Текст книги "Comanche Moon"

Автор книги: Larry McMurtry

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Текущая страница: 42 (всего у книги 46 страниц)

The thing that Buffalo Hump was most grateful for, as he rode into the emptiness, was the knowledge that in the years of his youth and manhood he had drawn the lifeblood of so many enemies. He had been a great killer; it was his way and the way of his people; no one in his tribe had killed so often and so well.

The killings were good to remember, as he rode his old horse deeper into the llano, away from all the places where people came.

"I feel like I've been around this ring once too often, Woodrow," Augustus said.

"Don't you? The same governor we used to work for wants to send us after the same outlaw we ought to have killed way back when Inish Scull was our boss." The governor he was referring to was e. m.

Pease, one of the few able men willing to take the provisional governorship under the terms of a harsh Reconstruction; the outlaw in question was Blue Duck, whose band of murderers was making travel hazardous from the Sabine to the Big Wichita. The army was busy trying to subdue the few remaining free Comanches; the rangers were depleted in numbers and in spirit, but they were still the only force capable of dealing with general lawlessness of a magnitude likely to be beyond the scope of local sheriffso.

"I agree we ought to have killed him then," Call said. "But we didn't. Now will have to do." "I dislike it!" Augustus said. His face was red and his neck swelled, as it was likely to do when he was in a temper. Why the temper, Call didn't understand. Governor Pease had been meek as a mouse when he called them in and asked them to go after Blue Duck.

"I can see you're riled but I don't know why," Call said. "Governor Pease was polite–he's always been polite." "I ain't a policeman, that's why I'm riled," Augustus said. "I don't mind hanging a fat bandit, or a skinny one either, if they're handy, but I've been a free ranger all this time and I don't like being told that all I'm good for is hanging bandits and putting drunks in jail. We ain't to fight Indians now, unless it's to save our hair. We can't chase a bandit across the Rio Grande. I feel handcuffed and I'm ready to quit." "You've been ready to quit ever since you joined up with Major Chevallie," Call said.

He knew, though, that Gus's complaint was mainly valid. All they had been given to do lately was cool off feuding families, of which there were plenty among the land-grabbing settlers pushing into lands the Comanches were no longer able to contest. The country was changing–it wasn't the Governor's fault.

Call meant to point out that Blue Duck was no modest bandit. He was Buffalo Hump's son, and his gang of ruffians had taken more than forty lives along the military trail that led from Fort Smith to Santa Fe. That trail, blazed by the great Captain Marcy himself, passed through the Cross Timbers and the southern plains.

Before he could present his arguments, though, Augustus marched into a saloon–when in town, he was seldom outside the saloons. Whenever he was annoyed or bored, Augustus drank–and he was all too frequently annoyed or bored. In that, he was no exception, of course; the frontier was laced with whiskey.

What Call could not contest was Gus's fury at the diminished status of the rangers. For years the rangers had provided what protection the frontier families had; it was hard, now, to find themselves treated as no better than local constables.

Call, as much as Gus, wanted to be done with it, but he could not feel right about refusing a request from Governor Pease, a kind man who had fought with the legislature many times in his earlier term to get the rangers what they needed in the way of supplies, horses, and weaponry.

He thought that catching or killing Blue Duck was something they ought to do–once they had done it, that would be enough. They could quit their rangering then, though what they would do once they quit he didn't know. Cattle ranching was the new thing–hundreds of thousands of Texas cattle were being driven north every year now. Once, while in San Antonio, he and Gus had ridden out with Captain King to watch one of his herds pass–some four thousand cattle in all. They were being skillfully handled by experienced vaqueros, a sight that interested Call but immediately bored Gus, for the vaqueros were mainly letting the cattle graze along at their own pace.

"Watching weeds turn brown is more interesting than this," Augustus said. "I could have stayed in the saloon and looked out the window at a donkey eating a prickly pear. It would have been just as much fun, and besides, I'd be drunk." This sally caused Captain King to laugh heartily.

"Use your mind's eye, Captain," he said. "Think of the East, the teeming millions." "The what?" Gus asked.

"The people, sir," Captain King said. "The millionaires and the beggars. The English, the Irish, the Italians, the Poles–the Swedes and the Jews. People in the finest New York mansions will soon be eating this beef. The cooks in Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington will soon be cooking it." "Why, what a bother–y'd take cattle all that way so a bunch of foreigners can eat beef? Let them grow their own beef, I say." "But there's no room, sir–the East is mighty crowded," Captain King explained.

"Beef is what will bring Texas back from the war. Cotton won't do it. There's too damn much cotton in the world now. But beef? That's different. All the starving Irish who have never tasted anything except the potato in their entire lives will pay for beef." "Me, I'd rather have whores," Augustus said.

"Me, sorting dry goods, no thank you," Augustus had said, when Call once mentioned the possibility of their buying a store. He had given a similarly dismissive reply to several other ideas Call had floated. Only the notion of running a livery stable seemed to arouse his interest, if only because–z Gus envisioned the enterprise–there would be Pea Eye and Deets to do the work, whereas he would take the money to the bank and perhaps wet his whistle, against the drought, on the way back.

The thought of owning a livery stable affected Gus much as the thought of the beef-eating millionaires affected Captain King. Every time a livery stable was mentioned, around the bunkhouse, Gus would get a light in his eye and would soon be spinning notions that made the contemplated livery stable unlike any Call, or Pea, or Deets had ever seen.

"Of course, we wouldn't have to just rent horses," he said, one blazing day when the group of them were sitting in the shade of a big mesquite, behind the bunkhouse.

"No, we could rent a mule or two, if we had a couple," Call allowed, only to draw from Augustus the look of scorn he reserved for the hopelessly unimaginative.

"I wasn't talking about mules, Woodrow," he said. "A mule is just a lesser horse, and so is a donkey." "They may be lesser, but a lot of people would rather rent a mule than a horse, I imagine," Pea Eye said. "A mule won't step in a hole, and a horse will." "You're out of your depth when it comes to commerce, Pea," Gus said. "You should keep your tongue back there behind your teeth." Call was puzzled.

"What other kind of animls would you be renting, then?" he asked, though he knew Augustus was probably just launching into one of the elaborate leg pulls he loved so much. He particularly loved them when he had the credulous Deets and Pea to confound and dumbfound.

"Well, we could rent sheep and goats and laying hens," Augustus said, without hesitation.

"Laying hens? Why would anybody pay to rent a hen?" Call asked.

"It could be that a salesman had just come to town for a few days," Gus said. "He might want a nice raw egg with his coffee andof course he'd prefer it to be fresh. We could rent him a hen for a day or two so he'd have his egg." The answer had a certain logic to it–sch a thing could happen, though Call knew it never would.

That was the devilish thing about arguing with Augustus: he could always come up with answers that made sense about schemes that would never happen.

"How much would I have to pay if I was to rent a hen from you for a day or two, Gus?" Pea Eye asked.

"If it was one of those nice speckled hens I expect I'd require a quarter a day," Augustus said. "If it was just one of those plain brown hens I might let you rent her for fifteen cents." "All right, but why would anyone want to rent a sheep or a goat?" Dan Connor asked. He was a small, feisty ranger who had joined the troop after Jake left.

"Well, our same salesman might want a sheep around because the odor of sheep repels mosquitoes," Augustus said. "He might want to hitch a sheep at the foot of his bed so the skeeters wouldn't bite him too hard." That answer, which Augustus delivered with a straight face, stopped conversation for a while, as the various rangers tried to remember if they had slept free of mosquitoes while there was a sheep around. Of course, there .were no sheep in Austin, and very few anywhere in Texas, so the theory was hard to test.

"What would a goat do, then?" Pea Eye inquired.

"Goats eat up the trash," Deets ventured, unexpectedly. Though he always listened intently to the general conversation, he rarely contributed a remark, especially not if one of the captains was around. Alone with Pea Eye, though, Deets had plenty to say.

"That's it, Deets–t's it," Augustus declared. "Your salesman might have some old ledgers or a few bills of lading he wants to dispose of. We'd rent him a goat for thirty cents a day and the problem would be solved." "How about pigs, then, Captain?" Dan Connor asked. "A pig has got as good an appetite as a goat. How much would a pig rent for?" At that Augustus looked stern.

"Oh, we wouldn't be renting no pigs, couldn't afford to, Dan," he said. "It might lead to lawsuits." "Why would renting a pig lead to lawsuits?" Call asked. He had had enough of the conversation and was about to take a walk, but he thought he would hear how Augustus justified his remark about pigs and lawsuits.

"Now the difficulty with a pig is that it's smarter than most human beings and it has a large appetite," Gus said. "A pig might even eat a customer, if the customer was drunk and not alert. Or it might at least eat one of his legs, if it was in the mood to snack. Or it could eat his coat off, or swallow the nice belt buckle his wife had given him for his birthday, which would get him in trouble at home and cause a passel of bad feelings. Even if it didn't mean a lawsuit it might cause him to tell all his friends not to rent from us, which could mean a sag in the profits." At that point Call walked off, as Gus was regaling his audience with his wildest scheme yet, which was to locate a zebra somewhere and teach it to pull a wagon, after which they could rent the zebra and the wagon together at a steep price for all manner of festivities.

"It might work for weddings," Augustus allowed. "We could teach it to pull the buggy that the bride and groom ride in." "As I recall, you walked to your weddings," Call said. "I doubt anyone in this part of the country could afford to rent a zebra, even if we had one, which we don't." The one point the two of them agreed on was that their future, once they left the rangers, would not be spent in Austin. They had been there too long, seen too much of politics, and had arrested, for one crime or another, a relative of virtually every person in town; they had also hung, for murder or horse thievery, quite a few men who had been popular in the saloons. They had been the local law too long–it was time to move.

Call walked on to the lots, to begin to get the horses ready for their attempt to catch Blue Duck. The boy Newt was there, as he usually was, practicing his roping on the chickens.

Call wondered sometimes about Maggie–since Jake Spoon's departure she had not been seen in the company of a man. Augustus, who gossiped about everyone, had no gossip to dispense about Maggie Tilton. Call remembered the night he had walked all the way down the San Antonio road to the split tree, but he could not bring to mind exactly what his upset had been about. Something had gone wrong between himself and Maggie –he had not been up her steps since she threw the cornmeal at him.

Sometimes he missed Maggie, and would have liked to sit with her for an hour, and enjoy one of her tasty beefsteaks. Still, he knew he was better off than Augustus, who still pined so severely for Clara Allen that the mere sight of her handwriting on an envelope would send him into the saloons for a long bout of drinking. Often Gus would keep one of Clara's letters for a week before he could even work up to opening it. He never said much about the letters, though he did once remark that Clara had lost a boy–a year or two later he remarked that she had lost another boy.

Augustus, when he chose to employ it, had a great gift for politics. He could persuade better than any governor or senator Call had ever met. Gus could easily have been elected a senator, and gone to Washington; he could have been elected governor. And yet, because he had lost the love of the one woman he really wanted, Clara Allen, Augustus had stayed a ranger. Once or twice Gus did consider running for office, but then another letter from Clara would come and he'd drink and put off reading it for a week. It seemed, to Woodrow Call, a strange way to live a life.

Last Horse was sitting idly by the fire, sharpening one of his knives on a whetstone, when it gradually dawned on him what the women were saying.

The women were always talking some ribaldry or other. Last Horse didn't understand why they talked about coupling so much since most of them, including his two wives, were rarely eager to couple with him–but such was the talk of women, year in and year out. He had only been half listening until one of them mentioned Buffalo Hump.

Even though Buffalo Hump was old now some of the women still speculated about coupling with him; but that was not what they were talking about this morning. It was only when he realized that the women were claiming that the old chief had left the camp that Last Horse suddenly realized that something important had happened.

What they said was true: Buffalo Hump's lodge appeared to be empty; there was no sign that he had used it for two or three days. Last Horse started to go inside the lodge and see if Buffalo Hump had left anything behind, but when he got to the entrance he stopped. Buffalo Hump was unpredictable; he might be in his lodge, waiting quietly for some fool to slip in and try to rob him. He might be waiting with his big knife.

Even if he wasn't waiting, even if he was truly gone, entering his lodge was not a step to be taken lightly. After all, he might only have gone on a hunt; he might return and make an issue of the fact that his lodge had been entered without his permission. Last Horse hesitated– he had been afraid of Buffalo Hump all his life. Even if he knew that Buffalo Hump were dead he would have felt the need for caution. Such a chief would have a powerful spirit, one that might come back and work evil on interferers. Alive or dead, Buffalo Hump was a power Last Horse did not want to confront. He immediately got his rifle and set off for the northeast, to look for Blue Duck.

Last Horse had grown up with Blue Duck. Last year, while on a hunt, he had run into Blue Duck and some of his men; he feared trouble, but instead Blue Duck was friendly and even gave him some of his whiskey, a liquid he liked very much, although the sickness that came the next day was not pleasant.

In the morning, to his surprise, Blue Duck had given him two pistols and a watch.

Later in the day, while still feeling the unpleasantness that resulted from drinking so much whiskey, Last Horse had a most unfortunate accident while trying to load one of his new pistols. Because he was a little shaky he let the hammer slip while the pistol was pointed at his foot, the result being that he shot off the middle toe on his right foot. Such a foolish accident caused Last Horse great embarrassment, but it amused the ruffians who rode with Blue Duck very much. They began to tease him and call him Lost Toe–theirthe rude behaviour annoyed Last Horse greatly. Before he left to go home Blue Duck himself brewed some leaves and made a little poultice to put on his toe.

"How do you know how to make medicine?" Last Horse asked.

"A witch woman taught me," Blue Duck said.

Then he revealed the real reason he had been so generous with Last Horse: he wanted Last Horse to keep an eye on Buffalo Hump and let him know if the old man left the camp to go on a hunt or a journey. Blue Duck made no secret of the fact that he meant to kill Buffalo Hump. All the Comanches, including Buffalo Hump, had known of Blue Duck's intentions for many years, but Buffalo Hump, old as he was, feared no one and didn't let the threat keep him from going where he pleased.

Blue Duck showed Last Horse a fine rifle, with silver on the stock. He promised to give Last Horse the rifle if he would come quickly and let him know if Buffalo Hump left camp.

Once back with the tribe, Last Horse could not get the fine rifle out of his mind, or the whiskey either. That is why the women's news excited him so.

Last Horse asked all the warriors if Buffalo Hump had mentioned where he was going–he even asked Kicking Wolf, a man he was afraid of–but Buffalo Hump had spoken to no one. He had just ridden away.

Kicking Wolf seemed a little surprised by the news. He took the trouble to ride out to the horse herd, to see if he could determine how many horses Buffalo Hump had taken with him; when he came back he seemed subdued. He went himself to Buffalo Hump's lodge, to examine the horse tracks–once he had done so he seemed even more subdued.

"He only took that one old horse," Kicking Wolf said. "He has gone to find a place to die." Last Horse did not wait to question Kicking Wolf further. He set off at once to find Blue Duck. He knew he had to get to Blue Duck as soon as possible; if he delayed, Buffalo Hump might go on and die, in which case Blue Duck would have no reason to give him the rifle.

Last Horse did not feel entirely right about his errand, though. He knew that he was doing a thing that would not be approved of. Buffalo Hump had been a great chief, but Blue Duck was only an outlaw. The People might scorn him for taking Blue Duck such news, but Last Horse kept riding east anyway. He felt sad but he kept riding; his sadness wasn't just from the knowledge that he was doing something that was not too honorable. In the great days of the Comanche people it would not have occurred to him to betray a chief to a brash outlaw who happened to be his son.

The farther Last Horse went from the camp and the tribe, the more he began to doubt that he could ever go back and live among the People again. With the People he was always hungry; everyone in the band was always hungry.

The great days of feasting were over. Peta, their leader, had talked to the whites more than once lately; it would not be long before the band would have to move onto the land the whites wanted them to have.

Because of that, Last Horse felt less bad about what he was doing. He pressed his horse until the horse was lathered white with sweat. There was nothing behind him but sickness and starvation; if he rode with Blue Duck there would at least be food, because Blue Duck hunted in the forests where the deer were still thick.

When Blue Duck saw Last Horse coming, his horse pushed almost to the point of death, he immediately slipped his ammunition belts over his shoulder. If the Comanche had run his horse almost to death it could only be because he had urgent news of Buffalo Hump. Blue Duck went to a little wagon where he kept his whiskey and pulled out a bottle, which he handed to Last Horse as soon as the Comanche stepped off his stumbling mount.

"You have killed your horse, we might as well eat him," Blue Duck said. "I don't know why you were in such a hurry, unless you have a big thirst for whiskey." Last Horse was almost as tired as his mount.

He wanted to deliver his news at once, before he started drinking the whiskey.

"Buffalo Hump left," he said. "He took only one horse and he went northwest.

Kicking Wolf says he has gone away to die. Now can I have that pretty gun?" He saw the rifle he had been promised, propped against a wagon wheel, the sun glinting off the silver on the stock. Blue Duck walked over and picked it up; he looked at it carefully, as if he had never seen it before. Then, instead of giving it to Last Horse, as he had promised, he pointed it at him instead.

"This gun is too good for a thieving Comanche like you," Blue Duck said. "But since you are here I can let you have the bullets." Blue Duck fired twice; the bullets spun Last Horse around and knocked him to his knees. Several grasshoppers were hopping in the brown grass. Last Horse fell forward. His eyes were still open when one of the yellow grasshoppers hopped onto his face.

Blue Duck took the unopened whiskey bottle out of his hand and put it back in the little wagon. Ermoke, who had been about to snatch it, was disappointed.

After killing Last Horse, a man so foolish he had shot off his own toe, Blue Duck needed only a few minutes to complete his preparations for his journey in pursuit of Buffalo Hump. He caught four of his fastest horses, because he wanted to travel fast and far.

Although he didn't expect much resistance from the old man himself, it was hard to predict what one might encounter on the prairies, so he made sure he was well armed. The week before, his men had come upon two buffalo hunters whose hide wagon had broken down, and had killed them both, mainly in order to get their supply of tobacco, a substance always in short supply around the camp.

Blue Duck didn't care about the tobacco himself, but he was always pleased to capture the buffalo hunters' heavy rifles and their ammunition.

Now he strapped one of their big fifty-caliber rifles on one of the horses, an action that aroused the suspicions of Ermoke and Monkey John. They knew that Blue Duck had it in mind to kill his father someday, but they were not aware of the news Last Horse had brought. When they saw Blue Duck making ready to leave, with four horses and a buffalo gun, they assumed he must be going to ambush somebody rich. Blue Duck made no effort to divide treasures when he killed or captured some traveller. He always kept everything for himself, and frequently bullied other members of the robber gang to give him some of their spoils. It was a source of annoyance. When Ermoke complained, which he only did when he was drunk, Blue Duck laughed at him. Two or three men immediately went over and searched the dead Comanche, Last Horse, but he had nothing on him except a knife and one of the pistols Blue Duck had given him earlier–it was the pistol he had used to shoot off his own toe.

When Blue Duck was ready he simply rode away, without saying a ^w to anyone. As soon as he was out of sight, Ermoke and Monkey John caught their horses and followed him. They caught up with him about three miles from camp.

Both men were a little nervous; when Blue Duck acted as if he didn't want company it was well to be cautious. His killing moods were unpredictable. Neither of them had expected him to kill the Comanche who had ridden into camp– earlier he had been quite friendly with the man.

Certainly the Comanche had not expected to be killed. He had ridden his horse to death to reach Blue Duck quickly. But now he was dead, and so was his horse. The women were butchering it as Ermoke and Monkey John rode away.

Blue Duck didn't say a ^w when the two men joined him on his ride to the west. He knew they had followed thinking he was about to kill some traveller with a lot of money. Though it was impertinent for the two to join him when he hadn't asked for their company, he decided to let them come.

They didn't know he was only riding off to kill an old Comanche who owned nothing worth stealing.

They would make a long ride for nothing, which would serve them right.

Once they found Buffalo Hump, Blue Duck meant to inform the two killers that only he was to kill the old man–he did not want them to interfere. The mission he was on was one he had waited for since he left the tribe. Blue Duck had forgotten none of the insults Buffalo Hump had heaped on him: now he meant to have his revenge.

Blue Duck was convinced, too, that he knew where his father would go to make his death. Long ago, when Blue Duck was a boy of seven or eight, before his father began to insult him, Buffalo Hump had taken him on a long ride to Black Mesa, west of the Beaver River, in country that was so dry Blue Duck thought they might die of thirst. But Buffalo Hump did not intend to die of thirst– he knew of an old lake near Black Mesa, a lake that was then dry. What Buffalo Hump knew was that there was a little seeping spring in the center of the dry lake, hidden under weeds. They had ridden two days without water before they came to the dry lake and found the little seeping spring; Blue Duck had never forgotten the taste of that cool water, and he never told anyone else about the existence of the spring. Buffalo Hump had told him that the People had lived near Black Mesa long before his own time, when they were just becoming a horse people.

He had said it was a place of powerful spirits.

Blue Duck had a clear memory of the journey and felt sure he could find the dry lake again, and the little spring. He wanted to hurry, though.

Last Horse had said that Buffalo Hump had left with only one horse, and an old one at that. If the horse weakened, Buffalo Hump might die before he reached the mesa. Blue Duck rode hard all day, switching horses often so as not to wear out his mounts. Ermoke and Monkey John, foolishly, had not brought extra horses. They had assumed that Blue Duck must be after a victim fairly close to camp, which only showed Blue Duck how stupid they were. They had seen him ride out with four horses–did they think the other three were only to carry loot from his ambush?

Blue Duck showed them no mercy, where speed was concerned. If they rode their horses to death he meant to leave them; if they starved before they could get back to camp it was what they deserved. By the afternoon of the third day Ermoke and Monkey John were far behind. Already they were on a part of the llano they didn't know, and it was very dry. Both men knew Blue Duck would not wait for them, or show them any consideration at all.

Monkey John began to regret that they had come–z usual, Ermoke had been hasty in his judgment. If their horses failed in such country they would probably die.

"Who's he going to rob, out here?" Monkey John asked, several times. "There don't nobody live way out here." Ermoke didn't answer. He was watching the ground, determined not to lose Blue Duck's track.

"We ought to have brought more horses," Monkey John said, a little later, when he began to feel the force of the desert. They were in a great ring of empty land; the horizons seemed a hundred miles away.

Ermoke was thinking that if Blue Duck didn't slow down he might have to kill Monkey John. That way he would have another horse.

Call had no trouble persuading Famous Shoes to help them find Blue Duck's camp.

Famous Shoes liked to be free to go anywhere at any time, across the plains, into the forests, down to Mexico, over the mountains. The Kickapoo people were widely scattered now–he had to be able to move freely in order to visit his own people.

Recently, though, because of Blue Duck and his renegades, he had had to recognize that it was unwise to travel north of the Trinity River, unless he went very far to the west to do it. Famous Shoes did not want to get killed, and he knew that Blue Duck would kill him without hesitation if he found him alone. He well remembered that Blue Duck had once delivered him to Slow Tree, thinking he was delivering him to torture.

Slow Tree had let him go, but Blue Duck would not let him go if he caught him now.

So when Captain Call came to him and said that the rangers were going after Blue Duck, Famous Shoes immediately made ready to go with them.

Four days later Captain Call, Captain McCrae, eight rangers, and several sheriffso were hidden in a clump of timber near the south bank of the Red River, waiting for Famous Shoes to find the renegades and let them know how many fighting men they would have to face.

Famous Shoes easily found the renegades' camp, but he soon saw that Blue Duck wasn't there. He knew this news would displease Captain Call and Captain McCrae, and he was right.

"Who is there, if he ain't?" Augustus asked impatiently.

"There are twelve men and some women–they are cooking a horse," Famous Shoes said.

"Ermoke is not there either. He is a man who rapes whenever he can." "Where the hell is Blue Duck?" Gus asked. "I hate to waste time on the chiggers he left behind. The sheriffso can handle them." "Gus, we're here–we might as well help the sheriffso do this job," Call said. "Maybe some of the men know where he went." "Blue Duck has gone west and he is in a hurry," Famous Shoes said. "He took four horses and two men." "That's it, let's go get after him," Augustus said.

Call looked at the sheriffso, all local men. They did not look happy at the prospect of being left to fight a dozen renegades. All were poor men–probably they had just agreed to serve as sheriffso because they feared starvation if they tried to continue as farmers or merchants. Money was short and jobs scarce in Texas at the time.

"No, let's help the sheriffso round up these outlaws," Call said. "The sheriffso would be outnumbered if we leave." In the event, the renegades in Blue Duck's camp didn't fight at all. One man did raise his rifle when the rangers came charging into camp, but he was immediately shot dead. Then ten dirty, half-starved men threw up their hands –the twelfth man managed to wiggle out of the back of a tent into some reeds by the river. He escaped that day but was killed two days later in Shreveport, Louisiana, while trying to rob a hardware store.