Текст книги "Comanche Moon"

Автор книги: Larry McMurtry

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"Her what?" Jake asked–he had not heard the term before.

"Equerry, equus, equestrian, equestrienne," Captain Scull said. "In other ^ws, Inez wants you to be her horse." "What, sir?" Jake asked. Since he began to deal with the Sculls, he had come to question both his eyesight and his hearing: for the Sculls frequently said and did things he couldn't understand or believe, even though he heard them said and saw them happen. In his old home in Kansas, nobody said or did such things–of that, Jake was sure.

"She'll have her way, too, boy!" the Captain said, his temper mounting at the thought of his wife's behaviour. "She'll ride you to a lather before I'm halfway to the Brazos, the wild hussy!" "What, sir?" Jake asked, for the third time.

He had no idea what the Captain was talking about, or why he supposed that Mrs. Scull wanted to ride him.

"Boy, are you a stutterer, or have you just got a brick for a brain?" the Captain asked, coming close and giving Jake a hard look.

"Inez wants to mount you, boy–ain't that clear to you yet?" he went on. "Her father's the richest man in the South. They've three hundred thousand acres of prime plantation land in Alabama, and a hundred thousand more in Cuba. "Inez"' ain't her name, either–she just took that name because it matches mine. In Birmingham she's just plain Dolly, but she was raised in Cuba and thinks she has a right to the passions of the tropics." He paused, and glared at the big brick house on the slope above the creek. Around him, the men were mounting their horses for the long ride to Fort Belknap. Inish Scull glared at his mansion, as if the house itself were responsible for the fact that his wife would not desist from unseemly passions.

"Lust is the doom of man–I've often forsworn it myself, but my resolve won't hold," the Captain said, stepping close to Jake. "You're a young man, take my advice. Beware the hairy prospect. Do that and improve your vocabulary and you'll yet make a fine citizen. Old Tom Rowlandson, now there was a man who understood lust. He knew about the hairy prospect, Tom Rowlandson did.

I've a book of his pictures right up in my house. Take a peek in it, boy. It might help you escape Inez. Once you start tupping with slavering sluts like her, there's no recovery: just look at me! I ought to be secretary of war, if not president, but I'm doing nothing better than chasing heathen red men on this goddamn dusty frontier, and all because of a lustful rich slut from Birmingham! Bible and sword!" A few minutes later the troop rode away, planning to be gone for a month, at least.

Jake felt regretful for a few hours–if he had tried harder to persuade the Captain to take him along, the Captain might have relented. After all, he had taken Pea Eye. If there was a fight, it might have meant a chance for glory. But he hadn't pressed to go, and the Captain had left him with the problem of Madame Scull.

With the Captain gone and the threat of immediate execution removed, Jake found that his mind came to dwell more and more on what Madame Scull had done.

There was no denying that she was a beautiful woman: tall, heavy bosomed, with a quick stride and lustrous black hair.

It seemed to Jake that the Captain, for whatever reason, had simply handed him over to Madame Scull. He was supposed to be her equerry–t was now his job. If he didn't do his equerrying well, the Captain might even dismiss him from the rangers when the troop returned.

By the time the troop had been gone half a day, Jake Spoon had persuaded himself that it was his duty to present himself at the Scull mansion.

He had taken to going to the mansion regularly in order to intercept Felice at the well, where she was frequently sent. Madame Scull was reckless in her use of water–trips to fetch it took Felice back and forth to the well for much of the day.

This time, though, when Felice came out the back door with her bucket, she was limping. Felice was a quick girl, who normally walked with a springy step. Jake hurried over, anxious to see why she was lame, and was surprised to see that she had a black eye and a big bruise on one cheek.

"Why, what done that? Did the Captain strike you?" Jake asked.

"No, not the Captain ... the Missus," Felice said. "She beat me with the handle of that black bullwhip. I got marks all over, from where that woman beat me." "Well, but why?" he asked. "Did you sass her, or drop a plate?" Felice shook her head. "Didn't sass her and didn't drop no plate," she said.

"But you must have done something to bring on a licking," Jake said. Felice's dress had slipped off one shoulder as she struggled with the heavy water bucket–Jake saw a swollen black bruise there, too.

Felice shook her head. Jake didn't understand. She had come from Cuba with Madame Scull, had been a servant to her since she was a girl of six. When she was younger the Missus might slap her once in a while, for some slip, but it was only later, once Felice had begun to fill out as a woman, that the Missus had begun to beat her hard. Lately, the beatings had become more and more frequent. If Captain Scull even glanced at Felice as she was serving breakfast, or requested a biscuit or a second cup of coffee, the Missus would often corner her later in the day and quirt her severely. Sometimes she punched her, or grabbed Felice's hair and tried to yank it out.

There was no knowing when the Missus might beat her, but yesterday had been the worst. The Missus caught her in the hall and beat her with the handle of the bullwhip–beat her till her arm got tired of beating. One of Felice's teeth was loose–the Missus had even hit her in the mouth.

Jake understood that Felice was a slave, and that the Sculls could do whatever they wanted to with her; still, he was shocked at the bruises on Felice's face. In Kansas, few people still owned slaves; his own family had been much too poor to afford one.

Jake offered to carry the water bucket, which was heavy. As they were nearing the house he happened to glance up and see Madame Scull, watching them from a little balcony off her bedroom. Jake immediately lowered his eyes, because Madame Scull had no clothes on. She just stood on the balcony, her heavy bosom exposed, brushing her long, black hair.

Jake glanced over at Felice and was surprised to see tears in her eyes.

"Why, Felice, what is it?" he asked.

"Are you hurt that bad?" Felice didn't answer. She didn't want to try and put ^ws to her sorrow. She had come to like Jake. He was polite and let her know that he liked her; besides, he was young and his breath was sweet when he tried to kiss her–not foul with tobacco smells like the Captain, who lost no opportunity to be familiar with her. Felice had been thinking of meeting Jake behind the smokehouse, one night–he had been pleading with her to do just that. Felice wanted to slip out with Jake–but she knew now that she couldn't, not unless she wanted to be beaten within an inch of her life.

The Missus wanted Jake, that was plain. There she stood on the balcony, showing Jake her titties. The Missus would take him, too.

Felice knew that she would have to give up on him and do it immediately, or else risk bad trouble. The Captain was gone–despite his stinking breath the Captain would sometimes take up for Felice, just to be contrary. But she belonged to the Missus, not the Captain. If the Missus got too jealous, she might even sell her.

Several old, ugly men had cast glances at her when they came to visit the Sculls. They looked like rich men, too–one of them might buy her and use her harder than the Missus did. In Cuba, she had seen bad things happen to slaves: brandings and horsewhippings and even hangings. The Missus had never done anything that bad to her, but if she got sold to some old ugly man, he might chain her and hurt her bad.

Jake wasn't worth such a risk–nothing was worth such a risk. But it still made her fill with sorrow, that the Missus would take the one person who was sweet to her.

Once they got inside the house Jake didn't know what to do, other than set the water bucket on the stove. Felice had gone silent; she wouldn't speak at all. She wiped away her tears on her apron and went about her tasks, looking down. She wouldn't turn to him again–not a ^w, and not a look. It was a big disappointment. He thought he had about persuaded her to slip out some night and meet him behind the smokehouse–then they could kiss all they wanted.

But that plan seemed to be spoiled, and he didn't know why.

He was about to leave in dejection and go back to the ranger stables, when old Ben Mickelson, the skinny, splotchy butler, came in, shaking from drink. Ben wore a shiny old black coat and took snuff, sniff+ so loudly that it caused Jake to flinch if he happened to be nearby.

"Madame would like to see you upstairs," old Ben told him, in his dry voice. "You're late as it is–I wouldn't be later." Old Ben had an ugly way of pushing out his lips, when he was spoken to by anyone but the Master or the Mistress. He pushed them out at Jake until Jake wanted to give him a hard punch.

"What am I late for? I ain't been told," he said. The thought of going upstairs made him more and more nervous.

"I ain't the Madame–if she says you're late, I guess you are," old Ben said.

In fact, Ben Mickelson hated young men indiscriminately, for no better reason than that they were young and he wasn't. Sometimes he hated young men so hard that he got violent notions about them, notions that affected him like a fever. Right at the moment, he was having a violent imagining in which young Jake was being chewed on by seven or eight thin hungry pigs. There were plenty of thin hungry pigs running loose within the town of Austin, too. It was against the ordinances, but the skinny, half-wild pigs didn't know there was an ordinance against them. They kept running loose, a menace to the populace. If six or seven of the wild pigs cornered Jake, they would soon whittle him down to size. Then the Madame wouldn't be so anxious to get him between her legs, not if he was well chewed by some hungry pigs.

Old Ben was violently jealous of the Madame and her lusts. Once, years before, in a moment of anxious weakness, Inez Scull had pulled Ben's pants down in a closet and coupled with him then and there. "You're an ugly old thing, Ben," she told him, after the brief act was over. "I don't fancy men with liver spots, and you've got 'em." Ben Mickelson was a little crestfallen. Their embrace, though brief, had been passionate enough to dislodge almost every garment hanging in the closet. He thought he might expect a compliment, but all he got was a comment about his liver spots.

"I expect it's the climate, Madame," he said, as Inez Scull was fastening her bodice. "I never got spots when we lived in Boston." "It's not the climate, it's all that whiskey you drink," Madame Scull said, whereupon she left and never touched Ben Mickelson again. For days and weeks he lingered by the closet, hoping Madame Scull would come by in a lustful state again–s lustful that she would be inclined to overlook liver spots. But what had occurred in that closet, amid ladies' shoes and fallen dresses, was never repeated. Years passed, and Ben Mickelson got bitter. Jake Spoon, not yet eighteen, with his dimples and curls, baby fat still in his cheeks, would not likely be liver-spotted, and that fact alone was enough to make Ben Mickelson hate him.

Jake looked at Felice, as he stood at the foot of the stairs, but Felice would not meet his eye. He thought he saw tears on her cheeks, though–he supposed she still ached from the beating.

Felice turned and took up her broom, so old Ben wouldn't see her tears. Old Ben had to be watched and avoided. He was always poking at her with his skinny fingers. But the threat of his fingers didn't cause her tears. She cried because she knew she would have to hold herself in, not let herself start feeling warm about any of the boys that came to the house. The Missus wanted all the boys for herself. Jake had been kind to her, helping her carry water and doing little errands for her when he could.

She had begun to want to see him behind the smokehouse–but that was lost. When Jake came back down the stairs, he would be different. He would have the Missus's smell on him. He wouldn't be sweet to her anymore, or help her carry water or feed the chickens.

As Felice swept she felt old Ben following her, getting closer, hoping for a pinch or a grab. It filled her with fury, suddenly; she wasn't going to have it, not this morning, when her new feeling for Jake had just been crushed.

"You scat, you old possum!" Felice said, whirling on the butler. The anger in her face startled old Ben so that he turned on his heel and went to polish the doorknobs. It was a hard life, he felt, when a butler wasn't even allowed to touch a saucy yellow girl.

When Jake approached Madame Scull's bedroom he felt a deep apprehension, a fear so deep that it made his legs shaky. At the same time he felt a high excitement, higher than what he felt when he managed to snatch a kiss from Felice. It was a little like what he felt when he visited one of the whore tents down by the river with Gus McCrae, a treat he had only been allowed twice.

But this excitement was higher. Madame Scull wasn't a whore, she was a great lady. The Scull mansion was finer by far than the Governor's house. Jake was conscious that his pants were ragged, and his shirt frayed. To his horror he saw, looking down, that he had forgotten to wipe his feet: he had muddied the carpet at the head of the stairs. Now there was mud on Madame Scull's fine carpet.

Then he noticed Inez Scull, watching him from the bedroom door. She had the same sun-flushed look on her face that she had had when she put her hand in his pants.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, I tracked in mud," he said. "I'll get the broom and clean it up for you." "No, hang the mud–don't you be running off from me again," Madame Scull said.

Then she smiled at him. She had put on a gown of some kind, but it had slipped off one shoulder.

""Come to my parlor,"' said the spider to the fly," Inez said, thinking how glad she was that Inish had had to leave to chase red Indians. The Comanche might be an inconvenience to the ragged settlers, but they were a boon to her, the fact being that her husband's embraces had long since grown stale. Austin was a dull, dusty town, with no society and little entertainment, but there was no denying that Texas produced an abundance of fine, sturdy young men. They were hardly refined, these boys of the frontier, but then she wasn't seeking refinement. What she wanted was fine sturdy boys, with curls and stout calves, like the one who stood before her at the moment. She walked over to Jake–he had tracked rather a lot of mud up her stairs–and took up where she had left off, quickly opening his pants, confident that in a week or less she could cure him of embarrassment where fleshly matters were concerned.

"Let's see that little pricklen again," she said.

"You scarcely let me touch it the other day." Jake was so shocked he could not find a ^w to say.

""Pricklen,"' that's what my good German boy called it," Inez said. "My Jurgen was proud of his pricklen, and yours is nothing to be ashamed of, Jakie." She began to lead Jake down the long hall, looking with interest at what had popped out of his pants. His pants had slipped down around his legs, which meant that he couldn't take very long steps. Madame Scull led him by the hand.

"I expect I'd have my Jurgen and his pricklen yet if Inish hadn't hanged him," Madame Scull said casually.

At that point, hoping he hadn't heard right, Jake stopped. All he could see was the hang noose, and himself on the gallows, with the boys standing far below, to watch him swing.

"Oh dear, I've given you a fright," Inez said, with a quick laugh. "Inish didn't hang my Jurgen for this! He wouldn't hang a fine German boy just because he and I had enjoyed a little sport." "What'd he hang him for, then?" Jake asked, unconvinced.

"Why, the foolish boy stole a horse," Madame Scull said. "I don't know what he needed with a horse–he .was rather a horse, in some respects. I was quite crushed at the time. It seemed my Jurgen would rather have a horse than me.

But of course Inish caught him, and took him straight to the nearest tree and hung him." Jake didn't want to hang, but he didn't want to leave Madame Scull, either.

Anyway, with his pants around his ankles, he could hardly walk, much less run.

They were near a big hall closet, where coats and boots were kept. Jake noticed that Madame Scull was freckled on her shoulders and her bosom, but he didn't have time to notice much more, because she suddenly yanked him into the closet. Her move was so sudden that he lost his balance and fell, in the deep closet. He was on his back, amid shoes and boots, with the bottoms of coats hanging just above him. Jake thought he must be crazy, to be in such a situation.

Madame Scull was breathing in loud snorts, like a winded horse. She squatted right over him, but Jake couldn't see her clearly, because her head was amid the hanging coats. There was the smell of mothballs in the closet, and the smell of saddle soap, but, even stronger, there was the smell of Inez Scull, who was not cautious in her behaviour with him–not cautious at all. She flung coats off their hangers and kicked shoes and boots out into the hall, in order to situate herself above him, exactly where she wanted to be.

To Jake's amazement, Madame Scull began to do exactly what the Captain had told him she would do: make him her horse. She sank down astride him and rode him, hot and hard, rode him until he was lathered, just as the Captain had said she would, though the Captain himself was probably not even halfway to the Brazos River yet. He wondered, as she rode him, what the servants would think if one of them happened to come upstairs and notice all the shoes Madame Scull had kicked out into the hall.

Kicking Wolf had killed the seventeen geldings in a barren gully. The butchering had been hasty; though the best meat had been taken, much was left. The rocks in the gully were pink with frozen blood. The carcasses all had ice on their hides–Augustus saw one horse who had ice covering its eyes, a sight that made his stomach rise. Guts had been pulled out and chopped up; those left had frozen into icy coils. Buzzards wheeled in the cold sky.

"I thought I was hungry a minute ago," Augustus said. "But now that I've seen this I couldn't eat for a dollar." Many of the men were dead asleep, slumped wherever they had stopped. Captain Scull sat on a hummock of dirt, staring toward the west. Now and then, he spat tobacco juice on the sleety ground.

"I can eat," Call said. "It won't cost nobody a dollar, either. I've seen the day when you didn't turn up your nose at horsemeat, I recall." "That was a warmer day," Gus commented. "It's too early to be looking at this many butchered horses." "Be glad it ain't butchered men," Call said.

Deets, the black cook, seemed to be the only man in the outfit who could muster a cheerful look. He had a stew pot bubbling already, and was slicing potatoes into it when they rode up.

"If Deets can make that horsemeat tasty, I might sample a little," Augustus said. At the sight of the bubbling pot, he felt his appetite returning.

Long Bill Coleman had his feet practically in the fire, his favorite posture when camped on a cold patrol. He had fallen asleep and was snoring loudly, oblivious to the fact that the soles of his boots were beginning to smoke.

"Pull him back, Deets, his feet are about to catch fire," Augustus said. "The fool will sleep with his feet amid the coals." Deets pulled Long Bill a yard or two back from the fire, then offered them coffee, which they took gratefully.

"Why'd you let all these boys nod off, Deets?" Gus said. "Old Buffalo Hump might come down on us at any minute– they best be watching their hair." "Let 'em nap–they ridden for two days," Call said. "They'll wake up quick enough if there's fighting." Deets took a big tin cup full of coffee over to Captain Scull, who accepted it without looking around. The Captain's mouth was moving, but whatever he was saying got lost on the wind.

"Old Nails is talking to himself again," Augustus observed. "Probably cussing that feisty wife of his for spending money. They say she spends twenty-five dollars ever day of the week." Call didn't think the Captain was cussing his wife, not on a bald knob of the prairie, icy with sleet. If he was cussing anybody, it was probably Kicking Wolf, who had escaped to the Rio Pecos with three fine stallions.

"What was he saying, Deets?" he asked, when the black man came back and began to stir the stew.

Deets did not much like reporting on the Captain. He might get the talk wrong, and cause trouble. But Mr. Call had been good to him, giving him an old ragged quilt, which was all he had to cover with on the cold journey.

Mr. Call didn't grab food, like some of the others, or cuss him if the biscuits didn't rise quick enough to suit him.

"He's talking about that one who shot him–down Mexico," Deets said.

"What? He's talking about Ahumado?" Call asked, surprised.

"Talking about him some," Deets admitted.

"I consider that peculiar information," Augustus said. "We're half a way to Canada, chasing Comanches. What's Ahumado got to do with it?" "He don't like it that Ahumado shot his horse," Call said, noting that some of the men around the campfire were so sound asleep they looked as if they were dead. Most of them were sprawled out with their mouths open, oblivous to the wind and the icy ground. They didn't look as if they would be capable of putting up much resistance, but Call knew they would fight hard if attacked.

The only man he was anxious about on that score was young Pea Eye Parker, a gangly boy who had only been allotted an old musket. Call didn't trust the gun and hoped to see that the boy got a repeating rifle before their next expedition. Pea Eye sat so far back from the campfire that he got little succor from it. He was poorly dressed and shivering, yet he had kept up through the long night, and had not complained.

"If you pulled in a little closer to the campfire you'd be warmer," Call suggested.

"It's my first trip–I don't guess I ought to take up too much of the fire," Pea Eye said.

Then he swivelled his long neck around and surveyed their prospects.

"I was raised amid trees and brush," he said. "I never expected to be no place where it was this empty." "It ain't empty–there's plenty of Comanches down in that big canyon," Augustus informed him.

"Buffalo Hump's down there–once we finally whip him, there won't be nothing but a few chigger Indians to fight." "How do you know we'll whip him?" Call said.

"It's bad luck to talk like that. We've been fighting him for years and we ain't come close to licking him yet." Before Augustus could respond, Captain Scull abruptly left the hummock where he had been sitting and stomped back into camp.

"Is that stew ready? This is a damn long halt," he said. Then he glanced at Call, and got a surprised look on his face.

"I thought Famous Shoes was with you, Mr.

Call," Scull said. "I had no reason to suspect that he wasn't with you, but I'll be damned if I can spot him. It might be the glare off the sleet." "No sir, he's not with me," Call said.

"Damn it, why not?" Captain Scull asked. "If he's not with you, you'll just have to go fetch him. We'll save you some of the stew." "Sir, I don't know if I can fetch him," Call said. "He went to visit his grandmother. I believe she lives on the Washita, but he didn't say where, exactly." "Of course you can fetch him–why shouldn't you?" Scull asked, with an annoyed look on his face. "You're mounted and he's afoot." "Yes, but he's a swift walker and I'm a poor tracker," Call admitted. "I might be able to track him, but it would be chancy." "What a damned nuisance–the man's gone off just when we need him most," Inish Scull said.

He tugged at his peppery gray beard in a vexed fashion. When a fit of anger took him he grew red above his whiskers; and, as all of the men knew, he was apt to grow angry if offered the slightest delay.

Call didn't say it, but he found the Captain's comment peculiar. After all, Famous Shoes had been off, ever since they crossed the Prairie Dog Fork of the Brazos. The scout wandered at will, returning only occasionally to parley a bit with the Captain, as he just had that morning.

Based on past behaviour, Captain Scull had no reason to expect to hear from Famous Shoes for a day or two more, by which time the scout could have visited his grandmother and returned.

It was impatient and unreasonable behaviour, in Call's view; but then, that seemed to be the way of captains, at least the ones he had served.

They were impatient to a fault–if they didn't get a fight one place, they would turn and seek a fight somewhere else, no matter what the men felt about it, or what condition they were in. They had missed Kicking Wolf, so now, if Deets was right, the Captain's thoughts had fixed on Ahumado, a Mexican bandit hundreds of mules to the south, and a marauder every bit as capable as Kicking Wolf or Buffalo Hump.

Still, Call had never disobeyed an order, or complained about one, either–it was Gus McCrae who grumbled about orders, though usually he was circumspect about who he grumbled to. Call knew that if the Captain really wanted him to go after Famous Shoes, he would at least have to try.

Call felt lank–he thought he had better quickly gulp down a plate of stew before he went off on a pursuit that might take days.

Captain Scull, though, did not immediately press the order. He stood with his back to the fire, swishing the remains of his coffee around in his cup. He looked at the sky, he looked at the horses, he looked south. Call held his peace–the muttering about Ahumado might only have been a momentary fancy that the Captain, once he had assessed the situation, would reject.

The Captain sighed, gulped down the rest of his coffee, held out the cup for Deets to refill, and looked at Call again.

"I got short shrift from my grandmothers," he remarked. "One of them had ten children and the other accounted for fourteen–they were tired of brats by the time I came along. How long do you think Famous Shoes planned to visit?" "Sir, I have no idea," Call admitted.

"He wasn't even sure his grandmother still lived on the Washita. If he don't locate her I expect he'll be back tomorrow." "Unless he thinks of somebody else to visit," Augustus said.

Call hastily got himself a plate of stew.

He felt he had been a little derelict in hesitating to set off immediately in pursuit of Famous Shoes. After all, the man could scarcely be more than five miles away. With reasonable luck, he ought to be able to overtake him. It was only the featurelessness of the plains that worried him: he might ride within a mile of Famous Shoes and still miss him, because of the dips and slantings of the prairie.

Now he felt like he ought to be ready to leave, if that was what the Captain wanted.

"Taters ain't cooked yet," Deets informed him, as he dished up the stew. "That meat mostly raw, too." "I don't care, it'll fill me," Call said. "If you'd like me to go look for him, Captain, I will." Inish Scull didn't respond–indeed, he gave no indication that he had even heard Woodrow Call. Captain Scull was often casual, if not indifferent, in that way, a fact which vexed Augustus McCrae terribly. Here Woodrow, who was as cold and hungry as the rest of them, was offering to go off and run the risk of getting scalped, and the Captain didn't even have the good manners to answer him! It made Gus burn with indignation, though it also annoyed him that Call would be so quick to offer himself for what was clearly a foolish duty. Famous Shoes would turn up in a day or two, whether anybody looked for him or not.

"I was thinking of Mexico, Mr. Call," Captain Scull said finally. "I see no point in pursuing Kicking Wolf for the sake of three horses. We'll corner the man sooner or later, or if we don't get him the smallpox will." "What? The smallpox?" Augustus said; he had a big nervousness about diseases, the various poxes particularly.

"Yes, it's travelling this way," Inish Scull said impatiently, his mind being now on Mexico.

"The theory is that the Forty-niners spread it among the red men, as they were running out to California to look for gold," he added. "Very damn few of them will find any of the precious ore. But they've brought the pox to the prairies, I guess. The Indians along the Santa Fe Trail have it bad, and I hear that those along the Oregon Trail are dying by the hundreds.

It'll be among the Comanches soon, if it ain't already. Once the pox gets among them they'll die off so quick we'll probably have to disband the rangers. There'll be no healthy Indians left to fight." Captain Scull finished his speech and lifted his coffee cup, but before he could sip, a peppering of gunfire swept the camp.

"It's Buffalo Hump, I knowed it!" Augustus said.

Call had only gulped down a few bites of stew when the shooting started. He ran back to his horse and pulled out his rifle, expecting the Indians to be upon them, but when he turned the prairie looked empty. Most of the rangers had taken cover behind their horses, there being no other cover to take.

Captain Scull had drawn his big pistol, but had not moved from his spot by the coffeepot. He had his head tilted slightly to one side, watchful and curious.

"We just lost Watson," he said, examining the camp. "Either that, or he's enjoying a mighty heavy nap." Augustus ran over and knelt by Jimmy Watson, a man a year or two older than himself and Call. At first he saw no wound and thought the Captain might be right about the heavy nap, but when he turned Jimmy Watson slightly he saw that a bullet had got him right under his armpit. He must have been lifting his gun and the bullet passed just beneath it and killed him.