CHAPTER EIGHT
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The Game of Outlaw and Posse
ALTHOUGH I’D BEEN FOOL enough to play it, for my money the wheel of fortune was an out and out swindle. Only two fellows had won money and about twenty-five kids had lost money, including me. I guess the fellows who lost were too ashamed to admit they had been swindled or too dumb to know it. They continued to talk to Tom and play with him. But I did notice they all stopped making fun of his great brain. And the fortune Tom made must have satisfied his money-loving heart at least for a little while. He didn’t even make a bet until a couple of weeks later.
The bet was made on a Friday afternoon. We had been playing scrub football on Smith’s vacant lot after school let
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out. We stopped when it was time to go home and do the evening chores, but as usual on Fridays, we talked about what we were going to do the next day before going home. Seth Smith was the first one to make a suggestion.
“How about playing outlaw and posse tomorrow?” he asked.
Pete Kyle shook his head. “It is my turn to be the out-law,” he said, “but I can’t play. Got to help Pa fix the roof on our barn.”
Parley pushed his coonskin cap to the back of his head. “How about letting me be the outlaw in your place?” he asked.
“Sure,” Pete said.
“The posse will never catch me,” Parley said, as confident as a rabbit being chased by a snail.
Tom looked at him. “I’ll bet we would if I was the sheriff,” he said. “But it is Danny’s turn to be the sheriff.”
“Not me,” Danny said. “I don’t want to be the sheriff if Parley is going to be the outlaw. You can be the sheriff, Tom.”
I didn’t blame Danny for not wanting to be sheriff. The last time he’d been sheriff Parley had been the outlaw, and the posse hadn’t captured him.
Parley tapped Tom on the chest with his finger. “Bet two-bits the posse doesn’t capture me,” he said.
“You seem mighty sure of yourself,” Tom said.
“I’m as sure as sure can be,” Parley said.
“Then why just a quarter?” Tom asked. “Why not bet a dollar?”
We all stared bug-eyed at Tom. A dollar was a fortune to every kid there except The Great Brain.
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“You figured I’d back down if you made the bet a dollar,” Parley said. “But you are forgetting I won more than a dollar on the wheel of fortune. I’m going to call your bluff. A dollar says the posse doesn’t capture me,”
“It’s a bet,” Tom said. “All of you fellows with horses who want to play the game meet in the alley in back of my place tomorrow morning after chores. And this time bring food an outlaw and posse would have. Just beef jerky and hardtack. I don’t want anybody showing up with sandwiches and cookies like you did last time, Seth.”
For my money Tom would have a better chance of winning a bet that our milk cow could jump over our barn. Parley had learned everything there was to know about tracking from his father. Trying to track him down would be like tracking a rabbit over a lava bed. Parley had outwitted the posse every time he’d been the outlaw. Of course Tom hadn’t been the sheriff any of those times. And the sheriff was in complete charge and the deputies had to follow his orders-1 was thinking about this as Tom and I walked toward home.
“I’ll bet you were surprised when Parley called your bluff,” I said. “You can kiss that dollar good-bye.”
“I wasn’t trying to bluff him out of betting,” Tom said. “I just wanted to make him bet more than a quarter. I knew he could afford to bet a dollar because of the money he won on the wheel of fortune.”
“I still say you can kiss that dollar good-bye,” I said.
“If that is the way you feel, J.D.,” Tom said. “Why don’t you get down a bet of your own?”
All of my life I’d been waiting to win a bet from The Great Brain. Papa had often said if you just had the patience to wait long enough for something to happen that someday
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it would happen. This was my golden opportunity.
“Bet a quarter the posse doesn’t catch the outlaw,” I said.
“You’ve got yourself a bet,” Tom said.
The next morning Tom, Frankie, and I finished the chores. Eddie Huddle came over to play with Frankie. Tom and I saddled up Dusty. Parley was the first to arrive, riding his pony, Blaze. Then Seth Smith, Danny Forester, Hal Evans, Frank Jensen, and Howard Kay arrived on their horses. The rest of the fellows who owned horses had to work.
Tom and I rode double on Dusty as the outlaw and posse started for Three Falls Canyon where we played the game. The canyon was located about seven miles from town. It was named for the three waterfalls in it-The Paiute Indians believed the canyon was haunted and wouldn’t enter it, and I sure as heck didn’t blame them. The Paiute name for the canyon meant, place where screaming bad spirits dwell. The walls of the canyon were all limestone and in some places almost perpendicular. Millions of years of frost, rain, and wind had carved holes in the limestone cliffs-Some of them looked like giant honeycombs, they had so many holes in them. When the wind blew. in these holes it made an eerie whistling sound like the screaming of hundreds of demons. Another eerie thing was the way the coloring in the limestone cliffs changed with the light. Cliffs that looked pink, cream, and purple in the sunlight changed to ver-milion, yellow, and orange when the sun went behind a cloud.
Every time I entered the canyon I wondered if some ancestor of mine could have been a Paiute Indian because I
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felt the same way they did about the canyon. I wouldn’t have gone there alone for all the candy in the Z.C.M.I, store. In addition, bobcats, mountain lions, wolves, and even bears had been killed in the canyon by hunters and trappers. For my money it was a good place for a fellow to have a lot of company.
We arrived at the mouth of the canyon before noon. We all ate some beef jerky and hardtack and drank water from the stream that ran down the canyon. Then Tom took out the watch he had received for Christinas.
“You all know the rules,” he said. “The posse gives the outlaw a fifteen minute head start. Then the posse has two hours to track down the outlaw and get close enough to touch him to arrest him, or the outlaw wins. It is now a quarter past twelve. That means the outlaw must be caught by two thirty. All right, outlaw, get going.”
Parley jumped on Blaze and rode up the canyon on the trail used by hunters and trappers. Tom sat on a log holding the watch in his hand until the fifteen minutes were up. Then he put the watch in his pocket and stood up.
“Mount up, men,” he ordered. “We’ve got an outlaw to capture.”
We rode up the canyon following the trail. The hoofprints of the outlaw’s horse were easy to follow because there had been a light rain the night before. Birds began making noises in the trees. I saw crossbills, Clark’s nut-crackers, and a lot of gray jays. The jays were better known as camp robbers. They were the most daring thieves of all birds. They would steal a piece of bread right out of your hand. One time on our annual fishing trip Papa had just put bacon and eggs on our tin plates when some camp robbers swooped down and stole the bacon right off our plates.
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The canyon was too narrow for farming or grazing livestock. It was more of a gorge than a canyon, less than a hundred feet wide in most places, and in some places only about twenty-five feet wide. We had traveled for about fifteen minutes when Tom called a halt. ~
“The outlaw rode his horse at a gallop or trot this far,” he said. “But now the hoofprints show he slowed his horse down to a walk. So keep a sharp eye for signs where he might have left his horse and tried to escape on foot.”
We followed the trail around a bend in the canyon. Parley’s pony, Blaze, was standing by himself eating some grass by the trail. Tom dismounted. He walked all round the pony looking for footprints or bent grass caused by footsteps but couldn’t find any. He led BIa/e over to me and handed me the reins.
“You ride the outlaw’s horse,” he said. Then he went over and sat down on a log. He sat there so long Danny finally rode over beside him.
“Are yon giving up already, Sheriff?” he asked.
“No,” Tom said as he stood up. “We know the outlaw left his horse hut he didn’t get off on the ground or we would have seen signs of footprints along the trail.”
“Maybe he erased his footprints with a bush,” Danny said.
“The ground is too wet for that,” Tom said.
“But there is no other way to get off a horse,” Danny protested.
“Yes, there is,” Tom said. “We will have to backtrack.”
Tom mounted Dusty and we started back the way we had come. But this time Tom wasn’t looking at the trail. He was looking up at trees. When we reached the place where the outlaw had walked his horse Tom called a halt. He
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pointed at a big limb of an aspen tree that hung about twelve feet above the trail.
“See how the small branches on that big limb are broken,” he said. “That is how the outlaw left his horse.”
We all stared at the limb. Danny put into words what we were all thinking.
“Impossible,” he said. “The outlaw couldn’t reach it from his saddle.”
“You are forgetting,” Tom said, “that we are dealing with an outlaw who won prizes for trick riding at county fairs before he became an outlaw. This is where he walked his horse. He stood up on the rump of the horse and grabbed the limb as they got under it. Then he hoisted himself up on the limb after giving his horse a command to keep going. See how the small branches are broken all the way to the trunk of the tree. Dismount, men.”
We got oft our horses and walked to the trunk of the big tree. Tom pointed at another big limb going in the opposite direction.
“See the small broken branches on that one,” he said. “The outlaw used it so he could drop more than twenty feet away from the trail.”
Sure enough we found footprints where the outlaw had dropped to the ground from the limb.
“We will have to track him on foot,” Tom said. “Deputies Evans, Jensen, and Kay take the horses along the trail and meet us at the first waterfall. The rest of you men come with me.”
I guess the outlaw figured he had outwitted the posse with that tree trick. He made no attempt to avoid leaving footprints or bent grass caused by footsteps all the way to the first waterfall. There the footprints disappeared. Floods
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roaring down the canyon over the centuries had washed away all dirt and grass around the waterfall leaving just rocks and big boulders right up to the canyon walls. The outlaw must have washed off his boots because there wasn’t a sign of any mud or grass from the soles of his boots on the rocks or boulders.
“Stake the horses,” Tom ordered. “Deputies Forester and Smith go above the waterfall on the left side and look for signs of footprints showing the outlaw went farther up the canyon. The rest of you deputies take the other side.”
I started to follow orders but Tom grabbed my arm.
“Wait here with me,” he said.
Then Tom waited until the deputies were out of earshot. “I just sent them up there so they couldn’t hear,” he said. “Now, I’ll tell you why I bet Parley a dollar. This is where the outlaw’s trail disappeared every time Parley was the outlaw. My great brain figured out how he outwitted the posse. Pie removed his clothes and hid them under rocks or bushes.”
“Why would he do that?” I asked.
“So he could go in under the waterfall and hide there until the posse went farther up the canyon,” Tom said. “Then he came out, got dressed, and went back to the mouth of the canyon where he waited until the posse returned after the two hours were up-Now take oft your clothes and go under the waterfall and arrest that outlaw.”
“Why me?” I asked, seeing as how it was going to cost me a quarter if Parley was there.
“Because you are just a deputy,” Tom said, “and I am a sheriff giving you an order.”
I stripped naked and waded in under the waterfall. There was room to hide there all right, under an overhang-
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ing ledge of rock, but no outlaw. The deputies had returned when I came out shivering from the cold water. Tom had told them what I was doing. It was almost worth the trip in under the waterfall to see the look of disappointment oh The Great Brain’s face when I told him there was no outlaw there.
“Then he must have gone farther up the canyon,” Tom
said.
“But,” Danny protested, “we didn’t see any signs of footprints above the waterfall.”
“He walked on rocks to the stream,” Tom said, “and then waded upstream. The rules say the outlaw can’t go any farther than the second waterfall, and I’ll bet we find him hiding under it. But just to make sure, deputies Forester and Smith take the left side of the stream and look for footprints where the outlaw might have left it. The rest of you come with me.” Then Tom turned to me. “Can’t wait for you to get dry and dressed. You wait here.”
I sat on a big boulder to let the sun dry me as the posse left. The last thing I wanted was to be left alone in the canyon. The eerie whistling of the wind in the honeycombed cliffs was enough to make me start seeing imaginary demons. I knew bobcats, mountain lions, wolves, and bears wouldn’t attack a man on a horse or a group of men. But one little kid sitting naked on a boulder might look like a nice tasty morsel to them.
I ran to where the horses were staked and got on Dusty. The posse was out of earshot by this time or I would have hollered for help even if it did make me a fraidy-cat. I sat on Dusty listening to the whistling of the wind and staring up at the limestone cliffs. I decided to heck with it, I’d get dressed without waiting to dry off, and run to catch up with
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the posse. But just then I saw fur moving on a ledge about twenty feet from the floor of the canyon. I wondered how in the world an animal got up on that ledge. Then Parley peeked over the edge and I knew it had been his coonskin cap that I had seen. He had climbed up to the ledge using the holes in the cliff for handholds and toeholds, and then lain down flat so we couldn’t see him. No wonder the posse had never caught him.
I jumped off Dusty. “I captured you!” I shouted. “Come on down!”
Parley stared down at me. “I thought you had all gone up the canyon,” he shouted.
“You thought wrong!” I shouted right back.
“I’m not captured until the sheriff or a deputy gets near enough to touch me,” he called.
I got dressed in nothing flat with Parley watching me. I knew he thought I’d go after the posse and he could climb down and escape while I was doing it. Well I had a surprise for him. Maybe the canyon did frighten me, but I wasn’t afraid to climb up to that ledge.
I walked to the cliff and looked up at him. “If you don’t come down,” I shouted, “I’m coming up.”
“Come ahead,” Parley yelled and I knew from the way he was looking down at me that he thought I was afraid to try it.
I got a handhold and toehold and started climbing up the cliff. Parley watched me until I’d climbed about halfway to the ledge-
“You’ll have to climb higher than this ledge to capture me!” he shouted.
And I’ll be an eagle that flies backward if he didn’t start climbing straight up the cliff. I climbed back to the
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bottom of the canyon. It was about seventy-five feet from the ledge to the top of the cliff.
“Come back you fool!” I screamed at him. “You’ll fall and be killed!”
But Parley kept right on climbing up the side of the cliff using holes for handholds and toeholds. I was so fas-cinated with awe and terror that I just stood there watching him. He was about halfway to the top when the toehold he was using with his right foot broke loose from the cliff and a big chunk of limestone came tumbling down. Parley hunted around with the toe of his right foot trying to find another hole. But there wasn’t any he could reach. He couldn’t go up without a toehold. He couldn’t come down because the piece of limestone that had broken off was a handhold he had used going up. I knew that if he let go and fell on the rocks and boulders below he would be killed.
“Help!” Parley screamed as he realized he was trapped. “Hang on!” I shouted. “I’ll get help!” - I scrambled over the boulders to the top of the waterfall. Then I began running along the bank of the stream screaming for help-I knew I could catch up with the posse if I could just keep on running. My breath felt like flames of fire in my throat. My legs began to tremble so much I thought I’d fall down. Then I remembered something Papa had said one time. He had said all human beings develop superhuman strength when faced with great danger. Papa was right. The thought seemed to give me the strength to keep going. And finally I saw the posse- “Help!” I shouted. “Help! Help!”
They all turned around and came running toward me. Tom reached me first.
“What’s the matter, J. D.?” he asked.
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“Parley’s on the cliff by the waterfall!” I said. “He can’t go up and he can’t come down!”
I had a hard time keeping up with the others as we ran back to the waterfall. Parley was still hanging on the cliff screaming for help.
“Hang on, Parley!” Tom shouted. “We’ll rescue you!” Then he looked at the cliff for a couple of seconds. “Danny,” he said, “you and Seth ride back to the mouth of the canyon and come back on top. When you get there tie your lariats together. Then tie one end to the pommel of the saddle on your horse, Danny. Seth, you let the lariat down over the cliff so Danny can use his horse to pull up Parley and me.”
Danny pointed at Tom. “Parley and you?” he asked. “It will take you about an hour to get to the top,” Tom said. “Maybe Parley can’t hold on that long. I’ll scale the cliff taking two lariats with me. I’ll tie one end to a tree and let myself down the cliff so I can hold Parley until you get there. All right, get going.”
Danny and Seth ran toward their horses with Tom and the rest of us following. They mounted and rode down the canyon. Tom removed the lariats from Dusty and Blaze. He tied them together. Then he coiled them and slipped the coil over his head on his left shoulder and under his right arm. I looked up at the cliff which was about a hundred feet high and became very frightened.
“Please don’t try it,” I pleaded. “What happened to Parley might happen to you. Please don’t take the chance.”
“I’d take a chance of climbing that cliff any day in the week,” Tom said, “to save Parley’s life and make a dollar.” He handed me his watch. “Look at the time when I reach Parley.”
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Then he ran toward the cliff shouting. “Hang on, Parley, I’m coming!”
Hal Evans, Frank Jensen, Howard Kay, and I stood watching as Tom began climbing the cliff. When he reached the ledge he studied the side of the cliff for a couple of seconds. Then he walked along the ledge and started climbing up the face of the cliff about fifteen feet from where Parley had been climbing. But Tom was climbing different than Parley had. He was sort of zigzagging up the cliff. He would climb several feet and then study the cliff above him. Sometimes he went to the right and sometimes to the left before continuing straight up. I knew he was doing this to pick the best holes in the cliff to use as handholds and toeholds. We could hear him shouting encouragement to Parley. We groaned with relief each time Tom got another handhold or toehold. When he was opposite Parley he stopped. “Just hang on!” he shouted. “Hurry, Tom, please!” Parley yelled. “My hands are going numb! I can’t hold on much longer!”
“I’ll get you out of this!” Tom shouted. “Just hang on!” Up, up, up the face of the honeycombed cliff Tom climbed until at last he reached the rim where the canyon wall sloped toward the top. There were scraggty cedar and pine trees growing between cracks in rocks. Tom took hold of a cedar tree and tested it. Then he used the tree to pull himself up over the rim of the cliff. “He did it!” I heard Hal yell.
Then he, Frank, and Howard began shouting and jumping up and down. But I was so stunned with relief that I couldn’t speak or move. I watched Tom use scraggly cedar and pine trees and rocks to climb to the top of the canyon. Then he disappeared. I knew he was tying one end of the
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double lariat to a big tree on top. I don’t believe I blinked my eyes until I saw him again.
Tom came down the sloping part of the canyon wall using the lariat to hold himself and uncoiling it as he went. He stopped at the rim of the cliff and tossed the coiled-up part of the double lariat over the edge. When it uncoiled it was about six feet from Parley. I knew why Tom didn’t put the lariat any closer to Parley. He was afraid Parley might try to grab it with one hand and wouldn’t be able to hold himself with just one handhold. I watched with mixed feelings of pride and awe as Tom let himself down the face of the cliff hand over hand on the lanat-
“Hang on for just a couple more seconds!” he shouted when he got opposite Parley.
Then he held his weight with his left hand while he made a noose round his body under the armpits with his right hand. He tightened the noose and then tested it. Then he pushed himself away from the cliff with his feet until he was standing practically horizontal to the cliff with the double lariat holding his weight. He walked sideways like that until he was straddling Parley’s body. Then he bent his legs until his knees were straddling Parley’s legs. I watched him put his arms around Parley’s chest. Then he must have told Parley to let go of the handholds. I don’t know if it was the wind or what, but they both began to spin slowly around in the air.
I didn’t realize until that moment that my left hand was hurting. I looked at it. I’d been squeezing Tom’s pocket watch so hard the case had made a deep impression in my palm. I opened the lid of the case and looked at the time.
Howard touched my arm. “What time is it.” he asked.
I showed him the watch. “Ten minutes past two,” I said.
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“How long have Seth and Danny been gone?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
Hal and Frank were near enough to hear.
“I figure they’ve been gone almost halt an hour,” Hal said. “That means Tom will have to hold Parley for almost half an hour.”
“Look,” Frank said pointing up. “Parley can’t help to hold himself because he’d have to raise his arms in back of his head. That would make it harder for Tom to hold him. That’s why Tom is taking a leg scissor hold too.”
I saw Tom had wrapped his legs around Parley’s legs and taken a scissor hold by locking his ankles. This would help him support Parley’s weight.
I don’t know how long it was before Danny and Seth reached the top I only know that I felt as though I’d aged ten years before I finally saw Seth. He and Danny had followed Tom’s instructions. Seth came down the slope of the canyon holding himself by the double lariat tied to the pommel of Danny’s saddle on Danny’s horse. I couldn’t see Danny or the horse. When Seth got to the rim of the cliff he looked over the edge and tossed the coiled-up part of the lariat over the side. When it uncoiled I could see there was a noose on the end of it.
Seth shouted something at Tom and Parley. I couldn’t hear what it was because the wind was blowing stronger, making a loud whistling noise in the honeycombed cliff. But I could see what was happening. The wind was blowing the lariat out of Parley’s reach. Seth moved to the left with the lariat. Then the wind blew the noose part so Parley could grab it.
I watched Parley get the noose over his head and under his armpits while Tom held him. He lost his coonskin cap
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doing this and it fell to the canyon floor. Then after tighten-ing the noose Parley waved at Seth. Seth took up the slack in the lariat and went to the top of the canyon-A moment later I saw Parley being slowly lifted to the rim of the cliff by Danny’s horse. When Parley reached the slope he tried to stand up but his legs gave out under him. He let himself be dragged all the way to the top.
Hal, Frank, and Howard began to cheer and shout and jump up and down. I didn’t join them. I was thinking only of Tom. It seemed like a long time before Seth came back to the rim of the cliff and tossed the coiled-up lariat over the edge. Tom grabbed the noose part. He had a little trouble getting it under his armpits on account of the other lariat, but he finally made it. He tightened the noose.
“Haul away!” he shouted as he waved at Seth.
Not until my brother was safe on top did I join Hal, Frank, and Howard in cheering and Jumping up and down with joy. Then we rode to the mouth of the canyon with me riding Dusty and leading Blaze. We arrived a few minutes before Tom and the others got there riding double on Seth’s and Danny’s horses. Parley looked a little pale but he sure didn’t act like a fellow who has just faced death.
“Where’s my coonskin cap?” he asked.
“Boy, oh, boy,” I said with disgust, “if that doesn’t take the cake. Tom just saved your life, and all you’re worrying about is your old coonskin cap.”
“I thanked Tom for saving my life,” he said, “Now
where is it?”
“At the bottom of the cliff where it fell,” I answered. And I’ll be a rooster that lays eggs if Parley didn’t jump
on Blaze and ride up the canyon to get his precious coonskin
cap.
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Danny watched Parley ride away and then looked at Tom. “Parley would be dead instead of worrying about his coonskin cap if it weren’t for you,” he said. “He told Seth and me when we got him on top that you reached him just in time. He said he couldn’t have held on tor more than a few minutes longer.”
We sat on logs talking about the rescue until Parley returned wearing his coonskin cap. He jumped off Blaze,
Tom stood up “We’ve got two things to settle before we start back,” he said. “First, we can’t tell anybody what happened today.”
“Why not?” I asked. “You are a hero and everybody should know it.”
“That would include our parents,” Tom said. “And the parents of every kid in town. And you know what that would mean. They would never let any of their sons come here to play outlaw and posse again, including us.”
We all agreed Tom was right and took an oath never to tell.
Parley pushed his coonskin cap to the back of his head. “Now, that is settled,” he said. “What was the other thing?”
Tom looked at me. “J.D., what time was it when I reached Parley on the cliff?” he asked.
“I looked at the watch like you said,” I told him. “It was ten minutes past two and Howard is my witness.”
Tom then turned to Parley. “The deadline for the posse to catch you was two thirty,” he said. “That means you lost the bet and owe me a dollar.”
“I didn’t bring a dollar with me,” Parley said, “because I was sure the posse wouldn’t catch me. I used that ledge to outwit the posse the other times I was the outlaw and thought I could do it again. I just lay there until the posse went
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farther up the canyon and then climbed down and came back here.”
“We go right by your place on the way home,” Tom said. “You can give me the dollar then.”
When we got to the Benson home Parley went into the house. He came out and handed Tom a silver dollar. Tom and I rode Dusty to our barn. We unsaddled the mustang and gave him a rubdown. It was time to start doing the evening chores when we came out of the barn.
“Know something, J.D.?” Tom said as he took the silver dollar from his pocket and began flipping it up and down in his hand. “This is a very important dollar,”
“Why shouldn’t it be?” 1 asked. “It is the first honest dollar you ever earned in your life.”
“I did work very hard for this dollar,” Tom said. “I think I’ll have it framed.”
I knew why he wanted to frame the dollar. It wasn’t to remind him that he’d saved Parley’s life. It was so when people said The Great Brain had never earned an honest dollar in his life, Tom could show it to them and prove they were wrong.
“Speaking of money,” Tom said as we reached the corral gate, “before we start doing the chores let’s go up to your room so you can pay me the quarter you owe me.”
“Boy, oh, boy,” I said, “you’ve got a lot of nerve asking me for that quarter we bet. If it hadn’t been for me the posse would never have captured the outlaw, and you would have lost a dollar to Parley and a quarter to me.”
“But the posse did capture the outlaw,” Tom said, “which means you owe me twenty-five cents. The trouble with you, J.D., is that you don’t play to win. You could have won the bet very easily.”
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“And just how do you figure that?” I asked.
“If I’d been in your shoes,” Tom said, “I would have pretended I hadn’t seen Parley on the ledge. Then I would have gotten dressed and followed the posse upstream, giving Parley the chance to outwit the posse.”
“But that would be cheating the sheriff and the deputies.” I protested.
“It was only a game,” Tom said. “And when you play any game play it to win and don’t worry about the other fellow.”
I knew right then life was just a game of outwitting the other fellow to The Great Brain. He wouldn’t reform until cows started laying eggs and chickens began having calves. I admit Tom did use his great brain to do good things like solving the train robbery and murder, giving kids a chance to see their first magic show, and saving Parley’s life. But his money-loving heart made him do bad things like swindling the fellows by betting he could ride Chalky and cheating them with his wheel of fortune.
Maybe the good he did with his great brain outweighed the bad he did with his money-loving heart. And maybe not. I don’t know. But one thing I did know for sure was that someday Tom would make the name of Fitzgerald famous. His great brain would make him the savior of his country or his money-loving heart make him the master confidence man of all time. And some day for sure our family would either be visiting Tom in the White House or in prison.
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