Shot in the Back by William W. Johnstone Page B

question.
    â€œYou’re right, it won’t be as good as Ma’s. But let’s try it anyway.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Every day for two weeks, Jesse and Billy went out to McKamy Creek to practice shooting. Before long, Billy could shoot at a can, or a rock, or a tree, and hit it, even without taking specific aim at it.
    â€œWhat do you think, Pa?” Billy asked after they concluded one of their shooting exercises. “I’m getting pretty good, huh?”
    â€œPassable,” Jesse answered. “Let’s get back to town.”
    The two men mounted and started out, with Jesse in the lead. A short distance after they got under way, Jesse left the trail.
    â€œPa, where you goin’? Town’s that way,” Billy called to him.
    â€œJust follow me, and do what I do,” Jesse said.
    Shortly after turning off the trail, Jesse broke into a gallop, and Billy had no choice but to match his pace. After about two minutes at a dead gallop, Jesse stopped, dismounted, and led the horse into some grass. There, after leading the horse for a few minutes, he remounted and made a big circle, not getting out of the grass for about a mile. Then, he turned back, crossed the trail and the tracks they had left earlier, and continued to ride for at least a mile before turning back to retrace the path they had taken at a gallop. Then, turning off the trail again, he started back toward Dallas, rejoining McKamy Road about three miles from the creek itself.
    â€œWhat was all that about?” Billy asked as he moved up to ride alongside Jesse. It was possible to ride alongside him on the road, though it hadn’t been possible to do so on the narrow trail.
    â€œSomeone was following us,” Jesse said.
    Billy turned in his saddle. “I didn’t see anyone. Who was following us?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter whether you saw anyone or not,” Jesse said. “As far as you are concerned, from now until I tell you otherwise, someone is always following us.”
    â€œOh,” Billy said. “Oh, yes, I see what you mean.”
    â€œDo you? Because it might save your life someday.”
    â€œYeah, Pa. I see,” Billy said.
    Â 
    Â 
    â€œYou need to know how to build a fire,” Jesse said a few days later.
    â€œPa, I can build a fire.”
    â€œAll right, make a fire, right now.”
    â€œI don’t have any matches.”
    â€œHave you ever eaten a rabbit raw?”
    â€œWhat? No! Why would I want to eat a raw rabbit?”
    â€œWell, if you don’t know how to build a fire without matches, the day may come when you have to eat a rabbit, or a squirrel, or a bird, raw. And I can tell you for a fact, raw game isn’t very tasty.”
    â€œYou mean you’ve eaten raw rabbit?”
    â€œYeah.”
    Billy laughed. “So you can’t build a fire, either, without matches, can you?”
    â€œDidn’t say that. I just said that I ate raw rabbit. It wasn’t that I couldn’t build a fire, it was because at the time, it just wasn’t convenient to build a fire.”
    â€œDo you have matches now?” Billy asked.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œCan you build a fire?”
    â€œYeah, I can build a fire. What you need is a spark, something to catch the spark, wood, and air. Gather some dry grass and little pieces of dry sticks. Then a few larger pieces of wood so that once the fire starts, there will be something to burn.”
    It took but a minute to get everything gathered.
    â€œA match is the easiest way to start a fire, and when we start out on our adventure, we’ll always have matches with us. You can also use flint and steel. That works, but it isn’t really all that easy.”
    â€œYou’ve built a fire with flint and steel?”
    â€œI’ve built a fire by rubbing a stick in a hole, dug out of a piece of wood,” Jesse said. “And that’s even harder to do.”
    â€œYou said you don’t