It was the squeal that caught Call’s attention. After loading the heavy oak water barrel, he and Augustus had stepped back into the store a minute. Augustus was contemplating buying a lighter pistol to replace the big Colt he carried, but he decided against it. He carried out some of the things he had bought for Lorena, and Call took a sack of flour. They heard the horse squeal while they were still in the store, and came out to see Dixon quirting Newt, as Dish Boggett’s mare turned round and round. Two cowboys lay on the ground, one of them Dish.
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Pete Spettle, anger in his face, leaped in and tried to get the quirt, but Dixon backhanded him and Pete went down—it turned out his nose was broken.Newt tried to hunker close to the mare. At first Dixon was mainly quirting his hands, to make him turn loose, but when that was unsuccessful he began to hit Newt wherever he could catch him. One whistling blow cut his ear. He tried to duck his head, but Sugar was scared and kept turning, exposing him to the quirt. Dixon began to whip him on the neck and shoulders. Newt shut his eyes and clung to the bit. Once he glanced at Dixon and saw the man smiling—he had cruel eyes, like a boar pig’s. Then he ducked, for Dixon attempted to cut him across the face. The blow hit Sugar instead, causing the horse to rear and squeal.
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“Damn, these cowboys are pests,” Dixon said. “Even the pups.” The soldier next to him had a rawhide quirt hanging from his saddle horn. Dixon reached over and got it, and without another word rode close to the mare and began to lash Newt with it.
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“That’ll teach you to sass me, cowboy,” he said. Then he glanced at the boys. “He can send the bill for this mare to the U.S. Army,” Dixon said. “That is if he ever remembers there was a mare, when he wakes up.” Newt was all but paralyzed with worry. He had seen the pistol butt strike Dish twice, and for all he knew Dish was dead. It had happened so quickly that Ben Rainey still had his hands in the sack of candy.
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Dixon, who looked ungodly big to Newt, rode his black gelding practically on top of Dish Boggett before he stopped. Dish, cool as ice, put the saddle blanket on the mare and paid him no mind.
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“Go around to the back of that saloon, then,” Dish said. “You’ll find plenty.” Dish now rode a fine little mare he called Sugar. In disposition, she was the opposite of the Hell Bitch. She was almost like a pet. Dish would take tidbits from his plate and feed them to her by hand. He claimed she had the best night vision ofany horse he had ever seen—in all their stampedes she had never stepped in a hole.
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“That one’s got a name too—Clara,” Augustus pointed out. “You are determined not to use names for females. I’m surprised you even named your mare.” “Pea Eye named her,” Call said. It was true. Pea Eye had done it the first time she bit him.
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When they sighted the Republican River Gus was with him. From a distance it didn’t seem like much of a river. “That’s the one that got the Pumphrey boy, ain’t it?” Augustus said. “Hope it don’t get none of us, we’re a skinny outfit as it is.” “We wouldn’t be if you did any work,” Call said. “Are you going to leave her in Ogallala or what?” “Are you talking about Lorie or this mare I’m riding?” Augustus asked. “If it’s Lorie, it wouldn’t kill you to use her name.” “I don’t see that it matters,” Call said, though even as he said it he remembered that it had seemed to matter to Maggie—she had wanted to hear him say her name.
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“We use this nipple for the colts,” she said. “Sometimes the mares don’t have their milk at first. It’s a good thing this boy’s got a big mouth.” The child was sucking greedily on the nipple, which was quite large, it seemed to July.
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Suddenly Clara felt angry that the man had been fool enough to think he could break that mare, when both she and Cholo had warned him to leave her alone. It made her angry at herself, to have lived so long with a horse trader who had no more savvy than that.
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“Zwey wants to get to town,” Luke said. “Can Ellie go yet?” “Oh, no,” Clara said. “She’s had a bad time and she’s weak. It would kill her to travel today. She’ll need to rest for about a week. Maybe you could come back for her, or else we could bring her in our little wagon when she gets well.” But Zwey refused to leave. Ellie had wanted to get to town, he remembered, and he was determined to wait until she could go. He sat in the shade of the wagon all day and taught the two young girls how to play mumblety-peg. Clara looked out at them occasionally from the upper windows—there seemed no harm in the man. Luke, bored, had ridden off with Cholo to check the mares.
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Soon all the mares in the corral were pricking their ears and watching the approaching wagon. A big man in a coat heavierthan Cholo’s rode beside it on a little brown horse that looked as if it would drop if it had to carry him much farther. A man with a badly scarred face rode on the wagon seat, beside a woman who was heavy with child. The woman drove the team. All three looked so blank with exhaustion that even the sight of people, after what must have been a long journey, didn’t excite them much. A few buffalo hides were piled in the wagon. Cholo watched the travelers carefully, but they didn’t seem to pose a threat. The woman drew rein and looked down at them as if dazed.
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Now he penned the mares and loped over to be sure she wasn’t threatened by whoever was coming in the wagon. They kept a shotgun in the saddle shed, but Clara only used it to kill snakes, and she only killed snakes because they were always stealing her eggs. At times the hens seemed to her almost more trouble than they were worth, for they had to be protected constantly from coyotes, skunks, badgers, even hawks and eagles.
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As Clara watched the wagon the girls had spotted drawing closer, she saw Cholo come riding in with two mares who were ready to foal. Cholo had seen the wagon too, and had come to look after her. He was a cautious old man, as puzzled by Clara as he was devoted to her. It was her recklessness that disturbed him. She was respectful of dangerous horses, but seemed to have no fear at all of dangerous men. She laughed when Cholo tried to counsel her. She was not even afraid of Indians, though Cholo had showed her the scars of the arrow wounds he had suffered.
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And yet he loved the girls in his unspeaking way. His love mostly came out in awkwardness, for their delicacy frightened him. He was continually warning them about their health and trying to keep them wrapped up. Their recklessness almost stopped his heart at times—they were the kind of girls who would run out in the snow barefoot if they chose. He feared for them, and also feared the effect on his wife if one of them should die. Impervious to weather himself, he came to dread the winters for fear winter would take the rest of his family. Yet the girls proved as strong as their mother, whereas the boys had all been weak. It made no sense to Bob, and he was hoping if they could only have another boy, he would turn into the helper he needed.The only hand they had was an old Mexican cowboy named Cholo. The old man was wiry and strong, despite his age, and stayed mainly because of his devotion to Clara. It was Cholo, and not her husband, who taught her to love horses and to understand them. Cholo had pointed out to her at once that her husband would never break the mustang mare; he had urged her to persuade Bob to sell the mare unbroken, or else let her go. Though Bob had been a horse trader all his adult life, he had no real skill with horses. If they disobeyed him, he beat them—Clara had often turned her back in disgust from the sight of her husband beating a horse, for she knew it was his incompetence, not the horse’s, that was to blame for whatever incident had provoked the beating. Bob could not contain his violence when angered by a horse.
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“That wagon won’t be here for an hour,” Clara said. “Go see about your pa. His fever comes up in the afternoon. Wet a rag and wipe his face.” Both girls stood looking at her silently. They hated to go into the sickroom. Both of them had bright-blue eyes, their legacy from Bob, but their hair was like hers and they were built like her, even to the knobby knees. Bob had been kicked in the head by a mustang he was determined to break, against Clara’s advice. She had seen it happen—he had the mare snubbed to a post with a heavy rope and only turned his back on her for a second. But the mare struck with her front feet, quick as a snake. Bob had bent over to pick up another rope and the kick had caught him right back of the ear. The crack had sounded like a shot. The mare pawed him three or four times before Clara could reach him and drag him out of the way, but those blows had been minor. The kick behind the ear had almost killed him. They had been so sure he would die that they even dug the grave, up on the knoll east of the house where their three boys were buried: Jim and Jeff and Johnny, the three deaths Clara felt had turned her heart to stone: she hoped for stone, anyway, for stone wouldn’t suffer from such losses.
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The young mare had dropped her foal early and the colt was too weak to stand up, which was why she was milking. The colt would suck milk off a rag, and Clara was determined to save it if she could. When Sally ran up, the mare flinched, causing Clara to squirt a stream of milk along her own arm.
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CLARA WAS MILKING A MARE when Sally, her oldest girl, came racing down to the lots.
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“Sobriety, if you guzzle enough of it,” Augustus said. “I expect it’s just whiskey and syrup.” The wagon itself was in such poor repair that they decided to leave it sit. Call broke up the tailgate and made a little marker for Jake’s grave, scratching his name on it with a pocketknife by the light of the old man’s lantern. He hammered the marker into the loose-packed dirt with the blunt side of a hatchet they had found in the wagon. Augustus trotted over, bringing Call his mare.
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“I wish he’d had the sense to stay with Lorie,” Augustus said. “She might have aggravated him some, but she wouldn’t have led him to this.” “It’s his dern laziness,” Call said. “Jake just kind of drifts. Any wind can blow him.” He touched the mare and rode on—he didn’t need Deets in order to follow the tracks of nearly thirty horses. He put the mare into a slow lope, a gait she could hold all day if necessary.
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“I do admire that mare,” he said. “I want you to keep that mean plug of mine for your troubles. He’s not brilliant, but he’s sturdy.” He lay back and was quiet for a while, as the dusk deepened.
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He raised his head again. “Still riding that mare, I see,” he said. “If I could have talked you out of her I probably wouldn’t be lying here shot. She’d have smelled the damn horsethieves. I do think she’s a beauty.” “How many were there?” Call asked. “Or could you get a count?” “I expect it was Dan Suggs and his two brothers, and a bad nigger they ride with,” Wilbarger said. “I think I hit the nigger.” “I don’t know the Suggses,” Call said.
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He sat up much of the night, listening to the Irishman sing to the cattle. As he was listening, a skunk walked between him and the mare. It nosed along, stopping now and then to scratch at the dirt. Call sat still and the skunk soon went on its way. The Hell Bitch paid it no mind. She went on quietly grazing.
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“Oh, well,” Call said, “we ain’t far from Dodge. He may just be looking for a summer of gambling. Keep your eye out, though,” he added. “If you strike his track again, let me know.” Deets went on back to camp, but Call stopped a mile away and staked his mare. He considered riding over to see Gus and passing on the news, but decided it could wait until morning. News of Jake might disturb the girl. If he was right, and Jake was just headed for Dodge, there was nothing to worry about.
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He saw the girl come out of the tent when Gus dismounted. She was just a shape in the twilight. Gus said she wouldn’t talk much, not even to him. Call didn’t intend to try her. He loped a mile or two to the west and put the mare on her lead rope. The sky overhead was still light and there was a little fingernail moon.JAKE SPENT MOST of his days in a place called Bill’s Saloon, a little clapboard place on the Trinity River bluffs. It was a two- story building. The whores took the top story and the gamblers and cowboys used the bottom. From the top floor there were usually cattle in sight trailing north, small herds and large. Once in a while a foreman came in for liquor and met Jake. When they found out he had been north to Montana, some tried to hire him, but Jake just laughed at them. The week after he left, the Hat Creek herd had been a good week. He couldn’t draw a bad card, and by the time the week was over he had a stake enough to last him a month or two.
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