Trouble

By Marion

I guess you could say it all began the day I was late for chores. No, I guess that doesn't really explain when it started. I oughta say it all started last Thursday when I was late for evening chores. Anyway, I came running home and found Annie in the barn, taking care of my chores. Anne's my cousin. She's a little older than me and she's all right for a girl.

"Thanks." I grabbed a pitchfork and started throwing hay.

"No problem, you can owe me. Uncle Ben's in a real bad mood and if he knew you were late again, you'd really catch it."

"Why's he in a bad mood?" Annie just shrugged.

"He and Adam are going at it." I groaned. When Adam and Pa argue, we all suffer. I looked around. "Hey, you didn't feed Buck or Beauty."

"Pardon me if I didn't get to all your chores yet. I was busy doing my chores, too."

"Well, you could have told me." Maybe I was being unreasonable but the idea of Pa finding fault with me made me nervous.

"You just got here. I didn't have a chance! Your gratitude is underwhelming!" She threw down her pitchfork and headed towards the door.

"Hey, where are you going?"

"I'm not helping you anymore. Finish them yourself." I chased after her and grabbed her arm. "I'm sorry. You gotta help me finish or Pa'll know I was late." She pulled her arm away and pushed me.

"Forget it. I don't care if he finds out."

I had just started to push her back when I heard a voice behind me. "What's going on here?" I turned around and realized Annie was right. Pa was in a bad mood. You can tell by looking at his eyebrows. If they're scrunched together, he's in a bad mood. If they're scrunched together and his eyes are real dark when he looks at you, that means you're in big trouble. I glanced at Annie. I wouldn't get a licking for fighting with Annie, even if she is a girl. Pa had figured out a long time ago that she started as many fights as I did. I would get in trouble for being late, though. I'd probably get restricted for the weekend with extra chores to do and that would interfere with my plans. I hoped she wouldn't tell.

I didn't have to worry. Annie may be a girl, but she's not a tattletale. She looked at Pa and used that sweet voice she has when she wants to get her way "Nothing's wrong, Uncle Ben. Joe and I were just finishing our chores and we were getting a little silly. We were just playing, that's all."

I wasn't too sure he believed her but I guess he didn't want to have to yell at us, so he grunted and nodded. "Hurry up and finish. Hop Sing will have a fit if you're late for supper."

We answered as one. "Yes, sir." As soon as he left I apologized to Annie.

"That's all right. Where were you anyway? You couldn't have been with Mitch. I know his Pa's been keeping busy."

"Actually he got let out today and he and me and a couple of new guys were swimming."

"What new guys?"

"Tex and Kier Johnson."

"Tex and Kier? What kind of names are those?" She waved her hand. "Never mind, let's just finish the chores before your Pa comes looking for us."

We finished the chores in record time and I promised to do some of hers the next day. She sure was right about Adam and Pa. Adam was getting annoyed because Pa kept reminding him of things that needed to be done to get ready for the round up. Adam hates that because it makes him feel like Pa doesn't think he's grown.

"Pa, you're treating me like Little Joe or Annie."

Hey! I thought, but Annie was the one stupid enough to say something. "No one has to tell me to do my chores twice." She sounded indignant.

"Annie, this is between Adam and me." You'd think Annie'd know by now when to shut her mouth. Nope, not my cousin.

"I'm not the one that brought me into it. He did."

"Annie, finish your dinner or go to your room."

She stood up and left the table. "Fine. Good night." She walked into her room and closed the door softly behind her. At least she remembered to not slam it.

Kier, Tex, Mitch and I spent Friday morning playing around. Kier caught a rabbit and decided he wanted to eat it so Tex started a fire. I looked around nervously. If Pa caught me with a fire, he'd nail my hide to the barn door. We ate the rabbit (it wasn't very good, Kier burnt it badly) and then it was time to go home for lunch. Tex said he'd put the fire out, so Mitch and I headed home.

I got home in time to find Annie taking down some of the laundry. She sniffed at me, and her eyes widened. She grabbed some of my clean clothes from the basket. "C'mon, follow me." She hurried behind the barn.

"What's wrong?"

"You smell like smoke. Uncle Ben'll know you've been near a fire."

"So?"

She shook her head. "He and Hoss just came back from putting out a campfire that someone left burning near the east pasture. It hadn't spread much, but he was furious. He was ranting about fools leaving fires during the dry season and about how much damage they could have done." Suddenly I felt sick. She held out the clothes. "Change, then give me your dirty clothes. I've got more wash to do this afternoon. He'll never know."

Annie had saved me once again. I was forbidden to start fires and something told me that the fact that I had not actually started this one would not help me with Pa. I could just hear him yelling now. "Joseph," he would begin. "Do you want to tell me what in Zeus you were thinking? You know better than to leave a campfire burning." Then after yelling some more he'd set my tail to burning. Stupid me. I shouldn't have listened when Tex said he'd put it out. Next time I'll check it myself."

I changed behind the barn and gave Annie the dirty clothes. She dumped them into the wash bucket as we walked into the house. "Thanks." I whispered. "I owe you one."

She snorted. "You owe me a lot more than one, Little Joe!"

"Hey, how come you got extra chores?"

She rolled her eyes. "Apparently last night when Uncle Ben gave me the choice of finishing dinner or leaving the table, I was supposed to choose finishing dinner. Who knew?"

Lunch was quiet. Annie was right – Pa was in a bad mood again. I sat quietly eating, no use bringing attention to myself. Unfortunately Pa noticed me anyway. "Little Joe, were you by the east pasture this morning?"

I tried not to panic. "No, sir." I blurted out. I instantly regretted the "sir." I never say sir, unless I'm in trouble and I'm trying to avoid getting punished. Pa knew it, too. Sure enough, his left eyebrow went up. I tried not to fidget. He started to speak but Annie interrupted with a coughing fit. Adam leaned over and pounded her on the back while Pa looked at her, all worried. She waved her hands to get Adam to stop.

"Thanks, Adam. Sorry Uncle Ben, I must have swallowed the wrong way." She turned to Hoss. "Hey, Hoss, have you heard any more about the charreada?"

The next thing I knew the conversation had moved completely away from me. Pa looked from me to Annie as if he knew he'd been had, but he didn't say anything.

"Pa?" Adam jumped in during a lull in the conversation. Pa looked at him expectantly. "Pa, I think that mountain lion might have hit again. I found a couple of half eaten cows. We're going to have to go after that thing soon."

Pa sighed. "You're right, Adam. I don't see that we can get away until Tuesday or Wednesday though. We've got too much to do. What do you think?"

Pa and Adam musta worked out their problem. Anyway, Pa seems to be asking Adam's opinion more.

I still think Pa was on to me. He found chores that needed doing that afternoon and I wasn't able to meet the guys after lunch.

I met up Saturday with Kier, Tex and Mitch and I told them about the mountain lion. Tex and Kier were all excited and they wanted to go hunting it. They were sure they could sneak their father's gun out of the house.

"Problem is," Mitch said slowly, "lions can be tough to track. We might not get to find it in one afternoon."

Kier and Tex exchanged looks. "How about this? Joe, you tell your Pa you're staying at Mitch's on Monday night. Mitch, you tell your Pa you're staying at our house and we'll say we're staying at Joe's."

I wasn't too sure and I said so.

"What's the matter, Joe, ya chicken? We'll be camping out tracking the beast. By the time they figure out the truth, we'll have bagged that mountain lion and they'll be so proud of us that they won't get mad. C'mon, Joe, don't be yella!"

I wasn't going to let Kier and Tex say they challenged me but I was too scared to do the challenge. I said all right, I'd do it.

Looking back, I realize that thinking our pas would be proud was the dumbest thing I ever heard but at the time all I could picture was Pa patting me on the back, telling me what a good job I did and Adam and Hoss looking at me in awe. We quickly made our plans. I couldn't wait until Monday afternoon.

Boy, I hate Sunday school, but I don't dare tell Pa that. Miss Jones is just awful. Step one toe outta line and she goes runnin' to Pa. So, I memorize the shortest verse Annie can find for me, I recite it and then I think about other things. She don't call on Seth much any more. I still can't believe the verse he recited that first day. I had Annie show me where it was in the Bible. Maybe if more of the Bible were like that, I wouldn't mind reading it so much. Annie said I'd best not let Pa hear me talk like that or he'll make me memorize the whole Bible and I'll have to do it standing up. Pa's real funny if he thinks you're disrespecting God. Even I know that's a real bad thing to do.

This Sunday promised to be better. Kier and Tex came to church but not to Sunday school. Turns out their Ma didn't know about Sunday school, and they'll be coming next week. Today, though, the reverend had decided to have a picnic after church and we all brought food. Pa let me go off and play with my friends, and we had a whole big gang. There was me, Mitch, Tex, Kier and Seth. We were standing around looking at the other kids when suddenly Kier pushed Tex. "Hey, look at that girl. She's real pretty."

"Yeah, she's got a nice, you know..." and he pointed to his chest.

I looked in the direction they were looking in. All I could see was Annie and Beth. "You mean the girl in the green dress?"

"Nah, the one she's talking to. The one in the pink dress."

I shoved Tex hard. "That's my cousin!"

"You been holding out on us, Joe? You never said your cousin had nice bosoms."

"My cousin doesn't have whatcha call 'ems. Don't you talk about her like that!" I couldn't believe they were looking at Annie like that. It's a good thing Mitch had to go join his parents. I pushed Tex and he started to get mad.

"Don't you push me, Joe or I'll push you right back." The next thing I knew we were in a pushing match. No telling what woulda happened but before I knew it we were being pulled apart.

"Joseph!" I recognized that voice. Fighting on Sunday at church? Pa was going to kill me.

"Theophilus!" I turned at that. No wonder he liked to be called Tex! It's not often that I see a man bigger than Pa or Hoss, but the man I saw holding Tex was at least a few inches taller than either my father or my brother.

"We were just playing, Papa. We weren't fighting." Tex looked at his father's face and reached out to pat me on the shoulder.

"Yeah, Pa. It was a game Tex said he knew." Both fathers looked at us suspiciously.

"I think you should find a different game." Pa looked at me seriously.

"Yes, sir, Pa. We were going to have a running race now."

The two fathers left us alone and I spun on Tex.

"Theophilus? What kind of name is that?"

He groaned. "It's Greek."

"You're Greek?"

"No, I told you before, I'm from Texas. When Papa was a sailor he sailed to Greece and he loved the country so much he named us Greek names."

I looked over at Kier. "What's your name?"

"Kiril. Look, Joe, we'd just as soon no one else knew, all right?"

I could understand that. Every time my father or brothers called me Little Joe in front of someone I wanted to cringe. "No problem. We'd better race now, or Pa'll get suspicious."

I spent Monday morning trying to plan how to get away in the afternoon. I had asked for, and received, permission to spend the afternoon and night at Mitch's house, so it was no problem for Pa to see me taking some clothes and stuff, but I had to figure out how to get food out of the house.

Finally I decided I had to ask Annie for help. Hop Sing wasn't around, so she was doing the cooking. She'd be able to get the food for me. I just told her we were going camping. I knew I'd put her in a bad spot if I told her we were going hunting. I also told her where we would be camping, just in case. Pa is forever telling us to let someone know all the time where we are.

She just shook her head. I guessed she thought it wasn’t a good idea but all she said was that it was my hide. She gathered up some food, which I snuck into my saddlebags. After lunch I said good-bye to Pa.

"Make sure you listen to Mr. and Mrs. Devlin. You know I'll hear about any trouble you get into."

I got a real cold feeling inside when he said that, but I couldn't back out now. I'd get me and the guys in trouble.

I met up with Tex and Kier on the road to the meeting spot. Mitch was already there. Somehow he had managed to get his brother Pete's rifle out of the house without anyone seeing him. That meant we'd get to share two rifles instead of just the one Tex and Kier brought.

We spent a few hours trying to track the mountain lion and we even thought we heard it once, but we couldn't find it. Kier and Tex shot their father's rifle a few times, but Mitch said he didn't bring much ammunition, so he wanted to wait until we saw the lion.

Kier managed to bag a couple of rabbits, so we cooked them for supper. This time Mitch cooked the rabbits and they turned out all right. We spent the evening hours telling stories about pirates and ghosts. Mr. Johnson is a blacksmith now, but he used to be a sailor and he told Kier and Tex a lot of stories about pirates.

I wished they hadn'ta told the ghost stories, though. I couldn't admit it to them, but I was afraid of ghosts. I was awake long after we stopped talking.

We all woke up late. The fire had died away to almost nothing and the sun was already high. I couldn't shake this feeling of unease that had settled on me. For the life of me I couldn't figure out what was wrong, though.

Tex got the fire going again and we were soon cooking the bacon and eggs that Annie had gotten for me. Thinking of her made that uneasy feeling even stronger. I shook my head and dug in. Pa always said that a man was hungrier when he was camping out under the stars.

Thinking of Pa made me feel so uneasy that I wanted to throw up. I put down my plate and started cleaning up. I wanted to get that mountain lion so Pa'd be proud of me.

We had just cleaned up the camp and gotten everything packed when we heard the sound of horses coming towards us. We looked at each other in a panic.

"Do you think it's Injuns?" Tex looked worried.

"Maybe it's Mexican bandits." Kier was convinced we were all going to die in horrible ways.

The men that came out of the woods were worse than Indians and Mexican bandits combined. We all wished we were surrounded by pirates when our fathers rode into the clearing.

Pa was furious. No one had to tell me that as we rode back towards home. One look at his face and I knew what was coming. Sure enough, he gestured to me and I urged Paint to ride next to him. Pa was a big man and riding next to him when he was on Buck made him look bigger.

"Joseph, I am at a lose for words. Not only have you been late several times this week and not only did you lie about the campfire, but now I find you have lied about what you are doing and that, despite a very recent necessary talk, you are playing with guns."

"Did Annie tell you about me being late and about the fire?"

"She didn't have to, although I will have a few things to say to her about keeping those secrets from me, as well as not telling me about your little expedition." Pa was so agitated that even Buck could sense it. Buck pranced about and Pa had to be quiet long enough to calm his horse.

We got home and Pa practically dragged me off Paint. He pulled me towards the barn and closed the big doors behind us.

I didn't much feel like talking to anyone after that. Somehow I managed to get through my regular chores and the extra ones Pa gave me. Sitting down for lunch and for supper was bad, even with the pillows Hoss put on my chair. I excused myself right after supper and I went to bed.

I woke up when Hoss came to bed. My conscience hurt almost as bad as my behind. I didn't think anything could hurt worse than my behind! I heard Adam and Pa talking quietly on the porch. Adam asked if Pa was going to bed. "Not yet," came his soft reply. After Adam came to bed, I slipped out of my bunk. I hadn't had a chance to talk to Pa since the barn and I knew I wouldn't sleep anymore until I did.

I opened the door and saw Pa sitting on the bench. The moon was bright and I could see him clearly. He was looking at me. I stepped onto the porch.

"Joseph."

"Pa."

We looked at each other for a moment, and then he patted the bench next to him. I didn't think I could sit so I stood in front of him and leaned back onto the rail.

"Pa, I've been thinking about stuff." I stopped and he looked at me gravely, waiting for me to continue. "I came to tell ya I'm sorry."

"For what, Joseph?"

For a minute I just stared at him. After all the trouble I was in he had to ask why I was sorry? Then I realized what he was doing. He wanted me to explain everything I had done wrong. This was going to be a lot harder than just saying sorry but I think he knew that. I looked down at the ground and thought of all the things that had happened.

"Well, I'm sorry I got Annie in trouble."

He smiled slightly. "Annie got herself in trouble."

"Yes, sir, I know, but she did it for me. I know, I know, I didn't tell her to, but if I hadn'ta been late and if I hadn'ta asked for food, she wouldn'ta gotten in trouble with you." He nodded as if he agreed.

"And I'm sorry for all the times I was late for chores. I'll try to pay better attention." I'm not sure he believed that would ever happen, but I was determined. I hesitated and he looked at me.

"Anything else, Joseph?"

"Yes, sir, I'm real sorry about the fire. I know better."

"Yes, you do. This time of year, after such a dry summer, an out of control fire can have serious consequences. It could destroy a lot of timber. It could hurt the herd, it could endanger people's houses and lives."

'Yes, sir. I guess I wasn't thinking." Of all the excuses I could make, he hated that one the most. I could see him frown in the moonlight. I quickly added. "I'll be sure to think next time." His frown deepened. "I mean, I would be sure to think next time if there was going to be a next time, but there won't be a next time, I promise." He relaxed slightly.

"What else, Joseph?"

I bit my lip and looked at my feet. "I'm sorry about lying. I'm sorry about going off without telling where I was and I'm sorry for trying to get the mountain lion." I looked at him from the top of my eyes.

"What about the gun?"

"I didn't shoot the gun." I was quick to jump to my defense, not that it was much of a defense. He stirred impatiently. "But, I guess if I was being honest, I'd have to admit I was gonna if I got the chance."

"You should always be honest, son, especially with yourself. We just discussed guns, didn't we, Joseph?"

Memories of that "discussion" flooded my mind. That had been the worst "discussion" of my life until today and that was just three weeks ago. "Pa, there's something I don't understand. How come you let Adam shoot a rifle when he was my age?"

I know Pa hated that kind of question, but I had to ask it. Sometimes I think he loves and trusts Adam more than me and that's why Adam got to do things when he was younger that I can't do now. My face must have shown what I was thinking because Pa pulled me between his legs and he brushed the hair from my eyes before he stroked my face.

"Son, when Adam was your age, and even younger, I had to depend on him to do things no Pa should ever ask a boy to do. He had to grow up faster than you or even Hoss did. I wish it didn't have to be that way, but I didn't have a choice. It wasn't fair to him, Joe, and I have always regretted making him grow up too soon." He pulled me into a hug.

"I think in a way I've been selfish. You're my youngest, my baby, and I guess I don't like to think of you growing up." I leaned into his hug.

"Joseph, when I was a boy, my Father used to tell me before he punished me that it would hurt him almost as much as it would hurt me. I didn't believe that any more than you boys believe me, but I've learned he was right. I don't mean that hit hurts more physically, but it hurts me inside. I don't like to cause you pain, but it's my responsibility to see that you grown into a disciplined, honest man. If I don't then I've failed you and I've failed God. I think you can understand that.

I nodded. Pa speaking to me like that made me feel very grown up. I just leaned against him a few minutes. "Pa?"

"Hmmm?"

"How old was Adam the last time you tanned him?"

"Sixteen."

"What did he do?" I could feel Pa smile.

"I think that's between him and me, don't you?"

I giggled. "Did he get in trouble more than me when he was a kid?"

"Are you having a contest?" Pa reached over and tickled me. I giggled so much I almost cried.

"Well, did he?" I don't know why I needed to know, but I did.

"Let's just say Hoss got into less trouble than either of you." He stopped tickling and held me close. He spoke so softly I almost didn't hear him. "Never forget, Joseph, that I love you every bit as much as I love Adam." He stroked my back and I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew it was morning and I was lying on my stomach in my bed.

I talked to Annie during chores and she told me what happened when the three fathers got together. Apparently Mitch's father went over the Johnsons' to get Mitch. When he found that Mitch wasn't there and that Mr. Johnson thought his boys were at our house, they both came here. Somehow Uncle Ben guessed that she knew where we were. She was sorry cuz she didn't want to tell, but Pa was set to "persuade" her if she didn't. Then I was glad I told her we were camping, not hunting. I think she would have been in a lot more trouble if she knew we were hunting and didn't tell Pa.

Except for the charreada on Saturday, Annie and I are confined to the ranch until we go back to school. But, I don't think we would have had much time to play anyway. It's time to start getting ready for the winder months and now that Annie and I are older, we have a lot more responsibilities. That's a good feeling, though, that Pa knows he can count on us to do our share. I got a lot to make up to him, and I aim to stay out of trouble for a long time!

The End