Henry and Milo had, indeed, gone on to Carter’s Country Store and robbed the till. They got one hundred and eighty dollars to add to the one fifty left over from the robbery in Lenapah. Milo was still puzzled about why Henry had bothered to pay for the guns and ammunition, and Henry decided that if Milo couldn’t understand his little joke, it wouldn’t do any good to try to explain it to him. He did decide, however, that having stolen two horses and robbed two stores, they should probably find someplace to lie low in for a while.
Milo said that he knew a place, and he led Henry to the home of an acquaintance of his known as Frank Cheney. Cheney lived in a small shack on an out-of-the-way road. Henry wondered if Cheney was a renter or just a squatter, but he mentally shrugged it off. Whatever Cheney was, he was obviously not a working farmer, or if he was, he was a very poor one. The place had the look of total neglect. Cheney had broken out a bottle of whiskey, and he and Milo had begun to indulge right away. Henry did not drink (he hadn’t lied to the two lawmen who had arrested him for possessing whiskey), and he soon tired of the company of the two carousers. He told Milo and Cheney that he would see them later, cautioned Milo to stay at Cheney’s until he got back, then rode off alone.
Henry had only one place to go. It would be just a matter of time before he was known to be the robber of the two stores, and the old farmer whose horses he had stolen had almost surely already accused him of that theft. In addition, he was known to have pled guilty at Fort Smith to the charge of holding up the depot at Nowata. He hadn’t been back to see Todd since his last arrest, and he had no intention of going back. He would not go back home as long as C. N. Walker was there. Henry had no one except Mae, and even if he had had someone else, it was Mae he was missing. He had an ache for her. He headed his horse in the direction of the Morrisons’ rented farm.
Mr. Morrison was out in front of the house, busy splitting logs for the wood stove in the kitchen, and Mrs. Morrison had just stepped out on the front porch to shake out a towel, when Henry came riding into the yard.
“Howdy, Mr. Morrison,” called Henry.
Morrison didn’t miss a stroke with his ax, but he did manage a reply in between swings. He was not a bad man, thought Henry, for a white man. He wasn’t too friendly, but that was just because he was always working, and he didn’t seem to have much use for anything but work.
“Climb down out of your saddle, son,” he said.
Mrs. Morrison looked over her shoulder toward the front door of the house and hollered.
“Mae,” she said, “come on out. You’ve got a caller.”
While Henry climbed down off his horse, he thought to himself, Good. They haven’t heard anything yet.
Mae came out to meet him.
“Hello, Henry,” she said.
“Hi.”
“You want to stay to dinner?”
Then she looked toward her mother.
“Is it all right, Mama?”
“Sure,” said the mother, “you stay and eat with us, Henry.”
Henry smiled.
“All right,” he said. “Thank you. I’d like that.”
“We’re having crawdads,” said Mae. “That is, if I can catch any. I was just getting ready to go get them. Now that you’re staying to dinner, you can help me.”
“That was a pretty clever trick,” said Henry. “All right. Let’s go get them.”
“I’ll go get a bucket and a pole. Kill a chicken,” said Mae, and she ran off toward a lean-to shack off to the side of the house.
Henry looked around at the chickens clucking and pecking about the house. He turned to Mae’s mother for advice.
“Which one?” he asked.
“Oh, it don’t much matter,” said Mrs. Morrison, looking around the yard. “That one on the fence is as good as any.”
Henry followed her gaze to a scrawny hen on a fence post about twenty feet to his right. He pulled out his new .45, cocked and aimed it, and squeezed the trigger. There was a loud blast, and the hen’s head seemed to explode. The Morrisons’ old hound dog set up a howl, which lasted for only a minute. He hadn’t bothered to stand up while he was howling. Mae came back with a bucket, a cane pole with a line on it, and a small net. She dropped these items to the ground beside Henry and ran to retrieve the wretched hen, which she soon had plucked in record time. Then she tossed the remains into the bucket.
“I’m ready,” she said.
Henry mounted up, then helped Mae to climb up behind him. She carried the bucket, pole and net, and they rode off toward the creek. When they reached a spot where the water ran clear over a bed of flat rocks, they dismounted. Henry allowed the reins of his mount to trail. They sat down by the creek, and Henry pulled apart the carcass of the unfortunate chicken, then tied a piece of the fresh meat to the line on the cane pole.
“You want to wade or fish?” he asked Mae.
Mae took the pole and went to the edge of the water. Reaching out, she lowered the piece of chicken down into the water and onto the flat rocks. Henry pulled off his boots and socks and rolled up the legs of his trousers. He picked up the small net and walked gingerly to the edge of the water to watch the crawdads come crawling out from under the rocks and onto the fresh meat. When the bait was in danger of being overcrowded and the prey was thoroughly absorbed in devouring the raw flesh, Henry went slowly and carefully into the water. He took the line in his right hand and began to ease the bait, still covered with the greedy crawdads, up off the rocks. At the same time, with his left hand, he lowered the net into the water and slipped it under the whole mess. In one scoop they had captured a dozen of the little creatures. In a few hours the bucket was nearly full.
“How’s that look?” said Henry.
“Any more and they’ll crawl out on top of each other.”
They rode back to the house and spent the next while cleaning their catch. Henry was fascinated with the way in which Mae deftly snapped off the heads and cleaned out the small gut with one flick of her thumb. The job was done in time for Mae and Mrs. Morrison to get a great platter of fried crawdads prepared for the dinner table. It was an old Cherokee delicacy that the whites living among the Cherokees had learned about. Mr. Morrison was certainly enjoying the meal. Henry was amused at the way in which the tiny crawdad legs occasionally became tangled in the whiskers of Morrison’s moustache. Henry, too, enjoyed the meal and the company, but he felt a little uneasy—a bit anxious or nervous somehow.
Later, outside, the sun low in the sky, Henry knew that he would soon have to take his leave of Mae. His belly was full, and he felt good, but his thoughts were on the future. He took Mae’s hand in his.
“Mae,” he said, “I’ve got to tell you something. You’re going to hear about it sooner or later anyhow. I’m not working for Mr. Todd anymore.”
Henry paused, but Mae didn’t respond, so he continued.
“I’m on the scout, Mae. They made me an outlaw.”
“Henry,” said Mae, “what have you done?”
“I got me a partner, and we stole two horses and robbed two stores. I’m going to get enough money together to get out of this country. There’s nothing here for me anymore. Nothing except you. If you’ll still have me.”
Mae turned and stared off toward the sunset.
“Will you go with me?” said Henry.
Mae turned back to Henry and put her arms around him, pulling him close to her. Henry thrilled at the closeness of her.
“You let me know when you’re ready,” she said, “and I’ll go with you.”
They kissed, a brief, tender kiss for fear of the parents’ eyes, and Henry went to his horse. He climbed into the saddle.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said, then he turned the horse and rode away.
He was on his way back to Frank Cheney’s house, having stayed late and then ridden the rest of the night away, and it was about midmorning. The road passed close by a ranch house, and Henry noticed several men standing around in front of the house as he approached it. One of the men suddenly pointed in his direction, and Henry heard him shout.
“Hell, that’s him right there,” said the man. “That’s the man you’re looking for.”
Two of the men in the crowd ran for their horses, mounted up and raced for the road. Henry had not yet come up beside the house, so the two riders, in effect, blocked his path. Then, without a word of warning, one of the riders drew a pistol and fired a shot at Henry. The shot went wild, and Henry dismounted. Pulling his pistol and taking careful aim, he fired. The slug from Henry’s .45 hit its mark, and the man was flung backward into the dirt. Henry’s horse neighed, shied, and ran off back down the road in the direction from which they had come. The second man, who had ridden out to the road to block Henry’s passage, dropped to his belly in the dirt and covered his head with both hands. Henry glanced back toward the ranch house. The rest of the men were just standing there, watching.
Henry kept his gun in hand and walked on down the road until he came to the two men in the dirt, their horses milling around their prostrate figures. He walked up first to the one playing possum, made an audible scoffing snort, then turned to the other. He shoved his six-gun into his waistband, took one of the loose horses by the reins, mounted up, and rode on his way. No one followed, and soon he had left the ranch house behind. No one followed, but he had killed a man. Now there would be no turning back. As he made his way on down the road, he wondered who the man was he had just killed. He had never before killed a man, and he didn’t particularly like the feeling. He figured that the two must have been lawmen, and he thought of all his previous experiences with that bunch. Well, he wasn’t going to lose any sleep over that fellow, whoever he was. The man had shot first and with no warning. He had gotten just what he asked for—just what he deserved. Henry hoped that the man was a deputy United States marshal.