Doubtful Canon Read Online Free Page A

good at mathematics, Ian Spencer Henry had little interest in figures. At age twelve, like most boys his age, he longed for adventure.
    “The gold?” Ian Spencer Henry—I never called him anything but his full name, and never heard anyone call him different—repeated when he got no answer.
    This time, Whitey Grey lifted his rump off his rock seat, and let out a loud fart. Jasmine rolled her eyes. Ian Spencer Henry grabbed his nose and gagged. I don’t remember what I did. Patiently we waited for the smell to fade, for the white-skinned man to finish his tale.
    “I know where there’s a fortune in gold,” the albino man finally said. “Only I need help in gettin’ it. Pardners. You young ’uns be game?”
    “You bet!” Ian Spencer Henry blurted out, unaware that I was tugging on his shirt sleeve, begging him to slow down, to think this thing through. For all I knew, this odd man really did intend on cutting out our hearts and eating them, burying our bodies deep in an abandoned mine where no one would ever dream or dare to look.
    “What’s the split?” It was Jasmine who broke the silence, who suddenly commanded the albino man’s attention. He laughed, and I choked down my fear.
    “You gots sass. I likes that. It’s thirty thousand dollars. Gold coin. It bein’ my gold, and what with me havin’ better’n twenty years invested in the deal, I figger on me gettin’ twenty-five of it, but that’s five thousand dollars to split amongst your own-selves. Five thousand dollars. But afore I go tellin’ you my story, you got to answer me a few questions. Such as…how come you kids ain’t in school?”
    “We’re orphans!”
    The voice surprised me—for it was my own. I saw my share of five thousand dollars as a ticket out of the purgatory in which I had found myself trapped. I could put Shakespeare and my drunkard father far behind me. Finally I could bury him, alongside Ma, Patsy, and Kaye, at least in my memory, my reasoning.
    “Orphans! Jack, we ain’t….”
    I kicked Ian Spencer Henry’s shin so hard, he cried out in pain. “Jack!” He whimpered, and I bit back a curse, knowing the albino had caught my lie.
    Only…he hadn’t. I don’t think he even heard anything after I told him we were orphans.
    “Orphans.” He tested the word. “Orphans, huh? Criminy, that might work. That just might work. Orphans, by my boots and socks! Yes, sir. Orphans.”
    He traced a calloused fingertip over the rim of the lunch pail, nodding, licking his cracked lips. “All right,” he said at last. “I’ll tell you the story, then we’ll talk. But here’s me rule. Twenty years I been after this gold, and I ain’t ’bout to lose it now. So oncet I tells you this story, oncet you hears it, it don’t leave your lips. Ever. I tell you this, just so you know I ain’t no fool spreadin’ lies. But you don’t tell nobody oncet I’m done. Else I will cut out your hearts. But iffen you wants to join me, pardners we’ll be. There’s a fortune in gold coin in Doubtful Cañon, and I aims to get it. By all rights, it’s mine anyways.”
    So he told his story. At least, part of it.
    He finished the peaches, slurped down the juice, wiping his face with his dingy bandanna, then belched.
    “You kids,” he said, “y’all wouldn’t happen to have no whiskey on you, would you?”
    Feeling the stares of Ian Spencer Henry on me, I bit my lip as my face flushed. Maybe he thought I might have brought a bottle of Pa’s forty-rod to hide from him. Maybe he just feared how I would react to the albino’s question.
    “Rye? Tequila? Don’t rightly matter as long as it’s wet and bites. Anything?”
    “No,” Jasmine answered. “I’m eleven going on twelve. Ian Spencer Henry and Jack just turned twelve. We’re too little….”
    He laughed. “Too li’l’? Young ’uns, I was drinkin’ rye whiskey without no water chaser afore I was ten. Figgered, criminy, sneakin’ off to this ol’ mine for a snort, that’s