Текст книги "Comanche Moon"

Автор книги: Larry McMurtry

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 46 страниц)

"The Great Waterffwas he yelled. "We are going to the Great Water, and we are going now!" Six hundred braves rode out of the canyon behind him, the sun glinting on their lances. When sound came back to the camp it was the sound women make, talking to one another as they cooked and did chores. A few babies cried, a few dogs barked, the old men smoked. By the time the moon rose Buffalo Hump and his warriors were already miles to the south.

"Hector leaves a damn large track," Scull said to Famous Shoes, after they had been walking for four days. "If we had some form of torch I believe I could track him at night." "We don't have a torch," Famous Shoes pointed out. They were in country where there was little wood. When they made little fires to cook the game they killed, jackrabbits mostly, they had to use the branches of creosote bushes or chaparral.

"Hector will probably be slimmed down a little when I catch him," Scull said. "There's not much fodder out here." "They may have to eat him soon," Famous Shoes warned.

"I doubt that," Scull said. "I don't think Kicking Wolf stole him to eat. I expect he stole him mainly to embarrass me.

I'm for walking all night if you think we can stay with the track." Famous Shoes thought Scull was crazy. The man wanted to walk forever, without sleep. Kicking Wolf, the man they were following, was crazy too.

He was taking the horse straight to Mexico, which made no sense–Kicking Wolf's people did not live in Mexico. They lived in the other direction.

He himself was growing tired of being a scout for the whites. One crazy man was chasing another crazy man, with his help. Famous Shoes decided it must be the tobacco Scull chewed all day that made him able to walk so far. He did not want to sleep long at night, and grew restless when there were clouds over the moon, so Famous Shoes could not track. On those nights Scull sat by the fire and talked for hours. He said there were forests to the south so thick that little beasts called monkeys could live their whole lives in the trees, never touching the ground. Famous Shoes didn't believe the story–he had never seen trees that thick. He had begun to think of walking away some night, leaving Scull while he napped. After all, he had not yet got to visit his grandmother in her new home on the Arkansas.

He could understand Scull's anger at Kicking Wolf for stealing his horse, but the decision to follow on foot was more evidence of Scull's insanity. Kicking Wolf travelled hard. They were not going to catch him on foot, not unless he got sick and had to stop for a few days.

The evidence of the tracks was plain. Kicking Wolf and Three Birds would soon be in Mexico. Though he and Scull were walking exceptionally fast, they only had two legs, whereas the horses they were following had four.

Famous Shoes told Scull as much, but Scull would not give up, not even when they reached the desolate country where the Pecos angled toward the Rio Grande. In that country the water was so bitter from the white soil that one's turds came out white–a very bad thing. White turds meant that they were in the wrong place, that was how Famous Shoes felt. He was thinking more about walking off, but Scull had quickly mastered tracking and might follow him and shoot him if he left. He did not want to get shot by Scull's big rifle. He had begun to hope they would run into some bandits or some Indians, anything that might distract Scull long enough that he could slip away. But even if there was a fight, escape would still be risky. Who knew what a crazy man such as Big Horse Scull might do?

When they were only a day away from the Rio Grande, Famous Shoes noticed a curious thing about the tracks they were following. He did not mention it at first, but he might as well have mentioned it because Scull was such a good tracker now that he noticed it too. Scull stopped and squatted down, so as to study the tracks better. When he spat tobacco juice he spat it carefully to the side, so as not to blur the message of the tracks.

"By God, he knows we're following him," Scull said. "He's sent Mr. Three Birds back, to spy on us–now Three Birds has marked us and gone back to report.

Am I right, Professor?" That was exactly correct, so correct that Famous Shoes did not feel the need to reply.

Three Birds had come back and spied on them.

"He marked us and he's gone," Scull said.

"I expect he's reported to his boss by now." "Kicking Wolf is not his boss," Famous Shoes corrected. "Three Birds travels where he pleases." Scull got up and walked around for a few minutes, thinking.

"I wonder if there's a big camp of Indians down there somewhere that he's taking my horse to," he said.

"No, there is no camp," Famous Shoes assured him. "Comanches won't camp where their shit is white." "I don't care for this country much myself," Scull said. "Let's get out of it." The next day, at a winter sunset, they came to the Rio Grande. Scull stopped for a minute, to look north toward a long curve of the river. The water was gold with the thin sunset. There was no sign of Hector or the two Indians, but to his surprise he saw an old man, walking slowly along the riverbank, going south.

A large dog walked beside him.

"Now there's somebody–who would it be, walking this river alone this time of year?" he asked.

When Famous Shoes saw the old man coming he gave a start; though he had never seen the old man before he knew who he was.

"He is the Old One Who Walks By The River," Famous Shoes said. "He lives in a cave where the river is born. The river is his child. Every year he walks with it down to its home in the Great Water. Then he goes back to his cave, where the river is born, high in the Sierra. His wolf walks with him and kills his food." "His wolf?" Scull said, looking more closely. "I took it for a dog." "He has been here forever," Famous Shoes said. "The Apaches believe that if you see him you will die." "Well, I've seen him and I ain't dead," Scull commented. "I just hope that wolf don't bite." "If I had known I would see the Old One I would not have come with you," Famous Shoes said.

"I need to see my grandmother, but now I don't know if I will be living long enough to find her." Scull had to admit that the sight of the lone figure coming along the river at dusk was a little eerie. Certainly it was not an ordinary thing.

They went on to the river and waited for the old man to come. When he appeared the wolf had vanished. The old man came slowly.

His white hair hung to his waist and he wore buckskin clothing.

"I think he has stopped speaking because he is so old," Famous Shoes said.

"I'll try him with a little Yankee English– he might want to stop and sup with us," Scull said. Earlier in the day he had shot a small owl –his plan for dinner was to have owl soup.

"Hello, sir, this is a welcome surprise," Inish said, when the old man came to where they waited. "My name is Inish Scull– I'm a Bostoner–and this is Famous Shoes, the great professor of tracking. If you'd care to join us in a meal, we're having owl soup." The old man fixed Scull with a lively blue eye.

"You've spit tobaccy juice up and down the front of yourself," the old man said, in a voice far from weak. "I'll have a chaw of tobaccy if you've any left after all your wasteful spitting." Scull reached in his pocket and pulled out his plug, by then so diminished that he simply handed it to the old man, who had spoken as matter-of-factly as if they had met on Boston Common.

"It's true I'm reckless with my spittles," Scull said. "You're welcome to this tobacco–how about the owl soup?" "I'll pass–c't digest owls," the old man said. He carried a long rifle, the stock of which he set against the ground; then he leaned comfortably on his own weapon.

"I fear it's a weak offering but we have nothing else," Scull admitted.

"Don't need it–my wolf will bring me a varmint," the old man said. He lifted one leg and rested it against the other thigh.

"I'm Inish Scull and I'm in pursuit of a horse thief," Scull said. "It's my warhorse that was taken, and I want him back.

Who might you be, if I may ask?" "I'm Ephaniah, the Lord of the Last Day," the old man said. From down the river there was the howl of a wolf.

"Excuse me, you're what?" Scull asked.

"I'm the Lord of the Last Day," the old man said. "That's my wolf, howling to let me know he's caught a tasty varmint." He put down his other foot and without another ^w or gesture began moving on down the river.

Famous Shoes gestured–on a rise still lit by the last of the afterglow, the wolf waited. The old man was soon lost in the deepening dusk.

"Now that's curious," Scull said. "I'm out my tobacco, and I don't know a thing more than I did. Why would he call himself the "Lord of the Last Day"'? What does it mean?" "The Apaches may be right," Famous Shoes said. "When you see the Old One your last day may be close." "If mine's close I'd like to have a good feed first," Scull commented. "But I won't, not unless the hunting improves." "We don't have to eat the owl–I hear ducks," Famous Shoes said.

Scull heard them too and looked around in time to see a large flock of teal curve over the river and come back to settle on the water.

"When it's dark I will go down and catch some," Famous Shoes said.

"Help yourself, but I plan to scorch this owl anyway," Scull said. "I won't have provender going to waste."

When Three Birds caught up with Kicking Wolf he was walking out of a gully dragging a small antelope he had just killed. The antelope was only a fawn but Three Birds was excited anyway. They had had little meat since stealing the Buffalo Horse. The sight of the dead fawn made Three Birds so hungry he forgot his news.

"Let's cook it now," he said. "Why didn't you shoot its mother?" "Why didn't you kill her?" Kicking Wolf asked. "Where have you been?" "I had to go a long way to find Scull," Three Birds said. "He is following us but he is walking." At first Kicking Wolf did not believe it.

Three Birds often lived in his own dream time for days at a stretch. Often he would ride around so long, dreaming, that he would forget what errand he had been sent on. When someone reminded him that he had been supposed to secure a particular piece of information he would often just make up whatever came into his head, which is what he was probably doing when he claimed that Scull was following them on foot. Kicking Wolf had expected pursuit and kept up a fast pace to elude it.

How could Scull expect to catch him if he was on foot? He sent Three Birds back to investigate, thinking that perhaps Buffalo Hump or some other warriors had fallen on Scull and killed him.

Now, though, Three Birds had come back with a farfetched tale that no sensible person could believe. Three Birds was just trying to explain why he had been gone four days. Now all he could think about was eating the little antelope.

"I don't believe you–Scull had several horses," Kicking Wolf said. "Why would he follow us on foot?" Three Birds was offended. He had ridden for days, with little food, into the country of the enemy, to find out what Kicking Wolf wanted to know. He had found it out, and now Kicking Wolf didn't believe him.

"He is following us on foot and the Kickapoo is with him," he said. "Scull is four days behind but he walks fast and does not sleep much. If we wait we can kill him, and the Kickapoo too." Kicking Wolf gave the matter a little more thought, as he skinned the young antelope. Three Birds usually abandoned his lies if questioned closely, but he was not abandoning this lie, which might mean that it wasn't a lie. Big Horse Scull was known to do strange things. Often he would skin little birds that were much too small to eat; then he would throw the birds away and pack their skins with salt. When he travelled he would sometimes pick up beetles and other bugs and put them in small jars. Once he even sacked up some bats that flew out of a cave–what such activities added up to was some kind of witchery, that was plain. That he had chosen to follow them on foot was just more evidence that he was some kind of a witch man. Lots of Indians were out on the plains hunting–if they had seen Scull they would have killed him, yet he was still alive, which suggested more witchery.

"Famous Shoes would like to sleep but Scull wakes him up and makes him walk," Three Birds said. "When there is no moon they burn sticks to help them find the tracks." Kicking Wolf decided Three Birds was being truthful. He gave him the best parts of the fawn, for travelling fast to bring him the information.

"We will soon be in the Sierra," Kicking Wolf said. "Ahumado will find us. I don't know what he will do. I think he will like the Buffalo Horse, but I don't know. Maybe he won't like it that we have come." Three Birds was eating so fast that he could not figure out what Kicking Wolf was getting at.

Of course no one knew what Ahumado would like, or what he would do. He was the Black Vaquero. He had killed so many people that everyone had lost count. Sometimes he killed whole villages, throwing all the people in a well and letting them drown–or he might make the villagers dig a pit and then bury them alive.

He had an old man who was skilled at flaying; sometimes he would have the old man take all the skin off a man or a woman who had done something he disliked. He stuck people on sharpened trees and let the tree poke up through them. It was pointless to talk about what such a man might like or not like.

"If he doesn't like us he might stick us on a tree," Kicking Wolf said.

Three Birds grew more puzzled. Why was Kicking Wolf telling him all these things that he already knew? Ahumado only did bad things.

Sometimes he hung people in cages and let them starve –or he might throw them into a pit full of scorpions and snakes. But all this was common knowledge among the Comanches, many of whom had died at the hands of the Black Vaquero. Did Kicking Wolf think such talk would scare him? Was he trying to suggest that he run away, like a coward?

"I don't know why you are taking the Buffalo Horse to this man, but if that is what you want to do, then I am going too," Three Birds said.

"It is your choice," Kicking Wolf said.

He was a little ashamed of himself, for trying to scare Three Birds away. Three Birds was a brave warrior, even though he didn't fight very well and was often wandering in the dream time when he should be paying more attention to things.

When he stole the Buffalo Horse he thought he would take him to Ahumado alone. There would be much power flow from such an act. He would take a great horse from the most powerful Texan and sell him to the terrible bandit of the south. No one else had done such a thing. It was a thing that would be sung forever. Even if Ahumado killed him his feat would live in the songs.

He had not meant to share it with anybody. He had thought when they reached the river he would send Three Birds back and go into the Sierra Perdida alone, riding the Buffalo Horse.

He would go to the stronghold of the Black Vaquero and offer him the great horse, in exchange for women. If he took the horse in and lived he would have the power of a great chief. Buffalo Hump and Slow Tree would have to include him in their councils. There would be great singing, because of what he had done.

But Three Birds had come with him and he could not insult him because he was a little prone to wandering in the dream time. Going to the stronghold of Ahumado would be a great test. He could not tell his friend not to come.

"I thought you might want to go home and see your family," Kicking Wolf said. "But if you don't then we had better eat this little antelope and ride through the night." "I don't need to see anyone at home," Three Birds said simply. "I want to go with you. If we ride all night Scull will not catch up." "That's right," Kicking Wolf said, as he cracked off a couple of the little antelope's ribs. "Big Horse Scull will not catch up."

Augustus felt stunned–fora moment he was unable to speak. Once, while he was reluctantly trying his hand at blacksmithing, a horse that he was shoeing caught him with a powerful kick that struck him full in the diaphragm. For ten minutes he could only gasp for breath; he could not have spoken a ^w had his life depended on it.

That was how he felt now, standing in the sunny Austin street with Clara Forsythe, the girl he had raced in to kiss only an hour before, holding his hand. The ^ws Clara had just spoken were the ^ws he had long feared to hear, and their effect on him was as paralyzing as the kick of the horse.

"I know it's hard news," Clara said. "But I've made up my mind and it's not fair to hold it back." After leaving Governor Pease, Augustus had gone straight to a barber, meaning to get shaved and barbered properly before hurrying back to Clara to collect more kisses. She had consented to one more, but then had led him out the back door of the store, so that neither her father nor a casual customer would interrupt them while she was telling Gus the truth she owed him, which was that she had decided to marry Robert f. Allen, the horse trader from Nebraska.

Augustus went white with the news; he was still white. Clara stood close to him and held his hand, letting him take his time, while he absorbed the blow. She knew it was a terrible blow, too. Augustus had courted her ardently from the day he met her, when she had been barely sixteen. She knew that, though much given to whoring, he loved only her and would marry her in an instant if she would consent. Several times she had been tempted to give in, allow him what he wanted, and attempt to make a marriage with him.

Yet some cool part of her, some tendency to think and consider when she was most tempted just to stop thinking and open her arms, had kept her from saying yes.

What stopped her was the feeling that had come over her when he rushed off to see Governor Pease: one kiss and then you're gone. Augustus was a Texas Ranger: at the end of the kissing or what followed it, there'd be an hour when he would be gone; she would have to carry, for days or weeks, a heavy sense of his absence; she would have to cope with all the sad feelings that assailed her when Gus was away. Clara was active: she wanted to live the full life of her emotions every day–she didn't like the feeling that full life would have to wait for the day Augustus returned, if he did return.

Almost every time the ranger troop left Austin there would be a man among them who did not come back. It was a fact Clara couldn't forget; no woman could. And she had seen the anguish and the struggle that was the lot of frontier widows.

"If this is a joke it's a poor one," Augustus said, when he could find breath for speech.

But Clara was looking at him calmly, her honest eyes fixed on his. Of course she loved to tease him, and he would have liked to persuade himself that she was teasing him this time. But her eyes danced when she teased him, and her eyes were not dancing–not now.

"It ain't a joke, Gus," she said. "It's a fact. We're going to be married on Sunday." "But ... you kissed me," Augustus said.

"When I came running in you called me your ranger, just like you always do." "Why, you are my ranger ... you always will be," Clara said. "Of course I kissed you .

I'll always kiss you, when you come to see me. I suppose I have the right to kiss my friends, and I'll never be so married that I won't be a friend." "But I'm a captain now," Gus said. "A captain in the Texas Rangers. Couldn't you have at least waited till I got home with the news?" "Nope," Clara said firmly. "I've spent enough of my life waiting for you to get home from some jaunt. I don't like waiting much. I don't like going weeks not even knowing if you're alive. I don't like wondering if you've found another woman, in some town I've never been to." At the memory of all her anxious waiting, a tear started in her eye.

"I wasn't meant for waiting and wondering, Gus," she said. "It was making me an old woman before my time. Bob Allen's no cavalier. He'll never have your dash–I know that.

But I'll always know where he is–I won't have to be wondering." "Hell, I'll quit the rangers if a stay-at-home is what you're looking for," Gus said, very annoyed. "I'll quit 'em today!" He knew, even as he said the ^ws, that it was a thing he had often offered to do, over the years, when Clara taxed him with his absences. But he never quite got around to quitting. Now he would, though, captain or no captain. What was being a captain, compared to being married to Clara?

To his dismay, Clara shook her head.

"No," she said. "It's too late, Gus.

I gave Bob Allen my promise. Besides, being a captain in the rangers is what you've always wanted. You've talked of it many times." "Well, I was a fool," Gus said. "Being a captain just means making a lot of decisions I ain't smart enough to make. Woodrow, he's always studying–let him make 'em!

"I'm quitting, I mean it!" he said, feeling desperate. He felt he had just as soon die, if he couldn't change Clara's decision.

"Hush that–it's nonsense," Clara said.

"I'm promised now–d you think I'm so light a girl that I'd break my promise just because you quit a job?" Augustus felt a terrible flash of anger.

"No, if you promised, I expect you'll go through with it even if it ruins both our lives and his too!" he said.

"You shut up, Gusffwas Clara said, with a flash to match his. "I've been telling you what I needed for ten years–if you'd wanted me enough to quit the rangers you would have quit long ago. But you didn't–y just kept riding off time after time with Woodrow Call. You could have had me, but you chose him!" "Why, that's foolish–he's just my pard," Gus said.

"It may be foolish but it's how I felt and how I feel," Clara said.

She calmed herself with an effort. She had not called him into the street to fight over the disappointments of a decade–though it had not all been disappointment by any means.

Augustus didn't know what to do. Though it appeared to be a hopeless thing, he didn't know how to simply give up. The hope of someday marrying Clara had been the deepest hope of his life. What would his life be, with that hope lost?

He could not even formulate a guess, though he knew it would be bleak and black.

"When will you be leaving?" he asked finally, in a flat voice.

"Why, Sunday," Clara said. "We're going to New Orleans and take the steamer up the Mississippi and the Missouri. It'll be chilly travelling, I expect–at least the last part of it will." Gus felt such a weight inside him that he didn't know how he was even going to walk away.

"Then it's goodbye, I guess," he said.

"For a while, yes," Clara said. "My hope is that you'll visit, in about ten years." "Visit you once you're married–now why would you want that?" Augustus asked, startled by the remark.

"Because I'd want you to know my children," Clara said. "I'd want them to have your friendship." Augustus was silent for a bit. Clara was looking at him with something in her eyes that he couldn't define. Though she had just broken his heart, she still seemed to want something of him–what, he was not sure.

"You're just saying that now, Clara," he said, though he thought his throat might close up with sadness and leave him unable to speak.

"Bob, he won't be wanting me there, and you won't either, once you've been married awhile," he said finally.

Clara shook her head and put her arms around him.

"I can't claim to know too much about marriage yet, but there is one thing I know for sure–I'll never be so married that I won't need your friendship –don't you forget that," she said.

Then tears started in her eyes again–she turned abruptly and walked quickly back into her store.

Augustus stayed where he was for a bit, looking at the store. Whether staying or returning, looking at that store had long filled him with hope. The sight of the Forsythe store–j a plain frame building–affected him more powerfully than any sight on earth; for the store contained Clara.

There he had met her; there, for years, they had kissed, quarrelled, joked, teased; often they had made plans for a future together, a future they would now never have.

When he walked into the little room in the rough bunkhouse that he shared with Woodrow Call, what he felt in his heart must have showed in his face.

Woodrow was just about to go out, but the sight of Gus stopped him. He had never seen Gus with quite such a strange look on his face.

"Are you sick?" Call asked.

Gus made no reply. He sat down on his cot and took off his hat.

"I have to pay a call, but I'll be back soon," Call said. "The Governor wants to see us again." "Why? We done saw him, the fool," Gus asked.

"We're captains now," Call reminded him. "Did you think we were just going to see him that one time?" "Yes, I had hoped I wouldn't have to look at the jackass again," Gus said.

"I don't know what's the matter," Call said, "but I hope it wears off quick. You needn't be sulky just because the Governor wants to see us." Augustus suddenly drew back his fist and punched the center of the cot he sat on, as hard as he could. The cot, a spindly-legged thing, immediately collapsed.

"Dern it, now you broke your bed," Call said in surprise.

"Don't matter, I won't be sleeping in it anyway," Augustus said. "I wish that damn governor would send us off again today, because I'm ready to go. If I ain't rangering I mean to be out drinking all night, or else reside in a whorehouse." Call had no idea what had come over his friend –bbf he could investigate, Augustus suddenly got up and walked past him out the door.

"I'll be down at the saloon, in case you lose my track," he said.

"I doubt I'll lose your track," Call said, still puzzled. By then Augustus was in the street, and he didn't turn.

Call, about to leave Maggie's, was in a hurry, aware that he was almost late for his appointment with the Governor, and he still had to find Gus and drag him out of whatever saloon he was in. He didn't at first understand what Maggie had just said to him. She had said something about a child, but his mind was on his meeting with the Governor and he hadn't quite taken her comment in.

"What? I guess I need to clean out my ears," he said.

Maggie didn't want to repeat it–she didn't want it to be true, and yet it was true.

"I said I'm going to have a baby," she said.

Call looked at Maggie again and saw that she was about to cry. She had just made him coffee and fed him a tasty beefsteak, the best food he had had in a month. She had a plate in her hand, but the hand that held the plate was not steady. Of course, she usually got upset when he had to leave, even if he was just going to the bunkhouse. Maggie wanted him to live with her, a thing he could not agree to do. The part about the baby hardly registered with him until he saw the look in her eyes. The look in her eyes was desperate.

"The baby's yours, Woodrow," she said.

"I'm hoping you'll help me bring it up." Call took his hand off the doorknob.

"It's mine?" he asked, puzzled.

"Well, it's ours, I mean," Maggie said, watching his face as she said it, to see if there was any hope at all. For three weeks, ever since she was sure that she was pregnant, she had anguished over how to tell Woodrow. Over and over she practiced how she would tell him. Her best hope, her nicest dream, was that Woodrow would want the baby to be his and also, maybe, want to marry her and care for her as his wife.

Sometimes Maggie could imagine such a thing happening, when she thought about Woodrow and the baby, but mostly she had the opposite conviction. He might hate the notion–in fact he probably would hate it. He might walk out the door and never see her again. After all, he was a Texas Ranger captain now, and she was just a whore. He was not obligated to come back to see her, much less to marry her or help her with the child. Every time she thought of telling him, Maggie felt despair–she didn't know what it would mean for their future.

But she .was pregnant, a truth that would soon be apparent.

Now the ^ws were out–Woodrow just seemed puzzled. He had not flinched or looked at her cruelly.

"Well, Maggie," he said, and stopped. He seemed mainly distracted. Maggie had put on her robe but hadn't tied it yet; he was looking at her belly as if he expected to see what she was talking about.

"This is surprising news," he said, rather stiffly, but with no anger in his voice.

The fact was, Call had set his mind on the next task, which was locating Gus and getting on to the Governor's office. He had never been good at getting his mind to consider two facts at once, much less two big facts. Maggie was slim and lovely, no different than she had been the day he had ridden off to Fort Belknap. It occurred to him that she might just be having a fancy of some kind–Gus had told him that Clara often had fancies about babies. Maybe she had just got it into her head that she was having a baby. It might be something like Gus McCrae's conviction that he was going to stumble onto a gold mine, every time they went out on patrol. Gus was always poking into holes and caves, looking for his gold mine. But there wasn't a gold mine in any of the caves and there might not be a baby in Maggie, either.

What he didn't want to do was upset her, just when it was necessary to leave. She had been sweet to him on his return and had fixed him a tasty meal at her expense.

Maggie was a little encouraged by the fact that Woodrow didn't seem angry. He had an appointment with the Governor and was clearly eager to get out the door, which was normal. If he went on with his task, perhaps he would think about the baby and come to like the notion.

"You go on, I know you're in a hurry," she said.

"Why, yes, we can discuss this later," Call said, relieved that no further delay was required.

He tipped his hat to her before going out the door.

The minute he left, Maggie hurried over to the window so she could watch him as he walked down the street. She had always liked the way he walked. He was not a graceful man, particularly. Even when he was relaxed he moved a little stiffly–but his very awkwardness touched her.