which brought