Lonesome Dove (80 page)

82

THE NEXT MORNING, when he managed to get up, July came into the kitchen to find Cholo sharpening a thin-bladed knife. The baby lay on the table, kicking his bare feet, and Clara, wearing a man’s hat, was giving the two girls instructions.

“Don’t feed him just because he hollers,” she said. “Feed him when it’s time.”

She looked at July, who felt embarrassed. He was not sick, and yet he felt as weak as if he had had a long fever. A plate with some cold eggs on it and a bit of bacon sat on the table—his breakfast, no doubt. Being the last one up made him feel a burden.

Cholo stood up. It was clear he and Clara were contemplating some work. July knew he ought to offer to help, but his legs would barely carry him to the table. He couldn’t understand it. He had long since been over his jaundice, and yet he had no strength.

“We’ve got to geld some horses,” Clara said. “We’ve put it off too long, hoping Bob would get back on his feet.”

“I hate it when you do that,” Sally said.

“You’d hate it worse if we had a bunch of studs running around here,” Clara said. “One of them might crack your head just like that mustang cracked your father’s.”

She paused by the table a minute and tickled one of the baby’s feet.

“I’d like to help,” July said.

“You don’t look that vigorous,” she said.

“I’m not sick,” July said. “I must have slept too hard.”

“I expect you did something too hard,” she said. “Stay and make conversation with these girls. That’s harder work than gelding horses.”

July liked the girls, though he had not said much to them. They seemed fine girls to him, always chattering. Mostly they fought over who got to tend the baby.

Clara and Cholo left and July slowly ate his breakfast, feeling guilty. Then he remembered what had happened—Ellie was gone, into Indian country. He had to go after her as soon as he ate. The baby, still on the table, gurgled at him. July had scarcely looked at it, though it seemed a good baby. Clara wanted it, the girls fought over it, and yet Ellie had left it. Thinking about it made him more confused.

After breakfast he got his rifle, but instead of leaving, he walked down to the lots. Every now and then he heard the squeal of a young horse. Walking, he didn’t feel quite so weak, and it occurred to him that he ought to try and be some help—he could start after Ellie later.

It was hot, and the young horses were kicking up dust in the lots. To his surprise, he saw that Clara was doing the cutting, while the old man held the ropes. It was hard work—the horses were strong, and they badly needed another man. July quickly climbed into the lots and helped the old man anchor the hind legs of a quivering young bay.

Clara paused a moment, wiping the sweat off her forehead with her shirttail. Her hands were bloody.

“Shouldn’t one of us do it?” July asked.

“No,” Cholo said. “She is better.”

“Bob taught me,” Clara said. “We didn’t have any help when we first came here. I wasn’t strong enough to hold the horses so I got stuck with the messier job.”

They gelded fifteen young horses and left them in the pen where they could be watched. July had stopped feeling weak, but even so it was a wonder to him how hard Clara and the old man worked. They didn’t stop to rest until the job was done, by which time they were all soaked with sweat. Clara splashed water out of the horse trough to wash her hands and forearms, and immediately started for the house.

“I hope those worthless girls have been cooking,” she said. “I’ve built an appetite.”

“Do you know anything about the Indian situation?” July asked.

“I know Red Cloud,” Clara said. “Bob was good to him. They lived on our horses that hard winter we had four years ago—they couldn’t find buffalo.”

“I’ve heard they’re dangerous,” July said.

“Yes,” Clara said. “Red Cloud’s fed up. Bob treated them fair and we’ve never had to fear them. I was more scared as a girl. The Comanches would come right into Austin and take children. I always dreamed they’d get me and I’d have red babies.”

July had never felt so irresolute. He ought to go, and yet he didn’t. Though he had worked hard, he had little appetite, and after the meal spent more time cleaning his gun than was really necessary.

When he finished, he sat the rifle against the porch railing, telling himself that he would get up and leave. But before he could get up, Clara walked out on the porch with no warning at all and put the baby into his hands. She practically dropped the child into his lap, an act July felt was very reckless. He had to catch him.

“That’s a good sign,” Clara said. “At least you’d catch him if somebody threw him off a roof.”

The baby stared at July with wide eyes, as surprised, evidently, as he was. July looked at Clara, who seemed angry.

“I think it’s time you took a look at him,” she said. “He’s your boy. He might come to like you, in which case he’ll bring you more happiness than that woman ever will. He needs you a sight more than she does, too.”

July felt scared he would do something wrong with the baby. He also was a little scared of Clara.

“I don’t know anything about babies,” he said.

“No, and you’ve never lived any place but Arkansas,” Clara said. “But you ain’t stupid and you ain’t nailed down. You can live other places and you can learn about children—people dumber than you learn about them.”

Again, July felt belabored by the tireless thing in Clara. Ellie might not look at him, but she didn’t pursue him relentlessly with words, as Clara did.

“Stay here,” she said. “Do you hear me? Stay here! Martin needs a pa and I could use a good hand. If you go trailing after that woman, either the Indians will kill you or that buffalo hunter will, or you’ll just get lost and starve. It’s a miracle you made it this far. You don’t know the plains and I don’t believe you know your wife, either. How long did you know her before you married?”

July tried to remember. The trial in Missouri had lasted three days, but he had met Ellie nearly a week before that.

“Two weeks, I guess,” he said.

“That’s short acquaintance,” Clara said. “The smartest man alive can’t learn much about a woman in two weeks.”

“Well, she wanted to marry,” July said. It was all he could remember about it. Ellie had made it clear she wanted to marry.

“That could have been another way of saying she wanted a change of scene,” Clara said. “People get a hankering to quit what they’re doing. They think they want to try something else. I do it myself. Half the time I think I’d like to pack up these girls and go live with my aunt in Richmond, Virginia.”

“What would you do there?” July asked.

“I might write books,” Clara said. “I’ve a hankering to try it. But then it’ll come a pretty morning and I see the horses grazing and think how I’d miss them. So I doubt I’ll get off to Richmond.”

Just then the baby began to cry, squirming in his hands. July looked at Clara, but she made no effort to take the baby. July didn’t know what to do. He was afraid he might drop the child, who twisted in his hands like a rabbit and yelled so loud he turned red as a beet.

“Is he sick?” July asked.

“No, he’s fine,” Clara said. “Maybe he’s telling you off for ignoring him all this time. I wouldn’t blame him.”

With that she turned and went back in the house, leaving him with the baby, who at once began to cry even harder. July hoped one of the girls would come out and help, but neither seemed to be around. It seemed very irresponsible of Clara to simply leave him with the child. He felt again that she was not a very helpful woman. But then Ellie hadn’t been helpful, either.

He was afraid to stand up with the baby squirming so—he might drop him. So he sat, wondering why in the world people wanted children. How could anyone know what a baby wanted, or what to do for them?

But, as abruptly as he had started, the baby stopped crying. He whimpered a time or two, stuck his fist in his mouth, and then simply stared at July again as he had at first. July was so relieved that he scarcely moved.

“Talk to him a little,” Clara said. She stood in the door behind him.

“What do you say?”

She made a snort of disgust. “Introduce yourself, if you can’t think of nothing else,” she said. “Or sing him a song. He’s sociable. He likes a little talk.”

July looked at the baby, but couldn’t think of a song.

“Can’t you even hum?” Clara asked, as if it were a crime that he had not immediately started singing.

July remembered a saloon song he had always liked: “Lorena.” He tried humming a little of it. The baby, who had been wiggling, stopped at once and looked at him solemnly. July felt silly humming, but since it calmed the baby, he kept on. He was holding the baby almost at arm’s length.

“Put him against your shoulder,” Clara said. “You don’t have to hold him like that—he ain’t a newspaper.”

July tried it. The baby soon wet his shirt with slobbers, but he wasn’t crying. July continued to hum “Lorena.”

Then, to his relief, Clara took the baby.

“That’s progress,” she said. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Dusk came and July didn’t leave. He sat on the porch, his rifle across his lap, trying to make up his mind to go. He knew he ought to. However difficult she was, Ellie was still his wife. She might be in danger, and it was his duty to try and save her. If he didn’t go, he would be giving up forever. He might never even know if she had lived or died. He didn’t want to be the kind of man who would just let his wife blow out of his life like a weed. And yet that was what he was doing. He felt too tired to do otherwise. Even if the Indians didn’t get him, or them, even if he didn’t get lost on the plains, he might just find her, in some other room, and have her turn her face away again. Then what? She could go on running, and he would go on chasing, until something really bad happened.

When Clara came out again to call him to supper, he felt worn out from thinking. He almost flinched when he heard Clara’s step, for he had a feeling she was ill-disposed toward him and might have something sharp to say. Again he was wrong. She walked down the steps and paused to watch three cranes flying across the sunset, along the silver path of the Platte.

“Ain’t they great birds?” she said quietly. “I wonder which I’d miss most, them or the horses, if I was to move away.”

July didn’t suppose she would move away. She seemed so much of the place that it didn’t seem likely.

After watching the birds, she looked at him as if just noticing that he was still there.

“Are you willing to stay?” she asked.

July had rather she hadn’t asked—rather it had been something that just happened. He didn’t feel he had made a decision—and yet he hadn’t left.

“I guess I oughtn’t to chase her,” he said finally. “I guess I ought to let her be.”

“It doesn’t do to sacrifice for people unless they want you to,” Clara said. “It’s just a waste.”

“Ma, it’s getting cold,” Betsey said from the doorway.

“I was just enjoying the summer for a minute,” Clara said.

“Well, you’re always telling us how much you hate to serve cold food,” Betsey said.

Clara looked at her daughter for a moment and then went up the steps.

“Come on, July,” she said. “These girls mean to see that we keep up our standards.”

He put the rifle back in the saddle scabbard and followed her into the house.

83

AS THE HERD wound across the brown prairies toward the Platte, whoring became the only thing the men could talk about. Of course, they always liked to talk about it, but there had been sections of the drive when they occasionally mentioned other things—the weather, cards, the personalities of horses, trials and tribulations of the past. After Jake’s death they had talked a good deal about the vagaries of justice, and what might cause a pleasant man to go bad. Once in a while they might talk about their families, although that usually ended with everyone getting homesick. Though a popular subject, it was tricky to handle.

By the time they were within a week of Ogallala, all subjects other than whoring were judged to be superfluous. Newt and the Rainey boys were rather surprised. They were interested in whoring too, in a vague sort of way, but listening to the grown men talk at night, or during almost any stop, they concluded there must be more to whoring than they had imagined. Getting to visit a whore quickly came to seem the most exciting prospect life had to offer.

“What if the Captain don’t even want to stop in Ogallala?” Lippy asked, one night. “He ain’t much of a stopper.”

“Nobody’s asking
him
to stop,” Needle said. “He can keep driving, if he’s a mind. We’re the ones need to stop.”

“I don’t guess he likes whores,” Lippy said. “He didn’t come in the saloon much, that I remember.”

Jasper was impatient with Lippy’s pessimism. Any suggestion that they might not get to visit Ogallala was extremely upsetting to him.

“Can’t you shut up?” he said. “We don’t care what the Captain does. We just want to be let off.”

Po Campo was also likely to dampen the discussion, once he was free from his cooking chores.

“I think you should all go to the barber and forget these whores,” he added. “They will just take your money, and what will you get for it?”

“Something nice,” Needle said.

“A haircut will last you a month, but what you get from the whores will only last a moment,” Po remarked. “Unless she gives you something you don’t want.”

From the heated responses that ensued, Newt gathered that whores sometimes were not simply givers of pleasure. Diseases apparently sometimes resulted, although no one was very specific about them.

Po Campo was unshakable. He kept plugging for the barbershop over the whorehouse.

“If you think I’d rather have a haircut than a whore you’re crazy as a June bug,” Jasper said.

Newt and the Raineys left the more abstruse questions to others and spent most of their time trying to reckon the economics of a visit to town. The summer days were long and slow, the herd placid, the heat intense. Just having Ogallala to think about made the time pass quicker.

Occasionally one of the Raineys would ride over by Newt to offer some new speculation. “Soupy says they take off their clothes,” Ben Rainey said, one day.

Newt had once seen a Mexican girl who had pulled up her skirt to wade in the Rio Grande. She wore nothing under the skirt. When she noticed he was watching she merely giggled. Often, after that, he had slipped down to the river when nothing much was happening, hoping to see her cross again. But he never had; that one glimpse was all he had to go on when it came to naked women. He had run it through his mind so many times it was hardly useful.

“I guess that costs a bunch,” he said.

“’Bout a month’s wages,” Jimmy Rainey speculated.

Late one afternoon Deets rode in to report that the Platte was only ten miles ahead. Everyone in camp let out a whoop.

“By God, I wonder which way town is,” Soupy said. “I’m ready to go.”

Call knew the men were boiling to get to town. Though he had brought happy news, Deets himself seemed subdued. He had not been himself since Jake’s hanging.

“You feeling poorly?” Call asked.

“Don’t like this north,” Deets said.

“It’s good grazing country,” Call remarked.

“Don’t like it,” Deets said. “The light’s too thin.”

Deets had a faraway look in his eye. It puzzled Call. The man had been cheerful through far harder times. Now Call would often see him sitting on his horse, looking south, across the long miles they had come. At breakfast, sometimes, Call would catch him staring into the fire the way old animals stared before they died—as if looking across into the other place. The look in Deets’s eyes unsettled Call so much that he mentioned it to Augustus. He rode over to the tent one evening. Gus was sitting on a saddle blanket, barefoot, trimming his corns with a sharp pocketknife. The woman was not in sight, but Call stopped a good distance from the tent so as not to disturb her.

“If you want to talk to me you’ll have to come a little closer,” Augustus said. “I ain’t walking that far barefooted.”

Call dismounted and walked over to him. “I don’t know what’s the matter with Deets,” he said.

“Well, Deets is sensitive,” Augustus said. “Probably you hurt his feelings in your blunt way.”

“I didn’t hurt his feelings,” Call said. “I always try to be especially good to Deets. He’s the best man we got.”

“Best man we’ve ever had,” Augustus said. “Maybe he’s sick.”

“No,” Call said.

“I hope he ain’t planning to leave us,” Augustus said. “I doubt the rest of us could even find the water holes.”

“He says he don’t like the north,” Call said. “That’s all he’ll say.”

“I hear we strike the Platte tomorrow,” Augustus said. “All the boys are ready to go off and catch social diseases.”

“I know it,” Call said. “I’d just as soon miss this town, but we do need supplies.”

“Let them boys go off and hurrah a little,” Augustus said. “It might be their last chance.”

“Why would it be their last chance?”

“Old Deets might know something,” Augustus said. “Since he’s so sensitive. We might all get killed by Indians in the next week or two.”

“I doubt that,” Call said. “You ain’t much more cheerful than he is.”

“No,” Augustus said. He knew they were not far from Clara’s house, a fact which made Lorena extremely nervous.

“What will you do with me?” she had asked. “Leave me in the tent when you go see her?”

“No, ma’am,” he said. “I’ll take you along and introduce you properly. You ain’t just baggage, you know. Clara probably don’t see another woman once a month. She’ll be happy for feminine conversation.”

“She may know what I am, though,” Lorena said.

“Yes, she’ll know you’re a human being,” Augustus said. “You don’t have to duck your head to nobody. Half the women in this country probably started out like you did, working in saloons.”

“She didn’t,” Lorena said. “I bet she was always a lady. That’s why you wanted to marry her.”

Augustus chuckled. “A lady can slice your jugular as quick as a Comanche,” he said. “Clara’s got a sharp tongue. She’s tomahawked me many a time in the past.”

“I’ll be afraid to meet her, then,” Lorena said. “I’ll be afraid of what she’ll say.”

“Oh, she’ll be polite to you,” Augustus assured her. “I’m the one that will have to watch my step.”

But no matter what he said, he couldn’t soothe the girl’s agitation. She felt she would lose him, and that was that. She offered her body—it was all she knew to do. Something in the manner of the offer saddened him, though he accepted it. In their embraces she seemed to feel, for a moment, that he loved her; yet soon afterward she would grow sad again.

“You’re worrying yourself into a sweat for nothing,” he said. “Clara’s husband will probably live to be ninety-six, and anyway she and I probably ain’t got no use for one another now. I ain’t got the energy for Clara. I doubt I ever did.”

At night, when she finally slept, he would sit in the tent, pondering it all. He could see the campfire. Whatever boys weren’t night herding would be standing around it, swapping jokes. Probably all of them envied him, for he had a woman and they didn’t. He envied them back, for they were carefree and he wasn’t. Once started, love couldn’t easily be stopped. He had started it with Lorie, and it might never be stopped. He would be lucky to get again such easy pleasures as the men enjoyed, sitting around a campfire swapping jokes. Though he felt deeply fond of Lorena, he could also feel a yearning to be loose again and have nothing to do but win at cards.

The next morning he left Lorena for a bit and fell in with Deets.

“Deets, have you ever spent much time wanting what you know you can’t have?” he asked, figuring to get the conversation off to a brisk start.

“’Spect I’ve had a good life,” Deets said. “Captain paid me a fair wage. Ain’t been sick but twice, and one time was when I got shot over by the river.”

“That ain’t an answer to the (question I asked,” Augustus said.

“Wantin’ takes too much time,” Deets said. “I’d rather be working.”

“Yes, but what would you have, if you could have what you really want, right now?”

Deets trotted along for a bit before he answered. “Be back on the river,” he said.

“Hell, the Rio Grande ain’t the only river,” Augustus commented, but before they could continue the discussion they saw a group of riders come over a ridge, far to the north. Augustus saw at once that they were soldiers.

“’I god, we’ve found the cavalry, at least,” he said.

There were nearly forty soldiers. The ponies in the remuda began to nicker at the sight of so many strange horses. Call and Augustus loped out and met them a half mile away, for the herd was looking restive at the sight of the riders.

The leader of the troop was a small man with a gray mustache, who wore a Captain’s bars. He seemed irritated at the sight of the herd. It was soon plain that he was drunk.

Beside him rode a large man in greasy buckskins, clearly a scout. He was bearded and had a wad of tobacco in his jaw.

“I’m Captain Weaver and this is Dixon, our scout,” the Captain said. “Where the hell do you men think you’re taking these cattle?”

“We thought we were headed for Montana,” Augustus said lightly. “Where are we, Illinois?”

Call was irritated with Gus. He would make a joke.

“No, but you’ll wish you were if Red Cloud finds you,” Captain Weaver said. “You’re in the middle of an Indian war, that’s where you are.”

“Why in hell would anybody think they wanted to take cattle to Montana?” Dixon, the scout, said. He had an insolent look.

“We thought it would be a good place to sit back and watch ’em shit,” Augustus said. Insolence was apt to bring out the comic in him, as Call knew too well.

“We’ve heard there are wonderful pastures in Montana,” Call said, hoping to correct the bad impression Gus was giving.

“There may be, but you cowpokes won’t live to see them,” Dixon said.

“Oh, well,” Augustus said, “we wasn’t always cowpokes. We put in some twenty years fighting Comanches in the state of Texas. Don’t these Indians up here fall off their horses like other Indians when you put a bullet or two in them?”

“Some do and some just keep coming,” Captain Weaver said. “I didn’t come over here to talk all morning. Have you men seen any sign?”

“Our scout didn’t mention any,” Call said, waving to Deets.

“Oh, you’ve got a nigger for a scout,” Dixon said. “No wonder you’re lost.”

“We ain’t lost,” Call said, annoyed suddenly, “and that black man could track you across the coals of hell.”

“And bring you back on a pitchfork, if we asked him to,” Augustus added.

“What makes you think you can say things like that to us?” Captain Weaver said, flushing with anger.

“Ain’t it still a free country?” Augustus asked. “Who asked you to ride up and insult our scout?”

Deets came loping up and Call asked him if he had seen any Indian sign.

“None between here and the river,” Deets said.

A pale-looking young lieutenant suddenly spoke up.

“I thought they went east,” he said.

“We went east,” Weaver said. “Where do you think we’ve been for the last week?”

“Maybe they went farther and faster,” Augustus said. “Indians usually do. From the looks of those nags you’re riding they could probably outrun you on foot.”

“You’re a damn impertinent man,” Weaver said. “Those Indians killed a buffalo hunter and a woman, two days ago. Three weeks ago they wiped out a family southeast of here. If you see them you’ll wish you’d kept your damn beeves in Texas.”

“Let’s go,” Call said, abruptly turning his horse.

“We need horses,” Captain Weaver said. “Ours are about ridden down.”

“Ain’t that what I said that you thought was so impertinent?” Augustus remarked.

“I see you’ve got extras,” Weaver said. “We’ll take ’em. There’s a man who sells horses west of Ogallala. You can buy some more there and send the Army a bill.”

“No, thanks,” Call said. “We like the ones we’ve got.”

“I wasn’t asking,” Weaver said. “I’m requisitioning your horses.”

Augustus laughed. Call didn’t. He saw that the man was serious.

“We need ’em,” Dixon said. “We’ve got to protect this frontier.”

Augustus laughed again. “Who have you protected lately?” he asked. “All you’ve told us about are people you didn’t protect.”

“I’m tired of talking,” Weaver said. “Go get the horses, Jim. Take a couple of men and pick out good ones.”

“You can’t have any horses,” Call said. “You have no authority to requisition stock from us.”

“By God, I’ll have those horses or I’ll have your hides,” Weaver said. “Go get ’em, Jim.”

The young lieutenant looked very nervous, but he turned as if to ride over to the herd.

“Hold on, son, the argument ain’t over,” Augustus said.

“You’d defy an officer of the U.S. Army?” Weaver asked.

“You’re as close to that horse trader in Ogallala as we are,” Call pointed out.

“Yes, but we’re going the other way,” Weaver said.

“You were headed this way when you spotted us,” Augustus said. “When’d you change your mind?”

Dixon, the big scout, was listening to the conversation with contempt in his expression. The contempt was as much for Weaver as for them.

Captain Weaver turned to the young man. “I gave you an order. These men are all bluff. They’re just cowboys. Go get the horses.”