Me and Billy (17 page)

Gradually the slope became rockier and steeper. The trees thinned out, so we were in the sun a lot, which got us sweating when it was still over in the east.

Then we came out of the trees. Ahead of us was a rocky ledge, covered with boulders, running up a steep angle. We stopped. “You think this is the top of the mountain, Possum?”

“Maybe right here it is. Seems like these mountains have got a lot of tops.”

“Possum, let’s call it quits. Every step upward is one more downward on an empty stomach. Let’s turn around and head on back down.”

He was right. I knew that. It was all over. We’d done our best, but it was over. But blame me if I could get myself to quit. That lake had to be out there somewhere. It just had to be. In my head I knew it probably wasn’t, but no matter what was in my head, I still believed that lake was out there. “Billy, just a little more,” I begged. “Just up to the top there.”

“Possum...” He saw the look in my eyes. “All right. Up to the top. Then we take a look at the sights and head on down.”

We picked up our bedrolls and began to climb the rocky ledge. In some places it leveled out and we could move along pretty easy; but in other places we had to pull ourselves along by grabbing on to whatever we could find—a piece of brush growing out of a rock, a crack in the ledge, a knob on a boulder. On up we went under the hot sun, a little breeze helping against the heat. Finally the ledge settled into a low curve, leveling out. And then we came over the top.

Down below was a meadow sitting in a bowl of the mountains, the sides covered with the same low pine trees we’d come out of. The meadow was thick with wildflowers, yellow, blue, white, and purple. Overhead
a hawk glided easy in the wind. And in the middle of the meadow sat a little lake. All across its surface we could see spots of gold flickering and flashing. I threw my head back and laughed. Then I began to dance around on my toes. “We found it, Billy. I told you it was up here. We found it.”

He whacked me on the back. “Come on, Possum, let’s go.”

We scrambled off the top of the mountain and ran down through the meadow toward the lake. I never felt so happy in all my life. I was just swollen with happiness. “Billy,” I shouted, as we flew through the wildflowers, “we found it; we found it, Billy.”

We came up to it. The lake wasn’t more than a couple of hundred yards across. The banks of it sloped down fairly steep from the meadow. We crouched down in the grass and wildflowers beside it. Off toward the other side of the lake we could see gold flickering on the surface, but up close the gold disappeared. I stared down through the water. It was clear as could be. I could see fish easing around six feet below and, at the very bottom, rocks and weeds like green hair, hardly moving at all.

But no chunks of gold. I raised my head and looked across the lake to where the gold sparkled on the surface. “Maybe it’s over there,” I said. We stood up, trotted around the bank to the other side of the lake, and crouched down again to have a look. Now the gold flashes were back where we’d just come from; here the
bottom was just rocks and weeds and fish swimming over them.

I looked at Billy and kind of whispered, “Billy, you don’t believe the gold is just the sun shining on the surface, do you?”

He stood up and started unbuttoning his shirt. “I aim to find out.” He threw his shirt and pants off. I knew I ought to undress and go into the lake with him, but I didn’t have the heart for it anymore. It was only the sun flashing on the little waves stirred up by the light breeze. That’s what Cook had seen, and that’s all there was. Now it
was
over. I tipped my head down and squeezed my eyes closed, feeling like I’d lost the most important thing I ever had. It was a funny way to feel, for I never had that gold; but just being able to believe in it had made a whole lot of difference to me. Now I wished we hadn’t come, for if we hadn’t, I would never have known there wasn’t any gold in that lake.

Then I heard a splash. I opened my eyes and looked out. There was a great ruffling in the water, and Billy’s head popped up. “It’s mighty cold, Possum. You coming in?”

“Maybe,” I said.

He took a deep breath and plunged under the water. In a little bit he popped up again, waving something in his hand. “What’s this, Possum? I got water in my eyes.” He flung it onto the bank.

I picked it up and looked it over. “Nothing but a stone,” I said. I dropped it into the grass.

Billy went on spluttering. “Possum, get my handkerchief out of my pants so’s I can wipe my eyes.”

I went over to where he’d dropped his clothes, picked up his pants, and reached my hand into his pocket. There was no handkerchief in that pocket, but there was something hard and slick. I pulled it out and let it lay flat on my hand. It was Pa Singletary’s gold watch.

I spun around and held the watch up. “Blame you, Billy. Blame you for a rotten skunk.”

“What’s that, Possum?” He wiped his eyes with his hands. “What’re you talking about?”

“The watch.”

“Oh, oh,” he said. He swam for shore and scrambled up onto the bank. “I didn’t want you to see that, Possum. Give it to me.”

Suddenly I’d had enough of Billy. Had my fill. The Singletarys were the only decent people I’d ever met in my life. Everywhere I looked there were people like Deacon whipping boys, the Prof skinning people with his elixir, the boys fighting and caterwauling and stealing from each other, Robinson burning to commit murder—everybody lying and cheating and stealing. Billy was one of them. It didn’t matter that we’d slept in the same bed since we were a week old, didn’t matter that we’d done everything together ever since. He was one of them.

Among them, the Singletarys shone out like a lantern in a dark forest. They were the best thing that ever happened to me, and what would they think of me now? I knew: they’d trusted me, liked me, and here Billy had ruined it, for what would they think of me the minute Pa Singletary discovered that watch of his was gone? Just another worthless boy.

“Blame you, Billy,” I shouted. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“Now hold it, Possum, I couldn’t help myself. I told you I had to do something bad, but you wouldn’t listen. Honest, I couldn’t help it.”

“I’m sick of you not helping things, Billy. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“Possum, you don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I do.” Then I jumped him. I just dove onto him, grabbed him around the neck, and started to squeeze. We went over in a heap, me on top of him, his fingers clawing at my hands, trying to break loose. But raging mad as I was, I was too strong for him. I went on squeezing.

“Possum,” he gasped out in a raspy voice. “You’re strangling me. You’re going to kill me.” He let go of my hands and began banging me around the head as hard as he could. I went on squeezing his neck, and all the while I was thinking, I can’t believe this is me killing Billy.

Then he caught me a good one on the side of my head. For a minute I went dizzy, and my hands loos
ened up. He scrambled up from underneath me and stood in the grass and wildflowers, his fists clenched, in case I went for him again.

“You got yourself calmed down, Possum? I never saw you like that before.”

I knelt up, panting, my head ringing from the punch he’d landed on it. I was glad I hadn’t killed Billy, but I wasn’t sorry I’d jumped him, either.

“That was the rottenest thing you ever did, Billy. You deserved to be strangled.”

He turned his eyes away from me, toward the edge of the lake. “If you hadn’t been so set on finding the gold, we wouldn’t have gotten into this in the first place.”

“Stop trying to throw everything off on somebody else, Billy. You can’t go on doing that for the rest of your life.”

Finally he looked at me. “You didn’t have to strangle me for it.”

“You deserved to be strangled. Those people were as nice as could be to us. The one thing Pa Singletary took any pride in, aside from Betty Ann, was that watch, and you stole it from him.”

He didn’t say anything and looked back down at the edge of the lake again. Maybe something was finally getting across to him.

“Can’t you see it, Billy?” I said. “It isn’t if
you’re
bad or
you’re
good. It isn’t about
you.
It’s what it does to other people.”

Now he pulled himself up straight and stared at me. “I don’t give a shoot what it does to other people. What have other people ever done for me?”

He had me there. I took a deep breath and tried to figure out where we were going with this. “Well, Pa Singletary was mighty kind to us.”

“One person,” he said

“And Betty Ann.”

“Two, then.”

“Three,” I said.

“Who else?”

“Think, Billy, think.”

He looked away again. “Oh,” he said. Then he looked back at me. “We’re kind of different aren’t we, Possum.”

He was looking kind of sad, and to tell the truth I was feeling sad myself. “Different in some ways,” I said. “Probably the same in others.”

“The same in others,” he said, like he was trying to hold on to something.

All of a sudden I was completely tired out. I sat down amidst the tall grass and the wildflowers. “What do you reckon on doing once we get down out of here?”

He shrugged. “Try to find the Prof. His style suits me.”

“Even after getting shot at and all?”

“I figure that was just an off chance. Most likely wouldn’t happen again for a hundred years.”

“You’ll end up in jail, sure as shooting, Billy.”

“Just you be sure to come and visit me,” he said. He lay back in the grass beside me. “What do you figure on doing, Possum?”

“Well, first thing I got to do is bring that watch back to Pa Singletary.”

“Something came out of it then,” he said. “You got an excuse to go back.”

“That’s true,” I said. I looked at him. “Don’t start thinking that was why you stole it.”

“You think you might stay there awhile?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. For awhile, anyway. They sure could use some help.” How would
Singletary
be for a last name? I tried it in my mind: Possum Singletary. Well, there was no telling how it would go. But it would be a nice change to be in a place where people were kind to each other on purpose.

It was going to be mighty strange going along without Billy. Sort of lonely at first, I figured. But I didn’t see how it could be any other way. I sat up. “Billy, let’s see if we can figure out a way to get a couple of those fish out of that blame lake.”