Текст книги "Comanche Moon"

Автор книги: Larry McMurtry

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Текущая страница: 45 (всего у книги 46 страниц)

"Look at him!" one of the men said. "He still ain't dead. He's moving like an old turtle." Buffalo Hump closed his eyes. He remembered that there were old stories–old, old stories, about a great turtle that had let the People ride on its back as he brought them from their home in the earth to the place of light. He remembered the turtle story, an old story he had heard from his grandmother or from somewhere even older than his grandmother, someone who knew about the beginnings of the People in the time before they knew of the light or the buffalo or the grassy plains. He felt the grass growing beneath him, growing and rising to cover him, growing to hide him from wolf and bear. Then he knew no more.

"He's gone, Duck," Monkey John said, observing that the old Comanche with the ugly hump had ceased to move his arms and legs.

Blue Duck was still breathing hard from the effort it had taken to kill his father. For a few moments, when the lance stuck in the hump, he had been desperate. His fear was that his father would cheat him again by dying in his own way. His father's last looks, when he had been just a weak old man holding a knife and pretending to be a warrior, had been the same looks of determined hatred that had caused so many men to lose their will and allow Buffalo Hump to kill them. Even when the old man was pinned to the ground by his own lance his look was one of hatred–Blue Duck had been ready to get a hatchet and cut his head off, if it took that to finally kill him; but when he looked again he saw that Monkey John was right. Buffalo Hump was dead. All the same, he started for his horse, meaning to get the hatchet, when Ermoke stopped him.

"Where are you going, Duck?" Ermoke asked him.

"I mean to take his head," Blue Duck said.

"Not today, you ain't got time," Ermoke said, pointing south toward the Lake of Horses.

Blue Duck saw what he meant. On the dry plain the dust thrown up by the four horses of their pursuers hung in the air. It annoyed Blue Duck that the rangers were so persistent, rushing him, denying him the full pleasure of his triumph over his father.

"Goddamn them, what's their hurry?" he said. "I wanted to take his ugly old head home with me–I could use it to scare the boys." "Let's go, Duck–y can come back and get his head, if you're that set on having it," Ermoke said. "It was hard enough to kill him. That's Call and McCrae after us. I'm for leaving." Blue Duck wanted to linger, to savor the triumph he had waited for so long; he felt like killing Ermoke for so insistently rushing him off.

But he knew the renegade was right. Call and McCrae had followed him where no other rangers and no other whites would have dared to go. Ermoke and Monkey John were no match for them. He himself might be, but only if he could insure himself proper cover, and there was no cover close.

"You kilt the man you came to kill, Duck," Ermoke said. "Let's leave." "We'll go, but once they're gone I mean to come back for his head," Blue Duck said. He went to his horse, mounted, and rode once more around the still body of his father. He rode close and put his hand on the lance. He wanted to keep it but knew it would take much too long to pull it out.

"He must have liked them black rocks," Monkey John said. "He gathered up a bunch of them before we got here." Blue Duck had a vague memory of his father saying something to him about the black rocks, long ago on their journey to the Lake of Horses. But he couldn't remember what he had said, and Call and McCrae were getting closer.

He left the lance in his father's body and turned to the north.

As they were leaving, Monkey John reached down and picked up Buffalo Hump's big knife.

Famous Shoes had not wanted to go north of the dry lake. He thought the fact that the spring was so small and so well hidden meant that the dry lake was as far as men ought to go–al, he had seen the two Antelope Comanches; it worried him that they were watching. Also, they had no sooner left the lake than he began to notice the black rocks.

The three things taken together were to him powerful evidence that they had followed Blue Duck far enough. All the Kickapoos agreed that black rocks were to be avoided–they were not normal rocks and were only likely to be in places where the spirits were malign.

When they left the lake Famous Shoes said as much to Captain Call, but the captain paid no more attention to his ^ws than he would have paid to a puff of wind. Captain Call didn't care about the black rocks. He did care about the Antelope Comanches–he knew they represented danger, but he was not willing to turn back on their account.

"Woodrow wants Blue Duck, and Blue Duck ain't five miles ahead," Augustus pointed out, when the tracker came to him with his worries. "If you think Woodrow Call will turn back with his quarry in sight you've hired on with the wrong company." Famous Shoes concluded that there was no point in talking to the two captains. He had been patient and intelligent in explaining his reasoning as to why it was unwise to go farther north at that time, yet both men ignored him. They just kept going.

Famous Shoes thought he might as well go home–it was a waste of time to advise men who wouldn't listen. He didn't want to stay with the rangers if they were going to proceed so foolishly.

Nonetheless, he went ahead for a few miles, because he wanted to see if there was another lake nearby, or any reason to continue north.

It was while he was trotting ahead of the cautious rangers that he noticed a lance sticking up from the ground a short distance ahead. Since Buffalo Hump was the only man likely to be in that area who carried a lance, Famous Shoes immediately became more cautious, fearing that the old man was plotting some kind of ambush.

While he was studying the land, trying to figure where the old man could be hiding, Famous Shoes saw his body. The lance held it pinned to the earth.

The sight startled Famous Shoes so that for a moment his legs felt weak. He had long surmised that Buffalo Hump was making his last journey, seeking a hiding place of some sort, in which to die. But that surmise did not diminish his shock when he saw the body with the lance driven through it.

On weak legs he went forward until he stood on the edge of the circle of black rocks.

He was too shocked to wave at the rangers, or do anything but stand and look. Buffalo Hump had been killed with his own lance, and it was undoubtedly Blue Duck and his men who had killed him. The lance went right through the hump; Famous Shoes remembered hearing some prophecy or old story to the effect that Buffalo Hump would only die when his hump was pierced. It might have been Buffalo Hump's own grandmother who told him the story, long ago when he was caring for her as she waited to die.

The old man's great buffalo skull shield lay beside him. It was a shield that many warriors wanted, yet Blue Duck had left it, as if it were a thing without value or power. That too was a shock.

Famous Shoes was squatting just outside the circle of black rock when the rangers rode up.

"Oh my Lord," Augustus said, when he saw that Buffalo Hump was dead. "Oh my Lord." Call was just as shocked, though he didn't speak. He dismounted and stood by Famous Shoes; the others dismounted too, but, for a time, no one spoke. Deets, who had never seen Buffalo Hump up close, was so scared that he wanted to leave. It was his belief that only a witch would have such a hump, and, though the man appeared to be dead, a lance through his body, it was not clear to Deets that a witch would have to stay dead. He thought it would be better to stand a little farther away, in case the witch with the big hump suddenly rose up and did some witchery on them.

Call was curious at last to see Buffalo Hump up close. It had been some years since he had thought much about the man, yet he knew that his career as a ranger had been, in large measure, a pursuit of the Comanche who lay dead at his feet.

Augustus was so startled that all color had drained from his face.

"That's a lance like the one he stuck me with, way back then," he said.

Pea Eye, too, wanted to go. He knew that Buffalo Hump had been a mighty, fearsome chief, but now he was dead and it was wasteful just to stand there looking at his body if they hoped to catch the bandits they had been chasing for so long.

Captain Call and Captain McCrae, though, showed no inclination to hurry on, and neither did Famous Shoes. Pea Eye only looked once at the hump; he did not care to examine deformities, for fear it would result in bad dreams.

To Call's eye, Buffalo Hump looked smaller in death than he had looked in life– he was not the giant they had supposed him to be, but only a man of medium height.

"I thought he was bigger," Call added, squatting for a moment by the body.

"I did too, Woodrow," Augustus said.

"When he was after me with his lance I thought he was as big as a god." "He's old," Call said. "He might have shrunk a little in his old age." "No, we just remember him as bigger than he was because he was so fierce and had that terrible war cry," Augustus said.

To Pea Eye it seemed that the discovery of Buffalo Hump's body had put the two captains into a kind of memory trance.

"He was the first Comanche I ever saw," Call remarked. "I remember when he came racing out of that gully with that dead boy behind him on his horse –I forget the boy's name." "Josh Corn was his name," Augustus said.

"He went into the bushes to take a shit and picked the wrong bunch of bushes to go into–it was the end of him." "This old man was gaunt," Call said. "I doubt he found much to eat, these last few years." Famous Shoes started to tell the two rangers that they should not be standing within the circle of black rocks as they talked. Buffalo Hump had made a death circle with the rocks, and it should be respected. But he had, himself, another concern which also involved respect. He wanted the great buffalo skull shield. He wanted the shield badly. It was just laying there, ignored by Blue Duck and ignored too by the rangers. Though he wanted it, Famous Shoes knew the shield should remain within the circle of rocks. If he himself took it the Comanches might find out and try to kill him because of what he had done. He knelt down and looked closely at the shield, knowing that it contained great power, but he was afraid to take it.

"We ought to get that lance out of him, if we can," Call said. He pulled, and then he and Augustus pulled together, but they soon saw that the task was hopeless. The lance point came free of the ground, but it did not come free of Buffalo Hump's body. It had gone through his hump, through his ribs, and through his chest.

"It's like a tree grew through him," Gus said.

"He was a great chief–he ought to be laid out proper, but there's now no way to do it with this lance sticking through him," Call said.

"Well, I ain't holding a funeral for him, he's killed too many of my friends," Augustus said. "I expect but for him Long Bill would be alive, and Neely Dickens and several more I could name." "I didn't mention a funeral," Call said.

"I just think any man ought to be laid out proper." He looked again at the body of Buffalo Hump and then, mindful that their task was not done, turned toward the horses. He didn't feel the relief he had always supposed he would feel, at the death of Buffalo Hump. The man who lay before him was no longer the terror of the plains– he was just an old man, dead. Though they were in pursuit of Blue Duck, Call felt, for a moment, that there was little point in going on. He felt he had used up his energy. When he walked back to his horse he didn't, for a moment, have the strength to mount.

"Those were Comanches watching us at the lake," he told Gus. "I expect they'll find Buffalo Hump and do what's proper." Famous Shoes knew better. The two Comanches were of the Antelope band, and the Antelopes had always held aloof from the other tribes. Probably the warriors who watched them were too young to have heard of Buffalo Hump– even if they rode over to look at the body, the deformity would scare them away. When they saw the hump they would think witchery was involved. They would want nothing to do with the old dead man with the ugly hump.

He himself wanted nothing to do with the Antelopes.

Though their country was poor and harsh, they were not broken men. He didn't know why the two warriors were watching the dry lake, but he was glad there were only two. Maybe the rest of the band were hunting somewhere. If more of them had been there they would probably have attacked.

Captain Call and Captain McCrae lingered by their horses; for some reason they were reluctant to mount and ride on, although their quarry, Blue Duck, was not many miles ahead.

The delay broke down Famous Shoes' resolve in regard to the shield. It was an important thing. None of the whites seemed to realize that; none of them had even picked it up, or looked at it. Famous Shoes, though, couldn't take his eyes off it. Even though he knew he should leave it with Buffalo Hump, so that he could use it in battle in the spirit world, Famous Shoes wanted it too much. After all, once they left, no one might ever come near the spot where Buffalo Hump lay. They might be the only ones who would ever look on the body of the old chief. But the animals would look. Wolf would come, and Coyote and Badger and Bobcat.

Buzzards would come, and beetles, to take what they could of old Buffalo Hump. If he left the shield a wolf or a coyote might drag it away. With all the animals that would soon be coming, the shield of Buffalo Hump might soon be lost, and yet it was a shield made by a great chief from a buffalo skull. With the buffalo now almost gone, it might be that no one would ever make such a shield again.

With such thoughts in his mind Famous Shoes soon convinced himself that he should take the shield, though he did not want to step into the death circle to do it.

While the rangers made a careful inspection of their horses' feet–a very wise thing since they had no spare horses–Famous Shoes took a rifle and reached across the black rocks and hooked the shield. He got the rifle barrel inside the rawhide grips that Buffalo Hump had made so that he could hold the shield where he wanted it. Famous Shoes was glad the shield had not been too far inside the circle– he was just able to reach it with the rifle barrel, and in a moment he had it, the shield of Buffalo Hump, an important and powerful tool of war.

He was just about to take the shield to Deets and ask him to carry it in one of his saddlebags when the first shot came.

"We were too far away–I didn't get no chance to sight this gun," Blue Duck said, in annoyance, when he saw that his first shot from the big buffalo rifle had only hit Captain Call in the foot. At least that was how it appeared. The man held up one leg and hopped behind the horses.

Ermoke was annoyed too. He had wanted to be the one to shoot the big gun. He considered himself a far better shot than Blue Duck, particularly at long distances, and in this case the distance was long. They had made sure to ride well beyond the range of the Texans' Winchesters before they pulled up and unstrapped the big buffalo gun. There was a little growth of yucca where they stopped, the only cover in sight, but all they needed. With the big gun they could relax and pick off the Texans one by one–only now Blue Duck had spoiled the whole plan by shooting low.

Blue Duck quickly drew a bead on Ranger McCrae but missed again, though the bullet did knock one of the four horses down.

He was aware that Ermoke was looking at him critically–Ermoke was vain about his marksmanship, particularly if the distances were long. He had once killed an antelope with a Winchester at a distance of almost a thousand yards, and had never ceased to brag about the exploit.

Even though he had now missed twice, Blue Duck didn't yield the gun. It was his gun, for one thing. He had run the frightened buffalo hunter to earth, and it had been no easy chase.

The hunter had three guns and had emptied them all at him during the long pursuit.

He might even have escaped had his horse not stepped in a prairie-dog hole. In the fall the buffalo hunter broke his neck. He was paralyzed when Blue Duck walked up and cut his throat. The pursuit had taken all day, and the hunter had no money, only a worthless tin watch and his guns.

Blue Duck had meant to practice a little with the big rifle, but Last Horse had arrived unexpectedly, before he got around to it. He had never shot such a powerful rifle before; now, with the rangers in easy killing distance, he was vexed to find that the weapon shot low. He had missed a clean shot at Call and an even better one at McCrae. Now the rangers were on their bellies in the grass, hard to see. Ermoke clearly wanted a chance to shoot, but Blue Duck didn't give it to him. Instead he shot another of the rangers' horses, even as the black man was trying to hurry them out of range.

"I guess that will stop them," he said. "Two of their horses are down and Call's shot in the leg. They'll starve anyway. Let's go. We won't have to be in such a damn hurry now." "Monkey's sick–he's shitting white shit," Ermoke observed. He saw that Blue Duck was angry, so he did not ask if he could shoot the buffalo gun. If he asked, Blue Duck might turn the gun on him, as he had on the Comanche who came to tell him about Buffalo Hump.

"What about Monkey?" Ermoke asked, when he saw Blue Duck mount up.

Blue Duck glanced at the stumpy man, who was a few yards away, squatting with his pants down, looking miserable.

"Monkey? He can come or he can stay," Blue Duck said. "I guess our fine waters don't agree with him. You can wait for him, if you like. I doubt I ought to be associating with a man who shits white shit, anyway."

The first bullet knocked Call a foot in the air. Immediately, he lost all feeling in his left leg, but he pulled himself around behind his horse; then the second bullet knocked the horse down on top of him, or almost. Pea and Augustus pulled him out from under the horse, which was kicking wildly. A third shot hit Pea's horse and killed it.

"Run with the other horses!" Call yelled to Deets. "If you don't he's going to put us all afoot." Deets needed no urging. He was already running south, with his brown mule and the other, uninjured, horse. There were four more booms from the big rifle, but Deets was soon out of range and the other men had their faces flat in the dirt. The bullets merely kicked up dirt. The rifleman stopped firing, since he had stopped hitting, but the three rangers kept their heads down, fearing that the rifleman would soon find the range.

Call glanced at his leg and saw no blood, but he assumed he was probably crippled anyway. The leg was numb from the hip down–his horse, by then, had stopped kicking but lay with its eyes open, panting.

"He's shooting a buffalo gun," Augustus said. "If I'd known he had one I'd have been more careful." "We ought to have been more careful anyway," Call said. "Anyone can get their hands on a buffalo gun." Augustus had not yet looked at his friend's wound. In their time as partners it was the first time he could remember seeing Woodrow Call knocked off his feet; the sight made a bad impression on him. If Woodrow was still down it probably meant the wound was mortal. Everyone who worked with Call knew that he had to be killed to be stopped. The thought that Woodrow might die sobered Augustus so much that he put off examining the wound.

"Where'd he hit you, Captain?" Pea Eye asked finally. He too was afraid that the captain was mortally hit, else he would be up fighting.

"In the leg," Call said. He too assumed that his wound was serious, perhaps fatal. He didn't try to rise because he knew his leg wouldn't hold him. Standing up would have been unwise in any case. The man with the buffalo gun had them well marked. He was not a very highly skilled marksman or he would have killed all four of the horses and probably at least two of the men; but he was good enough, and he might improve, once he found the range. Call noticed that his horse had only been hit in the hip, but the minute after he noticed it the horse died.

"Those buffalo guns are powerful," Call said. "That one killed my horse, and the shot wasn't even well placed." "Don't be getting pessimistic now–s far he ain't killed you," Augustus said. "You're going to have to let us drag you farther away, Woodrow, so we can look at your wound." "Keep as low as you can," Call said. "I expect it's Blue Duck shooting." "Yes, that's why we are alive," Famous Shoes said. "Ermoke is a better shot. If he had let Ermoke shoot he would have killed us all." "I don't know Mr. Ermoke," Augustus said, "but if he's their marksman I'm glad he took the day off. He might have put a bullet in me, and I'm intolerant of bullets." "Pull me back," Call said. "We better look at this wound." Augustus and Pea Eye, keeping low, grabbed Call under the armpits and dragged him away, expecting at any moment to hear the boom of the great gun. But no shots came. Deets, looking scared, was waiting with the horse, well out of range of even a buffalo gun.

"You examine him, Deets–y're the best doc we got," Augustus said.

Call noticed that Augustus, always a cool man under fire, looked a little pale.

"What's the matter, are you hit too?" he asked.

"No, but I'm vomity," Augustus said.

"It's seeing these horses die. I've never been able to tolerate seeing horses die." Call felt the same way. For some reason injuries to horses affected him worse than injuries to men. Eating one of his own horses, if it was a case of necessity, didn't trouble him so long as he didn't have to see the animals suffer and die. It was a curious thing.

Augustus crawled off a little distance, to empty his stomach; while he was gone Call surrendered himself to Deets and waited for the black man to tell him he was dying–or, at the very least, crippled or lamed. He felt no pain, just a numbness, which he knew was common enough when a wound was fresh. The pain would come later, and in abundance, usually.

When Deets began to examine the Captain he had the darkest apprehensions. He expected to see a gaping wound, a splintered bone, or both; but he saw immediately, there was no blood on the captain's leg, or on his body anywhere. The horse that had just died bled profusely, but Captain Call wasn't bleeding at all, not that he could see.

"What's the matter?" Call asked, seeing Deets's look of puzzlement.

"You ain't got no blood on you," Deets said. "No blood, Captain." "I must have, somewhere," Call said. "I can't feel my leg." But when he looked again himself he saw that Deets was right. There was no blood on him anywhere. Pea Eye came over to help with the examination, and Augustus, once finished with his vomiting, came too. Deets, Call, and Pea Eye were all dead serious; they were puzzled and almost offended by their inability to spot the blood that would surely issue from such a large wound.

Call took his pants down, fearing that the wound must be higher on his body than he had supposed, but Augustus, after a careful look, smiled and pointed at Call's boot.

"Keep your pants on, Woodrow," he said.

"You ain't shot in the leg, you're just shot in the boot heel." Call looked again at his foot and saw that Augustus was right–the boot heel was entirely missing. He had not been hit at all, and yet the shock of the big bullet hitting his boot heel had thrown him in the air and left his leg as numb as if all its nerves had been removed.

"Well, I swear," he said. "See if you can find the boot heel, Deets. I'd like to tack it back on if I can. Otherwise I've got a long way to hobble." A diligent search failed to turn up even a trace of the boot heel.

"It's a waste of time looking," Augustus said. "That was a fifty-caliber bullet that hit that boot heel. You won't find it because it's been blown to smithereens." Call found it hard to adjust to the fact that he was unhurt. His mind had accepted the thought that he was wounded easier than it would accept the fact that he wasn't. Once the notion that he was crippled or dying left his mind it was succeeded by vexation at the thought that the man they had chased so far was undoubtedly getting away. For a moment he was tempted to take one of the surviving horses and go after him, but Augustus would not hear of that plan.

"We're in a bad enough fix as it is, Woodrow," he said. "It's a long way back to where we need to be, and most of it is dry travelling. We've only got one horse and one mule for four men–we'll have to walk a good part of the way and save the horses for when we have to have them. We may have to eat both animals before we get home. We need to think about saving ourselves now. Blue Duck can wait.

"Besides that, there's Quanah and his warriors out there somewhere," he added, pointing to the west, into the empty llano. "I don't know what their mood is and you don't neither. We may have to fight our way back, for all you know." Call knew he was right. They were a small force, stranded in a desert. They would be easy prey for any strong band of fighters, whether native or outlaw. They would have to stay together to have any chance. But the fact was, he still wanted to go after Blue Duck–he had a hard time mastering himself, and Augustus knew it.

"He's a damn killer–I hate to let him go," Call said.

"You're as bad as Inish Scull," Augustus commented. "He was so determined to catch Kicking Wolf that he walked off on foot." "Yes, I was with him," Famous Shoes said.

"He walked fast, that man. He did not stop until we were in the land of the Black Vaquero." "I wonder what became of the old Black Vaquero?" Augustus said. "There's been no news of him in years." "He went back to where Jaguar lives," Famous Shoes said.

Augustus saw that Woodrow Call was still not settled in in his mind about Blue Duck. He had never known a man so unwilling to leave a pursuit once he had begun one. It would not be unlike him to go after Blue Duck on foot, even with one boot heel shot off.

"He ain't gone forever, Woodrow," Augustus pointed out. "He'll just go back to the Red River and start raiding again. We can go get him in the fall." "If they let us," Call said. "They may disband us before the fall." "All the better if they do," Gus said. "Then we can just go get him for the fun of it–t way we won't have to keep track of the damn expenses." Famous Shoes was annoyed by the rangers' habit of debating meaningless things while the sun moved and time was lost. Whether they were to be rangers in the fall did not interest him. There was the llano to cross, and talking would not propel them across it.

"We had better go drink some of that water back at the spring," he said.

His ^ws reminded the rangers of what they faced. They had barely survived the trek out, when they had horses. Now they would have to cover the same distance walking–or, at best, riding double a few hours a day.

"That's right," Augustus said. "It's apt to be a long dry walk." "I aim to drink all I can hold," Pea Eye said, turning toward the dry lake. "All I can hold and then some. I sure hate to be dry in my mouth."

In the night Newt knew that his mother must have died because he couldn't hear her breathing anymore. The room felt different–it had become a room in which he was alone. But he didn't know what he was supposed to do, so he lay on his pallet doing nothing until the gray light came into the windows by the street. Then he carefully got up, dressed, and put a few things of his into a shoe box–his top, his ball, his book full of pictures of animals, and a deck of cards the rangers had let him keep. Then he put on his hat–Captain Gus had given it to him–looked just once at his mother, dead in her bed, and hurried down the stairs and over to Mrs. Coleman, who began to sob the minute she saw him–Mrs.

Coleman continued to cry all day. Newt was sad about the fact that Deets and Pea Eye and the other rangers were gone; he knew they would have wanted to say goodbye to his mother, but now they would have no chance. The grave was dug; that same afternoon they put his mother in it–there was a little singing and then they covered her up.

Mrs. Coleman gave him supper. There was a lot of food, but he wasn't very hungry. Mrs. Coleman had mainly got control of herself by then, though tears still dripped out of her eyes from time to time.

"Newt, I know you'll be wanting to stay with the rangers when they all get back," she told him after supper. "But would you like to just stay here for a night or two? There's nobody much in the bunkhouse." Newt shook his head. Though he didn't want to hurt Mrs. Coleman's feelings–he knew she had been his mother's best friend–he didn't want to stay with her, either.

"I better just bunk with the boys," he said, although he knew that the only ranger in the bunkhouse at the time was Ikey Ripple, who was far too old to be called a boy. But he wanted badly to stay in the bunkhouse, and Mrs.

Coleman didn't argue with him. It was dark by the time the meal was finished, so she went with him the few blocks to where the rangers stayed. Ikey was already asleep, and was snoring loudly.

"I hope you can sleep with that snoring, Newt," Mrs. Coleman said–then, suddenly, she hugged him tight for a moment and left the bunkhouse.

Newt put his shoe box under the bunk where he usually slept when he stayed with the rangers. Then he took his rope and went outside. He could hear Mrs. Coleman sobbing as she walked home, a thing which made him feel a little bad.

Mrs. Coleman had no one to live with–he supposed she was lonely. Probably he should have stayed with her a night or two. He climbed up on the fence, holding his rope, and watched the moon for a while. He could hear Ikey snoring, all the way out in the lots. In the morning he planned to go down to the graveyard and tell his mother the news, even though there wasn't much–j that he had decided to move into the bunkhouse right away, so he would be there to help water the horses and do the chores. That way he would be ready to help the boys, when they came home.