Read Humbug Mountain for Free Online Page B

eyes. The whites were brown-streaked like tobacco stains. “Who you traveling with?”
    I’d forgot all about Glorietta gone to fetch Ma and Pa. “I’m purely alone!” I declared.
    Shagnasty John snorted. “You don’t tell me.”
    â€œYes sir! I run away from home.”
    â€œWearing shoes? And dressed for church? Sonny, you must figure I got no more brains than God gave geese. Fool Killer, see who else is scuttling about.”
    The Fool Killer let loose of me to peer out the wheelhouse windows. I leaped for the door, opened it, banged it shut behind me, and ran like a scared rabbit.
    Shagnasty John and the Fool Killer ran thrashing through the cottonwoods after me. But I wasn’t in the trees. I’d ducked under a boxed paddle wheel and snugged myself out of sight. But I couldn’t stay there. I had to warn Pa.
    My heart was banging away something fearful. I hardly waited to catch my breath before I slipped out of hiding, climbed the dry creek bank, and ducked into the trees. I could tell that Shagnasty John and the Fool Killer were some ways off. The crows were flapping over the treetops, following them.
    I ran smack into a rope corral. It held two horses. Their horses, I thought.
    I picked out the spotted mare, grabbed her mane, and heaved myself onto her back. Then I shot out of there lickety-quick.
    And along came Pa and Ma and Glorietta! They were walking through the spring weeds, clear as bull’s-eye targets, and not suspecting a thing.
    â€œGo back!” I yelled. “Run!”
    But they couldn’t fathom what I was yelling about. Or what I was doing on horseback.
    Finally I pulled up and slipped off the mare’s back. I could hardly believe I’d got this far without Shagnasty John drawing his gun and filling the air with lead.
    I danced the horse around broadside to the trees so that we could shelter ourselves behind her.
    â€œThere are terrible outlaws back there!” I burst out. “They mean to kill us!”
    Ma gave me a startled look. “Now really, Wiley. You must be imagining it.”
    â€œI suppose I’m imagining this horse!”
    Pa gave the cottonwoods a tight-eyed gaze. “How do you know they’re outlaws?”
    â€œThey told me, Pa. Shagnasty John and the Fool Killer. Every sheriff in the territories is looking for them. They’re using the Phoenix for a hideout.”
    Ma’s fingers had crept to her spidery lace collar. “Is Grandpa there?”
    â€œNo, Ma.”
    â€œThere’s no such man as the Fool Killer,” Pa said,
    â€œThere is now, Pa. Peevish and meaner’n a hornet. Both of ’em.”
    â€œWearing guns?”
    â€œShagnasty John is. The terror of the prairies, he said.”
    â€œNever heard of him.” Pa stood calm as an owl at midnight. “It baffles me that he didn’t pop some lead your way, Wiley. Especially since you rode off on one of their horses.”
    â€œHe could have been afraid of shooting the mare,” Ma said.
    â€œMust have,” I said. And yet, I thought, he’d had a clear shot when I’d busted out of the pilothouse—and maybe again before I’d reached the stairway.
    â€œDownright peculiar,” Pa remarked, more to himself than us.
    â€œThey’re over in those trees,” I said, pointing. “Where you see the crows. Watching us for sure. Hadn’t we better edge back in a hurry?”
    â€œWiley, there’s no place for us to run where they can’t find us out here,” Pa answered. “It seems to me they’d already be in full view and shooting up a hailstorm—if they could. It’s unnatural. Unless their cartridge belts are empty. Did you notice?”
    No, sir.
    But the Fool Killer would have armed himself with his bur-oak club, I thought. I glanced at Glorietta. I could see she was feeling scared about the Fool Killer and all the stories we’d heard.
    Pa checked his