“Is that woman real sick?” Betsey asked. “Why does she yell so much?” “She’s working at a hard task,” Clara said. “You better not burn that porridge, because I want some.” She carried the bucket up to the bedroom, pulled the smelly sheets out from under Bob, and washed him. Bob stared straight up, as he always did. Usually she warmed the water but this morning she hadn’t taken the time. It was cold and raised goosebumps on his legs. His big ribs seemed to stick out more every day. She had forgotten to bring fresh sheets—it was a constant problem, keeping fresh sheets—so she covered him with a blanket and walked out on her porch for a minute. She heard Elmira begin to moan, again and again. She ought to go relieve Cholo, she knew, but she didn’t rush. The birth might take another day. Everything took longer than it should, or else went too quick. Her sons’ lives had been whipped away like a breath, while her husband had lain motionless for two months and still wasn’t dead. It was wearying, trying to adjust to all the paces life required.
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Besides, Bob wasn’t really alive, even then—his eyes never flickered. It was only reflex that enabled him to swallow the soup she fed him. That his rod still seemed to live when she bathed him, that, too, was reflex, an obscene joke that life was playing on the two of them. It raised no feelings of tenderness in her, just a feeling of disgust at the cruelties of existence. It seemed to mock her, to make her feel that she was cheating Bob of something, though it was not easy to say what. She had married him, followed him, fed him, worked beside him, borne his children—and yet even as she changed his sheets she felt there was a selfishness in her that she had never mastered. Something had been held back—what it was, considering all that she had done, was hard to say. But she felt it anyway, fair judgment or not, and lay awake on her cot through half the night, tense with self-reproach.
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With her, it was different. He had never raised a hand to her, though she provoked him often, and deeply. Perhaps it was because he had never quite believed that she would marry him, or never quite understood why she had. The shadow of Augustus McCrae had hung over their courtship; Bob had never known why she chose him over the famous Ranger, or over any of the other men she could have had. In her day she had been the most sought-after girl in Texas, and yet she had married him, and followed him to the Nebraska plains, and stayed and worked beside him. It was hard country for women, Bob knew that. Women died, went crazy or left. The wife of their nearest neighbor, Maude Jones, had killed herself with a shotgun one morning, leaving a note which merely said, “Can’t stand listening to this wind no more.” Maude had had a husband and four children, but had killed herself anyway. For a time, Clara had taken in the children, until their grandparents in Missouri came for them. Len Jones, Maude’s husband, soon drank himself into poverty. He fell out of his wagon drunk one night and froze to death not two hundred yards from a saloon.
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He had been lying flat down, for he felt very weary, but he raised up on his elbow to take another swig from the jug, and he and little Eddie saw the three men at the same moment: three men with leveled rifles, standing on the riverbank with the sun at a blinding angle right behind them. Jake had taken off his gun belt—he couldn’t rest comfortably with it on.
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To Augustus’s surprise, Wilbarger raised his head. He had heard the digging. “Your friend’s efficient, ain’t he?” he said.
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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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“I guess we ought to rope him and drag him to the graveyard,” one said. “He looks dead to me.” “Hell, I wish all I had to do was lay on them stairs and vomit,” the other cowboy said. “It beats loading them longhorns.” July lay face down for a long time. The heaves finally diminished, but from time to time he raised his head and spat over the edge, to clear his throat. It was nearly sundown before he felt like sitting up, and then it was only to sit with his back against the building. He was high enough that he could see over the main street and the cattle pens and west to where the sun was setting, far off on the plain. It was setting behind a large herd of cattle being held a mile or two from town.
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When Jake spoke, the old man hesitated a second—he even glanced at the girl on the wagon seat. But at the sight of her he drew back his lips in a snarl and raised the shotgun again.
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By the time it registered that they were really Indians, they had already cut off the steer and were driving it away, as the Captain sat and watched. Newt was almost afraid to look at them, but when he did he was surprised at how thin and poor they looked. The old man who was their leader was just skin and bones. He rode near enough for Newt to see that one of his eyes was milky white. The other Indians were young. Their ponies were as thin as they were. They had no saddles, just saddle blankets, and only one had a gun, an old carbine. The Indians boxed the steer out of the herd as skillfully as any cowboys and soon had him headed across the empty plain. The old man raised his hand to the Captain as they left, and the Captain returned the gesture.
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Luke was fumbling with her blanket, trying to get her uncovered. When he raised up to loosen his clothes Elmira rolled on her stomach, thinking that might stop him. It did annoy him. He bent over her and she felt his hot breath at her ear.
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But no one heard him except the Hell Bitch, who grazed at the end of a long rope. Every night he slipped one end of the rope beneath his belt and then looped it around his wrist, so there would be no chance of her taking fright and suddenly jerking loose from him. Call had become so sensitive to her movements that if she even raised her head to sniff the air he would wake up. Usually it was no more than a deer, or a passing wolf. But the mare noticed, and Call rested better, knowing she would watch.
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He had a little dream about the wild pigs, not too frightening. The pigs were not as wild as they had been in real life. They were just rooting around a cabin and not trying to harm him, yet he woke in a terrible fright and saw something incomprehensible. Janey was standing a few feet in front of him, with a big rock raised over her head. She was holding itwith both hands—why would she do such a thing at that time of night? She wasn’t making a sound; she just stood in front of him holding the rock. It was not until she flung it that he realized someone else was there. But someone was: someone big. In his surprise, Roscoe forgot he had a pistol. He quickly stood up. He didn’t see where the rock went, but Janey suddenly dropped to her knees. She looked around at him. “Shoot at him,” she said. Roscoe remembered the pistol, which was cocked, but before he could raise it, the big shadow that Janey had thrown the rock at slid close to him and shoved him—not a hard shove, but it made him drop the pistol. He knew he was awake and not dreaming, but he didn’t have any more strength than he would have had in a dream in terms of moving quick. He saw the big shadow standing by him but he had felt no fear, and the shadow didn’t shove him again. Roscoe felt warm and sleepy and sat back down. It was like he was in a warm bath. He hadn’t had too many warm baths in his life, but he felt like he was in one and was ready for a long snooze. Janey was crawling, though—crawling right over his legs. “Now what are you doing?” he said, before he saw that her eyes were fixed on the pistol he had dropped. She wanted the pistol, and for some reason crawled right over his legs to get to it. But before she got to it the shadow came back. “Why, you’re a fighter, ain’t you?” the shadow man said. “If I wasn’t in such a hurry I’d show you a trick or two.” Then he raised his arms and struck down at her; Roscoe couldn’t see if it was with an ax or what, but the sound was like an ax striking wood, and Janey stopped moving and lay across his legs. “Joe?” Roscoe said; he had just remembered that he had made Joe stop cocking and uncocking his rifle so he could get to sleep.
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Lorena saw that, and just as she saw it the two horses raced right over Monkey John without touching him and were into the Kiowas. One Kiowa screamed, a sound more hopeless and frightening even than the scream of Dog Face. Before she thought about it being Gus, she saw him yank his horse almost down right in the middle of the Kiowas. He shot the one that screamed and then the two that held the knives, shooting from his horse right into their chests. Another Kiowa grabbed the lance with Dog Face’s scalp on it, but Gus shot him before he could lift it. He shot another just as the man was picking up his rifle. The last Kiowa fled into the darkness, and Gus turned his horse after him. “Finish any that ain’t finished,” he said to the other man. But that man had barely dismounted before there was a shot in the darkness. He stood by his horse listening. There was another shot, and then the sound of a horse loping back. Lorena thought it was over but Monkey John shot with his pistol at the man standing by the fire. He missed completely and the man slowly raised his own pistol, but before he could fire Gus rode back into the firelight and shot with his rifle, knocking Monkey John back into the pack.
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The Kiowas, singing and drinking, two with bloody knives still in their hands, didn’t hear the running, but Monkey John suddenly heard it. He jumped to his feet and raised his rifle, but before he could fire she heard a gun go off in the darkness and Monkey John dropped the rifle and slumped to a sitting position, his mouth open as if he were about to say something.
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Only this time she wasn’t there to follow. Roscoe looked all around and there wasn’t a soul in sight, though the plain stretched out and he could see for miles. He was alone, and by no means sure of his direction. It scared him. He had come to depend on the girl, even though she was a loud sleeper. He yelled a time or two, but got no response. The fact that he could see so far scared him a little. He had been raised in a land of trees and was not used to country that looked so long and empty. How he could have lost Janey in such an open place was a mystery to him. He sat still for a while, hoping she would pop up, but she didn’t, and finally he rode on at a slow walk.
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“You dern cowboys ought to broom yourselves off before you walk in here,” he said with an insolent look. “We can get all the sand we need without the customers bringing it to us. That’ll be two dollars.” Augustus pitched a ten-dollar gold piece on the bar and as the young man took it, suddenly reached out, grabbed his head and smashed his face into the bar, before the young man could even react. Then he quickly drew his big Colt, and when the bartender raised his head, his broken nose gushing blood onto his white shirtfront, he found himself looking right into the barrel of a very big gun.
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Before she could get to sleep a horse came racing toward the camp. It was only Jake, running in in the hope of scaring her. He raced right into camp, which was irritating because it raised dust that settled in the blankets. He had ridden into town and bought whiskey, and then had rushed back, thinking to catch her with Gus or one of the cowhands. He was jealous every hour of the day.
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Jake had no part in the decision because Jake was drunk. He had been steadily drinking whiskey all day as they rode, and was so unsteady in his seat that Lorena wasn’t even sure they were still going in the right direction. But they were ahead of the cattle—from every clearing she could look back and see the dust the herd raised. It was a fair way back, but directly behind them, which made her feel reassured. It would not be pleasant to be lost, with Jake so drunk.
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“What if Elmira comes back?” Roscoe asked. No one had raised that possibility. “Then I’d be gone and won’t know it.” “Why would she come back?” Peach asked. “She just left.” Roscoe found it hard even to remember Elmira, though he had done practically nothing but think about her for the last twenty-four hours. All he really knew was that he hated to ride out of the one town he felt at home in. That everyone was eager for him to go made him feel distinctly bitter.
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LY JOHNSON HAD BEEN RAISED not to complain, so he didn’t complain, but the truth of the matter was, it had been the hardest year of his life: a year in which so many things went wrong that it was hard to know which trouble to pay attention to at any given time.
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“It’s hard for normal men to relax around you, Call,” Augustus told him once. “You ain’t never been relaxed yourself, so you don’t know what you’re missing.” “Pshaw,” Call said. “Pea goes to sleep around me half the time. I guess that’s relaxed.” “No, that’s worn out,” Augustus said. “If you didn’t work him sixteen hours a day he’d be as nervous as the rest.” When Call had eaten, he took his plate back to Bolivar, who seemed to have decided to go along. He had made no move to leave, at least. Call wanted him along, and yet somehow didn’t feel quite right about it. It didn’t seem proper that a man with a wife and daughters would go away without even informing them, on a journey from which he might never return. The old pistolero didn’t owe the Hat Creek outfit that kind of effort, and Call reluctantly raised the subject with him.
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But when he raised up on one elbow to look at her in the fresh light, the urge to discourage her went away. It was a weakness, but he could not bear to disappoint women, even if it was ultimately for their own good. At least he couldn’t disappoint them to their faces. Leaving them was his only out, and he knew he wasn’t ready to leave Lorie. Her beauty blew the sleep right out of his brain, and all she was doing was looking out a window, her long golden hair spilling over her shoulders. She wore an old threadbare cotton shift that should have been thrown away long ago. She didn’t own a decent dress, and had nothing to show her beauty to advantage, yet most of the men on the border would ride thirty miles just to sit in a saloon and look at her. She had the quality of not yet having really started her life—her face had a freshness unusual in a woman who had been sporting for a while. The thought struck him that the two of them might do well in San Francisco, if they could just get there. There were men of wealth there, and Lorie’s beauty would soon attract them.
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“You boys must have been raised on satin pillows,” he said. “If you’d rangered you’d have got a taste for snake long ago.” He then proceeded to give them a lecture on the culinary properties of rattlesnake—a lecture that Jasper, for one, received rather stiffly. It might be superior to chicken, rabbit and possum, as Gus claimed, but that didn’t mean he wanted to eat it. His visits to the stewpot became a source of irritation to everyone; he would fish around in the pot for several minutes, seeking portions of meat that he could feel confident hadn’t come from a snake. Such delicacy exacerbated the rest of the crew, who were usually so hungry by suppertime that they could ill abide waits.
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The widow Spettle had a brood of eight children, Bill and Pete being the oldest. Ned Spettle, the father of them all, had died of drink two years before. It looked to Call as if the family was about to starve out. They had a little creek-bottom farm not far north of Pickles Gap, but the soil was poor and the family had little to eat but sowbelly and beans. The widow Spettle, however, was eager for him to take the boys, and would hear no protest from Call. She was a thin woman with bitter eyes. Call had heard from someone that she had been raised rich, in the East, with servants to comb her hair and help her into her shoes when she got up. It might just have been a story—it was hard for him to imagine a grownup who would need to be helped into their own shoes—but if even part of it was true she had come a long way down. Ned Spettle had never got around to putting a floor in the shack of a house he built. His wife was rearing eight children on the bare dirt. He had heard it said that Ned had never got over the war, which might have explained it. Plenty hadn’t. It accounted for the shortage of grown men of a certain age, that war. Call himself felt a kind of guilt at having missed it, though the work he and Gus had done on the border had been just as dangerous, and just as necessary.
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Even more persistent than the thought of her reading the Psalms was another memory. One day he had been passing her house just as a little thunderstorm swept through the town, scaring the dogs and cats and rolling tumbleweeds down the middle of the street. Mary had hung a washing and was out in her backyard trying to get it in before the rain struck, but the thunderstorm proved too quick for her. Big drops of rain began to splatter in the dust, and the wind got higher, causing the sheets on Mary’s clothesline to flap so hard they popped like guns. Pea had been raised to be helpful, and since it was obvious that Mary was going to have a hard time with the sheets, he started over to offer his assistance.
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