Elmira didn’t answer. She didn’t want to talk to this woman. Her breasts were so full they hurt; she didn’t care that the baby took the milk, she just didn’t want to look at it. She wanted to get up and make Zwey take her to town, to Dee, but she knew she couldn’t do it yet. Her legs were so weak she could hardly move them on the bed. She would never get downstairs unless she crawled.
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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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“She’s too weak,” Cholo said.
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Once again, Clara had reason to be glad of Cholo, who was as good with women as he was with horses. Difficult births didn’t frighten him as they did most men, and many women. Elmira’s was difficult, too—the exhausting journey over the plains had left her too weak for the task at hand. She fainted many times during the night. Clara could do nothing about itexcept bathe her face with cool water from the cistern. When day came, Elmira was too weak to scream. Clara was worried—the woman had lost too much blood.
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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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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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The men had to be helped onto the horses because of the way their hands were tied. Little Eddie had lost a lot of blood and was so weak he could barely keep his seat.
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They got back to Wilbarger a little after sundown, before the plains had begun to lose the long twilight. He had reached the Arkansas before collapsing, and lay under the shade of the bank on a blanket Deets had left him. He was too weak to do more than raise his head when they rode up; even that exhausted him.
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“Did you get to see Lorie?” Dish asked point-blank. He still felt such love for Lorie that even speaking her name caused him to feel weak sometimes.
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July sat where he was until the afterglow was just a pale line on the western horizon. The white moon shone on the railroad ties that snaked out of town to the east. He felt too weak to stand up, and he sat listening to the sounds of laughter that came from the saloon behind him.
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He went back to get the cattle, and when he glanced again at the boys, they looked funny. They didn’t have hats. A second later he realized why: they were Indians, all of them. Newt felt so scared he went weak. He hated life on the plains. One minute it was pretty, then a cloud of grasshoppers came, and now Indians. The worst of it was that he was alone. It was always happening, and he felt convinced it was Mouse’s fault. Somehow he could never stay with the rest of the boys when there was a run. He had to wander off by himself. This time the results were serious, for the five Indians were only fifty yards away. He felt he ought to pull his gun, but he knew he couldn’t shoot well enough to kill five of them—anyhow, the Captain hadn’t shot when the old chief with the milky eye had asked for a beef. Maybe they were friendly.
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There was no more danger of that. When Luke’s fever broke, he was so weak he could barely turn over. Zwey went off and hunted, as he had been doing, and Elmira drove the wagon. Twice she got the wagon stuck in a creek and had to wait until Zwey found her and pulled it out. He seemed as strong as either of the mules.
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“Jasper missed the cobbler, that’s the laugh,” Allen O’Brien said, not feeling too frisky himself. “I used to be better at hangovers, back in Ireland. Of course, then I had one every day,” he reflected. “I had more practice.” When Jasper realized he had missed a dewberry cobbler, one of his favorite dishes, he threatened to quit the outfit, since they were so ungrateful. But he was too weak to carry out his threat. Po Campo forced him to eat a big spoonful of molasses as a headache cure, while the rest of the crew got the herd on the move.
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Roscoe was glad he hadn’t had to go with the other men. He remembered how weak he had felt that afternoon when he realized it was bullets that were hitting in the grass around him. It had sounded like bees sounded in the leaves; but of course it was bullets.
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“Hell, I can’t help her,” Monkey John said. “You heard him. He gave her to them.” One of the Kiowas understood the talk and was angered. He pulled his knife and stood over Dog Face threateningly. Dog Face continued to moan. Then the Kiowa sat on his chest and Dog Face screamed, a weak scream. The rest of the Indians jumped for him. He was too weak even to lift a hand. One Kiowa cut his belt and two more pulled his pants off. Before Lorena could even turn her head, they castrated him. Another slashed a knife across his forehead and began to rip off his hair. Dog Face screamed again, but it was soon muffled as the Kiowas held his head and stuffed his own bloody organsinto his mouth, shoving them down his throat with the handle of a knife. His hair was soon ripped off and the Kiowa took the scalp and tied it to his lance. Dog Face struggled for breath, a pool of blood beneath his legs. Yet he wasn’t dead.
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Lorena lay where she had fallen, listening to Dog Face moan. With each breath he let out a throaty moan. His wound had bloody bubbles on it. Lorena got up on her hands and knees and vomited from fear. The Kiowas were all looking at her as they drank. She wanted to run but felt too weak. Anyway, they would soon catch her if she ran. She crawled away from the vomit and sank back, too tired and scared to move. Monkey John sat back from the fire, clutching his rifle. He didn’t even look at her—he wouldn’t help her. She was just in for it.
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“It’s a weak excuse,” Wilbarger said, marking his place with a grass blade and standing up. “I didn’t notice much law in Arkansas either. There’s law of sorts in New Orleans, but out here it’s every man for himself.” “Well, there’s Texas Rangers but I guess they mostly fight the Indians,” July said, wondering where the conversation would end.
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July had looked perked up when he went in, but not when he came out. “It’s from Peach,” he said. He opened the letter and leaned against a hitch rail to try and make out Peach’s handwriting, which was rather hen-scratchy: Dear July—Ellie took off just after you did. My opinion is she won’t be back, and Charlie thinks the same.Roscoe’s a poor deputy, you ought to dock his wages over this. He didn’t even notice she was gone but I called it to his attention.Roscoe has started after you, to give you the news, but it is not likely he’ll find you—he is a man of weak abilities. I think the town is a sight better off without him.We think Ellie left on a whiskey boat, I guess she took leave of her senses. If that’s the case it would be a waste of time to go looking for her, Charlie thinks the same. You had better just go on and catch Jake Spoon, he deserves to pay the price.Your sister-in-law,Mary Johnson July had forgotten that Peach had a normal name like Mary before his brother gave her the nickname. Ben had found Peach in Little Rock and had even lived there two months in order to court her.
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When he untied her at a creek, she stumbled into it to drink, no longer caring if she got wet or muddy. Again he gave her only a piece of hard dried meat. She barely had the strength to get back on the horse; she had to claw her way up using the mane. Blue Duck didn’t help her and he tied her ankles anyway, though it was obvious she was too weak to run away.
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Her legs had been wet several times. In a little creek scarcely five feet wide he decided to let the horses water. He untied Lorena’s ankles and nodded for her to get down. She did, and almost fell, her limbs were so weak and numb. It was dark in the little creek bed, but light on the ridge above it. As she stood by her horse, holding onto a stirrup until some feeling came back in her legs, Blue Duck opened his trousers and made water, while the horses drank.
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What he wanted most was what he could never have: for it not to have happened—any of it. Better by far never to have known the pleasure than to have the pain that followed. Maggie had been a weak woman, and yet her weakness had all but slaughtered his strength. Sometimes just the thought of her made him feel that he shouldn’t pretend to lead men anymore.
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Pea, particularly, stood in awe of Augustus’s vision, his own being notably weak. Sometimes on a hunt Augustus would try in vain to show Pea Eye an antelope or a deer.
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Soon Roscoe had nothing left in him to throw up but his guts, and he was expecting to see them come up any time. When he finally sat up, feeling extremely weak, he found that they had come to the banks of a wide, shallow river. The soldiers had ignored his illness, but they couldn’t ignore the river.
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Augustus waited for Allen O’Brien, who was the last to mount. He was so weak from shock, it seemed he might not be able to, but he finally got on his horse and rode off, looking back until the grave was hidden by the tall gray grass. “It seems too quick,” he said. “It seems very quick, just to ride off and leave the boy. He was the babe of our family,” he added.
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“Maybe she just took a walk,” Roscoe said, although he knew that sounded weak.
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