Excerpt from CLEM'S CHANCES
by Sonia Levitin
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Chapter Five
I Determine to Journey Overland to Find Pa, and I Bid Farewell to Molly
"Name's Leader, Chester Leader," the man said, "like you can lead a horse to water, ha-ha, but can't make him think."
Drink, I almost said, but I'm not one to spoil a man's story. My eyes lit on the words: Orphans preferred. Why in the world did they want orphans? It sounded ominous. But then again came the astounding sum, twenty-five dollars a week. Nobody in the world could make or spend that muck money! I'd never seen twenty-five dollars all at once in my entire life.
"So, you want to make some money." Chester Leader sat down and smiled at me. "You good with horses?"
"Yes, sir. I've broken wild ones, even. My pa says—"
"Your pa? Thought you told me you got no kin."
"While he was alive, sir, he did speak to me on occasion."
Chester Leader slapped his thigh and let out a laugh. "That's a good one! All right, then, you mind takin' the middle route? I've got the beginning and the end of the route pretty near covered. Middle's the long stretch, you know, pretty boring they say, except when the Injuns are havin' their scalping parties, ha ha."
"Middle route? I thought I'd go clear through, sir, to California."
"Straight through?" he repeated, aghast. "You pullin' my leg, boy, or are you ignorant? We run in relay teams, boy. We're not running a landferry here. Rider goes forty, fifty miles, takes a nap, turns around and starts over. Back and forth."
"Back and forth" I repeated, feeling faint.
"You're not the first boy I've ever seen itching to get to California, trying to use the Express for your own purposes." Abruptly he stood, pulled me by the shirt collar, and said, "You don't hornswoggle me! Now, git!"
Outside again, I stood with the beggars, my heart pounding with hatred. I looked up at the gleaming windows of the hotel. My keenest desire was to hurl a rock and smash those windows!
A vagrant beside me muttered, "Got a penny or two, sonny?"
I gave him a scornful look, then saw how his eyes watered, and spit drooled slowly from his mouth devoid of teeth. A sour smell rose from him, a kind of inner decay. From the pallor of his flesh, I gleaned that he was dying.
"Sorry, old timer," I said. Something about the sight of that man bore me up. I had my teeth! I had limb and heart and breath in my body! And I had something of value, after all. Belinda! That cow was mine, by right and by law. I had let the Warrens cheat me out of my property and run me off as if I were a common criminal. Jonas had lied. Why hadn't I defended myself? Because of the odds — I couldn't take on Jonas and Billy and Mr. Warren all at the same time. And if the sheriff came, why would he believe me, instead of an upright citizen who owned a farm, however poor?
Well, now I would be crafty. This was the end of whimpering and whining, running away, letting other folks determine my destiny. I'm going west! I vowed to myself, and I'll do it with cash in my pocket! Somehow I'd manage to steal Belinda back and sell her for cash. With the cash I could buy a horse, to start me on my way to California.
I set my countenance out of town, back on the road to the Warrens' farm.
From Clem's Chances, copyright © 2001 by Sonia Levitin
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