Текст книги "Comanche Moon"

Автор книги: Larry McMurtry

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Текущая страница: 36 (всего у книги 46 страниц)

She had always hoped to make it to California someday, and yet was dying in Denver, with California no closer than it had been when she was a girl.

"If I could, Matty, I'd buy you a ticket on the next stage," Augustus said, aloud, overcome by the same regretful emotion he had felt when he pressed the sixty dollars into Charles Goodnight's hand.

Later in the day Gus walked away from the camp, attempting to locate the rocky hillock where he had first come face-to-face with Buffalo Hump. It had been stormy; the two of them had seen one another in a lightning flash. Gus had run as he had never run in his life, before or since, and had only escaped because of the darkness.

Because it had been so dark, he could not determine which of the rocky rises he was looking for, though no moment of his life was so clearly imprinted on his memory as the one when he had seen, in a moment of white light, Buffalo Hump sitting on his blanket. He could even remember that the blanket had been frayed a little, and that the Comanche had a rawhide string in his hand.

When he tired of his search he caught the black mare and rode on west a few miles, to the high crag of rock where the Comanches had lured them into ambush. A few warriors had draped themselves in white mountain-goat skins, and the rangers had taken the bait. Gus himself had only survived the ambush because he stumbled in his climb and rolled down the hill, losing his rifle in the process.

Augustus tied his horse and climbed up to the boulder-strewn ridge where the Comanches had hidden. In walking around, he picked up two arrowheads; they seemed older than the arrowheads the Comanches had used that day, one of which had to be extracted from Johnny Carthage's leg, but he could not be sure, so he put the arrowheads in his pocket, meaning to show them to someone more expert than himself. It might be that the Comanches had been fighting off that crag for centuries.

As Augustus was walking back down the hill to his horse, his eye caught a movement far to the east, from the direction of the old camp on the river. He stepped behind the same rock that had shielded him long ago and saw that two men approached, one on horseback and one on foot. He didn't at first recognize the horse and rider, but he did recognize the quick lope of the man on foot–Famous Shoes' lope. His first feeling was annoyance: Woodrow Call had had him tracked at a time when all he wanted was a few days to himself.

A moment later Augustus saw that the rider was young Pea Eye Parker, a choice which amused him, since he knew that Pea Eye hated expeditions, particularly lone expeditions across long stretches of Indian country. On such trips Pea Eye scarcely slept or rested, from nervousness. Now Call had sent the boy hundreds of miles from home, with no companion except a Kickapoo tracker who was known to wander away on his own errands for days at a stretch.

Augustus waited by his horse while the horseman and the walker came toward him from the river. While he was waiting he dug the two small arrowheads out of his pocket and studied them a little more, but without reaching a conclusion as to their age.

"You have gone far–I don't know why," Famous Shoes said, when he came to where Augustus waited.

"Why, I was just looking for arrowheads," Augustus said lightly. "What do you make of these?" Famous Shoes accepted the two arrowheads carefully and looked at them for a long time without speaking. Pea Eye came up and dismounted. He looked, to Gus's eye, more gaunt than ever.

"Hello, Pea–h you slept well on your travels?" he asked.

Pea Eye was so glad to see Captain McCrae that he didn't hear the question. He shook Gus's hand long and firmly. It was clear from his tense face that travel had been a strain.

"I'm glad you ain't dead, Captain," Pea Eye said. "I'm real glad you ain't dead." Augustus was a little startled by the force of the young man's emotion. The trip must have been even more of a trial to him than he had imagined.

"No, I ain't dead," Augustus told him. "I just rode off to think for a few days, and one of the things I wanted to think about was the fact that I ain't dead." "Why would you need to think about that, Captain?" Pea asked.

"Well, because people die," Augustus said.

"Two of my wives are dead. Long Bill Coleman is dead. Quite a few of the men I've rangered with are dead–three of them died right on this hill we're standing on. Jimmy Watson is dead–y knew Jimmy yourself, and you knew Long Bill. A bunch of farmers and their families got massacred that day we found you sitting by the corncrib." Pea Eye mainly remembered the corn.

"I was mighty hungry that day," Pea Eye said. "That hard corn tasted good to me." Now that Captain McCrae had reminded him, Pea Eye did remember that there had been three dead bodies in the cabin where he found the scattered corn. He remember that the bodies had arrows in them; but what he remembered better was walking through the woods for three days, lost, so hungry he had tried to eat the bark off trees.

Finding the corn seemed like such a miracle that he did not really think about the bodies in the cabin.

"I guess people have been dying all over," he said, not sure how to respond to the Captain's comments.

Augustus saw that Pea Eye was exhausted, not so much from the long ride as from nervous strain.

He turned back to Famous Shoes, who was still looking intently at the two arrowheads.

"I was in a fight with Buffalo Hump and some of his warriors here, years ago," Gus said.

"Do you think they dropped these arrowheads then, or are they older?" Famous Shoes handed the two arrowheads back to Augustus.

"These were not made by the Comanche, they were made by the Old P," he said.

Famous Shoes started up the hill Augustus had just come down.

"I want to find some of these arrowheads too," he said. "The Old People made them." "You're welcome to look," Gus said. "I mean to keep these myself. If they're so old they might bring me luck." "You already have luck," Famous Shoes told him–but he did not pause to explain. He was too eager to look for the arrowheads that had been made by the Old p.

"I guess you're here to bring me home, is that right, Pea?" Augustus asked.

"The Governor wants to see you–Captain Call told me that much," Pea Eye said.

Though Augustus knew he ought to go light on the young man, something about Pea Eye's solemn manner made teasing him hard to resist.

"If I'm under arrest you best get out your handcuffso," he said, sticking out his hands in surrender.

Pea Eye was startled, as he often was by Captain McCrae's behaviour.

"I ain't got no handcuffso, Captain," he said.

"Well, you might have to tie me, then," Gus said. "I'm still a wild boy. I might escape before you get me back to Austin." Pea Eye wondered if the Captain had gone a little daft. He was holding out his hands, as if he expected to be tied.

"Captain, I wouldn't arrest you," he said.

"I just came to tell you Captain Call asked if you'd come back. The Governor asked too, I believe." "Yes, and what will you tell them if I decide to slip off?" Gus asked.

Pea Eye felt that he was being given a kind of examination, just when he least expected one.

"I'd just tell them you didn't want to come," he said. "If you don't want to come back, you don't have to, that's how I see it." "I'm glad you feel that way, Pea," Augustus said, letting his hand drop, finally.

"I fear I'd be uncomfortable travelling with a man who had a commission to arrest me." "I was not given no papers," Pea Eye said –he thought a commission must involve a document of some kind.

Augustus looked past the crag of rock toward El Paso del Norte, the Pass of the North.

"I guess I've travelled long enough in a westerly direction," he said. "I believe I'll go back with you, Pea–x'll help your career." "My what?" Pea Eye asked.

"Your job, Pea–j your job," Augustus said, annoyed that he was unable to employ his full vocabulary with the young man. "You might make sergeant yet, just for bringing me home."

Famous Shoes was so excited by the old things he was finding on the hill of arrowheads that he did not want to leave. All afternoon he stayed on the hill, searching the ground carefully for things the Old People might have left. He looked at the base of rocks and into holes and cracks in the land. He saw the two rangers leave and ride back toward the camp by the river, but he did not have time to join them. After only a little searching he found six more arrowheads, a fragment of a pot, and a little tool of bone that would have been used to scrape hides. With every discovery his excitement grew. At first he spread the arrowheads on a flat rock, but then he decided it would be wiser not to leave them exposed. The spirits of the Old People might be nearby; they might not like it that he was finding the things they had lost or left behind. If he left the arrowheads exposed, the old spirits might turn themselves into rats or chipmunks and try to carry the arrowheads back to the spirit place. The objects he was finding might be the oldest things in the world. If he took them to the elders of the tribe they could learn many things from them.

It would not do to leave them at risk, particularly not after he found the bear tooth. Famous Shoes saw something white near the base of the crag and discovered, once he dug it out with his knife, that it was the tooth of a great bear. It was far larger than the tooth of any bear he had ever seen, and its edge had been scraped to make it sharp. It could be used as a small knife, or as an awl, to punch holes in the skins of buffalo or deer.

Famous Shoes knew he had made a tremendous discovery. He was glad, now, that he had been sent after Captain McCrae; because of it he had found the place where the Old People had once lived. He wrapped his finds carefully in a piece of deerskin and put them in his pouch. He meant to go at once to find the Kickapoo elders, some of whom lived along the Trinity River. While the elders studied what he had found, which included a small round stone used to grind corn, he meant to come back to the hill of arrowheads and look some more. There were several more such hills nearby where he might look. If he were lucky he might even find the hole in the earth where the People had first come out into the light. Famous Shoes thought it possible that he had been acting on wrong information in regard to the hole of emergence.

It might not be near the caprock at all. It might be somewhere around the very hill he was standing on, where the Old People had dropped so many of their arrowheads.

The possibility that the hole might be nearby was not something he meant to tell the rangers. When darkness fell he left the hill and went toward their campfire, which he could see winking in the darkness, back by the river. He thought it would be courteous to tell Captain McCrae that he had to leave at once, on an errand of great importance. Captain McCrae was not lost, and would not need him to guide them home.

When Famous Shoes reached the camp he saw that the young ranger who had travelled with him was already asleep. In fact he was snoring and his snores could be heard some distance from the camp. The snores reminded Famous Shoes of the sounds an angry badger would make.

"Snores awful, don't he?" Augustus said, when Famous Shoes appeared. He had been enjoying a little whiskey–he had used his supply only sparingly, so as not to run out before he got back to a place where he could count on finding a settler with a jug.

"He did not snore like that while he was with me," Famous Shoes said. "He did not snore at all while we were looking for you." "I doubt he slept, while he was with you," Augustus said. "It's hard to snore much if you're wide awake. I expect he was afraid you would scalp him if he went to sleep while he was with you." Famous Shoes did not reply. He knew that Captain McCrae often joked, but the discoveries he had just made were serious; he did not have the leisure to listen to jokes or to talk that made no sense.

"Did you find any more of them old arrowheads?" Gus asked.

"I have to go visit some people now," Famous Shoes said. He did not want to discuss his findings with Captain McCrae. Even though Captain McCrae had shown him the old arrowheads, Famous Shoes still thought it was unwise to discuss the Old People and their tools with him. He himself did not know what was sacred and what wasn't, with such old things–t was for the elders to interpret.

"Well, you ain't chained, go if you like," Augustus said. "I'll tell Woodrow Call you done your job proper, so he won't cut your pay." Famous Shoes did not answer. He was wondering if all the hills beyond the Pecos had old things on them. It would take a long time to search so many hills. He knew he had better get busy. It had been windy lately–the wind had blown the soil away, making it easier to see the arrowheads and pieces of pots. He wanted to hurry to the Trinity and then come back.

Some white man looking for gold might dig in one of the hills and disturb the arrowheads and other tools.

Augustus saw that Famous Shoes was anxious to leave but he didn't want him to go before he could attempt to interest him in the great issue of mortality, the problem he had been pondering in the last two weeks, as he rode west. His efforts to interest Pea Eye in the matter of mortality had met with complete failure. Pea Eye was mindful that he might die sooner rather than later, from doing the dangerous work of rangering, but he didn't have much to say on the subject. When Augustus tried to get his opinion on factors that prevailed in life or death situations such as Indian fights, he found that Pea Eye had no opinion. Some men died and some men lived, Pea Eye knew that, but the why of it was well beyond his reasoning powers; even beyond his interest. When questioned on the subject, Pea Eye just went to sleep.

"Before you go loping off, tell me why you think I'm lucky," Augustus asked. "Is it just because I found them arrowheads?" "No, that was not luck, you have good eyes," Famous Shoes said. "No arrow has ever found you–no bullet either–though you have been in many battles. No bear has eaten you and no snake has bitten you." "Buffalo Hump's lance bit me, though," Augustus said, pointing. "It bit me right out there on those flats." "It only bit your hip a little," Famous Shoes reminded him–he had heard the story often.

"I admit that I was lucky it was so dark," Gus said. "If it had been daylight I expect he would have got me." In Famous Shoes' opinion that was true.

If the encounter with Buffalo Hump had occurred in daylight Captain McCrae would probably be dead.

"If I have all this luck, why do my wives keep dying?" Augustus asked.

It seemed to Famous Shoes that Captain McCrae was wanting to know the answer to questions that had no answer. Though it was sometimes possible to say why a particular woman died, it was not possible to say why one man's wives died while another man's lived. Such things were mysteries–no man could understand them, any more than a man could understand the rain and the wind. In some springs there were rain clouds, in other springs none. In some years frost came early, in other years it came late. Some women bore children easily, others died in the effort. Why one man fell in battle while the man fighting right beside him lived was a thing that could not be known. Some medicine man might know about the arrowheads he had found, and about the scraper, or the pots, but no medicine man or wise man knew why one man died and another lived. Wise men themselves often died before fools, and cowards before men who were brave. Famous Shoes knew that Captain McCrae enjoyed discussing such matters, but he himself could not spare the time for extended conversation, not when he had such a great distance to travel, on such an urgent errand.

"It was good that you showed me those arrowheads that were not from the Comanche," Famous Shoes said. "That was a good place to look for old arrowheads. I found some for myself." "I've heard they sell arrowheads, back east," Augustus told him. "The Indians back east have forgotten how to make them–I guess they've got too used to guns. Back in Carolina and Georgia and them places, the only way folks can get arrowheads is to buy them in a store." Famous Shoes was feeling very impatient.

Captain McCrae was one of the most talkative people he had ever known. Sometimes, when there was leisure for lengthy conversation, he was an interesting man to listen to. He was curious about things that most white men paid no attention to. But everyone was curious about death–Famous Shoes didn't feel he could spend any more time discussing it with Captain McCrae, and he had no interest in discussing tribes of Indians who were so degenerate that they no longer knew how to make arrowheads.

"I will see you again when I have time," he said.

"Damnit, I wish you wasn't always in such a hurry," Augustus said, but his ^ws simply floated away. Famous Shoes was already walking toward the Trinity River.

Augustus could not restrain his amusement that Woodrow Call, stiff and nervous, confided his suspicion that Maggie Tilton had an involvement with Jake Spoon that went beyond the friendly.

"Didn't you ever notice Jake carrying her groceries, or helping her with her garden?" Augustus asked.

"I noticed," Call said. "But a man ought to help a woman carry groceries, or help her with a garden if he knows anything about gardens.

I'm ignorant in that field myself." "Not as ignorant as you are in the woman field," Augustus said. "If Maggie was the sun you'd have to carry around a sundial to let you know if it's a cloudy day." "You can hold off on the fancy talk, Gus," Call said, annoyed. It had taken him a week to work up to confiding in Augustus and he did not appreciate the flippant way his confidence was being treated.

"I think he bunks there," he added, so there would be no doubt as to the nature of his suspicions.

Augustus realized that his friend was considerably upset. With effort he held in his amusement and even passed up a chance to make another flowery comparison in regard to Woodrow's ignorance about women–an ignorance he believed to be profound.

He knew there were times when Call could be safely teased and times when he couldn't; in his judgment much more teasing in the present situation might result in fisticuffso. Woodrow appeared to be drawn about as tightly as it was safe to draw him.

"Woodrow, you're correct–Jake's been bunking with Maggie for a while," Augustus said, keeping his tone mild.

It was the news Call had feared; yet Augustus delivered it as matter-of-factly as if he were merely announcing that he needed a new pair of boots. They were standing by the corrals in bright sunlight, watching Pea Eye try to rope a young gelding, a strawberry roan. The boy Newt watched from a perch atop the fence.

Pea Eye caught the gelding on the third throw and dug in his heels as the young horse began to fight the rope.

"Pea's getting trained up to a point where he can almost rope," Gus said. "I can remember when it took him thirty throws to catch his horse." Call was silent. He wasn't interested in how many throws it took Pea Eye to catch a horse, nor was he interested in the six young horses the rangers had just purchased from a horse trader near Waco, though he had approved the purchase himself and signed the check.

Normally the arrival of six new horses, acquired at no small cost, would have occupied him immediately–but what occupied him then was Augustus's acknowledgment that Jake was living with Maggie Tilton and her son, Newt–or, if not fully living with her, at least bunking with her to the extent that suited his pleasure and hers.

Augustus saw that his friend was stumped, if not stunned, by the discovery of a situation that had been no secret to most of the rangers for well over a year. It was a peculiar oversight on Woodrow's part, not to notice such things, but then Woodrow Call always had been able to overlook almost everything in life not connected with the work of being a Texas Ranger.

"If you knew about this why didn't you tell me?" Call asked.

Augustus found himself finally having the conversation he had been dreading for a year. He had long known that Woodrow was more attached to Maggie Tilton than he allowed himself to admit. He wouldn't marry her or claim as a son the nice little boy sitting on the fence of the corral; but neither of those evasions meant that Woodrow Call wasn't mighty fond of Maggie Tilton–even though he knew that Call had stopped visiting her as a lover about the time Newt was born. Call had known Maggie longer than he himself had known Clara Allen. It was a long stretch of time, during which Woodrow had displayed no interest, serious or trivial, in any other woman.

Augustus knew, too, that the fact that Woodrow was awkward about his feelings didn't mean that his feelings were light–Maggie Tilton, he felt sure, knew this as well as anyone.

Evidence that Woodrow Call harbored no light feeling for Maggie was right before him: Call looked blank and sad, not unlike the way survivors looked after an Indian raid or a shoot-out of some kind.

"I suppose I am a fool," Call said.

"I would never have expected her to accept Jake Spoon." "Why?" Gus asked. "Jake ain't a bad fellow, which ain't to say that he's George Washington, or a fine hero like me." "He's lazy and will shirk what he can shirk," Call replied. "I will admit that he writes a nice hand." "Well, that's it, Woodrow–t's accurate," Augustus said. "Jake's just a middling fellow. He ain't really a coward, though he don't seek fights. He's lazy and he'll whore, and I expect he cheats a little at cards when he thinks he can get away with it.

But he helps ladies with their groceries and is handy at gardening and will even paint a lady's house for her if the lady is pretty enough." "Maggie's pretty enough," Call replied.

"She is, yes," Augustus said. "I will have to say I ain't noticed Jake doing too many favors for the ugly gals." "Damn it, he's taken advantage of her!" Call said. He could think of no other explanation for the situation.

"No, I don't think he has," Gus said.

"I think Jake's been about as good to Maggie as he's able to be." "Why would you say that?" Call asked–of course it was like Augustus to take the most irritating position possible.

"I say it because it's true," Gus said.

"He's been a damn sight more helpful to her than you've ever been." There was a silence between the two men. Neither looked at one another for a bit–both pretended they were watching Pea Eye, who had managed to get the gelding snubbed to the heavy post in the center of the corral.

Call started to make a hot reply, but choked it off. He knew he wasn't really much help to Maggie–z his duties as a ranger captain had increased, he had less and less time to devote to the common chores that Maggie, like everyone else, might need help with. He didn't carry her groceries or help her with her gardening; the fact was, rangering or no rangering, he had never felt comfortable doing things with Maggie in public. If they met in the street he spoke and tipped his hat, but he rarely strolled with her or walked her home. It was not his way. If Jake or Gus or any decent fellow wanted to do otherwise, that was fine with him.

But what Jake was doing now–or seemed to be doing–went well beyond giving Maggie a hand with her groceries or her garden. It bothered him, but he was getting no sympathy from Augustus; what he was getting, instead, was criticism.

"I have no doubt you think I'm in the wrong," Call said. "You always do, unless it's just rangering that's involved." "You're always fussing at me about my whoring and drinking," Augustus reminded him. "I suppose I have a right to fuss at you when the matter is crystal clear." "It may be crystal clear to you, but it's damn murky to me," Call said.

Augustus shrugged. He nodded toward Newt, who still sat on the fence, absorbed by the struggle between Pea Eye and the gelding. The boy loved horses. The rangers took him riding, when they could, and there was talk about finding him a pony or at least a small gentle horse.

"That boy sitting there is yours as sure as sunlight, but you won't claim him or give him your name and you've been small help with his raising," Augustus pointed out. "Pea Eye's more of a pa to him than you've been, and so am I and so is Jake. Maggie would like to be married to you, but she ain't. The only thing I don't understand about it is why she tolerates you at all. A man who won't claim his child wouldn't be sitting in my parlor much, if I was a gal." Call turned and walked off. He didn't need any more conversation about the boy; in particular he was sick of hearing how much the boy resembled him. The business about the resemblances annoyed him intensely: the boy just looked like a boy.

Discussing such matters with Augustus was clearly a waste of time. Augustus had held to his own view for years, and was not likely to change it.

He heard the whirl of a grindstone behind the little shed where the rangers did most of their harness repair and handiwork. Deets was there, sharpening an axe and a couple of spades. The cockleburs were bad in the river bottom where the horses watered –Deets sharpened the spades so he could spade them down and spare the rangers the tedious labor of pulling cockleburs out of their horses' tails, an annoyance that put them all out of temper.

"Deets, would you go get Newt and walk him to his mother?" Call asked. "It's a hot day, and he won't stay in the shade. He'll get too hot if he just sits there in the sun." "That boy need a hat," Deets observed.

The grindstone was the kind that operated with a pedal, but the pedal had a tendency to stick. He had a cramp in his calf from working the old sticking pedal most of the day; but he had an impressive pile of well-sharpened tools to show for his effort: four axes, seven hatchets, an adze, five spades, and a double-bladed pickaxe. Walking a little with Newt would be a nice relief. Captain Call had promised to get him a better grindstone at some point, but so far the money for it hadn't been made available. Captain Augstus said it was the legislature's fault.

"That legislature, it's slow," Augustus often said.

Deets thought probably the reason the legislature was so slow to provide a grindstone was because so many of the senators were drunk most of the time. Deets had had one or two senators pointed out to him and later had seen the very same man sprawled out full length in the street, heavily drunk. One senator had even lost a hand while sleeping in the middle of the street on a foggy morning. A wagon came along the street and a rear wheel passed over the senator's wrist, cutting off his hand as neatly as a butcher or a surgeon could have. Deets had been struggling to extract a long mesquite thorn from the hock of one of the pack mules at the time: he still remembered the senator's piercing scream, when he awoke to find that his hand was gone and his right wrist spurting blood into the fog. The scream had such terror in it that Deets and most of the other people who heard it assumed it could only mean an Indian attack. Men rushed for their guns and women for their hiding places. While the rushing was going on the senator fainted. While the whole town hunkered down, waiting for the scalping Comanches to pour in among them, the senator lay unconscious in the street, bleeding. When the fog lifted, with no one scalped and no Comanches to be seen, the local blacksmith found the senator, still fainted, and, by that time, bled white. The man lived, but he soon stopped being a senator. As Deets understood it, the man decided just to stay home, where he could drink with much less risk.

Now the Captain was wanting him to carry Newt home to his mother, a task he was happy to undertake. He liked Newt, and would have bought him a good little hat to shade him on sunny days, if he could have afforded it. Mainly, though, Deets was just given his room and board and a dollar a month toward expenses–in his present situation he could not afford to be buying little boys hats.

The boy still sat on the fence, watching Pea Eye trying to rope a second gelding, the first one having been firmly snubbed to the post. Call stood watching–not at the boy or the roper; just watching generally, it seemed to Deets.

"Newt wishing he could be a roper," Deets said. "A roper like Mr. Pea." Call had just watched Pea Eye miss the skinny gelding for the fourth time; he was not pleased.

"If he ever is a roper, I hope he's better at it than Pea Eye Parker," he said, before he walked away.

"Yes, he stays here, when I can keep him out of the saloons," Maggie said, when Call asked her if Jake was sleeping at her house.

She didn't say it bashfully, either. Newt had an earache; she was warming cornmeal in a sock, for him to hold against his ear. Graciela had told her she ought to drip warm honey in Newt's ear, but Maggie didn't think the earache was severe enough to risk making that big a mess. In fact, she wondered if it was an earache at all, or just a new way Newt had thought of to get himself a little more attention. Newt enjoyed his minor illnesses. Sometimes he could persuade his mother to let him sleep with her when he was a little sick, or could pretend to be. Maggie suspected that this was only a pretend earache, but she warmed the cornmeal anyway. She did not appreciate Woodrow Call's question and didn't bother to conceal how she felt. For years she had concealed most of what she felt about Woodrow, but she had given up on him and had no reason to conceal her feelings anymore.

"Well, I am surprised," Call said cautiously. He felt on unfamiliar ground with Maggie; possibly infirm ground as well.

She didn't look up when she informed him that Jake was sleeping there.

"I ain't a rock," Maggie said, in reply, and this time she did look up.