Bringing Ezra Back by Cynthia DeFelice

Author:Cynthia DeFelice
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466893580
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

11

MY HEAD WAS BOILING like a tub on washday as I ran back to where Beckwith had set up camp. I was near as mad as I’d ever been in my life. It had taken every bit of my will to hold back from running to the other wagons and searching them till I found where they were keeping Ezra.

I’d stopped myself, and it wasn’t only ’cause of Hiram’s rifle. I aimed to get Ezra free of the Trasks, and I needed to think out a plan. Already one was starting to take shape in my mind.

Beckwith was washed and dressed and slicking back his hair with a comb when I showed up. Like the show folks, he had a line hung up with some clothes airing, and a fire going. I poured out the whole story of what I’d seen and heard.

“So I figure we’ll go back there tonight, when the Trasks will have Ezra out in plain sight for the show,” I went on. “They can’t say he ain’t there in front of all the other folks who’ll be looking right at him. And, anyhow, soon as he sees me, that’ll be the end of it.”

“Those Trasks stated clear that he wasn’t there,” Beckwith said. “What makes you so sure he is?”

“If you’d been there, you’d have known those Trasks were lying. They only want Ezra to stay so’s he can make more money for them. It was plain as the nose on your face!”

Beckwith’s expression grew troubled. “Well, if all that’s so, what makes you think they’re going to let you just walk away with him?”

“I reckon they have to let a free man do what he wants,” I said.

“Maybe so,” Beckwith said. “But what about that rifle you had pointed in your face?”

“They’re not going to shoot me in front of a bunch of people who came to see the show. Besides which, you’ll be there, too, as a—a what do you call it?”

“A witness?” Beckwith said uneasily.

“That’s it! They won’t dare to pull any funny business. Then we’ll head on out of there with Ezra.”

In my mind the whole thing had already happened, just the way I’d described it. I was so happy imagining Ezra heading with me toward home I guess I didn’t notice right at first that Beckwith was backing away from me like I had the pox.

“There ain’t no we about it, Nathan,” he said in a flat voice. “You’ve got the wrong fellow. I never signed on to be a witness, or a hero, or to be mixed up in this White Injun affair at all.”

I stared at him as he held up his hands, palms out, almost like he was pushing me away.

“I’m just a businessman trying to make my way through this world, Nathan, and get me a stake of money. I don’t need any riled-up, rifle-toting showman chasing after me. So you go on. And don’t come running back here if you get yourself in a pickle tonight.”

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