Lonesome Dove

75.

CLARA WAS MILKING A MARE when Sally, her oldest girl, came racing down to the lots.

"Somebody's coming, Ma," Sally said, excitement in her face. Sally was ten years old and sociable-she loved visitors.

The young mare had dropped her foal early and the colt was too weak to stand up, which was why she was milking. The colt would suck milk off a rag, and Clara was determined to save it if she could. When Sally ran up, the mare flinched, causing Clara to squirt a stream of milk along her own arm.

"Haven't I told you to walk up to horses?" Clara said. She stood up and wiped the milk off her dripping arm.

"I'm sorry, Ma," Sally said, more excited than sorry. "See, there's a wagon coming."

Then Betsey, only seven, came flying out of the house, her brown hair streaming, and raced down to the corrals. Betsey liked company as much as her sister.

"Who's coming?" she asked.

The wagon was barely visible coming along the Platte from the west.

"I thought I told you girls to churn," Clara said. "Seems like all you do is hang out the window watching for travelers."

Of course, no one could blame them, for company was rare. They lived twenty miles from town, and a bad town at that-Ogallala. If they went in, it was usually for church, but they seldom made the trip. Their company mostly consisted of men who came to trade horses with Bob, her husband, and now that he was injured, few came. They had just as many horses-more, in fact-and Clara knew more about them than Bob had ever learned, but there were few men disposed to bargain with a woman, and Clara was not disposed to give their horses away. When she named a price she meant it, but usually men got their backs up and wouldn't buy.

"I expect they're just buffalo hunters," Clara said, watching the distant wagon creep over the brown plains. "You girls won't learn much from them, unless you're interested in learning how to spit tobacco."

"I ain't," Betsey said.

"You aren't, you mean," Sally said. "I thought all the buffalo were dead-how come they still hunt them?"

"Because people are slow learners, like your sister," Clara said, grinning at Betsey to mitigate the criticism.

"Are you gonna invite them for the night?" Sally asked. "Want me to kill a hen?"

"Not just yet, they may not be in the mood to stop," Clara said. "Besides, you and I don't agree about hens. You might kill one of the ones I like."

"Mother, they're just to eat," Sally said.

"Nope. I keep those hens to talk to me when I'm lonesome," Clara said. "I'll only eat the ones who can't make good conversation." Betsey wrinkled up her nose, amused by the comment. "Oh, Ma," she said, "hens don't talk."

"They talk," Clara said. "You just don't understand hen talk. I'm an old hen myself and it makes good sense to me."

"You ain't old, Ma," Sally said.

"That wagon won't be here for an hour," Clara said. "Go see about your pa. His fever comes up in the afternoon. Wet a rag and wipe his face."

Both girls stood looking at her silently. They hated to go into the sickroom. Both of them had bright-blue eyes, their legacy from Bob, but their hair was like hers and they were built like her, even to the knobby knees. Bob had been kicked in the head by a mustang he was determined to break, against Clara's advice. She had seen it happen-he had the mare snubbed to a post with a heavy rope and only turned his back on her for a second. But the mare struck with her front feet, quick as a snake. Bob had bent over to pick up another rope and the kick had caught him right back of the ear. The crack had sounded like a shot. The mare pawed him three or four times before Clara could reach him and drag him out of the way, but those blows had been minor. The kick behind the ear had almost killed him. They had been so sure he would die that they even dug the grave, up on the knoll east of the house where their three boys were buried: Jim and Jeff and Johnny, the three deaths Clara felt had turned her heart to stone: she hoped for stone, anyway, for stone wouldn't suffer from such losses.

Bob, though, hadn't died-neither had he recovered. His eyes were open, but he could neither speak nor move. He could swallow soup, if his head was tilted a certain way, and it was chicken broth that had kept him alive the three months since his accident. He simply lay staring up with his large blue eyes, feverish sometimes but mostly as still as if he were dead. He was a large man, over two hundred pounds, and it took all her strength to move him and clean him every day-he had no control over bowels or bladder. Day after day Clara removed the soiled bedclothes, stuffing them in a washtub she filled beforehand from the cistern. She never let the girls see or help her with the operation; she supposed Bob would die in time, and she didn't want his daughters to feel disgust for him, if she could prevent it. She only sent them in once a day to bathe his face, hoping that the sight of them would bring him out of his state.

"Is Daddy going to die?" Betsey often asked. She had been only one when Johnny, her last brother, had died, and had no memories of death, just a great curiosity about it.

"I don't know, Betsey," Clara said. "I don't know at all. I hope not."

"Well, but can't he ever talk again?" Sally asked. "His eyes are open, why can't he talk?"

"His head is hurt," Clara said. "It's hurt on the inside. Maybe it'll heal, if we take care of him, and then he can talk again."

"Do you think he can hear the piano when I play?" Betsey asked.

"Just go and bathe his face, please. I don't know what he can hear," she said. She felt as if a flood of tears might come at any moment, and she didn't want the girls to see them. The piano, over which she and Bob had argued for two years, had come the week before his accident-it had been her victory, but a sad one. She had ordered it all the way from St. Louis, and it had been woefully out of tune when it finally came, but there was a Frenchman who played the piano in a saloon in town who tuned it for her for five dollars. And although she assumed it was a whorehouse he played the piano in, she hired him at the big fee of two dollars a week to ride out and give her daughters lessons.

The Frenchman's name was Jules. He was really a French-Canadian who had been a trader on the Red River of the North and had gone broke when smallpox hit the tribes. He had wandered down through the Dakotas to Ogallala and turned to music for a living. He loved to come out and teach the girls-he said they reminded him of the cousins he had once played with in his grandmother's house in Montreal. He wore a black coat, when he came, and waxed his mustache. Both girls thought he was the most refined man they had ever seen, and he was.

Clara had bought the piano with money saved all those years from the sale of her parents' little business in Texas. She had never let Bob use the money-another bone of contention between them. She wanted it for her children, so when the time came they could be sent away to school and not have to spend their whole youth in such a raw, lonely place. The first of the money she spent was on the twostory frame house they had built three years before, after nearly fifteen years of life in the sod house Bob had dug for her on a slope above the Platte. Clara had always hated the sod house-hated the dirt that seeped down on her bedclothes, year after year. It was dust that caused her firstborn, Jim, to cough virtually from his birth until he died a year later. In the mornings Clara would walk down and wash her hair in the icy waters of the Platte, and yet by supper time, if she happened to scratch her head, her fingernails would fill with dirt that had seeped down during the day. For some reason, no matter where she moved her bed, the roof would trickle dirt right onto it. She tacked muslin, and finally canvas, on the ceiling over the bed but nothing stopped the dirt for long. It sifted through. It seemed to her that all her children had been conceived in dust clouds, dust rising from the bedclothes or sifting down from the ceiling. Centipedes and other bugs loved the roof; day after day they crawled down the walls, to end up in her stewpots or her skillets or the trunks where she stored her clothes.

"I'd rather live in a tepee, like an Indian," she told Bob many times. "I'd be cleaner. When it got dirty we could burn it."

The idea had shocked Bob, a conventional man if there ever was one. He could not believe he had married a woman who wanted to live like an Indian. He worked hard to give her a respectable life, and yet she said things like that-and meant them. And she stubbornly kept her own money, year after year-for the children's education, she said, although one by one the three boys died long before they were old enough to be sent anywhere. The last two lived long enough for Clara to teach them to read. She had read them Walter Scott's Ivanhoe when Jeff and Johnny were six and seven, respectively. Then the next winter both boys had died of pneumonia within a month of one another. It was a terrible winter, the ground frozen so deep there was no way to dig a grave. They had had to put the boys in the little kindling shed, wrapped tightly in wagon sheets, until winter let up enough that they could be buried. Many days Bob would come home from delivering horses to the Army-his main customer-to find Clara sitting in the icy shed by the two small bodies, tears frozen on her cheeks so hard that he would have to heat water and bathe the ice from her face. He tried to point out to her that she mustn't do it-the weather was below zero, and the wind swept endlessly along the Platte. She could freeze to death, sitting in the kindling shed. If only I would, Clara thought-I'd be with my boys.

But she didn't freeze, and Jeff and Johnny had been buried beside Jim, and despite her resolve never to lay herself open to such heartbreak again, she had the girls, neither of whom had ever had more than a cold. Bob couldn't believe his own bad luck; he longed for a strong boy or two to help him with the stock.

And yet he loved the girls in his unspeaking way. His love mostly came out in awkwardness, for their delicacy frightened him. He was continually warning them about their health and trying to keep them wrapped up. Their recklessness almost stopped his heart at times-they were the kind of girls who would run out in the snow barefoot if they chose. He feared for them, and also feared the effect on his wife if one of them should die. Impervious to weather himself, he came to dread the winters for fear winter would take the rest of his family. Yet the girls proved as strong as their mother, whereas the boys had all been weak. It made no sense to Bob, and he was hoping if they could only have another boy, he would turn into the helper he needed.

The only hand they had was an old Mexican cowboy named Cholo. The old man was wiry and strong, despite his age, and stayed mainly because of his devotion to Clara. It was Cholo, and not her husband, who taught her to love horses and to understand them. Cholo had pointed out to her at once that her husband would never break the mustang mare; he had urged her to persuade Bob to sell the mare un broken, or else let her go. Though Bob had been a horse trader all his adult life, he had no real skill with horses. If they disobeyed him, he beat them-Clara had often turned her back in disgust from the sight of her husband beating a horse, for she knew it was his incompetence, not the horse's, that was to blame for whatever incident had provoked the beating. Bob could not contain his violence when angered by a horse.

With her, it was different. He had never raised a hand to her, though she provoked him often, and deeply. Perhaps it was because he had never quite believed that she would marry him, or never quite understood why she had. The shadow of Augustus McCrae had hung over their courtship; Bob had never known why she chose him over the famous Ranger, or over any of the other men she could have had. In her day she had been the most sought-after girl in Texas, and yet she had married him, and followed him to the Nebraska plains, and stayed and worked beside him. It was hard country for women, Bob knew that. Women died, went crazy or left. The wife of their nearest neighbor, Maude Jones, had killed herself with a shotgun one morning, leaving a note which merely said, "Can't stand listening to this wind no more." Maude had had a husband and four children, but had killed herself anyway. For a time, Clara had taken in the children, until their grandparents in Missouri came for them. Len Jones, Maude's husband, soon drank himself into poverty. He fell out of his wagon drunk one night and froze to death not two hundred yards from a saloon.

Clara had lived, and stayed, though she had a look in her gray eyes that frightened Bob every time he saw it. He didn't really know what the look meant, but to him it meant she might leave if he didn't watch out. When they first came to Nebraska, he had had the drinking habit. Ogallala was hardly even a town then; there were few neighbors, and almost no socials. The Indians were a dire threat, though Clara didn't seem to fear them. If they had company, it was usually soldiers-the soldiers drank, and so did he. Clara didn't like it. One night he got pretty drunk, and when he got up in the morning she had that look in her eye. She made him breakfast, but then she looked at him coldly and lay down a threat. "I want you to stop drinking," she said. "You've been drunk three times this week. I won't live here and get dirt in my hair for the love of a drunkard."

It was the only threat she ever had to make. Bob spent the day worrying, looking at the bleak plains and wondering what he would do in such a place without her. He never touched whiskey again. The jug he had been working on sat in the cupboard for years, until Clara finally mixed it with sorghum molasses and used it for cough medicine.

They had few quarrels, most of them about money. Clara was a good wife and worked hard; she never did anything untoward or unrespectable, and yet the fact that she had that Texas money made Bob uneasy. She wouldn't give it up or let him use it, no matter how poor they were. Not that she spent it on herself-Clara spent nothing on herself, except for the books she ordered or the magazines she took. She kept the money for her children, she said-but Bob could never be sure she wasn't keeping it so she could leave if she took a notion. He knew it was foolish-Clara would leave, money or no money, if she decided to go-but he couldn't get the idea out of his mind. She wouldn't even use the money on the house, although she had wanted the house, and they had had to haul the timber two hundred miles. Of course, he had prospered in the horse business, mainly because of the Army trade; he could afford to build her a house. But he still resented her money. She told him it was only for the girls' education-and yet she did things with it that he didn't expect. The winter before she had bought Cholo a buffalo coat, an action which shocked Bob. He had never heard of a married woman buying a Mexican cowboy an expensive coat. Then there was the piano. She had ordered that too, although it cost two hundred dollars and another forty to transport. And yet he had to admit he loved to see his girls sitting at the piano, trying to learn their fingering. And the buffalo coat had saved Cholo's life when he was trapped in an April blizzard up on the Dismal River. Clara got her way, and her way often turned out to make sense-and yet Bob more and more felt that her way skipped him, somehow. She didn't neglect him in any way that he could put his finger on, and the girls loved him, but there were many times when he felt left out of the life of his own family. He would never have said that to Clara-he was not good with words, and seldom spoke unless he was spoken to, unless it was about business. Watching his wife, he often felt lonely. Clara seemed to sense it and would usually come and try to be especially nice to him, or to get him laughing at something the girls had done-and yet he still felt lonely, even in their bed.

Now Bob lay in that bed all day, staring his empty stare. They had moved the bed near the window so that he would get the summer breezes and could look out if he liked and watch his horses grazing on the plain, or the hawks circling, or whatever little sights there might be. But Bob never turned his head, and no one knew if he felt the breezes. Clara had taken to sleeping on a little cot. The house had a small upper porch and she moved the cot out there in good weather. Often she lay awake, listening, half expecting Bob to come back to himself and call her. More often what happened was that he fouled himself; and instead of hearing him she would smell him. Even so, she was glad it happened at night so she could change him without the girls seeing.

It seemed to her, after a month of it, that she was carrying Bob away with those sheets; he had already lost much weight and every morning seemed a little thinner to her. The large body that had lain beside her so many nights, that had warmed her in the icy nights, that had covered her those many times through the years and given her five children, was dribbling away as offal, and there was nothing she could do about it. The doctors in Ogallala said Bob's skull was fractured; you couldn't put a splint on a skull; probably he'd die. And yet he wasn't dead. Often when she was cleaning him, bathing his soiled loins and thighs with warm water, the stem of life between his legs would raise itself, growing as if a fractured skull meant nothing to it. Clara cried at the sight-what it meant to her was that Bob still hoped for a boy. He couldn't talk or turn himself, and he would never beat another horse, most likely, but he still wanted a boy. The stem let her know it, night after night, when all she came in to do was clean the stains from a dying body. She would roll Bob on his side and hold him there for a while, for his back and legs were developing terrible bedsores. She was afraid to turn him on his belly for fear he might suffocate, but she would hold him on his side for an hour, sometimes napping as she held him. Then she would roll him back and cover him and go back to her cot, often to lie awake half the night, looking at the prairies, sad beyond tears at the ways of things. There Bob lay, barely alive, his ribs showing more every morning, still wanting a boy. I could do it, she thought-would it save him if I did? I could go through it one more time-the pregnancy, the fear, the sore nipples, the worry-and maybe it would be a boy. Though she had borne five children, she sometimes felt barren, lying on her cot at night. She felt she was ignoring her husband's last wish-that if she had any generosity she would do it for him. How could she lie night after night and ignore the strange, mute urgings of a dying man, one who had never been anything but kind to her, in his clumsy way. Bob, dying, still wanted her to make a little Bob. Sometimes in the long silent nights she felt she must be going crazy to think about such things, in such a way. And yet she came to dread having to go to him at night; it became as hard as anything she had had to do in her marriage. It was so hard that at times she wished Bob would go on and die, if he couldn't get well. The truth was, she didn't want another child, particularly not another boy. Somehow she felt confident she could keep her girls alive-but she lacked that confidence where boys were concerned. She remembered too well the days of icy terror and restless pain as she listened to Jim cough his way to death. She remembered her hatred of, and helplessness before, the fevers that had taken Jeff and Johnny. Not again, she thought-I won't live that again, even for you, Bob. The memory of the fear that had torn her as her children approached death was the most vivid of her life: she could remember the coughings, the painful breathing. She never wanted to listen helplessly to such again.

Besides, Bob wasn't really alive, even then-his eyes never flickered. It was only reflex that enabled him to swallow the soup she fed him. That his rod still seemed to live when she bathed him, that, too, was reflex, an obscene joke that life was playing on the two of them. It raised no feelings of tenderness in her, just a feeling of disgust at the cruelties of existence. It seemed to mock her, to make her feel that she was cheating Bob of something, though it was not easy to say what. She had married him, followed him, fed him, worked beside him, borne his children-and yet even as she changed his sheets she felt there was a selfishness in her that she had never mastered. Something had been held back-what it was, considering all that she had done, was hard to say. But she felt it anyway, fair judgment or not, and lay awake on her cot through half the night, tense with selfreproach.

In the mornings she lay wrapped in a quilt until the smell of Cholo's coffee waked her. She had fallen into the habit of letting Cholo make the coffee, mainly because he was better at it than she was. She would lie in her quilt, watching the mists float over the Platte, until one or both of the girls tiptoed out. They always tiptoed, as if they might wake their father, though his eyes were as wide open as ever.

"Ma, ain't you up?" Sally would say. "We been up awhile."

"Wanta gather the eggs?" Betsey asked. It was her favorite chore but she preferred to do it with her mother-some of the hens were irritable with Betsey and would peck her if she tried to slide an egg out from under them, whereas they would never peck Clara.

"I'd rather gather you two," Clara said, pulling both girls onto the cot with her. With the sunlight flooding the wide plain, and both her two girls in bed with her, it was hard to feel as bad about herself as she had felt alone in the night.

"Don't you wanta get up?" Sally asked. She had more of her father in her than Betsey had, and it bothered her a little to see her mother lazing in bed with the sun up. It seemed to her a little wrong-at least, her father had often complained about it.

"Oh, shush," Clara said. "The sun's just been up five minutes."

She reflected that perhaps that was what she had held back-she had never become proficient at early rising, despite all the practice she'd had. She had got up dutifully and made breakfast for Bob and whatever hands happened to be there, but she was not at her best, and the breakfasts seldom arrived on the table in the orderly fashion that Bob expected. It was a relief to her when he went away on horsetrading expeditions and she could sleep late, or just lie in bed thinking and reading the magazines she ordered from the East or from England.

The ladies' magazines had stories and parts of novels in them, in many of which were ladies who led lives so different from hers that she felt she might as well be on another planet. She liked Thackeray's ladies better than Dickens's, and George Eliot's best of all-but it was a frustration that the mail came so seldom. Sometimes she would have to wait for two or three months for her Blackwoods, wondering all the time what was happening to the people in the stories. Reading stories by all the women, not only George Eliot, but Mrs. Gore and Mrs. Gaskell and Charlotte Yonge, she sometimes had a longing to do what those women did-write stories. But those women lived in cities or towns and had many friends and relatives nearby. It discouraged her to look out the window at the empty plains and reflect that even if she had the eloquence to write, and the time, she had nothing to write about. With Maude Jones dead, she seldom saw another woman, and had no relatives near except her husband and her children. There was an aunt in Cincinnati, but they only exchanged letters once or twice a year. Her characters would have to be the horses and the hens, if she ever wrote, for the menfolk that came by weren't interesting enough to put in books, it seemed to her. None of them were capable of the kind of talk men managed in English novels.

She longed, sometimes, to talk to a person who actually wrote stories and had them printed in magazines. It interested her to speculate how it was done: whether they used people they knew, or just made people up. Once she had even ordered some big writing tablets, thinking she might try it anyway, even if she didn't know how, but that was in the hopeful years before her boys died. With all the work that had to be done she never actually sat down and tried to write anything-and then the boys died and her feeling changed. Once the sight of the writing tablets had made her hopeful, but after those deaths it ceased to matter. The tablets were just another reproach to her, something willful she had wanted. She burned the tablets one day, trembling with anger and pain, as if the paper and not the weather had been somehow responsible for the deaths of her boys. And, for a time, she stopped reading the magazines. The stories in them seemed hateful to her: how could people talk that way and spend their time going to balls and parties, when children died and had to be buried?

But a few years passed, and Clara went back to the stories in the magazines. She loved to read aloud, and she read snatches of them to her daughters as soon as they were big enough to listen. Bob didn't particularly like it, but he tolerated it. No other woman he knew read as much as his wife, and he thought it might be the cause of certain of her vanities: the care she took with her hair, for instance, washing it every day and brushing it. To him it seemed a waste-hair was just hair.

As Clara watched the wagon the girls had spotted drawing closer, she saw Cholo come riding in with two mares who were ready to foal. Cholo had seen the wagon too, and had come to look after her. fle was a cautious old man, as puzzled by Clara as he was devoted to her. It was her recklessness that disturbed him. She was respectful of dangerous horses, but seemed to have no fear at all of dangerous men. She laughed when Cholo tried to counsel her. She was not even afraid of Indians, though Cholo had showed her the scars of the arrow wounds he had suffered.

Now he penned the mares and loped over to be sure she wasn't threatened by whoever was coming in the wagon. They kept a shotgun in the saddle shed, but Clara only used it to kill snakes, and she only killed snakes because they were always stealing her eggs. At times the hens seemed to her almost more trouble than they were worth, for they had to be protected constantly from coyotes, skunks, badgers, even hawks and eagles.

"I don't see but two men, Cholo," Clara said, watching the wagon.

"Two men is two too many if they are bad men," Cholo said.

"Bad men would have a better team," Clara said. "Find any colts?"

Cholo shook his head. His hair was white-Clara had never been able to get his age out of him, but she imagined he was seventy-five at least, perhaps eighty. At night by the fire, with the work done, Cholo wove horsehair lariats. Clara loved to watch the way his fingers worked. When a horse died or had to be killed, Cholo always saved its mane and tail for his ropes. He could weave them of rawhide too, and once had made one for her of buckskin, although she didn't rope. Bob had been puzzled by the gift-"Clara couldn't rope a post," he said-but Clara was not puzzled at all. She had been very pleased. It was a beautiful gift; Cholo had the finest manners. She knew he appreciated her as she appreciated him. That was the year she bought him the coat. Sometimes, reading her magazines, she would look up and see Cholo weaving a rope and imagine that if she ever did try to write a story she would write it about him. It would be very different from any of the stories she read in the English magazines. Cholo was not much like an English gentleman, but it was his gentleness and skill with horses, in contrast to Bob's incompetence, that made her want badly to encourage him to stay with them. He talked little, which would be a problem if she put him in a story-the people in the stories she read seemed to talk a great deal. He had been stolen as a child by Comanches and had gradually worked his way north, traded from one tribe to another, until he had escaped one day during a battle. Though he was an old man and had lived among Indians and whites his whole life, he still preferred to speak Spanish. Clara knew a little from her girlhood in Texas, and tried to speak it with him. At the sound of the Spanish words his wrinkled face would light up with happiness. Clara persuaded him to teach her girls. Cholo couldn't read, but he was a good teacher anyway-he loved the girls and would take them on rides, pointing at things and giving them their Spanish names.

Soon all the mares in the corral were pricking their ears and watching the approaching wagon. A big man in a coat heavier than Cholo's rode beside it on a little brown horse that looked as if it would drop if it had to carry him much farther. A man with a badly scarred face rode on the wagon seat, beside a woman who was heavy with child. The woman drove the team. All three looked so blank with exhaustion that even the sight of people, after what must have been a long journey, didn't excite them much. A few buffalo hides were piled in the wagon. Cholo watched the travelers carefully, but they didn't seem to pose a threat. The woman drew rein and looked down at them as if dazed.

"Are we to Nebraska yet?" she asked.

"Yes," Clara said. "It's nearly twenty miles to town. Won't you get down and rest?"

"Do you know Dee Boot?" the woman said. "I'm looking for him."

"Sí-pistolero," Cholo said quietly. He did most of their shopping and knew practically everyone in Ogallala.

Elmira heard the word, and knew what it meant, but she didn't care what anybody called Dee-the fact that he was nearby was all that mattered. If Dee was near, it meant that she was safe and could soon be rid of Luke and Big Zwey, and not have to ride on the jolting wagon seat all day or be scared all night that they would run into Indians at the last minute.

"Get down-at least you'll want to water your stock," Clara said. "You're welcome to stay the night, if you like. You can easily make town tomorrow. I'd say you all could use a rest."

"What town would that be?" Luke asked, easing down from the wagon seat. He had twisted a leg several days before, running to try and get a better shot at an antelope-it was all he could do to walk.

Elmira didn't want to stop, even when told that it was still over half a day to Ogallala, but Zwey had already dismounted and unhitched the horses. I wish I could get to Dee, she thought-but then decided one more day wouldn't matter. She got slowly down from the wagon seat.

"Come on up to the house," Clara said. "I'll have the girls draw some water. I guess you've come a ways."

"Arkansas," Elmira said. The house didn't look very far away, but as they walked toward it, it seemed to wobble in her vision.

"My goodness, that is a ways," Clara said. "I lived in Texas once." Then she turned and saw that the woman was sitting on the ground. Before Clara could reach her she had toppled sideways and lay face up on the trail that led from the house to the barn.

Clara was not too alarmed. Just tired, she thought. A journey all the way from Arkansas, in a wagon like that, would wear anybody out. She fanned the woman's face for a while but it did no good. Cholo had seen the woman fall and he ran to her, but the big man lifted the Woman as easily as if she were a child and carried her to the house.

"I didn't get your name, or her name either," Clara said.

The big man just looked at her silently. Is he mute? Clara thought. But later the man with the scarred face came to the house and said no, the big man just didn't talk much. "Name's Zwey," he said. "Big Zwey. I'm Luke. I got my face bunged up coming, and now I hurt this dern leg. Her name's Elmira."

"And she's a friend of Mr. Boot?" Clara asked. They put Elmira in bed but she hadn't yet opened her eyes.

"Don't know about that, she's married to a sheriff," Luke said. He felt uncomfortable in the house after so many days outside, and soon went out again to sit on the wagon with Zwey. He happened to look up and see two young girls peering at him from an open window. He wondered where the man was, for surely the good-looking woman he had talked to couldn't be married to the old Mexican.

That night she asked if they would like to come in and eat supper. Zwey wouldn't-he was too shy-so the woman brought their suppers out and they ate in the wagon.

The girls were disappointed at that turn of events. They seldom had company and wanted a better look at the men.

"Make 'em come in, Ma," Sally whispered. She was particularly fascinated by the one with the scarred face.

"I can't just order men around," Clara said. "Anyway, you've met buffalo hunters before. Smelled them too. These don't smell much different from any of the others."

"One of them's big," Betsey observed. "Is he the lady's husband?"

"I don't think so, and don't be a busybody," Clara said. "She's worn out. Maybe tomorrow she'll feel like talking."

But the girls were to hear Elmira's voice long before morning. The men sitting in the wagon heard it too-long screams that raked the prairie night for hours.

Once again, Clara had reason to be glad of Cholo, who was as good with women as he was with horses. Difficult births didn't frighten him as they did most men, and many women. Elmira's was difficult, too-the exhausting journey over the plains had left her too weak for the task at hand. She fainted many times during the night. Clara could do nothing about it except bathe her face with cool water from the cistern. When day came, Elmira was too weak to scream. Clara was worried-the woman had lost too much blood.

"Momma, Daddy's sick, he smells bad," Sally said, peeking for a moment into the sickroom. The girls had slept downstairs on pallets, so as to be farther from the screams.

"Just leave him be, I'll take care of him," Clara said.

"But he's sick-he smells bad," Sally repeated. Her eyes were fearful.

"He's alive-life don't always smell nice," Clara said. "Go make us some breakfast and take some to those men. They must be hungry.

A few minutes later, Elmira fainted again.

"She's too weak," Cholo said.

"Poor thing," Clara said. "I would be too, if I came that far. That baby isn't going to wait for her to get strong."

"No, it's going to kill her," Cholo said.

"Well then, save it, at least," Clara said, feeling so downcast suddenly that she left the room. She got a water bucket and walked out of the house, meaning to get some water for Bob. It was a beautiful morning, light touching the farthest edges of the plains. Clara noticed the beauty and thought it strange that she could still respond to it, tired as she was and with two people dying in her house-perhaps three. But she loved the fine light of the prairie mornings; it had resurrected her spirits time after time though the years, when it seemed that dirt and cold and death would crush her. Just to see the light spreading like that, far on toward Wyoming, was her joy. It seemed to put energy into her, make her want to do things.

And the thing she wanted most to do was plant flowers-flowers that might bloom in the light. She did plant them, ordering bulbs and seeds from the East. The light brought them up, and then the wind tore them from her. Worse than the dirt she hated the wind. The dirt she could hold her own with, sweeping it away each morning, but the wind was endless and fierce. It renewed itself again and again, curling out of the north to take her flowers from her, petal by petal, until nothing remained but the sad stalks. Clara kept on planting anyway, hiding the flowers in the most protected spots she could find. The wind always found them too, in time, but sometimes the blooms lasted a few days before the petals were blown away. It was a battle she wouldn't give up on: every winter she read seed catalogues with the girls and described to them the flowers they would have when spring came.

Coming back with the bucket from the cistern she noticed the two dirty, silent men sitting on the wagon-she had walked past them without a thought on her way to the well.

"Is it born yet?" Luke asked.

"Not yet," Clara said. "She's too tired to help much."

The large man followed her with his eyes but said nothing.

"You've got too much fire in that stove, you'll burn everything," Clara said, when she saw how the girls were progressing with breakfast.

"Oh, Ma, we can cook," Sally said. She loved to get her mother out of the kitchen-then she could boss her younger sister around.

"Is that woman real sick?" Betsey asked. "Why does she yell so much?"

"She's working at a hard task," Clara said. "You better not burn that porridge, because I want some."

She carried the bucket up to the bedroom, pulled the smelly sheets out from under Bob, and washed him. Bob stared straight up, as he always did. Usually she warmed the water but this morning she hadn't taken the time. It was cold and raised goosebumps on his legs. His big ribs seemed to stick out more every day. She had forgotten to bring fresh sheets-it was a constant problem, keeping fresh sheets-.-. so she covered him with a blanket and walked out on her porch for a minute. She heard Elmira begin to moan, again and again. She ought to go relieve Cholo, she knew, but she didn't rush. The birth might take another day. Everything took longer than it should, or else went too quick. Her sons' lives had been whipped away like a breath, while her husband had lain motionless for two months and still wasn't dead. It was wearying, trying to adjust to all the paces life required.

After she had stood for a moment on the cool porch, she went down the hall, just in time to hold Elmira down and watch Cholo ease a baby boy from her bloodied loins.

The baby looked dead, and Elmira looked as if she were dying-but in fact both lived. Cholo held the little boy close to his face and blew on it, until finally the child moved and began to cry, a thin sound not much stronger than the squeak of a mouse. Elmira had passed out, but she was breathing.

Clara went downstairs to heat some water and saw that the girls had taken breakfast to the two men. They were standing around while the men ate, not to be denied the novelty of conversation, even if only with two buffalo hunters, one of whom wouldn't talk. It made her want to cry, suddenly, that her children were so devoid of playmates that they would hang around two sullen men just for the excitement of company. She heated the water and let the girls be. Probably the men would go on soon, though Luke seemed to be talking to the girls happily. Maybe he was as lonesome as they were.

When she went up with the hot water Elmira was awake, her eyes wide open. She was pale, almost bloodless, no color in her cheeks at all.

"It's a miracle you got here," Clara said. "If you'd had that baby down on the plains I doubt either one of you would have lived."

The old Mexican had wrapped the infant in a flannel robe and brought it to Elmira to see, but Elmira didn't look at it. She didn't speak and she wouldn't look.

She didn't want the baby. Maybe it'll die, she thought. Dee won't want it either.

Clara saw the woman turn her eyes away. Without a word she took the infant from Cholo and walked downstairs with it, out into the sunlight. The girls still stood by the wagon, though the men had eaten. She shielded the baby's eyes with the robe and carried it over to the group.

"Oh, Ma," Betsey said-she had never seen a newborn child. "What's its name?"

"The lady's too tired to worry about naming it just now," Clara said. "It's a boy, though."

"It's lucky we got here, ain't it?" Luke said. "Me and Zwey would have had no idea what to do."

"Yes, it's lucky," Clara said.

Big Zwey stared at the baby silently for a time. "It's red, Luke," he said finally. "I guess it's an Indian."

Clara laughed. "It's no Indian," she said. "Babies mostly are red."

"Can I hold it?" Sally asked. "I held Betsey, I know how."

Clara let her take the child. Cholo had come downstairs and was standing at the back porch, a cup of coffee in his hand.

"Zwey wants to get to town," Luke said. "Can Ellie go yet?"

"Oh, no," Clara said. "She's had a bad time and she's weak. It would kill her to travel today. She'll need to rest for about a week. Maybe you could come back for her, or else we could bring her in our little wagon when she gets well."

But Zwey refused to leave. Ellie had wanted to get to town, he remembered, and he was determined to wait until she could go. He sat in the shade of the wagon all day and taught the two young girls how to play mumblety-peg. Clara looked out at them occasionally from the upper windows-there seemed no harm in the man. Luke, bored, had ridden off with Cholo to check the mares.

When Clara took the child in to nurse, she began to see that Elmira didn't want it. She turned her wide eyes away when Clara brought it near. The infant was whimpering and hungry.

"Ma'am, it's got to nurse," Clara said. Elmira made no objection when the baby was put to her breast, but the business was difficult. At first no milk would come-Clara began to fear the baby would weaken and die before it could even be fed. Finally it nursed a little but the milk didn't satisfy it-an hour later it was crying in hunger again.

Thin milk, Clara thought-and no wonder, for the woman probably hadn't eaten a decent meal in months. She refused to look at the baby, even when it took her breast. Clara had to hold it and encourage it, rubbing its little lips with milk.

"They say you're married to a sheriff," Clara said, thinking conversation might help. The man might be the cause of her flight, she thought. She probably didn't want him in the first place, and hadn't asked for this child.

Elmira didn't answer. She didn't want to talk to this woman. Her breasts were so full they hurt; she didn't care that the baby took the milk, she just didn't want to look at it. She wanted to get up and make Zwey take her to town, to Dee, but she knew she couldn't do it yet. Her legs were so weak she could hardly move them on the bed. She would never get downstairs unless she crawled.

Clara looked at Elmira for a moment and held her peace. It was not a great surprise for her that the woman didn't want the baby. She hadn't wanted Sally, out of fear that she would die. The woman must have her own fears-after all, she had traveled for months across the plains with two buffalo hunters. Perhaps she was fleeing a man, perhaps looking for a man, perhaps just running-there was no point in pressing questions, for the woman might not know herself why she ran.

Besides, Clara remembered the immense fatigue that had seized her when Betsey was born. Though the last, Betsey had been the most difficult of her births, and when it was over she could not lift her head for three hours. To speak took an immense effort-and Elmira had had a harder time than she had. Best just to let her rest. When her strength came back she might not be so ill-disposed toward the child.

Clara took the baby downstairs and had the girls watch him while she went outside and killed a pullet. Big Zwey watched silently from the wagon as she quickly wrung the chicken's neck and plucked and cleaned it.

"It takes a mess of chicken soup to run this household these days," she said, bringing the chicken back in. They had some broth left and she heated a little and took it to Elmira. She was startled to find Elmira on her feet, staring out the window.

"Goodness, you best lay down," Clara said. "You've lost blood-we've got to build you up."

Elmira obeyed passively. She allowed Clara to feed her a few spoonfuls of the soup.

"How far's town?" she asked.

"Too far for you to walk, or ride either," Clara said. "That town isn't going to run away. Can't you just rest for a day or two?"

Elmira didn't answer. The old man had said Dee was a pistolero. Though she didn't care what Dee was, as long as she could find him, the news worried her. Somebody might shoot him before she arrived. He might leave, might have already left. She couldn't stand the thought. The future had shrunk to one fact: Dee Boot. If she couldn't find him she meant to kill herself.

Clara tried several times during the day to get Elmira interested in the little boy, but with no success. Elmira allowed it to nurse, but that was not successful, either. The milk was so weak that the baby would only sleep an hour and then be hungry again. Her girls wanted to know why the baby cried so much. "He's hungry," Clara said.

"I can milk the cow early," Sally said. "We can give him some of that milk."

"We may have to," Clara said. "We'll have to boil it first." It'll be too rich for him and the colic will probably kill him, she thought. She carried the helpless little creature herself most of the day, rocking him in her arms and whispering to him. From being red, he had gone to pale, and he was a small baby, not five pounds, she guessed. She herself was very tired, and as the evening drew on and the sun fell she found herself in a very uneven temper-scolding the girls harshly for their loudness one minute, going out on her porch with the baby, almost in tears herself, another. Perhaps it's best that it dies, she doesn't want it, she thought, and then the next moment the baby's eyes would open for a second and her heart would fill. Then she would reproach herself for her own callousness.

When night fell she went in and lit a lamp in the room where Elmira lay. Clara, seeing that her eyes were open, started to take the baby to her. But once again Elmira turned her head away.

"What's your husband's name?" Clara asked.

"I'm looking for Dee Boot," Elmira said. She didn't want to say July's name. The baby was whimpering but she didn't care. It was July's and she didn't want to have anything to do with anything of July's.

Clara got the infant to nurse a little and then took it up to her own room, to lie down awhile. She knew it wouldn't sleep long, but she herself had to sleep and was afraid to trust it with its mother yet.

At some point she heard the baby whimpering but she was too tired to rise. In the back of her mind she knew that she had to get up and feed Bob but the desire to sleep was too heavy-she couldn't make herself move.

Then she felt a hand on her shoulder and saw Cholo kneeling by the bed.

"What's the matter?" Clara asked.

"They leave," Cholo said.

Clara jumped up and ran into the room where Elmira had been-sure enough, she was gone. She went to the window and could see the wagon, north of the corrals. Behind her she could hear the baby crying.

"Señora, I couldn't stop them," Cholo said.

"I doubt they'll stop just because you ask, and we don't need any gunfights," Clara said.

"Let 'em go. If she lives, she might come back. Did you milk?"

Cholo nodded.

"I wish we had a goat," Clara said. "I've heard goat's milk is better for babies than cow's milk. If you see any goats next time you go to town, let's buy a couple."

Then she grew a little embarrassed. Sometimes she talked to Cholo as if he were her husband, and not Bob. She went downstairs, made a fire in the cookstove and began to boil some milk. When it was boiled, she took it up and gave the baby a little, dipping a cotton rag in the milk and letting the baby suck it. It was a slow method and took patience. The child was too weak to work at it, but she knew if she didn't persist the baby would only get weaker and die. So she kept on, dribbling milk into its mouth even when it grew too tired to suck on the rag.

"I know this is slow," she whispered to it. When the baby had taken all it would, she got up to walk it. It was a nice moonlight night and she went out on her porch for a while. The baby was asleep, tucked against her breast. You could be worse off, she thought, looking at it. Your mother had pretty good sense-she waited to have you until she got to where there were people who'll look after you.

Then she remembered that she had not fed Bob. She took the baby down to the kitchen and heated the chicken broth. "Think of the work I'd save if everything didn't have to be hot," she said to the infant, who slept on.

She laid it at the foot of Bob's bed while she fed her husband, tilting his head so he could swallow. It was strange to her that he could swallow when he couldn't even close his eyes. He was a big man with a big head-every time she fed him her wrist ached from supporting his head.

"I guess we got us a boy, Bob," she said. The doctors had told her to talk to him-they thought it might make a difference, but Clara found that the only difference was that she got depressed. The depressing aspect of it was that it reminded her too clearly of their years together, for she had liked to chatter, and Bob never talked. She had talked at him for years and got no answers. He only spoke if money was concerned. She would talk for two hours and he would never utter a sentence. So far as conversation went, the marriage was no different than it had ever been-it was just easier for her to have her way about money, something that also struck her as sad.

She picked the baby up and held it to her bosom-the thought was in her head that if he saw her with a child it might make a difference. Bob might see it, think it was theirs. It might startle him into life again.

It was unnatural, she knew, for a mother to leave her child a day after it was born. Of course, children were endless work. They came when you didn't want them and had needs you didn't always want to meet. Worst of all, they died no matter how much you loved them-the death of her own had frozen the hope inside her harder than the wintry ground. Her hopes had frozen hard and she vowed to keep it that way, and yet she hadn't: the hopes thawed. She had hopes for her girls, and might even come to have them for the baby at her bosom, child of another mother. Weak as it was, and slim though its chances, she liked holding the child to her. I stole you, she thought. I got you and I didn't even have to go through the pain. Your mother's a fool not to want you, but she's smart to realize you wouldn't have much of a chance with her and those buffalo hunters.

It wasn't smartness, though, she thought-the woman just didn't care.

She looked down at Bob and saw that the baby had made no difference. He lay as he had, nothing left to him but need. Suddenly Clara felt angry that the man had been fool enough to think he could break that mare, when both she and Cholo had warned him to leave her alone. It made her angry at herself, to have lived so long with a horse trader who had no more savvy than that.

Yet there he was, his eyes staring upward, as helpless as the baby. She put the child down again and fed Bob soup until her wrist got tired from holding his head. Then she lay Bob's head back on his pillow, and ate the rest of the chicken soup herself.

76.

BIG ZWEY WAS WORRIED that Elmira had left the baby. When she came out to the wagon, she didn't have it. "Hitch the team and let's go," she said, and that was all she said. He did it, but he felt confused.

"Ain't we gonna take the baby?" he asked shyly, just before they left.

Elmira didn't answer. She had no breath to answer with, she was so tired. Walking downstairs and out to the wagon had taken all her strength. Zwey had to lift her into the wagon, at that, and she sat propped against the buffalo skins, too tired even to care about the smell. She was so tired that she felt like she wasn't there. She couldn't even tell Zwey to start-Luke had to do it.

"Let's go, Zwey," he said. "She don't want the baby."

Zwey started the wagon, and they were soon out of sight of the house, but he was bothered. He kept looking back at Ellie, propped against the buffalo skins, her eyes wide open. Why didn't she want her baby? It was a puzzle. He had never understood the whole business, but he knew mothers took care of babies, just as husbands took care of wives. In his eyes he had married Ellie, and he intended to take good care of her. He felt he was her husband. They had come all that way together in the wagon. Luke had tried to marry her too, but Zwey had soon stopped that, and Luke had been behaving a lot better since.

Luke had tied his horse beside the wagon, and he rode on the wagon seat beside Zwey, who kept looking around to see if Ellie was asleep. She wasn't moving, but her eyes were still wide open.

"What are you looking at?" Luke asked.

"I wisht she'd brought the baby," Zwey said. "I always wanted us to have one."

The way he said it struck Luke as curious. It was almost as if Zwey thought the baby was his.

"Why would you care? It ain't yours," Luke said, to scotch that suspicion. Even if Zwey had got up his nerve to approach Ellie, which he doubted, they hadn't been on the road long enough to make a baby.

"We're married," Zwey answered. "I guess it's ours."

A suspicion dawned on Luke which was even more curious-the suspicion that Zwey didn't even understand about men and women. They had spent days around the buffalo herds when the bulls and cows were mating, and yet Zwey had evidently never connected such goings-on with humans. Luke remembered that Zwey never went with whores. He mainly just watched the wagon when the other hunters went to town. Zwey had always been considered the dumbest of the dumb, but Luke knew that none of the hunters had suspected him of being that dumb. That much dumbness was hard to believe-Luke wanted to make sure he hadn't misunderstood.

"Now, wait a minute, Zwey," he said. "Why do you think that baby was yours?"

Zwey was silent a long time. Luke was smiling, as he did when he wanted to make fun of him. It didn't ordinarily much bother him that Luke made fun of him, but he didn't want him to make fun about the baby. He didn't want Luke to talk about it. It was painful enough that she had had it and then gone off and left it. He decided not to answer.

"What's the matter with you, Zwey?" Luke said. "You and Ellie ain't really married. You ain't married to somebody just because she comes on a trip with you."

Zwey began to feel very sad-it might be true, what Luke said. Yet he liked to think that he and Ellie were married.

"Well, we are," he said finally.

Luke began to laugh. He turned to Ellie, who was still sitting with her back against the skins.

"He thinks that baby's his," Luke said. "He really thinks it's his. I guess he thinks all he had to do was look at you to make it happen."

Then Luke laughed a long time. Zwey felt sad, but he didn't say any more. Luke could always find something to laugh at him about.

Elmira began to feel cold. She started to shiver and reached for the pile of blankets in the wagon, but she was too weak even to untangle the blankets.

"Help me, boys," she said. "I'm real cold."

Zwey immediately handed the reins to Luke and went back to help cover her up. It was a warm night, but Ellie was still shivering. He put the blankets on her, but she didn't stop shivering. On the wagon Seat, Luke would laugh from time to time when he thought of Zwey's baby. Before they had gone five miles, Ellie was delirious. She huddled in the blankets, talking to herself, mostly about the man called Dee Boot. Her look was so wild that Zwey became frightened. Once his hand happened to brush her and her skin was as hot as if the sun were burning down on her.

"Luke, she's got a fever," Zwey said.

"I ain't a doctor," Luke said. "We shouldn't have left that house."

Zwey bathed her face with water, but it was like putting water on a stove, she was so hot. Zwey didn't know what to do. A person so hot could die. He had seen much death, and very often it came with fever. He didn't understand why she had had the baby if it was only going to make her so sick. While he was bathing her face, she sat up straight and looked at him, her eyes wide.

"Dee, is that you?" she asked. "Where have you been?" Then she fell back against the skins.

Luke drove as fast as he could, but it was still a long road. The sky was light in the east when they finally found a wagon track and pulled into Ogallala.

The town was not large-just a long street of saloons and stores, and a few shacks on the slope north of the Platte. One of the saloons was still open. Three cowboys were lounging around outside, getting ready to mount up and go back to work. The two who were soberest were laughing at the third because he was so drunk he was trying to mount his horse from the wrong side.

"Hell, Joe's fixing to get on backwards," one said. They were not much interested in the fact that a wagon had pulled up. The drunk cowboy slipped and fell in the street. The other cowboys found that hilarious, one laughing so hard that he had to go over by the saloon and vomit.

"Where's the doctor live?" Luke asked the soberest cowboy. "We got a sick woman here."

At that the cowboys all stopped and stared. All they could see was Ellie's hair. The rest of her was covered with blankets.

"Where'd she come from?" one asked.

"Arkansas," Luke said. "Where's the doctor?"

Ellie had dropped into a fevered doze. She opened her eyes and saw the buildings. It must be the town where Dee was. She began tO. shove off the blankets.

"Do you know Dee Boot?" she asked the cowboys. "I come to find Dee Boot."

The cowboys stared at her as if they hadn't heard. Her hair was long and tangled, and she was wearing a nightdress. A huge buffalo hunter sat beside her.

"Ma'am, Dee Boot is in jail," one of the cowboys said politely. "It's that building over there."

Light was just filtering into the street between the shadowed buildings.

"Where's the doctor?" Luke asked again.

"I don't know if there is one," the cowboy said. "We just got here last night. I know about Boot because they were talking about him in the saloon."

Ellie began to try and climb over the side of the wagon. "Help me, Zwey," she said. "I wanta see Dee." She got one leg over the side board of the wagon and suddenly began to feel weak again. She clung to the board, trembling.

"Help me, Zwey," she said again.

Zwey lifted her out of the wagon as if she were a doll. Elmira took two steps and stopped. She knew she would fall if she tried another step, and yet Dee Boot was just across the street. Once she saw Dee she felt she could start getting well.

Zwey stood beside her, big as one of the horses the cowboys rode.

"Carry me over," she said.

Zwey felt afraid. He had never carried a woman, much less Ellie. He felt he might break her, if he wasn't careful. But she was looking at him and he felt he had to try. He lifted her in his arms and found again that she was light as a doll. She smelled different from anything he had ever carried, too. Mostly he had just carried skins, or carcasses of game.

As he was carrying her, a man came out of the jail and stepped around the corner of the building. It proved to be a deputy sheriff-his name was Leon-going out to relieve himself. He was startled to see a huge man standing there with a tiny woman in a nightgown in his arms. Nothing so surprising had happened in his whole tenure as deputy. It stopped him in his tracks.

"I want to see Dee Boot," the woman said, her voice just a whisper.

"Dee Boot?" Leon said, startled. "Well, we got him, all right, but I doubt he's up."

"I'm his wife," Ellie said.

That was another surprise. "Didn't know he was even married," Leon said.

Leon was watching the buffalo hunter, who was very large. It occurred to him that the couple might have come to try and break Dee Boat out of jail.

"I'm his wife, I want to see Dee," the woman said. "Zwey don't have to come."

"Dee can probably hear you, he's right in this cell," Leon said, Pointing to a small barred window on the side of the jail.

"Carry me over, Zwey," Elmira said, and Zwey obeyed.

The window was tiny and the cell still mostly dark, but Elmira could make out a man lying on a little bare bunk. He had his arm over his eyes and at first she doubted it was Dee-if so, he had put on weight, which wouldn't be like Dee. He prided himself on being slim and quick.

"Dee," she said. "Dee, it's me." Her voice was the merest whisper, and the man didn't awake. Ellie felt angry-here she had come such a distance, and she had found him, yet she couldn't make him hear.

"Say something to him, Zwey," she whispered. "Your voice is louder."

Zwey was at a loss. He had never met Dee Boot and had no idea what to say to him. The task embarrassed him a little.

"Don't know nothing to say," he said.

Fortunately it didn't matter. The deputy had gone back in and he woke Dee Boot himself.

"Wake up, Boot," he said. "You got visitors."

The sleeping man immediately sprang up with a wild look. Ellie saw that it was him, although he hardly looked like the dapper man she remembered. He glanced at the window fearfully, then just stood and stared.

"Who's that?" he asked.

"Why, it's your wife," Leon said.

Dee came to the window-it was just two steps. Ellie saw that he had not shaved in several days-another surprise. Dee was particular about barbering and had always had the best barber in town come and shave him every morning. The eyes that she had remembered almost every day of the long trip-Dee's merry eyes-now just looked scared and sad.

"It's me, Dee," she said.

Dee just stared at her and at the large man holding her in his arms. Ellie realized he might have the wrong idea about Zwey, although he had never been particularly the jealous type.

"It's just Zwey," she whispered. "Him and Luke brought me in the wagon.

"There ain't nobody else?" Dee said, coming close to the bars and trying to peer out

Ellie didn't know what was wrong. He could see it was her, and yet he hardly looked at her. He seemed scared, and his hair had little pieces of cotton ticking in it from a tear in the thin mattress he slept on. The scruffy growth of whiskers made him seem a lot older than she had remembered him.

"It's just me," Elmira whispered. She was beginning to feel scared-she felt so weak she could hardly hold her eyes open, and she wanted more than anything to talk to Dee. She didn't want to faint before they had their talk, and yet she was afraid she might.

"I left July," she said. "I couldn't do it. All I could think of was you, the whole time. I should have gone with you and not even tried it. I took a whiskey boat and then Zwey and Luke brought me in the wagon. I had a baby but I left it. I been coming back to you as quick as I could, Dee."

Dee kept trying to peer around them, as if he was sure there were more people than he could see. Finally he stopped trying, and looked at her. She was hoping for' the old smile, but Dee didn't have it in him to smile.

"They're gonna hang me, Ellie," he said. "That's why I jumped up-I been expecting lynchers."

Elmira couldn't believe it. Dee had never done anything wrong-not wrong enough to make people hang him. He gambled and flirted, but those weren't hanging crimes.

"Why, Dee?" she asked.

Dee shrugged. "Killed a boy," he said. "I was just trying to scare him and he jumped the wrong way."

Ellie felt confused. She had never even heard of Dee Boot shooting a gun. He carried one, like all men did, but he never ever practiced with it that she knew. Why would he try to scare a boy?

"Was he aggravating you, or what?" she asked.

Dee shrugged again. "It was a settler's boy," he said. "Some cowmen hired me to run the settlers out. Most of them will run if you shoot over their heads a time or two. This one just moved the wrong way."

"We'll get you out," Elmira said. "Zwey and Luke will help me."

Dee looked at the big man holding Ellie. He did look big enough to pull the little jail apart-but of course he couldn't do it while he was holding a sick woman.

"I'm due to hang next Friday, but they may come lynch me first," Dee said.

Zwey felt something wet on his arms. Ellie was so light he didn't mind holding her. The sun was up and they could see into the cell a little better. Zwey didn't know why he felt so wet. He shifted Ellie a little and saw to his shock that the wetness was blood.

"She's bleeding," he said.

Dee looked out and saw that blood was dripping off Ellie's nightdress.

"Get her to the Doc," Dee said. "Leon knows where he lives."

Dee began to yell for the deputy and soon Leon came running around the jail. Elmira didn't want to go. She wanted to stay and talk to Dee, assure him that it would be all right, they would get him out. She would never let them hang Dee Boot. She looked in at him, but she couldn't talk anymore. She couldn't say the things she wanted to say. She tried, but no words came out. Her eyes wanted to close, and no matter how hard she tried to keep them open and look at Dee, they kept trying to close. She tried to see Dee again, as Zwey was carrying her away, but Dee's face was lost in a patch of sunlight. The sun shone brightly against the wall of the jail and Dee's face was lost in the light. Then, despite herself, her head fell back against Zwey's arm and all she could see was the sky.

77.

IT SEEMED TO JULY that he was nearly as cursed as Job when it came to catching Elmira. Despite his caution, he kept having accidents and setbacks of a kind that had never happened at home in Fort Smith. Three days out of Dodge, the new horse he had bought, which turned out not to be well-broken, fell and crippled himself trying to throw a hobble. July waited a day, hoping it wasn't as bad as he thought it was-but the next day he saw it was even worse. It hardly seemed possible to lose two horses on one trip, when he had never lost a horse before in his life, but it was a fact he had to face.

With that fact went another: he wasn't likely to get another horse unless he went back to Dodge. North of him there was only the plains, until he came to the Platte River-a long walk. July hated to double back on himself, but he had no choice. It was as if Dodge City was some kind of magnet, letting him go and then sucking him back. He shot the second horse, just as he had shot the first one, hid his saddle and went back. He walked grimly, trying to keep his mind off the fact that Ellie was getting farther and farther away all the time.

He swam the Arkansas River when he came to it, walked into town in wet clothes, bought another horse, and left again within the hour. The old horse trader was half drunk and eager to bargain, but July cut him short.

"You ain't getting anywhere very fast, are you, young feller?" the old man said, chuckling. July thought it an unnecessary remark. He went right back across the river.

All during the trip he had been haunted by the memory of something that had happened in Fort Smith several years before. One of the nicest men in town, a cotton merchant, had gone to Memphis on a business trip, only to have his wife take sick while he was gone. They tried to send a telegram to notify the man, but he was on his way back and the telegram never got delivered. The man's name was John Fisher. As he rode back into Fort Smith, John Fisher saw a burying party out behind the church. Being a neighborly man, he had ridden over to see who had died, and the people had all stopped, stricken, for they were burying his wife. July had been helping to cover the coffin. He never forgot the look on John Fisher's face when he realized he was a day late-his wife had died the afternoon before his return. Though a healthy man, John Fisher only lived another year himself. If he ran into someone on the street who had seen his wife on her sickbed he always asked, "Do you think Jane might have lived if I'd got back sooner?" Everyone told him no, you couldn't have done a thing, but John Fisher didn't believe them.

July had no reason to think that Elmira was sick, but he had so much worry that he hated every delay. Fortunately the new horse was strong, a good traveler. July pushed him hard, taking his own rest when he felt the horse needed it. He watched the horse closely, knowing that he couldn't afford to lose him. He only had two dollars left, plus some coffee, bacon and his rifle. He hoped to kill an antelope, but could not hit one. Mostly he lived on bacon.

Near the Republican River he had his second piece of bad luck. He had camped on a little bluff, exhausted, and after hobbling the horse, fell asleep like a stone. He didn't sleep well. In the night he felt a Stinging in his leg but was too heavy with sleep to care-red ants had gotten him several times.

When he awoke it was to severe pain and a right leg so swollen that he had to cut his pants open to see what was wrong. When he did, he saw fang marks, just above his knee. A snake must have crawled near him in the night, and in his thrashing he had turned over and scared it. He had heard no rattle, but it might have been a young snake, or had its rattle broken off.

At first he was very scared. He had been bitten in the night-the poison had had several hours in which to work. It was already too late to cut the bite and try to drain the poison. He had no medicines and could do nothing for himself. He grew lightheaded and assumed he was dying. From the bluff he could see far north across the Republican, almost to Nebraska, he supposed. It was terribly bad luck, to be snakebit almost in sight of where he needed to be. He didn't even have much water, for with the river so close he had let himself run low.

There was no shade on the bluff. He covered his face with his hat and lay back against his saddle, sweating, and ashamed of his own carelessness. He grew delirious and in his delirium would have long talks with Roscoe. He could see Roscoe's face as plain as day. Roscoe didn't seem to blame him for the fact that he was dead. If he himself was soon going to be dead, too, it might not matter so much.

July didn't die. His leg felt terrible, though. In the night came a rainstorm and he could do nothing but huddle under his saddle blanket. His teeth began to chatter and he couldn't stop them. He almost wished he could go on and die, it was so uncomfortable.

But in the morning the sun was hot, he soon dried out. He felt weak, but he didn't feel as if he were dying. Mainly he had to avoid looking at his leg. It looked so bad he didn't know what to think. If a doctor saw it he could probably just cut it off and be done with it. When he tried to bend it even a little, a terrible pain shot through him-yet he had to get down to the river or else die of thirst, even though it had just rained. He had been too sick to try and catch any of the rainwater.

That afternoon he stood up, but he couldn't touch his right foot to the ground. He managed to belly over the horse and get down to the river. It was three days before he had the strength to go back and get the saddle. The effort of getting to the river had exhausted him so much he could barely undo a button. Early one morning he shot a large crane with his pistol, and the meat put a little strength in him. His leg had not returned to normal, but it had not fallen off either. He could put a little weight on it, but not much.

Five days after the snake bit him, July saddled up and rode across the Republican River. Since leaving Dodge he had not seen one person. He worried about Indians-wounded as he was, he would have been easy prey-and yet finally he grew so lonesome that he would have been glad to see an Indian or two. He began to wonder if there were any people at all in the north.

As he neared Nebraska, the plains took on a browner look. Though he was fairly sure now he wasn't going to die, he kept having spells of lightheadedness in which his vision wavered and he tended to run off at the mouth. At night he would wake and find himself in the middle of a conversation with Roscoe-it embarrassed him, though no one was around to hear.

But he kept on. Streams became a little more plentiful and he ceased to worry too much about water. Once he thought he saw riders, far in the distance, but when he went toward them they turned out to be two buffalo, standing on the prairie as if they were lost. July started to shoot one, but it was more meat than he needed, and if he killed one the other buffalo would be as alone as he was. He passed on and that night killed a big prairie chicken with a rock.

Three days later he saw the Platte, winding between low brown slopes. He soon hit a good wagon track and followed it west.

About noon he saw a lone frame house standing a half mile south of the Platte. There were corrals and a few sheds near it, and a sizable horse herd grazing in sight of the house. July felt like crying-it meant he wasn't lost anymore. No one would build a frame house unless there was a town somewhere near. Being alone on the prairie for so many weeks had made him realize how much he liked being in towns, though when he thought about all that he had been through, he didn't feel he had much hope of finding Ellie there. How could a woman come across such distances?

As he approached the house an old man appeared to the north, riding out of the Platte, his horse dripping water. July saw there were more horses north of the river. The old man had white hair and seemed to be a Mexican. He rode with a rifle held lightly across his saddle. July didn't want to appear unfriendly. He stopped to wait.

The old man looked mainly at his leg. July had forgotten how ugly it looked-he had even forgotten it was still yellowish and almost bare, for he had cut his pants leg off when the leg was so swollen.

"Is it bad?" the old man asked in English. July was glad for the English.

"Not as bad as it was," July said. "Is Ogallala near here?"

"Twenty miles," the old man said. "I'm Cholo. Come to the house. You must be hungry."

July didn't argue. He had almost forgotten that people sat at tables, in houses, to eat. He had lived so long on half-cooked bacon, or half-cooked game, that he had become shy at the thought of sitting at a proper table. He didn't look proper, he knew.

As he approached the house he suddenly heard shrieks of laughter, and a little girl flew around the corner of the house, another slightly older girl in hot pursuit. The girl in the lead ran on to one of the sheds between the house and the corral and tried to hide in it, but her sister caught her before she could get inside, and they tussled and shrieked. The older girl was trying to put something down the younger girl's neck, and she finally succeeded, at which point the younger girl began to hop up and down while the older one ran off, laughing.

As the two men rode up, a woman appeared on the back steps of the house. She wore a gray smock and an apron and had an infant in her arms. She was clearly out of temper, for she yelled something at the two girls, who stopped their shrieking, looked at one another and slowly approached the house. The infant the woman held was crying fretfully, though, at that, making less noise than the girls. The woman addressed herself to the older girl, who made some excuse, and the younger girl, in her own defense, pointed back toward the shed. The woman listened a minute and began to talk rapidly, giving her daughters what for, July supposed.

To see a woman so suddenly, after so much time alone, made him very nervous-particularly since the woman was so out of temper. But as they drew closer he found that, out of temper or not, he couldn't stop looking at her. Her eyes flashed as she lectured her daughters, neither of whom was taking the lecture silently-both were trying to talk back but the mother didn't pause to listen. She had abundant brown hair tucked into a bun at the back of her neck, though the bun had partly come loose.

The old Mexican seemed not the least disturbed by the argument in progress. In fact, he seemed amused by it, and he rode up and got off his horse as if nothing were happening.

"But she put a grasshopper down my neck," the younger girl said. "I hate her."

"I don't care who hates who," the woman said. "I was up with this baby all night-you know how colicky he is. You don't have to scream right under my window-looks like there be room on this prairie for you to scream without doing it under my window. All we got here is room."

"It was a grasshopper," the little girl insisted.

"Well, is it the first one you've ever seen?" the woman asked. "You'll have more to worry about than grasshoppers if you wake this baby again."

The woman was rather thin, but anger put color in her cheeks. The girls finally were subdued and the woman looked up and saw him, lifting her chin with a bit of belligerence, as though she might have to tie into him too. Then she saw his discolored leg, and her look changed. She had gray eyes and she turned them on him with sudden gravity.

"Get down, señor," the old man said.

The girls looked around and became aware for the first time that a stranger had come. They instantly stopped fidgeting and stood like statues.

The woman smiled. She seemed to have switched from anger to amusement.

"Hello, I'm Clara," she said. "Pardon the commotion. We're a loud bunch. Get down, sir. You're welcome."

July had not spoken in so long, except for the few words he had said to Cholo and his ravings to Roscoe Brown, that his voice came out cracked. "Thank you, I wouldn't want to trouble you," he said.

Clara laughed. "You don't look strong enough to trouble nobody around here," she said. "We grow our own troubles-it would be a novelty to have some we ain't already used to. These are my daughters, Sally and Betsey."

July nodded to the girls and got off his horse. After a ride his leg stiffened and he had to hobble over to the porch. The baby was still fretting. The woman rocked it in her arms as she watched July hobble.

"Snake bit him," Cholo observed.

"I guess I rolled into it at night," July said. "I never even seen it. Just woke up with a yellow leg."

"Well, if you've lived this long I expect you have nothing to fear," Clara said. "We'll get some food in you. The way sick people have been turning up lately, I sometimes think we oughta go out of the horse business and open a hospital. Come on in the house-you girls set him a place."

The old man helped him up the steps and into the roomy kitchen. Clara was poking the fire in the cookstove, the baby still held in one arm.

"If you'd like a wash first, I'll have the girls draw some water," Clara said. "I didn't get your name."

"I'm July Johnson," July said. "I come from Arkansas."

Clara almost dropped the poker. The girls had told her the little scarfaced man had said the woman they were with was married to a sheriff named Johnson, from Arkansas. She hadn't given the story much credence-the woman didn't strike her as the marrying type. Besides, the little man had whispered something to the effect that the big buffalo hunter considered himself married to her. The girls thought it mighty exciting, having a woman in the house who was married to two men. And if that wasn't complicated enough, the woman herself claimed to be married to Dee Boot, the gunfighter they had hung last week. Cholo had been in town when the hanging took place and reported that the hanging had gone smoothly.

Clara looked more closely at the man standing in her kitchen. He was very thin and in a kind of daze-probably couldn't quite believe that he was still alive after such a journey. She had felt that way herself upon arriving in Ogallala after her trip over the plains with Bob, and she hadn't been snakebit or had any particular adventures.

But if he was married to the woman, the baby drooling on her bosom might be his. Clara felt a flash of annoyance, most of it with herself. She had already grown attached to the baby. She liked to lie in bed with him and watch him try to work his tiny hands. He would peer at her for long stretches, frowning, as if trying to figure life out. But when Clara laughed at him and gave him her finger to hold he would stop frowning and gurgle happily. Apart from the colic, he seemed to be a healthy baby. She knew the mother was probably still in Ogallala, and that she ought to take the child into town and see if the woman had had a change of heart and wanted her son, but she kept putting it off. It would be discouraging to have to give him up-she told herself if the mother didn't want him bad enough to come and get him, then the mother was too foolish to have him. She reminded herself it was time she got out of the habit of babies. She wouldn't be likely to get any more, and she knew she ought to figure out another way to keep herself amused. But she did like babies. Few things were as likely to cheer her up.

She had never seriously supposed a father would turn up, and yet only three weeks had passed and one had, standing in her kitchen, dirty, tired, and with a badly discolored leg.

Clara poked the fire a time or two more, trying to adjust to the surprise. Then she turned and looked at July.

"Mr. Johnson," she said, "are you looking for your wife, by any chance?"

July almost fell over from surprise. "Yes, her name is Ellie-Elmira," he said. "How'd you ever know?"

He began to tremble. Clara came over, took his arm and led him to a chair. The girls were standing in the doorway, watching every move.

"I been looking for Ellie all the way," July said. "I didn't even know she come this way. She's not a large woman, I was afraid she might have died. Have you seen her?"

"Yes," Clara said. "She stopped here for the night about three weeks ago in the company of two buffalo hunters."

To July it seemed too much of a miracle-that with the whole plains to cross he and Ellie would strike the same house. The woman, who was watching him intently, seemed to read his mind.

"We get a lot of travelers," she said, as though he hadn't spoken. "Situating this place right here was one of the smartest things my husband ever did. Anyone coming along the Platte who might need a horse isn't going to miss us. We're on the only road. If we hadn't located on this road, we'd have been starved out long ago."

"It seems…" July said, and he couldn't finish. It was all he had hoped for, to be able to find her someday. He had risked and lost three lives to do it, and though Ellie wasn't right there, surely she was in town. He began to tremble and then to cry-he couldn't help it. His hopes were to be answered after all.

Silently Clara handed him a rough dish towel. She scowled fiercely at the girls until they backed off. She followed them out the back door to give the man a moment to collect himself.

"Why's he crying?" Betsey asked.

"He's just unnerved-he's come along a long way and I imagine he had stopped expecting to make it," Clara said.

"But he's a man," Sally said. Their father had never cried, as far as she knew.

"Men have tears in them too, same as you," Clara said. "Go draw some water. I think we might offer him a bath."

She went back in. July had not quite gained control of himself. He was too shaken with relief. The baby, now in a good mood, was mouthing its own fingers and rolling its eyes up to her. Might as well tell the man, she thought. She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.

"Mr. Johnson, I guess I've got another piece of news for you," Clara said. She looked from the baby's face to his, seeking resemblances. It seemed to her the foreheads were the same, and though the child had little hair, the little was the same color as July's. He was not a badlooking man, just gaunt from his travels, and dirty. She had a notion to make him shave, when he had rested, so she could compare his face with the baby's. He could use Bob's razor. One week ago she had stropped it and shaved Bob.

July looked at her as she fiddled with the baby. The tears had left him feeling empty, but his gratitude to the woman just for being there and treating him kindly was so great that he felt he might cry again if he tried to speak. The woman seemed too beautiful and too kind to be true. It was clear she was older-she had fine wrinkles around her mouth-but her skin was still soft and her face, as she wiggled the baby's little hand with one finger, was very beautiful. The thought of more news troubled him a little, though-probably one of Elmira's companions had stolen something or made some mischief.

"If that woman was your wife, I guess this child is yours," Clara said. "She had it the night she was here. Then she left. She was very anxious to get to town. I don't believe she realized what a fine boy she had. We all took to him right away around this place."

July had not really looked at the baby. He had supposed it belonged to Clara-she had said her name was Clara. She was watching him closely with her kind gray eyes. But what she said seemed so unlikely that he couldn't really credit it. Elmira had said nothing to him about wanting a baby, or planning to have one, or anything. To him, so tired he could hardly sit straight, it just meant another mystery. Maybe it explained why Elmira ran away-though it didn't to him. As for the little boy, wiggling in Clara's lap, he didn't know what to think. The notion that he had a son was too big a notion. His mind wouldn't really approach it. The thought made him feel lost again, as he had felt out on the plains.

Clara saw that he was past dealing with it for the moment.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Johnson," she said, immediately getting up. "I should be cooking instead of worrying you with things you're too tired to deal with. You eat and go rest. This boy will still be here-we can discuss it tomorrow."

July didn't answer, but he felt he was remiss. Not only was Clara going to a lot of trouble to feed him, she was taking care of a baby that might be his. He tried to think of things he might do or say, but nothing came to mind. Clara went cheerfully about the cooking, holding the baby in her arms most of the time but occasionally plunking him on the table for a minute if she needed both hands for the work.

"Just catch him if he starts to roll," she said. "That's all I ask."

She fed July beefsteak and potatoes and peas. July felt he would be too tired to eat, and yet at the smell of the food his appetite returned and he ate every bite.

"I made Bob build me a windbreak," she said. "I watched my gardens blow away for ten or twelve years and I finally got tired of it."

July looked at her questioningly.

"Bob's my husband," she said. "He's injured. We don't hold out too much hope for him."

She had strained and heated a little milk, and while July ate she fed the baby, using a big nipple she had fixed over a fruit jar.

"We use this nipple for the colts," she said. "Sometimes the mares don't have their milk at first. It's a good thing this boy's got a big mouth."

The child was sucking greedily on the nipple, which was quite large, it seemed to July.

"I've been calling him Martin," Clara said. "Since he's yours, you may want to change it. I think Martin is a nice name for a man. A man named Martin could be a judge, or maybe go into politics. My girls fancy the name too."

"I don't guess he's mine," July said. "Ellie never mentioned anything about it."

Clara laughed. It surprised him. "Had you been married long?" she asked.

"About six months," July said. "When she left."

"Oh, well, you were newlyweds then," Clara said. "She might have been put out with you and decided not to tell you."

"She had another boy, Joe," July said. "He went with me when I went after Jake Spoon. Only Joe got killed on the plains. Ellie don't know it yet."

"Did you say Jake Spoon?" Clara said. "I know Jake. We courted once. I saw him in Ogallala about a year ago but the woman he was with didn't like my looks so we didn't talk much. Why were you after Jake?"

July could barely remember it all, it seemed to have happened so long ago.

"Jake was gambling and a fight got started," he said. "Jake shot off a buffalo gun and the bullet went through the wall and killed my brother. I was out of town at the time. Peach, my sister-in-law, wanted me to go after Jake. I wish now I hadn't."

"It sounds accidental to me," Clara said. "Though I know that's no consolation to your family. Jake was no killer."

"Well, I didn't catch him anyway," July said. "Elmira ran off and Roscoe come and told me. Now Roscoe's dead too. I don't guess it could be my baby."

Clara was still studying the two faces, the little one and the gaunt, tired one. It interested her, what came across from parent to child.

"When did your wife run off?" she asked.

"Oh, it's been over four months," July said. "A long time."

Clara chuckled. "Mr. Johnson, I don't think arithmetic's your strong suit," she said. "I think this is young Mr. Johnson you're looking at. I had that figured out, even without the dates, but the dates jibe pretty well."

July didn't know what to say. Clara seemed delighted with her Conclusion, but he didn't feel anything at all. It was just a puzzle.

"I guess I'm awful," Clara said. "Any kind of company affects me this way. I shouldn't be bothering you when you're so tired. The girls are drawing water. You have a bath. You can sleep in their room-it's a good bed."

Later, when he had bathed and fallen into a sleep so deep that he didn't even turn over for several hours, Clara brought the baby in and peeked at July. He hadn't shaved, but at least he had washed. Cleaned of dirt he looked very young, only a few years older than her oldest boy would have been had he lived.

Then she went to look at Bob for a moment-an ugly ooze had been seeping onto his pillow. The stitches in his head had been removed but underneath the wound seemed hot. It might be a new infection. Clara cleaned it as best she could, and took the baby out on her little porch.

"Well, Martin, your pa showed up," she said, grinning at the baby. "It's a good thing we got a house right on the road. I wonder what your pa will think of us when he gets his wits together."

The baby waved a hand in the warm air. Down at the lots, the girls were watching Cholo work with a two-year-old filly.

Clara looked at the baby and offered it her finger. "We don't much care what your pa thinks of us, do we, Martin?" she said. "We already know what we think of him."

78.

LORENA WAS SITTING in her tent when Gus returned. She had been sitting there hoping he wasn't dead. It was an unreasoning fear she had, that Gus might die. He had only been gone three days, but it seemed longer to her. The cowboys didn't bother her, but she was uneasy anyway. Dish Boggett set up her tent at night and stayed close by, but it meant nothing to her. Gus was the only man she wanted to look after her.

Then, before it was quite dark, she heard horses and looked out to see Gus riding toward her. She was so glad she wanted to run out to him, but Dish Boggett was nearby, trimming his horse's feet, so she kept still.

"She's just fine, Gus," Dish said, when Gus dismounted. "I looked after her as best I could."

"I'm much obliged," Augustus said.

"She won't hardly even look at me," Dish said. He said it mildly, but he didn't feel it mildly. Lorena's indifference pained him more than anything he had ever experienced.

"Did you catch the horsethieves?" he asked.

"We did, but not before they murdered Wilbarger and four other people," Augustus said.

"Hang 'em?"

"Yes, hung them all, including Jake Spoon."

"Well, I'll swear," Dish said, shocked. "I didn't like the man but I never figured him for a killer."

"He wasn't a killer," Augustus said. "Jake liked a joke and didn't like to work. I've got exactly the same failings. It's lucky I ain't been hung."

He pulled the saddle off his tired horse. The horse lay down and had a good roll, scratching its sweaty back.

"Howdy do, miss," Augustus said, opening the tent. "Give me a hug."

Lorena did. It made her blush that he just asked, like that.

"If hugs are to be had for the asking, what about kisses?" Augustus asked.

Lorena turned her face up-the feel of his whiskers made her want to cry, and she held him as tight as she could.

"I wish we'd brought a bathtub on this trip," Augustus said, grinning. "I'm so dirty it's like kissing a groundhog."

Later, he went to the chuck wagon and brought back some supper. They ate outside the tent. In the distance the Irishman was singing. Gus told her about Jake, but Lorena felt little. Jake hadn't come to find her. For days she had hoped he would, but when he didn't, and her hope died, the memory of Jake died with it. When she listened to Gus talk about him it was as if he were talking about a man she hadn't known. She had a stronger memory of Xavier Wanz. Some- times she dreamed of Xavier, standing with his dishrag in the Dry Bean. She remembered how he had cried the morning she left, how he'd offered to take her to Galveston.

But she didn't remember Jake particularly. He had faded into all the other men who had come and gone. He had got a thorn in his hand, she remembered that, but she didn't remember much else. She didn't much care that he was dead-he wasn't a good man, like Gus.

What scared her was all the death. Now that she had found Gus, it was very frightening to her to think that he might die. She didn't want to be without him. Yet that very night she dreamed that he had died and she couldn't find the body. When she came out of the dream and heard him breathing, she clung so tightly to him that he woke up. It was very hot and her clinging made them sweaty.

"What scared you?" Augustus asked.

"I dreamed you died," Lorena said. "I'm sorry I woke you."

Augustus sat up. "Don't fret," he said. "I need to go water the grass, anyway."

He went out, made water, and stood in the moonlight awhile, cooling off. There was no breeze in the tent, so Lorena came out too.

"It's a good thing this grass don't depend on me," Augustus said. "There's a lot more of it than I can get watered."

They were on a plain of grass so huge that it was hard to imagine there was a world beyond it. The herd, and themselves, were like a dot, surrounded by endless grass. Lorena had come to like the space-it was a relief after her years of being crowded in a little saloon.

Gus was staring at the moon and scratching himself. "I keep thinking we'll see the mountains," he said. "I grew up in mountains, you know. Tennessee. I hear them Rockies are a lot higher than the Smokies. They say they have snow on top of them the year round, which you won't find in Tennessee."

He sat down in the grass. "Let's sit out," he said. "We can nap in the morning. It will scandalize Call."

"Why does he go off at night?" Lorena asked.

"He goes off to be by himself," Augustus said. "Woodrow ain't a sociable man."

Lorena remembered her other worry, the woman in Nebraska. "When will we get there, Gus?" she asked. "Nebraska, I mean."

"I ain't sure," he said. "Nebraska's north of the Republican River, which we ain't come to yet. It might take us three weeks yet."

Lorena felt a dread she couldn't get rid of. She might lose him to the woman. The strange trembling started-it was beyond her control. Gus put his arms around her to make it stop.

"Well, it's natural to worry," he said. "This is a chancy life. What's the main thing that worries you?"

"I'm feared you'll die," Lorena said.

Augustus chuckled. "Dern right, I'll die," he said. "What else worries you?"

"I'm feared you'll marry that woman," she said.

"I doubt it," Augustus said. "That woman had two or three chances to marry me already, and she didn't take them. She's an independent type, like you used to be."

That was so, Lorena reflected. She had been quite independent, but now all she could think of was keeping Gus. She wasn't ashamed, though. He was worth keeping.

"It's funny humans take to the daylight so," he said. "Lots of animals would rather work at night."

Lorena wanted him to want her. She knew he did want her, but he had none nothing. She didn't care about it, but if she could be sure that he still wanted her, then the dread of losing him might go away.

"Let's go in," she whispered, hoping he'd know what she meant. He immediately turned to her with a grin.

"My, my," he said. "Times do change. I remember when I had to cheat at cards to get a poke. We don't have to go in that old hot tent. I'll drag the bedding out here."

Lorena didn't care that the cowboys might see, or who might see. Gus had become her only concern. The rest of the world could watch out. But Gus merely hugged her and gave her a kiss. Then he held her tight all night, and when the sun woke her the herd was already gone.

"Did anybody see us?" she asked.

"If they did they're lucky," Augustus said. "They won't get too many chances to see such beauties as us."

He laughed and got up to make the coffee.

79.

NEWT COULDN'T GET JAKE out of his mind-how he had smiled at the end and given him his horse. He rode the horse every third day and liked his gait so much that he soon became his favorite horse. Jake hadn't told him what the horse's name was, which worried Newt. A horse needed a name.

Jake's hanging had happened so quickly that it was hard to remember-it was like a terrible dream, of the kind you can only remember parts of. He remembered the shock it had been to see Jake with his hands tied, sitting on his horse with a noose around his neck. He remembered how tired Jake looked, too tired even to care that he was going to be hung. Also, nobody talked much. There should have been some discussion, it seemed to Newt. Jake might have had a good excuse for being there, but nobody even asked him for it.

Not only had no one talked at the hanging, no one had talked since, either. Captain Call kept well to himself, riding far from the herd all day and sleeping apart at night. Mr. Gus stayed back with Lorena, only showing up at mealtimes. Deets was very quiet when he was around, and he wasn't around much-he spent his days scouting far ahead of the herd, which was traveling easily. The Texas bull had assumed the lead position, passing Old Dog almost every day and only giving up the lead to go snort around the tails of whatever cows interested him. He had lost none of his belligerence. Dish, who rode the point, had come to hate him even more than Needle Nelson did.

"I don't know why we don't cut him," Dish said. "It's only a matter of time before he kills one of us."

"If he kills me he'll die with me," Needle said grimly.

Of course, all the hands were curious about Jake. They asked endless questions. The fact that the farmers had been burned puzzled them. "Do you think they was trying to make people think Indians did it?" Jasper asked.

"No, Dan Suggs just did it because he felt like it," Pea Eye said. "What's more, he hung 'em after they were already dead. Shot 'em, hung 'em, and then burned 'em."

"He must have been a hard case, that Dan," Jasper said. "I seen him once. He had them little squint eyes."

"I'm glad he never squinted them at me, if that's the way he behaves to white men," Needle said. "What was Jake doing with an outfit like that?"

"If you ask my opinion, that whore that Gus has got was Jake's downfall," Bert Borum volunteered.

"You can keep your damn opinion to yourself, if that's what you think," Dish said. He was as touchy as ever where Lorena was concerned.

"Just because you're in love with a whore don't mean I can't express my opinion," Bert countered.

"You can express it and I can knock your dern teeth down your throat for you," Dish said. "Lorie didn't make Jake Spoon into no criminal."

Bert had always considered that Dish had been awarded the tophand position unfairly, and he was not about to put up with such insolence from him. He took his gun belt off, and Dish did the same. They squared off, but didn't immediately proceed to fisticuffs. Each walked cautiously around the other, watching for an opening-their cautiousness provoked much jocularity in the onlookers.

"Look at them priss around," Needle Nelson said. "I used to have a rooster I'd match against either one of them."

"It'll be winter before they hit the first lick at this rate," Jasper said.

Dish finally leaped at Bert, but instead of boxing, the two men grappled and were soon rolling on the ground, neither gaining much of an advantage. Call had seen the men square off, and he loped over. When he got there they were rolling on the ground, both red in the face but doing one another no harm. He rode the Hell Bitch right up to them, and when they saw him they both stopped. He had it in his mind to dress them down, but the fact that the other hands were laughing at their ineffectual combat was probably all that was needed. Anyway, the men were natural rivals in ability and could be expected to puff up at some point. He turned and rode back out of camp without saying a word to them.

When he saw him go, Newt's heart sank. The Captain said less and less to him, or to anyone. Newt felt more and more of a need for Somebody to talk about Jake. He had been the Captain's friend, and Mr. Gus's. It didn't seem right that he could be killed and buried, and no more said.

It was Deets, finally, who understood and helped. Deets was good at mending things, and one night as he was mending Newt's bridle Newt said what was on his mind. "I wish we could at least have taken him to jail," Newt said.

"They'd hang him too," Deets said. "I 'spect he'd rather us did it."

"I wish we hadn't even come," Newt said. "It's just too many people dying. I didn't think we'd ever kill Jake. It wasn't like an accident.

"If he didn't kill anybody, then it wasn't fair," he added.

"Well, there was the horses, too," Deets said.

"He only liked pacers," Newt said. "He wouldn't be bothered to steal horses as long as he had one to ride. Just being along didn't make him a horsethief."

"It do to the Captain," Deets said. "It do to Mr. Gus."

"They didn't even talk to him," Newt said bitterly. "They just hung him. They didn't even act like they were sorry."

"They sorry," Deets said. "Saying won't change it. He's gone, don't worry about him. He's gone to the peaceful place."

He put his hand for a moment on Newt's shoulder. "You need to rest your mind," he said. "Don't worry about the sleepers."

How do you stop? Newt wondered. It wasn't a thing he could forget. Pea Eye mentioned it as he would mention the weather, something natural that just happened and was over. Only for Newt it wasn't over. Every day it would rise in his mind and stay there until something distracted him.

Newt didn't know it, but Call, too, lived almost constantly with the thought of Jake Spoon. He felt half sick from thinking about it. He couldn't concentrate on the work at hand, and often if spoken to he wouldn't respond. He wanted somehow to move time backwards to a point where Jake could have been saved. Many times, in his thoughts, he managed to save Jake, usually by having made him stay with the herd. As the herd approached the Republican, Call's thoughts were back on the Brazos, where Jake had been allowed to go astray.

At night, alone, he grew bitter at himself for indulging in such pointless thoughts. It was like the business with Maggie that Gus harped on so. His mind tried to change it, have it different, but those too were pointless thoughts. Things thought and things said didn't make much difference and with Gus spending all his time with the woman there was very little said anyway. Sometimes Gus would come over and ride with him for a few miles, but they didn't discuss Jake Spoon. As such things went, it had been simple. He could remember hangings that had been harder: once they had to hang a boy for something his father had made him do.

When they sighted the Republican River Gus was with him. From a distance it didn't seem like much of a river. "That's the one that got the Pumphrey boy, ain't it?" Augustus said. "Hope it don't get none of us, we're a skinny outfit as it is."

"We wouldn't be if you did any work," Call said. "Are you going to leave her in Ogallala or what?"

"Are you talking about Lorie or this mare I'm riding?" Augustus asked. "If it's Lorie, it wouldn't kill you to use her name."

"I don't see that it matters," Call said, though even as he said it he remembered that it had seemed to matter to Maggie-she had wanted to hear him say her name.

"You've got a name," Augustus said. "Don't it matter to you, whether people use it?"

"Not much," Call said.

"No, I guess it wouldn't," Augustus said. "You're so sure you're right it doesn't matter to you whether people talk to you at all. I'm glad I've been wrong enough to keep in practice."

"Why would you want to keep in practice being wrong?" Call asked. "I'd think it would be something you'd try to avoid."

"You can't avoid it, you've got to learn to handle it," Augustus said. "If you only come face to face with your own mistakes once or twice in your life it's bound to be extra painful. I face mine every day-that way they ain't usually much worse than a dry shave."

"Anyway, I hope you leave her," Call said. "We might get in the Indians before we get to Montana."

"I'll have to see," Augustus said. "We've grown attached. I won't leave her unless I'm sure she's in good hands."

"Are you aiming to marry?"

"I could do worse," Augustus said. "I've done worse twice, in fact. However, matrimony's a big step and we ain't discussed it."

"Of course, you ain't seen the other one yet," Call said.

"That one's got a name too-Clara," Augustus pointed out. "You are determined not to use names for females. I'm surprised you even named your mare."

"Pea Eye named her," Call said. It was true. Pea Eye had done it the first time she bit him.

That afternoon they swam the Republican without losing an animal. At supper afterward, Jasper Fant's spirits were high-he had built up an unreasoning fear of the Republican River and felt that Once he crossed it he could count on living practically forever. He felt so good he even danced an impromptu jig.

"You've missed your calling, Jasper," Augustus said, highly amused by this display. "You ought to try dancing in whorehouses-you might pick up a favor or two that you otherwise couldn't afford."

"Reckon the Captain will let us go to town once we get to Nebraska?" Needle asked. "It seems like a long time since there's been a town."

"If he don't, I think I'll marry a heifer," Bert said.

Po Campo sat with his back against a wagon wheel, jingling his tambourine.

"It's going to get dry," he said.

"Fine," Soupy replied. "I got wet enough down about the Red to last me forever."

"It's better to be wet than dry," Po Campo said. Usually cheerful, he had fallen into a somber mood.

"It ain't if you drown," Pea Eye observed.

"There won't be much to cook when it gets dry," Po said.

Newt and the Rainey boys had begun to talk of whores. Surely the Captain would let them go to town with the rest of the crew when they hit Ogallala. The puzzling thing was how much a whore might cost. The talk around the wagon was never very specific on that score. The Rainey boys were constantly tallying up their wages and trying to calculate whether they would be sufficient. What made it complicated was that they had played cards for credit the whole way north. The older hands had done the same, and the debts were complicated. As the arrival in Ogallala began to dominate their thoughts almost entirely, the question of cash was constantly discussed, and many debts discounted on the promise of actual money.

"What if they don't pay us here?" the pessimistic Needle asked one night. "We signed on for Montana, we might not get no wages in Nebraska."

"Oh, the Captain will pay us," Dish said. Despite his attachment to Lorena he was becoming as excited as the rest about going to town.

"Why would he?" Lippy asked. "He don't care whether you have a whore or not, Dish."

That sentiment struck everyone as almost undoubtedly true, and established a general worry. By the time they crossed the Stinking Water the worry had become so oppressive that many hands could think of nothing else. Finally a delegation, headed by Jasper, approached Augustus on the subject. They surrounded him one morning when he came for breakfast and expressed their fear.

Augustus had a big laugh when he figured out what was bothering them. "Why, you girls," he said. "All you want is orgies."

"No, it's whores we want," Jasper said, a little irritated. "It's fine for you to laugh, you got Lorie."

"Yes, but what's good for me ain't necessarily good for the weakminded," Augustus said.

However, the next day he passed the word that everyone would be paid half wages in Ogallala. Call was not enthusiastic but the men bad worked well and he couldn't oppose giving them a day in town.

As soon as they heard the ruling, spirits improved, all except Po Campo's. He continued to insist that it would be dry.

80.

WHEN ELMIRA'S FEVER finally broke she was so weak she could barely turn her head on the pillow. The first thing she saw was Zwey, looking in the window of the doctor's little house. It was raining, but Zwey stood there in his buffalo coat, looking in at her.

The next day he was still there, and the next. She wanted to call out to him to see if he had news of Dee, but she was too weak. Her voice was just a whisper. The doctor who tended her, a short man with a red beard, seemed not much healthier than she was. He Coughed so hard that sometimes he would have to set her medicine down to keep from spilling it. His name was Patrick Arandel, and his hands shook after each coughing fit. But he had taken her in and tended her almost constantly for the first week, expecting all the time that she would die.

"He's as loyal as any dog," he whispered to her, when she was well enough to understand conversation. For a while she had just stared back at him without comprehension when he spoke to her. He meant Zwey, of course.

"I couldn't even get the man to go away and eat," the doctor told her. "I live on tea, myself, but he's a big man. Tea won't keep him going. I guess he asked me a thousand times if you were going to live."

The doctor sat in a little thin frame chair by her bed and gave her medicine by the spoonful. "It's to build you up," he said. "You didn't hardly have no blood in you when you got here."

Elmira wished there was a window shade so she couldn't see Zwey staring at her. He stared for hours. She could feel his eyes on her, but she was too weak to turn her head away. Luke seemed to be gone-at least he never showed up.

"Where's Dee?" she whispered, when her voice came back a little. The doctor didn't hear her, she said it so faint, but he happened to notice her lips move. She had to say it again.

"Dee Boot?" she whispered.

"Oh, did you follow that story?" the doctor said. "Hung him right on schedule about a week after they brought you in. Buried him in Boot Hill. It's a good joke on him, since his name was Boot. He killed a nine-year-old boy, he won't be missed around here."

Elmira shut her eyes, hoping she could be dead. From then on she spat out her medicine, letting it dribble onto the gown the doctor had given her. He didn't understand at first.

"Sick to your stomach?" he said. "That's natural. We'll try soup."

He tried soup and she spat that out too for a day, but she was too weak to fight the doctor, who was almost as patient as Zwey. They kept her jailed with their patience, when all she wanted to do was die. Dee was gone, after she had come such a way and found him. She hated Zwey and Luke for bringing her to the doctor-surely she would have died right on the street if they hadn't. The last thing she wanted to do was get well and have to live-but days passed, and the doctor sat in the little chair, feeding her soup, and Zwey stared in the window, even though she wouldn't look.

Even not looking, she could smell Zwey. It was hot summer, and the doctor left the window open all day. She could hear horses going by on the street and smell Zwey standing there only a few feet from her. Flies bothered her-the doctor asked if she wanted Zwey to come in, for he would be only too happy to sit and shoo the flies, but Elmira didn't answer. If Dee was dead, she was through with talk.

It occurred to her one night that she could ask Zwey to shoot her. He would give her a gun, of course, but she didn't think she had the strength to pull the trigger. Better to ask him to shoot her. That would solve it, and they wouldn't do much to Zwey if he told them he killed her at her own request.

Just thinking of such a simple solution seemed to ease her mind a bit-she could have Zwey shoot her. And yet, days passed and she got so she could sit up in bed, and she didn't do it. Her mind kept going back to the spot of sunlight where Dee's face had vanished. His face had just faded into the sunlight. She couldn't stop thinking of it-in dreams she would see it so clearly that she would wake up, to the sound of Zwey's snoring. He slept outside her window, with his back to the wall of the house-his snores were so loud a person might have thought a bull was sleeping there.

"What went with Luke?" she asked him one day.

"Went to Santa Fe," Zwey said. It had been a month since she had spoken to him. He thought probably she never would again.

"Hired on with some traders," he said. "Come all this way and then headed back."

"I guess your child didn't live," the doctor said one day. "I wouldn't have expected it to, out on the prairie, with you having such a close call."

Elmira didn't answer. She remembered her breasts hurting, that was all. She had forgotten the child, the woman with the two daughters, the big house. Maybe the baby was dead. Then she remembered July, and Arkansas, and a lot that she had forgotten. It was just as well forgotten: none of it mattered compared to Dee. It was all past, well past. Some day she would have Zwey shoot her and she wouldn't have to think about things anymore.

But she put it off, and in time got well enough to walk. She didn't go far, just to the door, to get a chamber pot or put one out of the room-the heat made the smells worse. Even Zwey had finally taken off his buffalo coat-he stood at the window in an old shirt, with holes worn in it so that the thick hairs of his chest poked through.

The doctor never asked her about money. Though she had gotten better, he hadn't. She could hear him coughing through the wall, and sometimes saw him spit into a handkerchief. His hands trembled badly, and he always smelled of whiskey. It troubled her that he didn't ask her for money. She had always been one to pay her way. Finally she mentioned it. She knew Zwey would go to work and get money for her if she asked him to.

"You'll have to let me know what I owe," she said, but Patrick Arandel just shook his head.

"I came here to get away from money," he said. "Did it, too. I got away from it, and it ain't easy to get away from money."

Elmira didn't mention it again. If he wanted to be paid, he could mention it-she had tried.

Then one day, with no warning from anyone, the door to her room opened and July walked in. Zwey was standing at the window when it happened. July's face seemed thinner.

"I found you, Ellie," he said, and there were tears in his eyes. Zwey was watching, but because of the shadows she didn't know if he could see that July was crying.

Elmira looked away. She didn't know what to do. Mainly she regretted that she had not had Zwey shoot her. Now July had found her. He had not come all the way in the room, but he was standing there, with the door half open, waiting for her to ask him in.

She didn't ask him in, didn't speak. It seemed she would always have bad luck, if he could come all that way across the plains and still find her.

Finally July came in the room and closed the door.

"The doctor says you're strong enough to talk," July said, wiping his eyes on his shirtsleeve. "You don't have to talk, though. You just lie there and get well. I won't stay very long. I just wanted you to know I came."

Elmira looked at him once and then looked at the wall. Well, you're a fool, she thought. You ought not to have followed. You ought to just told folks I was dead.

"I got one piece of bad news," July said, and his eyes filled up again. "It's real bad, and it's my fault. Joe got killed, him and Roscoe and a girl. An outlaw killed them. I ought to have stayed with them, but I don't know if it would have come out different if I had."

You wouldn't be here telling me, anyway, Elmira thought.

The news about Joe didn't touch her. She had never thought much about Joe. He had come when she had other things to worry about and she had never got in the habit of worrying about him. He gave her less trouble than July, though. At least he had sense enough to figure out she didn't want to be bothered with him, and had let her alone. If he was dead, that was that. She didn't remember him well-he hadn't talked much. He had just run out of luck on the plains. It might have happened to her, and she wished it had.

"Ellie, the baby's fine," July said. "I didn't even know it was ours, that's the funny thing. I seen Clara holding it and I had no notion it was ours. She named him Martin, if that's all right with you.

"I guess we got our own family now," July added. His heart was sinking so that his voice almost failed, for Ellie had not turned her head or given much more than a momentary sign of recognition. She hadn't spoken. He wanted to think it was just her weakness, but he knew it was more than that. She wasn't happy that he had found her. She didn't care about the baby-didn't even care that Joe was dead. Her face had not changed expression since the first look of surprise.

And all the while the large man with the holes in his shirt stood at the window silently, looking in. He was one of the buffalo hunters, July supposed. The doctor had spoken well of the man, mentioning how loyal he was to Elmira. But July didn't understand why he was standing there, and his heart was sinking because Ellie wouldn't look at him. He had come such a way, too. But she wouldn't, and he didn't think it was just because she was sick.

"We'll bring the baby in whenever you want it," July said. "I can rent a room till you're better. He's a strong baby. Clara says it won't hurt him a bit to come in. They've got a little wagon."

Elmira waited. If she didn't talk, sooner or later he would leave.

His voice was shaky. He sat down in the chair the doctor usually sat in, by the bedside. After a moment he took one of her hands. Zwey was still looking in. July only held her hand for a moment. He dropped it and stood up.

"I'll check every few days, Ellie," he said. "The doctor can send for me if you need me."

He paused. In the face of her silence, he didn't know what to say. She sat propped up against the pillow, silent-it was almost as if she were dead. It reminded him of times in Arkansas, times in the loft when he felt as if he were with someone who wasn't there. When he had found out she was alive and at the doctor's in Ogallala, he had gone off behind Clara's saddle shed and wept for an hour from relief. After all the worry and doubt, he had found her.

But now, in a minute, the relief was gone, and he was reminded of all her difficulties, how nothing he did pleased her, not even finding her in Ogallala. He didn't know what more to do or say. She had married him and carried his child, and yet she wouldn't turn her head to look at him.

Maybe it's too soon, he thought, as he stumbled, in a daze of pain and worry, out of the doctor's house. The big man was there watching.

"I'm much obliged for all the help you've given Ellie," he said. "I'll pay you back for any expense."

Zwey said nothing, and July walked away to get his horse.

Ellie saw him ride past the window. She got up and watched him until he was out of sight. Zwey stood watching, too.

"Zwey," Elmira said. "Get the wagon. I want to go."

Zwey was surprised. He had got used to her being in the bed in the doctor's house. He liked standing in the warm sun, watching her. She was so pretty in the bed.

"Ain't you sick?" he asked.

"No, get the wagon," she said. "I want to go today."

"Go which way?" he asked.

"Go," Elmira said. "Go away from here. I don't care where. Over to St. Louis will do."

"I don't know the way to St. Louis," Zwey said.

"Oh, get the wagon, we'll find the way," she said. "There's a road, I guess." She was out of patience with men. They were great ones for asking questions. Even Zwey asked them, and he could barely talk.

Zwey did as he was told. The doctor was gone, treating a farmer who had broken his hip. Elmira thought about leaving him a note, but didn't. The doctor was smart, he would figure out soon enough that she was gone. And before the sun set they left Ogallala, going east. Elmira rode in the wagon on a buffalo skin. Zwey drove. His horse was hitched to the rear of the wagon. She had asked him to take her, which made him proud. Luke had tried to confuse him, but now Luke was gone, and the man who came to see Elmira had been left behind. She had asked him to take her, not the other man. It must mean that they were married, just as he had hoped. She didn't say much to him, but she had asked him to take her, and that knowledge made him feel happy. He would take her anywhere she asked.

The only troublesome thought he had was the result of something the man at the livery stable said. He had been a dried-up little fellow, smaller than Luke. He had asked which way they were going and Zwey pointed east-he knew St. Louis was east.

"You might as well leave your scalps, then," the man said. "Have 'em sent by mail, once you get there."

"Why?" Zwey asked, puzzled. He had never heard of anyone sending a scalp in the mail.

"Because of the Sioux," the man said.

"We never saw no Indians, the whole way from Texas," Zwey remarked.

"You might not see the Sioux, either," the man said. "But they'll see you. You're a damn fool to take a woman east of here."

Zwey mentioned it to Elmira while he was helping her into the wagon.

"There might be Indians that way," he said.

"I don't care," Elmira said. "Let's go."

Many nights on the trail from Texas she had lain awake, in terror of Indians. They saw none, but the fear stayed with her all the way to Nebraska. She had heard too many stories.

Now she didn't care. The sickness had changed her-that and the death of Dee. She had lost the fear. A few miles from town they stopped and camped. She lay awake in the wagon much of the night. Zwey slept on the ground, snoring, his rifle held tightly in his big hands. She wasn't sleepy, but she wasn't afraid, either. It was cloudy, and the plains were very dark. Anything could come out of the darkness-Indians, bandits, snakes. The doctor had claimed there were panthers. All she heard was the wind, rustling the grass. Her only worry was that July might follow. He had followed all the way from Texas-he might follow again. Maybe Zwey would kill him if he followed. It was peculiar that she disliked July so, but she did. If he didn't leave her alone she would have Zwey kill him.

Zwey woke early. The man at the livery stable had worried him. He had been in three Indian fights, but both times he had several men with him. Now it was just he who would have to do all the fighting, if it came to that. He wished Luke hadn't been so quick to rush off to Santa Fe. Luke didn't always behave right, but he was a good shot. The livery-stable man acted as if they were as good as dead. It was morning, and they weren't dead, but Zwey felt worried. He felt perhaps he had not explained things well to Ellie.

"It's them Ogallala Sioux," he said, looking in the wagon at her. It was a warm morning, and she had thrown off the blankets. "He said the Army had them all stirred up," he added.

"I'll stir you up if you don't quit blabbing to me about Indians," Elmira said. "I told you yesterday. I want to get gone a good ways before July shows up in town again."

Her eyes flashed when she spoke, as they had before she got sick. Ashamed to have angered her, Zwey began to stir the fire under the coffeepot.

81.

WHEN JULY CAME BACK FROM TOWN he was so depressed he couldn't speak. Clara had asked him to do a few errands, but the visit with Elmira troubled him so that he had forgotten them. Even after he got back to the ranch he didn't remember that he had been asked to do anything.

Clara saw at once that he had sustained some blow. When she saw him come back without even the mail, it had been on her tongue to say something about his poor memory. She and the girls hungered for the magazines and catalogues that came in the mail, and it was a disappointment to have someone ride right past the post office and not pick them up. But July looked so low that she refrained from speaking. At the supper table she tried several times to get a word or two out of him, but he just sat there, scarcely even touching his food. He had been ravenous since coming off the plains-so whatever the blow was, it was serious.

She knew he was a man who was grateful for any kindness; she had shown him several, and she showed him another by holding her tongue and giving him time to get past whatever had happened in town. But there was something about his silent, sunken manner that irritated her.

"Everything's gloomy," Betsey said. Betsey was quick to pick up moods.

"Yep," Clara said. She was holding the baby, who was babbling and gumming his fist.

"It's a good thing we got Martin here," she said. "He's the only man we got who can still talk."

"He don't talk," Sally said. "That ain't talk."

"Well, it's sound, at least," Clara said.

"I think you're mean," Sally said. She was quick to attack mother and sister alike. "Daddy's sick, or he'd talk."

"All right," Clara said. "I'll take that back." In fact, she could remember a thousand meals when Bob hadn't said a word.

"I think you're mean," Sally repeated, not satisfied.

"Yes, and you're my equal," Clara said, looking at her daughter.

July realized it all had something to do with him, but he couldn't get his mind on it. He carried his plate to the sink and thanked Clara for the meal. Then he went out on the front porch, glad it was a dark night. He felt he would cry. It was puzzling; he didn't know what to do. He had never heard of a wife doing any of the things Elmira had done. He sat on the steps of the porch, sadder and more bewildered than he had been even on the night when he got back to the river and discovered the three bodies. There was nothing to do about death, but Elmira was alive. He had to do something-he just didn't know what.

The girls came out and chattered behind him for a while, but he paid them no mind. He had a headache and thought he ought to lie down, except that lying down usually made his headaches worse.

Clara came out, still holding the baby, and sat in a rocker. "You seem to be feeling poorly, Mister Johnson," she said.

"Just call me July," he said.

"I'll be happy to," she said. "You can drop the Mrs., too. I think we know one another well enough for first names now."

July didn't think he knew her very well, but he didn't say it. He didn't think he knew any woman.

"I need to ask you a favor," she said. "Could you help me turn my husband, or are you feeling too poorly?"

He would help her, of course. Several times he had helped her with her husband. The man had lost so much weight that July could simply lift him while Clara changed the bedding. The first time it bothered him a good deal, for the man never closed his eyes. That night he worried about what the man might think-another man coming in with his wife. Clara was businesslike about it, telling him what to do when he was slow. July wondered if the man was listening, and what he was thinking, in case he was.

Clara handed him a lantern and they went inside. She left the baby with the girls for a minute. Clara stopped at the door of her bedroom and listened before going in.

"Every time I come I expect he'll have stopped breathing," she said. "I always stop and listen."

The man was breathing, though. July lifted him and Clara removed the sheets.

"Dern it, I forgot the water," she said, going to the door. "Sally, bring up the bucket," she yelled, and in a little while the girl appeared with it.

"Betsey's going to let the baby fall off the bed," she said. "She don't know how to hold it."

"Well, she better learn," Clara said. "You girls quit fighting over that baby."

July felt embarrassed, holding the sick, naked man while his wife sponged him with warm water. It seemed very improper to him. Clara seemed to understand how he felt and made the bed quickly.

"It's just nurse work, Mister Johnson," she said. "I tried keeping clothes on him, but it's no good. The poor man can't control himself."

She stopped and looked at him. "I forgot I was supposed to call you July," she said.

July felt that his head would burst. He didn't care what she called him. It hurt so that he could hardly walk straight on the stairs. He bumped into the door at the foot of the stairs. Above them, the baby was squalling.

Clara was about to go and see to the baby, but when she saw July stumble into the door she changed her mind. He went back out on the porch and sank on the steps, as if at the end of his strength. Clara reached down and put her palm against his forehead, which caused him to jump as if he had been struck.

"My goodness, you're shy as a colt," she said. "I thought you might be feverish, but you ain't."

"It's just my head," he said.

"You need a cool rag, then," she said.

She went back into the house and got a rag and a little water. She made him let her bathe his forehead and temples. He had to admit the cool water felt good.

"Thank you," he said.

"Oh, you don't have to thank me for a washrag," Clara said. "I'm not much of a nurse. It's one of my failings. I'm too impatient. I'll give a person a week or two, and then if they don't improve I'd just about as soon they'd die.

"Not children," she added, a little later. "I ain't that harsh with children. I'd rather have them sick five years than to lose one. It's just my observation that nursing don't do that much good. People get well if they're able, or else they die."

They were silent for several minutes.

"Did you find your wife?" Clara asked. "It ain't my business, I know, but I'll ask you anyway."

"Yes," July said. "She was at the doctor's."

"She must not have been very glad to see you," Clara said.

July wished she would leave him alone. She had taken him in and fed him, saved his wife and cared for his child, and yet he did wish she would just leave him alone. He felt so weak himself that if he hadn't been braced against the porch railing he might have rolled off the steps. He had nothing to say and nothing to offer. And yet there was something tireless in Clara that never seemed to stop. His head hurt so he felt like shooting himself, the baby was squalling overhead, and yet she would ask questions.

"I guess she's still sick," he said. "She didn't say much."

"Did she want the baby?"

"She didn't say," July said.

"Did she ask any questions about it at all?"

"No," July admitted. "She never said a word."

The baby had stopped crying. They heard a horse splash out of the river-Cholo was coming in late. Even with no moon they could see his white hair as he trotted to the corrals.

"July, I know you're tired," Clara said. "I expect you're heartsick. I'm going to say a terrible thing to you. I used to be ladylike, but Nebraska's made me blunt. I don't think that woman wants you or the baby either. I don't know what she does want, but she left that baby without even looking at it."

"She must have been addled," July said. "She had a hard trip."

Clara sighed. "She had a hard trip, but she wasn't addled," she said. "Not every woman wants every child, and plenty of wives don't want the husbands they took.

"It's your child and her child," she added. "But I don't think she wants it, and if she means to prove me wrong she better do it soon."

July didn't know what she meant and didn't really care. He felt too low to pay any attention.

"I like young things," Clara said. "Babies and young horses. I get attached real quick. They don't have to be mine."

She paused. She knew he wished she'd shut up, but she was determined to say what was on her mind.

"I'm getting attached to Martin," she said. "He ain't mine, but he ain't your wife's anymore, either. Young things mainly belong to themselves. How they grow up depends on who gets attached to them. I'll take Martin, if she don't, or you don't."

"But your husband's sick," July said. Why would the woman want a baby to care for when she had two girls to manage and a big horse outfit to run?

"My husband's dying," Clara said. "But whether he's dead or alive, I'll still raise that child."

"I don't know what to do," July said. "It's been so long since I done anything right that I can't remember it. I don't know if I'll ever get Ellie back to Fort Smith. They might even have hired a new sheriff by now."

"Finding a job's the least of your problems," Clara said. "I'll give you a job, if you want one. Cholo's been doing Bob's work and his too, and he can't keep it up forever."

"I always lived in Arkansas," July said. It had never occurred to him that he might settle anywhere else.

Clara laughed. "Go to bed," she said. "I've worried you enough for one night."

He went, but the next morning at breakfast he didn't look much better or feel much better. He would scarcely talk to the girls, both of whom doted on him. Clara sent them off to gather eggs so she could have a word or two more with July in private.

"Did you understand what I said last night, about raising Martin?" she asked.

July hadn't. He wished she would just be quiet. He had no idea what to do next, and hadn't since he left Fort Smith many months ago. At moments, what he wanted was just to go home. Let Ellie go, if she didn't want to be his wife. Let Clara have the baby, if she wanted him so much. He had once felt competent being a sheriff-maybe if he went back and stuck to it he would someday feel competent again. He didn't know how much longer he could stand to feel such a failure.

"If your wife don't want Martin, do you have a mother or sisters that would want to raise him?" Clara asked. "The point is, I don't want to keep him a year or two and then give him up. If I have to give him up I'd rather do it soon."

"No, Ma's dead," July said. "I just had brothers."

"I've lost three boys," Clara said. "I don't want to lose another to a woman who keeps changing her mind."

"I'll ask her," July said. "I'll go back in a day or two. Maybe she'll be feeling better."

But he found he couldn't stand it to wait-he had to see her again, even if she wouldn't look at him. At least he could look at her and know he had found her after all. Maybe, if he was patient, she would change.

He saddled and rode to town. But when he got to the doctor's, no one was there at all. The room Ellie had been in was empty, the big man no longer to be found.

By asking around, he found the doctor, who was delivering a baby in one of the whorehouses.

"She's left," the doctor said. "I came home yesterday and she was gone. She didn't leave a note."

"But she was sick," July said.

"Only unhappy," Patrick Arandel said. He felt sorry for the young man. Five idle young whores were listening to the conversation, while one of their friends lay in labor in the next room.

"She took it hard when they hung that killer," he added. "That and the childbirth nearly killed her. I thought she would die-she ran one of the highest fevers I've ever seen. It's a good sign that she left. It means she's decided to live a little longer."

The man at the livery stable shook his head when July asked which way they went.

"The wrong way," he said. "If they get past them Sioux they're lucky people."

July felt frantic. He had not even brought his rifle to town, or his bedroll or anything. They had a day's start, though they were traveling in a wagon and would have to move slow. Still, he would lose another half day going back to the ranch to get his gear. He was tempted to follow with just his pistol, and he even rode to the east end of town. But there were the vast, endless plains. They had almost swallowed him once.

He turned back, racing for the ranch. He wore the horse half down, and he remembered it was a borrowed horse, so he slowed up. By the time he got back to Clara's he was not racing at all. He seemed to have no strength, and his head hurt again. He was barely able to unsaddle; instead of going right to the house, he sat down behind the saddle shed and wept. Why would Ellie keep leaving? What was he supposed to do? Didn't she know about the Indians? It seemed he would have to chase her forever, and yet catching her did no good.

When he stood up, he saw Clara. She had been on her way back from the garden with a basket of vegetables. It was hot, and she had rolled the sleeves up on her dress. Her arms were thin and yet strong, as if they were all bone.

"Did she leave?" Clara asked.

July nodded. He didn't want to talk.

"Come help me shuck this corn," Clara said. "The roasting ears are about gone. I get so hungry for them during the winter, I could eat a dozen."

She went on toward the house, carrying her heavy garden basket. When she didn't hear his footsteps, she looked back at him. July wiped his face and followed her to the house.

82.

THE NEXT MORNING, when he managed to get up, July came into the kitchen to find Cholo sharpening a thin-bladed knife. The baby lay on the table, kicking his bare feet, and Clara, wearing a man's hat, was giving the two girls instructions.

"Don't feed him just because he hollers," she said. "Feed him when it's time."

She looked at July, who felt embarrassed. He was not sick, and yet he felt as weak as if he had had a long fever. A plate with some cold eggs on it and a bit of bacon sat on the table-his breakfast, no doubt. Being the last one up made him feel a burden.

Cholo stood up. It was clear he and Clara were contemplating some work. July knew he ought to offer to help, but his legs would barely carry him to the table. He couldn't understand it. He had long since been over his jaundice, and yet he had no strength.

"We've got to geld some horses," Clara said. "We've put it off too long, hoping Bob would get back on his feet."

"I hate it when you do that," Sally said.

"You'd hate it worse if we had a bunch of studs running around here," Clara said. "One of them might crack your head just like that mustang cracked your father's."

She paused by the table a minute and tickled one of the baby's feet.

"I'd like to help," July said.

"You don't look that vigorous," she said.

"I'm not sick," July said. "I must have slept too hard."

"I expect you did something too hard," she said. "Stay and make conversation with these girls. That's harder work than gelding horses."

July liked the girls, though he had not said much to them. They seemed fine girls to him, always chattering. Mostly they fought over who got to tend the baby.

Clara and Cholo left and July slowly ate his breakfast, feeling guilty. Then he remembered what had happened-Ellie was gone, into Indian country. He had to go after her as soon as he ate. The baby, still on the table, gurgled at him. July had scarcely looked at it, though it seemed a good baby. Clara wanted it, the girls fought over it, and yet Ellie had left it. Thinking about it made him more confused.

After breakfast he got his rifle, but instead of leaving, he walked down to the lots. Every now and then he heard the squeal of a young horse. Walking, he didn't feel quite so weak, and it occurred to him that he ought to try and be some help-he could start after Ellie later.

It was hot, and the young horses were kicking up dust in the lots. To his surprise, he saw that Clara was doing the cutting, while the old man held the ropes. It was hard work-the horses were strong, and they badly needed another man. July quickly climbed into the lots and helped the old man anchor the hind legs of a quivering young bay.

Clara paused a moment, wiping the sweat off her forehead with her shirttail. Her hands were bloody.

"Shouldn't one of us do it?" July asked.

"No," Cholo said. "She is better."

"Bob taught me," Clara said. "We didn't have any help when we first came here. I wasn't strong enough to hold the horses so I got stuck with the messier job."

They gelded fifteen young horses and left them in the pen where they could be watched. July had stopped feeling weak, but even so it was a wonder to him how hard Clara and the old man worked. They didn't stop to rest until the job was done, by which time they were all soaked with sweat. Clara splashed water out of the horse trough to wash her hands and forearms, and immediately started for the house.

"I hope those worthless girls have been cooking," she said. "I've built an appetite."

"Do you know anything about the Indian situation?" July asked.

"I know Red Cloud," Clara said. "Bob was good to him. They lived on our horses that hard winter we had four years ago-they couldn't find buffalo."

"I've heard they're dangerous," July said.

"Yes," Clara said. "Red Cloud's fed up. Bob treated them fair and we've never had to fear them. I was more scared as a girl. The Comanches would come right into Austin and take children. I always dreamed they'd get me and I'd have red babies."

July had never felt so irresolute. He ought to go, and yet he didn't. Though he had worked hard, he had little appetite, and after the meal spent more time cleaning his gun than was really necessary.

When he finished, he sat the rifle against the porch railing, telling himself that he would get up and leave. But before he could get up, Clara walked out on the porch with no warning at all and put the baby into his hands. She practically dropped the child into his lap, an act July felt was very reckless. He had to catch him.

"That's a good sign," Clara said. "At least you'd catch him if somebody threw him off a roof."

The baby stared at July with wide eyes, as surprised, evidently, as he was. July looked at Clara, who seemed angry.

"I think it's time you took a look at him," she said. "He's your boy. He might come to like you, in which case he'll bring you more happiness than that woman ever will. He needs you a sight more than she does, too."

July felt scared he would do something wrong with the baby. He also was a little scared of Clara.

"I don't know anything about babies," he said.

"No, and you've never lived any place but Arkansas," Clara said. "But you ain't stupid and you ain't nailed down. You can live other places and you can learn about children-people dumber than you learn about them."

Again, July felt belabored by the tireless thing in Clara. Ellie might not look at him, but she didn't pursue him relentlessly with words, as Clara did.

"Stay here," she said. "Do you hear me? Stay here! Martin needs a pa and I could use a good hand. If you go trailing after that woman, either the Indians will kill you or that buffalo hunter will, or you'll just get lost and starve. It's a miracle you made it this far. You don't know the plains and I don't believe you know your wife, either. How long did you know her before you married?"

July tried to remember. The trial in Missouri had lasted three days, but he had met Ellie nearly a week before that.

"Two weeks, I guess," he said.

"That's short acquaintance," Clara said. "The smartest man alive can't learn much about a woman in two weeks."

"Well, she wanted to marry," July said. It was all he could remember about it. Ellie had made it clear she wanted to marry.

"That could have been another way of saying she wanted a change of scene," Clara said. "People get a hankering to quit what they're doing. They think they want to try something else. I do it myself. 1-JaIf the time I think I'd like to pack up these girls and go live with my aunt in Richmond, Virginia."

"What would you do there?" July asked.

"I might write books," Clara said. "I've a hankering to try it. But then it'll come a pretty morning and I see the horses grazing and think how I'd miss them. So I doubt I'll get off to Richmond."

Just then the baby began to cry, squirming in his hands. July looked at Clara, but she made no effort to take the baby. July didn't know what to do. He was afraid he might drop the child, who twisted in his hands like a rabbit and yelled so loud he turned red as a beet.

"Is he sick?" July asked.

"No, he's fine," Clara said. "Maybe he's telling you off for ignoring him all this time. I wouldn't blame him."

With that she turned and went back in the house, leaving him with the baby, who at once began to cry even harder. July hoped one of the girls would come out and help, but neither seemed to be around. It seemed very irresponsible of Clara to simply leave him with the child. He felt again that she was not a very helpful woman. But then Ellie hadn't been helpful, either.

He was afraid to stand up with the baby squirming so-he might drop him. So he sat, wondering why in the world people wanted children. How could anyone know what a baby wanted, or what to do for them?

But, as abruptly as he had started, the baby stopped crying. He whimpered a time or two, stuck his fist in his mouth, and then simply stared at July again as he had at first. July was so relieved that he scarcely moved.

"Talk to him a little," Clara said. She stood in the door behind him.

"What do you say?"

She made a snort of disgust. "Introduce yourself, if you can't think of nothing else," she said. "Or sing him a song. He's sociable. He likes a little talk."

July looked at the baby, but couldn't think of a song.

"Can't you even hum?" Clara asked, as if it were a crime that he had not immediately started singing.

July remembered a saloon song he had always liked: "Lorena." He tried humming a little of it. The baby, who had been wiggling, stopped at once and looked at him solemnly. July felt silly humming, but since it calmed the baby, he kept on. He was holding the baby almost at arm's length.

"Put him against your shoulder," Clara said. "You don't have to hold him like that-he ain't a newspaper."

July tried it. The baby soon wet his shirt with slobbers, but he wasn't crying. July continued to hum "Lorena."

Then, to his relief, Clara took the baby.

"That's progress," she said. "Rome wasn't built in a day."

Dusk came and July didn't leave. He sat on the porch, his rifle across his lap, trying to make up his mind to go. He knew he ought to. However difficult she was, Ellie was still his wife. She might be in danger, and it was his duty to try and save her. If he didn't go, he would be giving up forever. He might never even know if she had lived or died. He didn't want to be the kind of man who would just let his wife blow out of his life like a weed. And yet that was what he was doing. He felt too tired to do otherwise. Even if the Indians didn't get him, or them, even if he didn't get lost on the plains, he might just find her, in some other room, and have her turn her face away again. Then what? She could go on running, and he would go on chasing, until something really bad happened.

When Clara came out again to call him to supper, he felt worn out from thinking. He almost flinched when he heard Clara's step, for he had a feeling she was ill-disposed toward him and might have something sharp to say. Again he was wrong. She walked down the steps and paused to watch three cranes flying across the sunset, along the silver path of the Platte.

"Ain't they great birds?" she said quietly. "I wonder which I'd miss most, them or the horses, if I was to move away."

July didn't suppose she would move away. She seemed so much of the place that it didn't seem likely.

After watching the birds, she looked at him as if just noticing that he was still there.

"Are you willing to stay?" she asked.

July had rather she hadn't asked-rather it had been something that just happened. He didn't feel he had made a decision-and yet he hadn't left.

"I guess I oughtn't to chase her," he said finally. "I guess I ought to let her be."

"It doesn't do to sacrifice for people unless they want you to," Clara said. "It's just a waste."

"Ma, it's getting cold," Betsey said from the doorway.

"I was just enjoying the summer for a minute," Clara said.

"Well, you're always telling us how much you hate to serve cold food," Betsey said.

Clara looked at her daughter for a moment and then went up the steps.

"Come on, July," she said. "These girls mean to see that we keep up our standards."

He put the rifle back in the saddle scabbard and followed her into the house.

83.

AS THE HERD wound across the brown prairies toward the Platte, whoring became the only thing the men could talk about. Of course, they always liked to talk about it, but there had been sections of the drive when they occasionally mentioned other things-the weather, cards, the personalities of horses, trials and tribulations of the past. After Jake's death they had talked a good deal about the vagaries of justice, and what might cause a pleasant man to go bad. Once in a while they might talk about their families, although that usually ended with everyone getting homesick. Though a popular subject, it was tricky to handle.

By the time they were within a week of Ogallala, all subjects other than whoring were judged to be superfluous. Newt and the Rainey boys were rather surprised. They were interested in whoring too, in a vague sort of way, but listening to the grown men talk at night, or during almost any stop, they concluded there must be more to whoring than they had imagined. Getting to visit a whore quickly came to seem the most exciting prospect life had to offer.

"What if the Captain don't even want to stop in Ogallala?" Lippy asked, one night. "He ain't much of a stopper."

"Nobody's asking him to stop," Needle said. "He can keep driving, if he's a mind. We're the ones need to stop."

"I don't guess he likes whores," Lippy said. "He didn't come in the saloon much, that I remember."

Jasper was impatient with Lippy's pessimism. Any suggestion that they might not get to visit Ogallala was extremely upsetting to him.

"Can't you shut up?" he said. "We don't care what the Captain does. We just want to be let off."

Po Campo was also likely to dampen the discussion, once he was free from his cooking chores.

"I think you should all go to the barber and forget these whores," he added. "They will just take your money, and what will you get for it?"

"Something nice," Needle said.

"A haircut will last you a month, but what you get from the whores will only last a moment," Po remarked. "Unless she gives you something you don't want."

From the heated responses that ensued, Newt gathered that whores sometimes were not simply givers of pleasure. Diseases apparently sometimes resulted, although no one was very specific about them.

Po Campo was unshakable. He kept plugging for the barbershop over the whorehouse.

"If you think I'd rather have a haircut than a whore you're crazy as a June bug," Jasper said.

Newt and the Raineys left the more abstruse questions to others and spent most of their time trying to reckon the economics of a visit to town. The summer days were long and slow, the herd placid, the heat intense. Just having Ogallala to think about made the time pass quicker.

Occasionally one of the Raineys would ride over by Newt to offer some new speculation. "Soupy says they take off their clothes," Ben Rainey said, one day.

Newt had once seen a Mexican girl who had pulled up her skirt to wade in the Rio Grande. She wore nothing under the skirt. When she noticed he was watching she merely giggled. Often, after that, he had slipped down to the river when nothing much was happening, hoping to see her cross again. But he never had; that one glimpse was all he had to go on when it came to naked women. He had run it through his mind so many times it was hardly useful.

"I guess that costs a bunch," he said.

"'Bout a month's wages," Jimmy Rainey speculated.

Late one afternoon Deets rode in to report that the Platte was only ten miles ahead. Everyone in camp let out a whoop.

"By God, I wonder which way town is," Soupy said. "I'm ready to go."

Call knew the men were boiling to get to town. Though he had brought happy news, Deets himself seemed subdued. He had not been himself since Jake's hanging.

"You feeling poorly?" Call asked.

"Don't like this north," Deets said.

"It's good grazing country," Call remarked.

"Don't like it," Deets said. "The light's too thin."

Deets had a faraway look in his eye. It puzzled Call. The man had been cheerful through far harder times. Now Call would often see him sitting on his horse, looking south, across the long miles they had come. At breakfast, sometimes, Call would catch him staring into the fire the way old animals stared before they died-as if looking across into the other place. The look in Deets's eyes unsettled Call so much that he mentioned it to Augustus. He rode over to the tent one evening. Gus was sitting on a saddle blanket, barefoot, trimming his corns with a sharp pocketknife. The woman was not in sight, but Call stopped a good distance from the tent so as not to disturb her.

"If you want to talk to me you'll have to come a little closer," Augustus said. "I ain't walking that far barefooted."

Call dismounted and walked over to him. "I don't know what's the matter with Deets," he said.

"Well, Deets is sensitive," Augustus said. "Probably you hurt his feelings in your blunt way."

"I didn't hurt his feelings," Call said. "I always try to be especially good to Deets. He's the best man we got."

"Best man we've ever had," Augustus said. "Maybe he's sick."

"No," Call said.

"I hope he ain't planning to leave us," Augustus said. "I doubt the rest of us could even find the water holes."

"He says he don't like the north," Call said. "That's all he'll say."

"I hear we strike the Platte tomorrow," Augustus said. "All the boys are ready to go off and catch social diseases."

"I know it," Call said. "I'd just as soon miss this town, but we do need supplies."

"Let them boys go off and hurrah a little," Augustus said. "It might be their last chance."

"Why would it be their last chance?"

"Old Deets might know something," Augustus said. "Since he's so sensitive. "We might all get killed by Indians in the next week or two."

"I doubt that," Call said. "You ain't much more cheerful than he is."

"No," Augustus said. He knew they were not far from Clara's house, a fact which made Lorena extremely nervous.

"What will you do with me?" she had asked. "Leave me in the tent when you go see her?"

"No, ma'am," he said. "I'll take you along and introduce you properly. You ain't just baggage, you know. Clara probably don't see another woman once a month. She'll be happy for feminine conversation."

"She may know what I am, though," Lorena said.

"Yes, she'll know you're a human being," Augustus said. "You don't have to duck your head to nobody. Half the women in this country probably started out like you did, working in saloons."

"She didn't," Lorena said. "I bet she was always a lady. That's why you wanted to marry her."

Augustus chuckled. "A lady can slice your jugular as quick as a Comanche," he said. "Clara's got a sharp tongue. She's tomahawked me many a time in the past."

"I'll be afraid to meet her, then," Lorena said. "I'll be afraid of what she'll say."

"Oh, she'll be polite to you," Augustus assured her. "I'm the one that will have to watch my step."

But no matter what he said, he couldn't soothe the girl's agitation. She felt she would lose him, and that was that. She offered her body-it was all she knew to do. Something in the manner of the offer saddened him, though he accepted it. In their embraces she seemed to feel, for a moment, that he loved her; yet soon afterward she would grow sad again.

"You're worrying yourself into a sweat for nothing," he said. "Clara's husband will probably live to be ninety-six, and anyway she and I probably ain't got no use for one another now. I ain't got the energy for Clara. I doubt I ever did."

At night, when she finally slept, he would sit in the tent, pondering it all. He could see the campfire. Whatever boys weren't night herding would be standing around it, swapping jokes. Probably all of them envied him, for he had a woman and they didn't. He envied them back, for they were carefree and he wasn't. Once started, love couldn't easily be stopped. He had started it with Lorie, and it might never be stopped. He would be lucky to get again such easy pleasures as the men enjoyed, sitting around a campfire swapping jokes. Though he felt deeply fond of Lorena, he could also feel a yearning to be loose again and have nothing to do but win at cards.

The next morning he left Lorena for a bit and fell in with Deets.

"Deets, have you ever spent much time wanting what you know you can't have?" he asked, figuring to get the conversation off to a brisk start.

"'Spect I've had a good life," Deets said. "Captain paid me a fair wage. Ain't been sick but twice, and one time was when I got shot over by the river."

"That ain't an answer to the question I asked," Augustus said.

"Wantin' takes too much time," Deets said. "I'd rather be working."

"Yes, but what would you have, if you could have what you really want, right now?"

Deets trotted along for a bit before he answered. "Be back on the river," he said.

"Hell, the Rio Grande ain't the only river," Augustus commented, but before they could continue the discussion they saw a group of riders come over a ridge, far to the north. Augustus saw at once that they were soldiers.

"'I God, we've found the cavalry, at least," he said.

There were nearly forty soldiers. The ponies in the remuda began to nicker at the sight of so many strange horses. Call and Augustus loped out and met them a half mile away, for the herd was looking restive at the sight of the riders.

The leader of the troop was a small man with a gray mustache, who wore a Captain's bars. He seemed irritated at the sight of the herd. It was soon plain that he was drunk.

Beside him rode a large man in greasy buckskins, clearly a scout. He was bearded and had a wad of tobacco in his jaw.

"I'm Captain Weaver and this is Dixon, our scout," the Captain said. "Where the hell do you men think you're taking these cattle?"

"We thought we were headed for Montana," Augustus said lightly. "Where are we, Illinois?"

Call was irritated with Gus. He would make a joke.

"No, but you'll wish you were if Red Cloud finds you," Captain Weaver said. "You're in the middle of an Indian war, that's where you are."

"Why in hell would anybody think they wanted to take cattle to Montana?" Dixon, the scout, said. He had an insolent look.

"We thought it would be a good place to sit back and watch 'em shit," Augustus said. Insolence was apt to bring out the comic in him, as Call knew too well.

"We've heard there are wonderful pastures in Montana," Call said, hoping to correct the bad impression Gus was giving.

"There may be, but you cowpokes won't live to see them," Dixon said.

"Oh, well," Augustus said, "we wasn't always cowpokes. We put in some twenty years fighting Comanches in the state of Texas. Don't these Indians up here fall off their horses like other Indians when you put a bullet or two in them?"

"Some do and some just keep coming," Captain Weaver said. "I didn't come over here to talk all morning. Have you men seen any sign?"

"Our scout didn't mention any," Call said, waving to Deets.

"Oh, you've got a nigger for a scout," Dixon said. "No wonder you're lost."

"We ain't lost," Call said, annoyed suddenly, "and that black man could track you across the coals of hell."

"And bring you back on a pitchfork, if we asked him too," Augustus added.

"What makes you think you can say things like that to us?" Captain Weaver said, flushing with anger.

"Ain't it still a free country?" Augustus asked. "Who asked you to ride up and insult our scout?"

Deets came loping up and Call asked him if he had seen Indian sign.

"None between here and the river," Deets said.

A pale-looking young lieutenant suddenly spoke up.

"I thought they went east," he said.

"We went east," Weaver said. "Where do you think we've been for the last week?"

"Maybe they went farther and faster," Augustus said. "Indians usually do. From the looks of those nags you're riding they could probably outrun you on foot."

"You're a damn impertinent man," Weaver said. "Those Indians killed a buffalo hunter and a woman, two days ago. Three weeks ago they wiped out a family southeast of here. If you see them you'll wish you'd kept your damn beeves in Texas."

"Let's go," Call said, abruptly turning his horse.

"We need horses," Captain Weaver said. "Ours are about ridden down."

"Ain't that what I said that you thought was so impertinent?" Augustus remarked.

"I see you've got extras," Weaver said. "We'll take 'em. There's a man who sells horses west of Ogallala. You can buy some more there and send the Army a bill."

"No, thanks," Call said. "We like the ones we've got."

"I wasn't asking," Weaver said. "I'm requisitioning your horses."

Augustus laughed. Call didn't. He saw that the man was serious.

"We need 'em," Dixon said. "We've got to protect this frontier."

Augustus laughed again. "Who have you protected lately?" he asked. "All you've told us about are people you didn't protect."

"I'm tired of talking," Weaver said. "Go get the horses, Jim. Take a couple of men and pick out good ones."

"You can't have any horses," Call said. "You have no authority to requisition stock from us."

"By God, I'll have those horses or I'll have your hides," Weaver said. "Go get 'em, Jim."

The young lieutenant looked very nervous, but he turned as if to ride over to the herd.

"Hold on, son, the argument ain't over," Augustus said.

"You'd defy an officer of the U.S. Army?" Weaver asked.

"You're as close to that horse trader in Ogallala as we are," Call pointed out.

"Yes, but we're going the other way," Weaver said.

"You were headed this way when you spotted us," Augustus said. "When'd you change your mind?"

Dixon, the big scout, was listening to the conversation with contempt in his expression. The contempt was as much for Weaver as for them.

Captain Weaver turned to the young man. "I gave you an order. These men are all bluff. They're just cowboys. Go get the horses."

As the young man passed, Augustus reached down and caught his bridle.

"If you want them horses, why don't you go get 'em?" he said. "You're the Captain."

"I call this treason," Weaver said. "You men can be hung for treason."

Call had been looking over the rest of the troop. Throughout his career in the Rangers he had been bothered by how sluggishly the cavalry performed, and the troop he saw watching the proceedings looked more sluggish than most. Half the men had gone to sleep in their saddles the moment the column stopped, and the horses all looked as if they needed a month off on good grass.

"How far is Ogallala?" Call asked.

"I'm not interested in Ogallala," Weaver said. "I'm interested in Red Cloud."

"We don't know this Red Cloud," Augustus said. "But if he's much of a war chief you better hope you don't catch him. I doubt an Indian would even consent to eat them ponies you're riding. I never saw a worse-mounted bunch of men."

"Well, we've been out ten days, and it's none of your concern," Weaver said, trembling with indignation. Although Augustus was doing most of the talking, it was Call whom he looked at with hatred.

"Let's go," Call said. "This is pointless talk." He saw that the little Captain was keyed up to the point where it wouldn't take much to provoke him into an explosion.

"Jim, get them horses," Weaver said.

"No," Call said. "You can't have our horses. And I'll give you some advice, too. Your troop's exhausted. If you was to find Indians you'd be the one's massacred, most likely. You don't just need fresh horses, you need fresh men."

"What I don't need is advice from a goddamn cowboy," Weaver said.

"We've fought Comanches and Kiowas and Mexican bandits for twenty years and we're still here," Call said. "You'd do well to listen."

"If I see you in town I'll box your goddamn ears," Dixon said, addressing himself to Call.

Call ignored the man. He turned and started to ride away. Augustus released the young lieutenant's bridle.

"Leave me that nigger," Weaver said. "I've heard they can smell Indians. They're just red niggers, anyway."

"No," Call said. "I'd be afraid you'd mistreat him."

They went to the wagon. When they turned to look, the cavalry troop was still sitting there.

"Reckon they'll charge?" Augustus asked.

"Charge a cow herd?" Call said. "I wouldn't think so. Weaver's mad, but not that mad."

They waited, but the cavalry merely sat on the ridge for a few minutes and then turned and rode away.

84.

THAT AFTERNOON they crossed the Platte River just east of Ogallala and turned the herd northwest. From the slopes north of the river they saw the little collection of shacks and frame buildings that made up the town. The cowboys were so entranced by the sight that they could hardly keep their minds on their business long enough to drive the cattle to a good bed-ground.

Call tried to caution them a little, mentioning that there were said to be Indians on the rampage, but the men scarcely heard him. Even Dish Boggett was in a fever to go. Call let six men go in first: Dish, Soupy, Bert, Jasper, Needle and the Irishman. They all put on fresh shirts and raced away as if a hundred Comanches were after them.

Augustus, setting up his tent, stopped a moment to watch them run. The cowboys whooped and waved their hats as they raced.

"Look at 'em go, Lorie," Augustus said. "Can't wait to get to town."

Lorena was uninterested. She had only one thing on her mind.

"When are you going to see her?" she asked.

"Oh, tomorrow will do," Augustus said. "We'll both go."

"I'll stay here," Lorena said. "I'd be too scared of what you'd say."

Her hands were shaking at the thought of the woman, but she helped Gus peg the tent.

"I've a mind to go to Ogallala myself," Augustus said. "Would you like to come?"

"Why do you want to?" she asked.

"Well, it's a town, of sorts," he said. I've a mind to do something civilized, like eat dinner in a restaurant. If that's asking too much, I could at least go in a barroom and drink a glass of whiskey.

"Come with me," he added. "They've probably got a store or two. We could buy you some clothes."

Lorena considered it. She had been wearing men's clothes since Gus rescued her. There hadn't been any place to buy any others. She would need a dress if she went with Gus to see the woman. But she didn't know if she really wanted to go see her-although she had built up a good deal of curiosity about her. Lots of curiosity, but more fear. It was a strange life, just staying in the tent and talking to no one but Gus, but she was used to it. The thought of town frightened her almost as much as the thought of the woman.

"Do you want a whore or what?" she asked, when she saw him getting ready to go to town.

"Why would I want a whore, when I've got you?" he asked. "You womenfolk have got strange minds. What I'd mainly like to do is sit in a chair and drink whiskey. I wouldn't mind a hand or two of cards either."

"You want that other woman, and you've got me," Lorena said. "You could want us both and a whore too, I guess. Go get one if you want-I don't care."

She almost hoped he would. It would strengthen her case against the other woman.

"Come with me," Augustus said. "I'll buy you some new dresses."

"Just buy me one yourself," Lorena said. "Buy one you like."

"But I don't know your size," he said. "Why are you so shy of towns? There ain't a soul in that town who's ever met you."

She wouldn't go, so he gave up asking her and went himself, stopping at the wagon a minute to make sure Po Campo would take her her food. Call was there, looking restless. Since most of the experienced hands were gone, he had decided to stay with the herd and buy supplies tomorrow once some of them got back.

The herd was grazing peacefully on the rolling slopes. The hands who were left, boys mostly, looked melancholy at the thought of the opportunities they were missing.

"Come ride to town with me," Augustus said to Call. "This place is quiet as a church on Monday. I'll buy you a meal and we can sit and talk philosophy."

"No, I'll stay," Call said. "I don't know a philosophy."

"Your philosophy is to worry too much," Augustus said. "Jake would have gone with me quick enough if we hadn't hung him."

"Damn it, he brought it on himself," Call said.

"I know that, but when I spot a town I remember what a fine companion he was around supper time," Augustus said.

He loped the five or six miles to Ogallala, feeling rather strange, for it had just hit him how much he did miss Jake Spoon. Many a time, returning from a scout on the Brazos, they had raced into Austin together and divided the night between whiskey, cards and women. Clara and Call would both be stiff with them for a week after such a carouse; Clara, if anything, softened slower than Call.

Now Jake was gone and Clara near. It seemed to him he might be wise not to go see her-just trail on into Montana and let the past be past. No woman had affected his heart in the way she had. The memory was so sweet he was almost afraid to threaten it by seeing what Clara had become. She might have become a tyrant-she had that potential, even as a girl. Or she might have become merely a worked-out, worn-down pioneer woman, her beauty gone and her spirit tamed. He might look at her and not feel a thing-in which case he would lose something he treasured. On the other hand, he might look at her and feel all that he had felt in their younger days-in which case riding off and leaving her wouldn't be very easy.

Then there was Lorena. In the last weeks she had proved sweeter than any woman he had known-more responsive than his wives, kinder than Clara. Her beauty had flowered again-the cowboys were always thinking of excuses to ride within twenty or thirty yards of them, so they could get a glimpse of it. He ought to consider himself lucky, he knew-everyone in the outfit, with the possible exception of Call, considered him lucky. He ought to let the past keep its glow and not try to mix it with what he had in the present.

But then he knew he could not simply ride by Clara, whatever the threat of turmoil or disappointment. Of all the women he knew, she had meant the most; and was the one person in his life he felt he had missed, in some ways.

He remembered what she had said when she told him she was going to marry Bob-that she would want his friendship for her daughters. He would at least go and offer it; besides, it would be interesting to see if the girls were like their mother.

To his surprise, he didn't enjoy the visit to Ogallala very much. He hit the dry-goods store just as the owner was closing and persuaded him to reopen long enough for him to buy Lorie a mass of clothes. He bought everything from petticoats to dresses, a hat, and also a warm coat, for they were sure to strike cool weather in Montana. He even bought himself a black frock coat worthy of a preacher, and a silk string tie. The merchant soon was in no mood to close; he offered Augustus muffs and gloves and felt-lined boots and other oddities. In the end he had such a purchase that he couldn't even consider carrying it-they would have to come in tomorrow and pick it up in the wagon, though he did wrap up a few things in case Lorie wanted to wear them to Clara's. He bought her combs and brushes and a mirror-women liked to see themselves, he knew, and Lorena hadn't had the opportunity since Fort Worth.

The one hotel was easy to find, but the restaurant in it was a smoky little room with no charm and only one diner, a somber man with mutton-chop whiskers. Augustus decided he would prefer a cheerful bar, but that proved not easy to find.

He went into one that had a huge rack of elk horns over the door and a clientele consisting mostly of mule skinners who hauled freight for the Army. None of the Hat Creek outfit was there, though he had seen a couple of their horses tied outside. They had probably gone straight to the whorehouse next door, he concluded. He ordered a bottle and a glass, but the boisterous mule skinners made so much racket he couldn't enjoy his drinking. A middle-aged gambler with a thin mustache and a greasy cravat soon spotted him and came over.

"You look like a man who could tolerate a game of cards," the gambler said. "My name is Shaw."

"Two-handed gambling don't interest me," Augustus said. "Any way, it's too rackety in here. It's hard work just getting drunk when things are this loud."

"This ain't the only whiskey joint in town," Mr. Shaw said. "Maybe we could find one that's quiet enough for you."

Just then a girl walked in, painted and powdered. Several of the mule skinners whooped at her, but she came over to where Augustus sat. She was skinny and could hardly have been more than seventeen.

"Now, Nellie, leave us be," the gambler said. "We were about to go have a game."

Before the girl could answer, one of the mule skinners at the next table toppled backwards in his chair. He had gone to sleep with the chair tilted back, and he fell to the floor, to the amusement of his peers. The fall did not wake him-he sprawled on the saloon floor, dead drunk.

"Oh, go along, Shaw," the girl said. "There ain't but two of you. What kind of game would that be?"

"I made that point myself," Augustus said.

A bartender came over, got the drunk man by the collar and drug him out the door.

"Wanta go next door, Mister?" Nellie asked.

The gambler, to Augustus's surprise, suddenly cuffed the girl-it was not a hard blow, but it surprised and embarrassed her.

"Now, here," Augustus said. "There's no excuse for that. The young lady was talking perfectly polite."

"She ain't a lady, she's a tart, and I won't have her interfering with our pleasure," the gambler said.

Augustus stood up and pulled out a chair for Nellie.

"Sit down, miss," he said. Then he turned to the gambler. "You scoot," he said. "I don't gamble with men who mistreat women."

The gambler had a ferretlike expression. He ignored Augustus and glared at the girl. "What have I told you?" he said. "You'll get a beating you won't forget if you interfere with me again."

The girl trembled and seemed on the verge of tears.

"I won't have a slut interrupting my play," the gambler said.

Augustus hit the man in the chest so hard that he was knocked back onto the next table, amid three or four mule skinners. The mule skinners looked up in surprise-the gambler had the wind knocked out of him so thoroughly that he waved his arms in the air, his mouth open, afraid he would die before he could draw another breath.

Augustus paid him no more attention. The girl, after a moment, sat down, though she kept glancing nervously toward the gambler. A big mule skinner shoved him unceremoniously off the table, and he was now on his hands and knees, still trying to get his breath.

"He ain't hurt," Augustus assured the girl. "Would you like a sip of whiskey?"

"Yeah," the girl said, and when the bartender brought a glass, quaffed the whiskey Augustus poured her. She couldn't keep her eyes off the gambler, though. He had managed to breathe again, and was standing by the bar, holding his chest.

"Have you had trouble with that fellow before?" Augustus asked.

"He's Rosie's husband," Nellie said. "Rosie is the woman I work for. They don't get along. Rosie sends me out, and he runs me off."

She tried to recover from her fright and to look alluring, but the attempt was so pathetic that it saddened Augustus. She looked like a frightened young girl.

"Rosie ain't nice to work for," she said. "Do you want to go next door? I got to do something quick. If Shaw complains she'll whup me. Rosie's meaner than Shaw."

"I'd say you need to change bosses," Augustus said. As soon as he put more whiskey in her glass, the girl quaffed it.

"There ain't but one other madam, and she's just as bad," Nellie said. "You sure you won't come next door? I got to find a customer."

"I guess you better bribe that gambler, if that's the situation," Augustus said. "Give him five and Rosie five and keep the rest for yourself." He handed her twenty dollars.

The girl looked surprised, but took the money and quaffed another whiskey. Then she went up to the bar and had the bartender change the money for her. Soon she was talking to Shaw as if nothing had happened. Depressed, Gus bought a bottle to take with him and left town.

The moon was full and the prairie shadowy. Pea Eye was attempting to sing to the cattle, but his voice was nothing to compare to the Irishman's.

To his surprise, Augustus saw that Lorena was sitting outside the tent. Usually she stayed inside. When he dismounted, he bent to touch her and found that her cheek was wet-she had been sitting there crying.

"Why, Lorie, what's the matter?" he asked.

"I'm afraid of her," she said simply. Her voice sounded thick with discouragement. "I'm afraid she'll take you."

Augustus didn't try to reason with her. What she felt was past reason. He had caused it by talking too freely about the woman he had once loved. He unsaddled and sat down beside her on the grass.

"I thought you went to her," she said. "I didn't believe you went to town."

"Ain't the moon beautiful?" he said. "These plains seem like fine country under a full moon."

Lorena didn't look up. She wasn't interested in the moon. She only wanted it to be settled about the woman. If Gus was going to leave, she wanted to know it, although she couldn't imagine a life if that happened.

"Did you even like to sing?" he asked, trying to get her to talk about something else.

She didn't answer.

"I think it must be a fine gift, singing," he said. "If I could sing like the Irishman, I would just ride around singing all day. I might get a job in a barroom, like Lippy used to have."

Lorena didn't want to talk to him. She hated the way she felt. Better if something happens and kills us both, she thought. At least I wouldn't have to be alone.

85.

NEWT, THE RAINEY BOYS and Pea Eye got to go into town the next afternoon. The fact that the first group drug back in ones and twos, looking horrible, in no way discouraged them. Jasper Fant had vomited all over his horse on the ride out, too beaten to dismount or even to lean over.

"You are a sorry sight," Po Campo said sternly, when Jasper rode in. "I told you it would be that way. Now all your money is gone and all you feel is pain."

Jasper didn't comment.

Needle Nelson and Soupy Jones rode in next-they looked no different from Jasper, but at least their horses were clean.

"It's a good thing there's no more towns," Needle said when he dismounted. "I don't think I'd survive another town."

"If that's the best Nebraska can do, I pass," Soupy said.

After hearing all the reports, which merely confirmed his suspicions, Po Campo was reluctant to let Augustus borrow the wagon.

"Towns are full of thieves," he argued. "Somebody might steal it."

"If they do, they'll have to steal it with me sitting in it," Augustus said. "I'd like to see the thief who could manage that."

He had promised Lippy a ride to town. Lippy had grown homesick for his old profession and hoped at least to hear some piano music on his visit.

Call decided to ride in and help with the provisioning. He was trying to make an inventory of things they needed, and the fact that Po Campo was in a cranky, uncooperative mood didn't make things any easier.

"It's summertime," Po said. "We don't need much. Buy a water barrel and we'll fill it in the river. It is going to get very dry."

"What makes you think it's going to get dry?" Augustus asked.

"It will get dry," Po Campo insisted. "We will be drinking horses' blood if we're not lucky."

"I think I must have drunk some last night," Jasper said. "I never got sick enough to puke on my horse before."

Newt and the other boys raced to town, leaving Pea Eye far behind, but once they got there they felt somewhat at a loss as to what to do first. For an hour or two they merely walked up and down the one long street, looking at the people. None of them had actually been in a building in such a while that they felt shy about going in one. They stared in the window of a big hardware store, but didn't go in. The street itself seemed lively enough-there were plenty of soldiers in sight, and men driving wagons, and even a few Indians. Of whores they saw none: the few women on the street were just matrons, doing their shopping.

The town abounded in saloons, of course, but at first the boys were too spooked to go in one. Probably they would be looked at, because of their age, and anyway they didn't have funds for drinking. What little they had must be saved for whores-at least that was their intention. But the fourth or fifth time they passed the big general store their intentions wavered, and they all slipped in for a look at the merchandise. They stared at the guns: buffalo rifles and pistols with long blue barrels, and far beyond their means. All they came out with was a sack of horehound candy. Since it was the first candy any of them had had in months, it tasted wonderful. They sat down in the shade and promptly ate the whole sack.

"I wish the Captain would fill the wagon with it," Ben Rainey said. The opportunity existed, for Augustus was just driving up to the drygoods store in the wagon, and the Captain rode beside him on the Hell Bitch.

"Why, he won't let us fill it with candy," Jimmy Rainey said. Nonetheless, feeling bolder and more experienced, they went back in the store and bought two more sacks.

"Let's save one for Montana," Newt said. "There might not be no more towns." But his cautions fell on deaf ears. Pete Spettle and the others consumed their share of the candy with dispatch.

While they were finishing it they saw Dish Boggett come walking around the side of a saloon across the street.

"Let's ask him where the whores are," Ben suggested. "I doubt we can find any by ourselves."

They caught up with Dish by the livery stable. He didn't look to be in high spirits, but at least he was walking straight, which was more than could be said for the men who had returned to camp.

"What are you sprouts doing in town?" he asked.

"We want a whore," Ben said.

"Go around to the back of that saloon, then," Dish said. "You'll find plenty."

Dish now rode a fine little mare he called Sugar. In disposition, she was the opposite of the Hell Bitch. She was almost like a pet. Dish would take tidbits from his plate and feed them to her by hand. He claimed she had the best night vision of any horse he had ever seen-in all their stampedes she had never stepped in a hole.

He delighted in her so much that he always gave her a brushing before he saddled her, keeping a little horse brush in his saddlebag just for that purpose.

"How much do they cost?" Jimmy Rainey asked, referring to the whores. The thought that some were only a few steps away made them all a little nervous.

"It depends on how long you intend to stay upstairs," Dish said. "I met a nice one named Mary, but they ain't all like her. There's one they call the Buffalo Heifer-somebody would have to offer me a month's wages before I'd get near her, but I expect she'd do for you sprouts. You can't expect top quality your first time off."

As they were talking, a party of some half-dozen soldiers came riding up the street, led by the big scout, Dixon.

"There come them soldiers agin," Newt said.

Dish hardly glanced at the soldiers. "I guess the rest of them got lost." He had brushed Sugar and was just preparing to saddle her when the scout and the soldiers suddenly trotted over their way.

Newt felt nervous-he knew there had almost been serious trouble with the soldiers. He glanced at the Captain and Mr. Gus, who were loading a water barrel into the wagon. Evidently they had decided to take Po Campo's advice.

Dixon, who looked ungodly big to Newt, rode his black gelding practically on top of Dish Boggett before he stopped. Dish, cool as ice, put the saddle blanket on the mare and paid him no mind.

"How much for the filly?" Dixon asked. "She's got a stylish look."

"Not for sale," Dish said, reaching down for his saddle.

As he stooped, Dixon leaned over him and spat a stream of tobacco juice on the back of Dish's neck. The brown juice hit Dish at the hairline and dripped down under the collar of his loose shirt.

Dish straightened up and put his hand to his neck. When he saw the tobacco juice his face flushed.

"You dern cowboys are too fond of your horses," Dixon said. "I'm fair tired of being told your ponies ain't for sale."

"This one ain't, for damn sure, and anyway you won't be in no shape to ride when I get through with you," Dish said, barely controlling his voice. "I'd hate to think I'd let a man spit on me and then ride off."

Dixon spat again. This time, since Dish was facing him, the juice hit him square in the breast. Dixon and the soldiers all laughed.

"Are you going to dismount or will you require me to come and drag you off that pile of soap bones you're riding?" Dish asked, meeting the big man's eye.

"Well, ain't you a tomcat," Dixon said, grinning. He spat at Dish again, but Dish ducked the stream of tobacco juice and leaped for the man. He meant to knock the scout off the other side of the horse, but Dixon was too strong and too quick. Though no one had seen it, he held a long-barreled pistol in his off hand, and when Dish grappled with him he used it like a club, hitting Dish twice in the head with the butt.

To Newt's horror, Dish crumpled without a sound-he slid down the side of Dixon's horse and flopped on his back on the ground. Blood poured from a gash over his ear, staining his dark hair. His hat fell off and Newt picked it up, not knowing what else to do.

Dixon stuffed his pistol back in its holster. He spat once more at Dish and reached to take the filly's reins. He reached down, undid the girth, and dumped Dish's saddle on the ground.

"That'll teach you to sass me, cowboy," he said. Then he glanced at the boys. "He can send the bill for this mare to the U.S. Army," Dixon said. "That is if he ever remembers there was a mare, when he wakes up."

Newt was all but paralyzed with worry. He had seen the pistol butt strike Dish twice, and for all he knew Dish was dead. It had happened so quickly that Ben Rainey still had his hands in the sack of candy.

All Newt knew was that the man mustn't be allowed to take Dish's horse. When Dixon turned to trot away, he grabbed the bridle bit and hung on. Sugar, pulled two different ways, tried to rear, almost lifting Newt off the ground. But he hung on.

Dixon tried to jerk the horse loose, but Newt had both hands on the bit now and wouldn't let go.

"Damn, these cowboys are pests," Dixon said. "Even the pups."

The soldier next to him had a rawhide quirt hanging from his saddle horn. Dixon reached over and got it, and without another word rode close to the mare and began to lash Newt with it.

Pete Spettle, anger in his face, leaped in and tried to get the quirt, but Dixon backhanded him and Pete went down-it turned out his nose was broken.

Newt tried to hunker close to the mare. At first Dixon was mainly quirting his hands, to make him turn loose, but when that was unsuccessful he began to hit Newt wherever he could catch him. One whistling blow cut his ear. He tried to duck his head, but Sugar was scared and kept turning, exposing him to the quirt. Dixon began to whip him on the neck and shoulders. Newt shut his eyes and clung to the bit. Once he glanced at Dixon and saw the man smiling-he had cruel eyes, like a boar pig's. Then he ducked, for Dixon attempted to cut him across the face. The blow hit Sugar instead, causing the horse to rear and squeal.

It was the squeal that caught Call's attention. After loading the heavy oak water barrel, he and Augustus had stepped back into the store a minute. Augustus was contemplating buying a lighter pistol to replace the big Colt he carried, but he decided against it. He carried out some of the things he had bought for Lorena, and Call took a sack of flour. They heard the horse squeal while they were still in the store, and came out to see Dixon quirting Newt, as Dish Boggett's mare turned round and round. Two cowboys lay on the ground, one of them Dish.

"I thought that son of a bitch was a bad one," Augustus said. He pitched the goods in the wagon and drew his pistol.

Call dropped the sack of flour onto the tailgate and quickly swung onto the Hell Bitch.

"Don't shoot him," he said. "Just watch the soldiers."

He saw Dixon again savagely quirt the boy across the back of the neck, and anger flooded him, of a kind he had not felt in many years. He put spurs to the Hell Bitch and she raced down the street and burst through the surprised soldiers. Dixon, intent on his quirting, was the last to see Call, who made no attempt to check the Hell Bitch. Dixon tried to jerk his mount out of the way at the last minute, but his nervous mount merely turned into the charge and the two horses collided. Call kept his seat and the Hell Bitch kept her feet, but Dixon's horse went down, throwing him hard in the process. Sugar nearly trampled Newt, trying to get out of the melee. Dixon's horse struggled to its feet practically underneath Sugar. There was dust everywhere.

Dixon sprang up, not hurt by the fall, but disoriented. When he turned, Call had dismounted and was running at him. He didn't look large, and Dixon was puzzled that the man would charge him that way. He reached for his pistol, not realizing he still had the quirt looped around his wrist. The quirt interfered with his draw and Call ran right into him, just as his horse had run into Dixon's horse. Dixon was knocked down again, and when he turned his head to look up he saw a boot coming at his eye.

"You wouldn't," he said, meaning to tell the man not to kick, but the boot hit his face before he could get his words out.

The six soldiers, watching, were too astonished to move. The smallseeming cowman kicked Dixon so hard in the face that it seemed his head would fly off. Then the man stood over Dixon, who spat out blood and teeth. When Dixon struggled to his feet, the smaller man immediately knocked him down again and then ground his face into the dirt with a boot.

"He's gonna kill him," one soldier said, his face going white. "He's gonna kill Dixon."

Newt thought so too. He had never seen such a look of fury as was on the Captain's face when he attacked the big scout. It was clear that Dixon, though larger, had no chance. Dixon never landed a blow, or even tried one. Newt felt he might get sick just seeing the way the Captain punished the man.

Dish Boggett sat up, holding his head, and saw Captain Call dragging the big scout by his buckskin shirt. The fight had carried a few yards down the street to a blacksmith shop with a big anvil sitting in front of it. To Dish's astonishment, the Captain straddled Dixon and started banging his head against the anvil.

"He'll kill him," he said out loud, forgetting that a few moments before he too had wanted to kill the scout.

Then he saw Augustus run over, mount the Hell Bitch, and take down Call's rope.

Augustus trotted the few steps to the blacksmith shop and dropped a ioop over Call's shoulders. Then he turned the horse away, took a wrap around the saddle horn, and began to ride up the street. Call wouldn't turn loose of Dixon at first. He hung on and dragged him a few feet from the anvil. But Augustus kept the rope tight and held the horse in a walk. Finally Call let the man drop, though he turned with a black, wild look and started for whoever had roped him, not realizing who the man was. The skin was torn completely off his knuckles from the blows he had dealt Dixon, but he was lost in his anger and his only thought was to get the next assailant. It was in him to kill-he didn't know if Dixon was dead, but he would make sure of the next man.

"Woodrow," Augustus said sharply, as Call was about to leap for him.

Call heard his name and saw his mare. Augustus walked toward him, loosening the rope. Call recognized him and stopped. He turned to look at the six soldiers, all on their horses nearby, silent and whitefaced. He took a step toward them, and threw the rope off his shoulders.

"Woodrow!" Augustus said again. He took out his big Colt, thinking he might have to hit Call to stop him from going for the soldiers. But Call stopped. For a moment, nothing moved.

Augustus dismounted and looped the rope over the saddle horn. Call was still standing in the street, getting his breath. Augustus walked over to the soldiers.

"Get your man and go," he said quietly.

Dixon lay by the anvil. He had not moved.

"Reckon he's dead?" a sergeant asked.

"If he ain't, he's lucky," Augustus said.

Call walked down the street and picked up his hat, which had fallen off. The soldiers rode slowly past him. Two dismounted and began to try to load Dixon on his horse. Finally all six dismounted-the man was so heavy it took all of them to get him up and draped over his horse. Call watched. At the sight of Dixon, his anger threatened to rise again. If the man moved, Call was ready to go for him again.

But Dixon didn't move. He hung over his horse, blood dripping off his head and face into the dust. The soldiers mounted and slowly led the horse away.

Call looked and saw Dish Boggett sitting on the ground by his saddle. He walked slowly over to him-Dish had a gash behind his ear.

"Are you much hurt?" he asked.

"No, Captain," Dish said. "Guess I'm too hardheaded."

Call looked at Newt. There were welts beginning to form on his neck and one of his cheeks. A little blood showed in a cut on his ear. Newt was still tightly gripping Sugar's bit, a fact which Dish noticed for the first time. He stood up.

"You hurt?" Call asked the boy.

"No, sir," Newt said. "He just quirted me a little. I wasn't gonna let him have Dish's horse."

"Well, you can let her go now," Dish said. "He's gone. I'm much obliged to you for what you did, Newt."

Newt had gripped the bit so tightly that it was painful to let go. It had cut deep creases in his palms, and he seemed to have squeezed the blood out of his fingers. But he turned the mare loose. Dish took the reins and patted her on the neck.

Augustus walked over and stooped down by Pete Spettle, who was blowing frothy blood out of his broken nose.

"I better take you to the doctor," Augustus said.

"Don't want no doc," Pete said.

"'I god, this is a hardheaded lot," Augustus said, walking over to Ben Rainey. He took the candy sack and helped himself to a piece. "Hardly a one of you will take good advice."

Call mounted the Hell Bitch, slowly re-coiling his rope. Several townspeople had witnessed the fight. Most were still standing there, watching the man on the gray mare.

When he had his rope fixed again, Call rode over to Augustus. "Will you bring the grub?" he asked.

"Yep," Augustus said. "I'll bring it."

Call saw that everyone was looking at him, the hands and cowboys and townspeople alike. The anger had drained out of him, leaving him feeling tired. He didn't remember the fight, particularly, but people were looking at him as if they were stunned. He felt he should make some explanation, though it seemed to him a simple situation.

"I hate a man that talks rude," he said. "I won't tolerate it."

With that he turned and rode out of town. The people watching kept quiet. Rough as the place was, accustomed as they all were to sudden death, they felt they had seen something extraordinary, something they would rather not have seen.

"My lord, Gus," Dish said, as he watched the Captain leave. Like the others, he was awed by the fury he had seen erupt in the Captain. He had seen men fight many times, but not like that. Though he himself hated Dixon, it was still disturbing to see him destroyed-not even with a gun, either.

"Have you ever seen him like that before?" he asked Augustus.

"Once," Augustus said. "He killed a Mexican bandit that way once before I could stop it. The Mexican had cut up three white people, but that wasn't what prompted it. The man scorned Call."

He took another piece of candy. "It don't do to scorn W. F. Call," he said.

"Was it me?" Newt asked, feeling that maybe he should have managed things better. "Was it just that he was quirting me?"

"That was part of it," Augustus said. "Call don't know himself what the rest of it was."

"Why, he'd have killed that man, if you hadn't roped him," Dish said. "He would have killed anybody. Anybody!"

Augustus, eating his candy, did not dispute it.

86.

IT WAS BECAUSE of the fight that the boys ended up amid the whores. Dish saddled and left, and Augustus finished loading the wagon and started out of town. When he turned the wagon around, Newt and the Raineys were talking to Pea Eye, who had been up the street getting barbered and had missed the fight. Pea Eye had so much toilet water on that Augustus could smell him from ten feet away. He and the boys were standing around the bloody anvil and the boys were explaining the matter to him. Pea didn't seem particularly surprised.

"Well, he's a fighter, the Captain," he said mildly. "He'll box 'em if they get him riled."

"Box?" Ben Rainey said. "He didn't box. He run over the man with a horse and then near kicked his head off when he had him laying on the ground."

"Oh, that's boxing, to the Captain," Pea Eye said.

Augustus stopped the wagon. "You boys aim to linger around here?" he asked.

The boys looked at one another. The fight had startled them so that they had more or less forgotten their plans-not that they had many.

"Well, it's our only chance to see the town," Newt said, thinking Augustus was going to tell them to go back to the wagon.

That was not Augustus's intention. He had four ten-dollar gold pieces in his pocket, which he had intended to slip the boys on the sly. With Call gone, that was unnecessary. He flipped one to Newt, then handed them to each of the other boys.

"This is a bonus," Augustus said. "It's hard to enjoy a metropolis like this if you've got nothing but your hands in your pockets."

"Hell, if you're giving away money, give me some, Gus," Pea Eye said.

"No, you'd just spend it on barbers," Augustus said. "These boys will put it to better use. They deserve a frolic before we set out to the far north."

He popped the team with the reins and rode out of town, thinking how young the boys were. Age had never mattered to him much. He felt that, if anything, he himself had gained in ability as the years went by. Yet he became a little wistful, thinking of the boys. However he might best them, he could never stand again where they stood, ready to go into a whorehouse for the first time. The world of women was about to open to them. Of course, if a whorehouse in Ogallala was the door they had to go through, some would be scared back to the safety of the wagon and the cowboys. But some wouldn't.

The boys stood around the blacksmith's shop, talking about the money Augustus had given them. In a flash, all the calculating they had done for the last few weeks was rendered unnecessary. They had means right in their hands. It was a dizzying feeling, and a little frightening.

"Ten dollars is enough for a whore, ain't it?" Ben Rainey asked Pea Eye.

"Ain't priced none lately," Pea Eye said. It irked him that he had gone to the barbershop at the wrong time and missed the fight.

"Why not, Pea?" Newt asked. He was curious. All the other hands had rushed in, to the whores. Even Dish had done it, and Dish was said to be in love with Lorena. Yet Pea was unaffected by the clamor-even around the campfire he kept quiet when the talk was of women. Pea was one of Newt's oldest friends, and it was important to know what Pea felt on the subject.

But Pea was not forthcoming. "Oh, I mostly just stay with the wagon," he said, which was no answer at all. Indeed, while they were standing around getting used to having money to spend. Pea got his horse and rode off. Except for Lippy and the Irishman, they were the only members of the Hat Creek outfit left in town.

Still, none of the boys felt bold enough just to go up the back stairs, as Dish had instructed them. It was decided to find Lippy, who was known to be a frequenter of whores.

They found him standing outside a saloon looking very disappointed. "There's only one pia-ner in this town, and it's broke," he said. "A mule skinner busted it. I rode all this way in and ain't got to hear a note."

"What do you do about whores?" Jimmy Rainey asked. He felt he couldn't bear much more frustration.

"Why, that's a dumb question," Lippy said. "You do like the bull does with the heifer, only frontways, if you want to."

Instead of clarifying matters, that only made them more obscure, at least to Newt. His sense of the mechanics of whoring was vague at best. Now Lippy was suggesting that there was more than one method, which was not helpful to someone who had yet to practice any method.

"Yeah, but do you just ask?" he inquired. "We don't know how much it costs."

"Oh, that varies from gal to gal, or madam to madam," Lippy said. "Gus gave Lorena fifty dollars once, but that price is way out of line."

Then he realized he had just revealed something he was not supposed to tell, and to boys too. Boys were not reliable when it came to keeping secrets.

"I oughtn't to tolt that," he said. "Gus threatened to shoot another hole in my stomach if I did."

"We won't tell," Newt assured him.

"Yes, you will," Lippy said. He was depressed anyway, because of the piano situation. He loved music and had felt sure he would get to play a little, or at least listen to some, in Ogallala. Yet the best he had done so far was a bartender with a harmonica, and he couldn't play that very well. Now he had really messed up and told Gus's secret.

Then, in a flash of inspiration, it occurred to him that the best way out of that tight spot was to get the boys drunk. They were young and not used to drinking. Get them drunk enough and they might forget Ogallala entirely, or even Nebraska. They certainly would not be likely to remember his chance remark. He saw that the strongest thing they had treated themselves to so far was horehound candy.

"Of course you boys are way too sober to be visiting whores," he said. "You've got to beer up a little before you attempt the ladies."

"Why?" Newt asked. Though he knew whores were often to be found in saloons, he wasn't aware that being drunk was required of their customers.

"Oh, yeah, them girls is apt to be rank," Lippy assured them. "Hell, they wallow around with buffalo hunters and such like. You want to have plenty of alcohol in you before you slip up on one. Otherwise you'll start to take a leak some morning and your pecker will come right off in your hand."

That was startling information. The boys looked at one another.

"Mine better not," Pete Spettle said darkly. He was not enjoying himself in town so far, apart from the miracle of being handed ten dollars by Gus.

"Why, that's a leg pull," Jimmy Rainey said. "How could one come off?"

"Oh, well, if it don't come plumb off it'll drip worse than my stomach," Lippy said. "You boys oughtn't to doubt me. I was living with whores before any of you sprouted."

"How do we get the beer?" Newt asked. He was almost as intrigued by the thought of beer as by the thought of whores. He had never quite dared go in a saloon for fear the Captain would walk in and find him.

"Oh, I'll get you the beer," Lippy said. "Got any cash?"

The boys looked at one another, reluctant to reveal the extent of their riches lest Lippy try to exploit them in some way. Fortunately they had nearly three dollars over and above what Gus had given them.

They shook out the small change and handed it to Lippy. They knew that drinking was something required of all real cowboys, and they were hot to try it.

"Will this get much?" Newt asked.

"Hell, will a frog hop?" Lippy said. "I can get you plenty of beer and a bottle of whiskey to chase it."

Lippy was as good as his word. In ten minutes he was back with plenty of beer and a quart of whiskey. He had a twinkle in his eyes, but the boys were all so excited by the prospect of drinking that they didn't notice. Lippy gave them the liquor and immediately started up the street.

"Where you going?" Newt asked.

"The barber says there's a drummer with an accordion staying in the hotel," Lippy said. "If he ain't too attached to the accordion, I might buy it. We could make some fine music back at the wagon if we had an accordion to play."

"You oughta buy a new hat," Jimmy Rainey said boldly, for Lippy was still wearing the disgraceful bowler he had worn in Lonesome Dove.

"That hat looks like it was et by a heifer that had the green slobbers," Newt said, feeling proud of his wit. Lippy was out of hearing by then, so the wit was wasted.

The beer wasn't, however. Feeling that it was not appropriate to drink right out on the main street, the boys took ther liquor around to the back of the livery stable and fell to. At first they sipped cautiously, finding the beer rather bitter. But the more they drank, the less bothered they were by the bitter taste.

"Let's sample the whiskey," Ben Rainey suggested. The suggestion was immediately adopted. After the cool beer, the whiskey tasted like liquid fire, and its effects were just as immediate as fire. By the time he had three long swigs of the whiskey Newt felt that the world had suddenly changed. The sun had been sinking rapidly as they drank, but a few swallows of whiskey seemed to stop everything. They sat down with their backs against the wall of the livery stable and watched the sun hang there, red and beautiful, over the brown prairie. Newt felt it might be hours before it disappeared. He swigged a couple of bottles of beer and felt himself getting lighter. In fact, he felt so light he had to put his hands on the ground every once in a while-he felt like as if he might float away. He might float up to where the sun was hanging. It was amazing that a few swallows of liquid could produce such a sensation. It was silly, but after a while he felt like lying down and hugging his stomach and hugging the earth, to make sure he didn't float off.

Young Jimmy Rainey turned out to have no stomach for liquor at all. He started vomiting almost as soon as he started drinking. Pete Spettle drank freely, but only looked darker and more depressed, whereas Ben Rainey enjoyed the liquor hugely and guzzled considerably more than his share.

In no time, it seemed, they had finished off the beer. Somehow the sun had slipped on down while no one was looking, and the afterglow was dying. Stars were already out, and the four of them were just sitting behind a livery stable, drunk, and no closer to the whores than they had been when they first came to town.

Newt decided it wouldn't do. He stood up and found that he didn't float off-though when he tried to walk he found it no simple matter to put his feet down one after the other. It irritated him a bit, for he had never experienced any trouble in walking before and felt a resentment against his feet for behaving so peculiarly.

Still, he could make progress, in some fashion, and he started boldly for the back stairs of the saloon.

"I'm gonna meet one, at least," he said. He kept walking, fearing that if he stopped the whole project might slide to a halt. The others picked themselves up and began to follow, Ben Rainey bringing the whiskey bottle. This was unnecessary, because it was empty.

Newt made the stairs with no trouble and clomped right on up them. He had not really meant to seize the lead, and his heart was in his throat. He felt delicately balanced, as if his stomach might be in his throat too, if he didn't proceed carefully.

The stairs had seemed long and steep from the bottom, but in a second he found himself standing at the top. The door was slightly ajar and he saw that someone was there. All he could see was a large shape.

Then, before he could speak, he saw a woman with almost no clothes on come out of a room behind the shape. The woman's legs were naked, a sight so startling that Newt couldn't believe he was seeing it.

"Who is it, Buf?" the girl with the naked legs asked.

"I guess the cat's got his tongue," the shape said in a husky voice. "He ain't introduced himself."

"I'm Newt," he said, feeling uncertain suddenly about the whole enterprise.

The other boys were just making their way up the stairs.

The shape-it was a woman, too-stepped half out the door and surveyed the group on the stairs. She was a large woman and she smelled rather like Pea Eye had after he came out of the barbershop. Newt saw to his astonishment that her legs were naked too.

"It's a troop of little fellers," she said to her companion in the hall. "They must have just let out school."

"They better get on in here while we ain't busy, then," her friend said. "That is, if they can afford it."

"Oh, we got money," Newt volunteered. "We come up with a herd and we just got paid."

"I didn't know cowboys come this young," the big woman said. "Show me the money."

Newt pulled out his gold piece and the woman leaned in the hall to look at it under the light.

"I take it all back," she said to her friend. "It's a bunch of rich cattlemen."

Newt noticed that she didn't give him back his gold piece, but he didn't feel he ought to say anything. Maybe it cost ten dollars just to get in the door of a place where women went naked.

The large woman held the door open and he went past her, taking care not to stumble, for his feet were feeling more and more untrustworthy. The other boys sidled in after him. They found themselves standing in a bare hall, being stared at by the two women.

"This is Mary and I'm Buf," the large woman said. Her ample bosom seemed to Newt to be about to burst out of the gown she wore. In the light it was clear that she was not very old herself-but she was large. The other girl, by comparison, seemed thin as a rail.

"This one's paid," Buf said, putting a hand casually on Newt's shoulder. "I hope you other fellows are as rich as he is, otherwise you're welcome to pile back down those stairs."

The Rainey boys immediately produced their money, but Pete Spettle held back. He put his hand in his pocket, but instead of bringing out his money he brought his hand out empty, and turned for the door without a word. They heard him clump back down the stairs.

"These two look like brothers," Buf said, quickly sizing up the Rainey boys.

"You take 'em, Buf," Mary said. "I'll take the one that come in first."

"Well, maybe you will and maybe you won't," Buf said. "I seen him first, I oughta have dibs."

Newt almost began to wish he had followed the example of Pete Spettle. It was a hot night, and close in the hall. He felt he might be sick. Also, from listening to the conversation he realized they were the two whores Dish had described. The big one was the Buffalo Heifer, and the other one was the one Dish said treated him nice. The Buffalo Heifer still had her large hand on his shoulder as she looked the group over. She had a black tooth right in front of her mouth. Her large body seemed to give off waves of heat, like a stove, and the toilet water she wore was so strong it made him queasy.

"We got the whole night to get through," Mary said. "We can't waste too much of it on these tadpoles. She took Ben Rainey's hand and quickly led him into a little room off the hall.

"Mary gets the fidgets if something ain't happening ever minute," Buf said. "Come on, Newt."

Jimmy Rainey didn't like being left in the hail all by himself.

"Who do I do?" he asked plaintively.

"Just stand there like a post," Buf said. "Mary's quick, especially with tadpoles. She'll get you in a minute." Jimmy stood where he was, looking forlorn.

She led Newt into a small room with nothing much in it but an iron bedstead and a small washbasin on a tiny stand. A small unlit coal-oil lamp with no shade over the wick sat on a windowsill. The window was open and the rim of the prairie still red, as if a line of coals had been spread along it.

"Come far?" Buf asked in a husky voice.

"Yes, ma'am, from Texas," Newt said.

"Well, skin them pants off, Texas," she said, and to his astonishment, unbuttoned three buttons on the front of her gown and pitched it on the bed. She stood before him naked and, since he was too startled to move, reached down and unbuckled his pants.

"The problem with cowboys is all the time it takes to get their boots off," she confided, as she was unbuttoning his pants. "I don't get paid for watching cowboys wrestle with their dern boots, so I just leave the sheets off the bed. If they can't shuck 'em quick, they have to do it with them on."

Meanwhile she had unbuttoned his pants and reached for his peter, which, once it was freed, met her halfway at least. Newt couldn't get over how large she was-she would easily make two of him.

"I doubt you've had a chance to get much, but it won't hurt to check," she said.

She led him to the window and lit the coal-oil lamp. The movement of her large breasts threw strange shadows on the wall. To Newt's surprise she poured a little water on his peter. Then she lathered her hands with a bar of coarse soap and soaped him so vigorously that before he could stop himself he squirted right at her.

He was horrified, sure that what he had done was a dreadful breach of decorum, far worse than not being able to get his boots off quickly. Of course he had seen boys jerk at themselves, and he had done it plenty, but having a woman use soap and warm water on it brought matters to a head much quicker than was usual.

Buf merely chuckled, exposing her black tooth.

"I forgot you tadpoles are so randy you can't tolerate a soaping," she said, wiping him off on a piece of sacking.

She walked over to the bed and lay back on the cornshuck mattress, which crackled in protest. "Come on, try it," she said. "You might have another load yet."

"Should I take my boots off first?" Newt said, feeling hopelessly inexperienced and afraid of making another mistake.

"Naw, quick as you are, it ain't worth the effort," Buf said, scratching herself indelicately. "You got a pretty good one on, still."

He knelt between her thighs and she grasped him and tried to pull him in, but he was too far away.

"Flop over here, you ain't gonna do no good down there at the foot of the bed," she said. "You spent ten dollars, you oughta at least try. Some girls would charge you ten just to soap you up, but Mary and me, we're fair."

Newt allowed himself to be directed and made entrance, but then to his embarrassment he slipped out. He tried to reinsert himself but couldn't find the spot. Buf's belly was huge and slippery. Newt got dizzy again and felt himself sliding off it. Again he had the sensation that he might fall off the earth, and he grasped her arms to stop himself.

The Buffalo Heifer was unperturbed by his wigglings.

"You'll have to come back next time you draw your wages," she said. "Pull up your pants and send in that other tadpole."

As Newt got off the bed, he remembered Lorena suddenly. This was what she had done during all those months at the Dry Bean, with any man who had drawn his wages. He felt a terrible regret that he hadn't had the ten dollars then. Though the Buffalo Heifer had not been unfriendly, he would far rather have had Lorena soap him up-though he knew he probably wouldn't have had the nerve to go in, if it had been Lorena.

"Is it just the two of you?" he asked, buttoning his pants. He had built up a certain curiosity about Mary, and despite all his embarrassments decided he might try to visit her if he ever got another ten.

"Me and Mary," Buf said. "I get the ones that like 'em fat, and she gets the one's that like 'em skinny. And if it's a feller who likes 'em either way it's just a matter of who ain't busy at the time."

She was still lying naked on the bed.

"I'll go get Jimmy," he said. When he opened the door, Jimmy was not more than a foot away. Probably he had been listening, which Newt resented, but in the dim hall Jimmy looked too sick to be mad at.

"Your turn," Newt said. Jimmy went in, and Newt clumped down the stairs and found Pete Spettle waiting at the bottom.

"Why'd you leave?" Newt asked.

"Told Ma I'd save my money," Pete said.

"I wish we had some more beer," Newt said. Though his experience with the Buffalo Heifer had been mostly embarrassing as it was happening, he did not feel disappointed. Only the fact that he was down to a quarter in cash kept him from going back in and trying his luck with Mary. For all the peculiarity of what was happening, it was powerfully interesting. The fact that it cost ten dollars hardly mattered to him, but it turned out that he was the only one who took that attitude. Ben Rainey came down the stairs just behind him, complaining about how overpriced the experience was.

"I doubt it took a minute, once she got me washed," he said.

Jimmy Rainey soon followed, and was totally silent about his own experience. He was not over his upset stomach and kept falling behind to vomit as they walked around town looking for Lippy.

"Hell, whores make a sight more than cowboys," Ben kept saying-it seemed to trouble him a good deal. "We don't make but thirty dollars a month and them two made thirty dollars off us in about three minutes. It would have been forty if Pete hadn't backed out."

To Newt such an argument seemed wide of the point. What the whores sold was unique. The fact that it exceeded top-hand wages didn't matter. He decided he would probably be as big a whorer as Jake and Mr. Gus when he grew up and had money to spend.

They found Lippy by the sound of the accordion, which he had managed to purchase but had not exactly learned to play. He was sitting on the steps of the saloon with the big rack of elkhorns over it, trying to squeeze out "Buffalo Gal" to an audience of one mule skinner and Allen O'Brien. The Irishman was wincing at Lippy's f urnbling efforts.

"He'll never get the hang of it," the mule skinner said. "It sounds like a dern mule whinnying."

"I just bought this accordion," Lippy said. "I'll learn to play it by the time we hit Montany."

"Yeah, and if them Sioux catch you you'll be squealing worse than that music box," the mule skinner said.

Allen O'Brien kindly bought the boys each a beer. Though it was well after dark, people were still milling in the streets of Ogallala. At One point they heard gunshots, but no one cared to go investigate.

One beer was sufficient to make Jimmy Rainey start vomiting all over again. As they were riding back to the herd, Newt felt a little sad-there was no telling when he would get the chance to visit another whorehouse.

He was riding along wishing he had another ten dollars when something spooked their horses-they never knew what, although Pete Spettle thought he might have glimpsed a panther. At any rate, Newt and Ben were thrown before they knew what was happening, and Pete and Jimmy were carried off into the darkness by their frightened mounts.

"What if it was Indians?" Ben suggested, when they picked themselves up.

It was bright moonlight and they could see no Indians, but both drew their pistols anyway, just in case, and crouched down together as they listened to the depressing sound of their horses running away.

There was nothing for it but for them to walk to camp on foot, their pistols ready-too ready, really, for Ben almost shot his brother when Jimmy finally came back to see about them.

"Where's Pete?" Newt asked, but Jimmy didn't know.

Jimmy's horse would ride double, but not triple, so Newt had to walk the last two miles, annoyed with himself for not having kept a grip on the reins. It was the second time he had been put afoot on the drive, and he was sure everyone would comment on it the next day.

But when he arrived, his horse was grazing with the rest of the remuda, and only Po Campo was awake to take notice. Po seemed to sleep little. Whenever anyone came in from a watch he was usually up, slicing beef or freshening his coffee.

"Have you had a good walk?" he asked, offering Newt a piece of cold meat. Newt took it but discovered once he sat down that he was too tired to eat. He went to sleep with a hunk of beef still in his hand.

87.

CLARA WAS UPSTAIRS when she saw the four riders. She had just cleaned her husband-the baby was downstairs with the girls. She happened to glance out a window and see them, but they were still far away, on the north side of the Platte. Any approaching rider was something to pay attention to in that country. In the first years the sight of any rider scared her and made her look to see where Bob was, or be sure a rifle was handy. Indians had been known to dress in white men's clothes to disarm unwary settlers, and there were plenty of white men in the Territory who were just as dangerous as Indians. If she was alone, the sight of any rider caused her a moment of terror.

But through the years they had been so lucky with visitors that Clara had gradually ceased to jump and take fright at the sight of a rider on the horizon. Their tragedies had come from weather and sickness, not attackers. But the habit of looking close had not left her, and she turned with a clean sheet in one hand and watched out her window as the horsemen dipped off the far slopes and disappeared behind the brush along the river.

Something about the riders struck her. Over the years she had acquired a good eye for horses, and also for horsemen. Something about the men coming from the north struck a key in her memory, but struck it so weakly that she only paused for a moment to wonder who it could be. She finished her task and then washed her face, for the dust was blowing and she had gotten gritty coming back from the lots. It was the kind of dust that seemed to sift through your clothes. She Contemplated changing blouses, but if she did that, the next thing she knew she would be taking baths in the morning and changing clothes three times a day like a fine lady, and she didn't have that many clothes, or consider herself that fine. So she made do with a face wash and forgot about the riders. July and Cholo were both working the lots and would no doubt notice them too. Probably it was just a few Army men wanting to buy horses. Red Cloud was harlying them hard, and every week two or three Army men would show up wanting horses.

It was one of those who had brought July the news about his wife, although of course the soldier didn't know it was July's wife when he talked about finding the corpses of the woman and the buffalo hunter. Clara had been washing clothes and hadn't heard the story, but when she went down to the lots a little later she knew something was wrong. July stood by the fence, white as a sheet.

"Are you sick?" she asked. Cholo had ridden off with the soldier to look at some stock.

"No, ma'am," he said, in a voice she could barely hear. At times, to her intense irritation, he called her "ma'am," usually when he was too upset to think.

"It's Ellie," he added. "That soldier said the Indians killed a woman and a buffalo hunter about sixty miles east of town. I have no doubt it was her. They were traveling that way."

"Come on up to the house," she said. He was almost too weak to walk and was worthless for several days, faint with grief over a woman who had done nothing but run away from him or abuse him almost from the day they married.

The girls were devoted to July by this time, and they nursed him constantly, bringing him bowls of soup and arguing with one another over the privilege of serving him. Clara let them, though she herself felt more irritated than not by the man's foolishness. The girls couldn't understand her attitude and said so.

"His wife got butchered up, Ma!" Betsey protested.

"I know that," Clara said.

"You look so stern," Sally said. "Don't you like July?"

"I like July a lot," Clara said.

"He thinks you're mad at him," Betsey said.

"Why would he care?" Clara said, with a little smile. "He's got the two of you to pamper him. You're both nicer than I've ever been."

"We want you to like him," Betsey said. She was the more direct of the two.

"I told you I like him," Clara said. "I know people ain't smart and often love those who don't care for them. Up to a point, I'm tolerant of that. Then past a point, I'm not tolerant of it. I think it's a sickness to grieve too much for those who never cared a fig for you."

Both of the girls were silent for a time.

"You remember that," Clara said. "Do your best, if you happen to love a fool. You'll have my sympathy. Some folks will preach that it's a woman's duty never to quit, once you make a bond with a man. I say that's folly. A bond has to work two ways. If a man don't hold up his end, there comes a time to quit."

She sat down at the table and faced the girls. July was outside, well out of hearing. "July don't want to face up to the fact that his wife never loved him," she said.

"She ought to have loved him," Sally said.

"Ought don't count for as much as a gnat, when you're talking about love," Clara said. "She didn't. You seen her. She didn't even care for Martin. We've already given July and Martin more love than that poor woman ever gave them. I don't say that to condemn her. I know she had her troubles, and I doubt she was often in her right mind. I'm sorry she had no more control of herself to run off from her husband and child and get killed."

She stopped, to let the girls work on the various questions a little. It interested her which they would pick as the main point.

"We want July to stay," Betsey said finally. "You'll just make him run off, being so stern, and then he'll get butchered up too."

"You think I'm that bad?" Clara asked, with a smile.

"You're pretty bad," Betsey said.

Clara laughed. "You'll be just as bad, if you don't reform," she said. "I got a right to my feelings too, you know. We're doing a nice job of taking care of July Johnson. It just gripes me that he let himself be tromped on and can't even figure out that it wasn't right, and that he didn't like it."

"Can't you just be patient?" Sally said. "You're patient with Daddy."

"Daddy got his head kicked," Clara said. "He can't help how he is."

"Did he keep his bond?" Betsey asked.

"Yes, for sixteen years," Clara said. "Although I never liked his drinking."

"I wish he'd get well," Sally said. She had been her father's favorite and grieved over him the most.

"Ain't he going to die?" Betsey asked.

"I fear he will," Clara said. She had been careful not to let that notion take hold of the girls, but she wondered if she was wrong. Bob wasn't getting better, and wasn't likely to.

Sally started to cry, and Clara put her arms around her.

"Anyway, we have July," Betsey said.

"If I don't run him off," Clara said.

"You just better not!" Betsey said, eyes flashing.

"He might get bored and leave of his own accord," Clara volunteered.

"How could he get bored? There's lots to do," Sally said.

"Don't be so stern with him, Ma," Betsey pleaded. "We don't want him to leave."

"It won't hurt the man to learn a thing or two," Clara said. "If he plans to stay here he'd better start learning how to treat women."

"He treats us fine," Sally pointed out.

"You ain't women yet," Clara said. "I'm the only one around here, and he better spruce up if he wants to keep on my good side."

July soon returned to work, but his demeanor had not greatly improved. He had little humor in him and could not be teased successfully, which was an irritant to Clara. She had always loved to tease and considered it an irony of her life that she was often drawn to men who didn't recognize teasing even when she was inflicting it on them. Bob had never responded to teasing, or even noticed it, and her powers in that line had slowly rusted from lack of practice. Of course she teased the girls, but it was not the same as having a grown man to work on-she had often felt like pinching Bob for being so stolid. July was no better-in fact, he and Bob were cut from the same mold, a strong but unimaginative mold.

When she came down from washing her face, she heard talk from the back and stopped dead on the stairs, for there was no doubt who was talking. The chord of memory that had been weakly struck by the sight of the horsemen resounded through her suddenly like an organ note. No sound in the world could have made her happier, for she heard the voice of Augustus McCrae, a voice like no other. He sounded exactly as he always had-hearing his voice so unexpectedly after sixteen years caused her eyes to fill. The sound took the years away. She stood on the stairs in momentary agitation, uncertain for a second as to when it was, or where she was, so much did it remind her of other times when Augustus would show up unexpectedly, and she, in her little room over the store, would hear him talking to her parents.

Only now he was talking to her girls. Clara regretted not changing blouses-Gus had always appreciated her appearance. She walked on down the stairs and looked out the kitchen window. Sure enough, Gus was standing there, in front of his horse, talking to Betsey and Sally. Woodrow Call sat beside him, still mounted, and beside Call, on a bay horse, was a young blond woman wearing men's clothes. A good-looking boy on a brown mare was the last of the group.

Clara noted that Gus had already charmed the girls-July Johnson would be lucky to get another bowl of soup out of them as long as Gus was around.

She stood at the window a minute studying him. To her he seemed not much older. His hair had already turned white when he was young. He had always made her feel keen, Gus-his appetite for talk matched hers. She stood for a moment in the kitchen doorway, a smile on her lips. Just seeing him made her feel keen. She was in the shadows and he had not seen her. Then she took a step or two and Augustus looked around. Their eyes met and he smiled.

"Well, pretty as ever," he said.

To the huge astonishment of her girls, Clara walked straight off the porch and into the stranger's arms. She had a look in her eyes that they had never seen, and she raised her face to the stranger and kissed him right on the mouth, an action so startling and so unexpected that both girls remembered the moment for the rest of their lives.

Newt was so surprised that he scarcely knew where to look.

When Clara kissed him, Lorena looked down, nothing but despair in her heart. There the woman was, Gus loved her, and she herself was lost. She should have stayed in the tent and not come to see it-yet she had wanted to come. Now that she had, she would have given anything to be somewhere else, but of course it was too late. When she looked up again she saw that Clara had stepped back a bit and was looking at Gus, her face shining with happiness. She had thin arms and large hands, Lorena noticed. Two men were walking up from the lots, having seen the crowd.

"Well, introduce your friends, Gus," Clara said. She had a hand on his arm, and walked with him over to the horses.

"Oh, you know Woodrow," Augustus said.

"How do you do?" Call said, feeling at a loss.

"This is Miss Lorena Wood," Augustus said, reaching up to help her dismount. "She's come a far piece with us. All the way from Lonesome Dove, in fact. And this young gentleman is Newt."

"Newt who?" Clara asked.

"Newt Dobbs," Augustus said, after a pause.

"Hello, Miss Wood," Clara said. To Lorena's surprise she seemed quite friendly-far more so than most women were to her.

"I don't know whether to envy you or pity you, Miss Wood," Clara said. "Riding all that way with Mr. McCrae, I mean. I know he's entertaining, but that much entertainment could break a person for life."

Then Clara laughed, a happy laugh-she was amused that Augustus had seen fit to arrive with a woman, that she had stunned her girls by kissing him, and that Woodrow Call, a man she had always disliked and considered scarcely more interesting than a stump, had been able to think of nothing better to say to her after sixteen years than "How do you do?" It added up to a lively time, in her book, and she felt she had been in Nebraska long enough to deserve a little liveliness.

She saw that the young woman was very frightened of her. She had dismounted but kept her eyes cast down. July and Cholo walked up just at that time, July with a look of surprise on his face.

"Why, Sheriff Johnson," Augustus said. "I guess, as they say, it's a small world."

"Just to you, Gus, you've met everybody in it now, I'm sure," Clara said. She glanced at July, who so far hadn't spoken. He was watching her and it struck her that it might be because she was still holding Gus's arm. It made Clara want to laugh again. In minutes, the arrival of Gus McCrae had mixed up everyone, just as it usually had in the past. It had always been a peculiarity of her friendship with Augustus. Nobody had ever been able to figure out whether she was in love with him or not. Her parents had puzzled over the question for years-it had replaced Bible arguments as their staple of conversation. Even when she had accepted Bob, Gus's presence in her life confused most people, for she had soon demonstrated that she had no intention of giving him up just because she was planning to marry. The situation had been made the more amusing by the fact that Bob himself worshipped Gus, and would probably have thought it odd that she had chosen him over Gus if he had been sharp enough to figure out that she could have had Gus if she'd wanted him.

It had been one-sided adoration, though, for Gus considered Bob one of the dullest men alive, and often said so. "Why are you marrying that dullard?" he asked her often.

"He suits me," she said. "Two racehorses like us would never get along. I'd want to be in the lead, and so would you."

"I never thought you'd marry a man with nothing to say," he said.

"Talk ain't everything," she said-words she had often remembered with rue during years when Bob scarcely seemed to utter two words a month.

Now Gus was back, and had instantly captured her girls-that was clear. Betsey and Sally were fascinated, if embarrassed, that this whitehaired man had ridden up and kissed their mother.

"Where's Robert?" Augustus asked, to be polite.

"Upstairs, sick," Clara said. "A horse kicked him in the head. It's a bad wound."

For a second, remembering the silent man upstairs, she thought how unfair life was. Bob was slipping away, and yet that knowledge couldn't quell her happiness at the sight of Gus and his friends. It was a lovely summer day, too-a fine day for a social occasion.

"You girls go catch three pullets," she said. "I imagine Miss Wood is tired of eating beefsteak. It's such a fair day, we might want to picnic a little later."

"Oh, Ma, let's do," Sally said. She loved picnics.

Clara would have liked a few words with Augustus alone, but that would have to wait until things settled down a little, she saw. Miss Wood mostly kept her eyes down and said nothing, but when she raised them it was always to look at Gus. Clara took them into the kitchen and left them a moment, for she heard the baby.

"Now, see, all your worrying was for nothing," Augustus whispered to Lorena. "She's got a young child."

Lorena held her peace. The woman seemed kind-she had even offered her a bath-but she still felt frightened. What she wanted was to be on the trail again with Gus. Her mind kept looking ahead to when the visit would be over and she would have Gus alone again. Then she would feel less frightened.

Clara soon came down, a baby in her arms.

"It's July's son," she said, handing the baby to Gus as if it were a package.

"Well, what do I want with it?" Augustus asked. He had seldom held a baby in his arms and was somewhat discommoded.

"Just hold him or give him to Miss Wood," Clara said. "I can't hold him and cook too."

Call, July and Cholo had walked off to the lots, for Call wanted to buy a few horses and anyway didn't care to sit in a kitchen and try to make conversation.

It amused Lorena that Gus had got stuck with the baby. Somehow it made things more relaxed that the woman would just hand him to Gus that way. She stopped feeling quite so nervous, and she watched the baby chew on his fat little fist.

"If this is Sheriff Johnson's child, whereabouts is his wife?" Augustus asked.

"Dead," Clara said. "She stopped here with two buffalo hunters, had the child and left. July showed up two weeks later, half dead from Worry."

"So you adopted them both," Augustus said. "You was always one to grab."

"Listen to him," Clara said. "Hasn't seen me in sixteen years, and he feels free to criticize.

"It's mainly Martin that I wanted," she continued. "As life goes on I got less and less use for grown men."

Lorena smiled in spite of herself. There was something amusing about the sassy way Clara talked. It was no wonder Gus admired her, for he liked to talk a lot himself.

"Let me hold him," she said, reaching for the baby. Augustus was glad to hand the baby over. He had been watching Clara and didn't enjoy having to divert his attention to a wiggly baby. It was the same old Clara, so far as spirit went, though her body had changed. She was fuller in the bosom, thinner in the face. The real change was in her hands. As a girl she had had delicate hands, with long fingers and tiny wrists. Now it was her hands that drew his eyes: the work she had done had swollen and strengthened them; they seemed as large at the joints as a man's. She was peeling potatoes with them and handled a knife as deftly as a trapper. Her hands were no longer as beautiful, but they were arresting: the hands of a formidable woman, perhaps too formidable.

Though he had only glanced at her hands, Clara picked up the glance, displaying her old habit of being able to read his mind.

"That's right, Gus," she said. "I've coarsened a little, but this country will take your bloom."

"It didn't take your bloom," he said, wanting her to know how glad he was that she was in so many ways her old self, the self he remembered with such pleasure.

Clara smiled and paused a minute to tickle the baby. She smiled, too, at Newt, who blushed, not used to ladies' smiles. The girls kept looking at him.

"You'll have to pardon us, Miss Wood," she said. "Gus and I were old sweethearts. It's a miracle both of us are still alive, considering the lives we've led. We've got to make up for a lot of lost time, if you'll excuse us."

Lorena found she didn't mind, not nearly so much as she had thought she would even a few minutes earlier. It was pleasant to sit in the kitchen and hold the baby. Even hearing Clara josh with Gus was pleasant.

"So what happened to Mr. Johnson's wife, once she left?" Augustus asked.

"She was looking for an old boyfriend," Clara said. "He was a killer who got hung while she was recovering from having the baby. July went and saw her but she wouldn't have anything to do with him. She and one of the buffalo hunters traveled on, and the Sioux killed her. You watch close, or they'll get you too," she added.

"I guess no Indian would dare bother you," Augustus said. "They know they wouldn't stand a chance."

"We kept some of them alive the last few winters, once the buffalo were gone," Clara said. "Bob gives them old horses. Horse meat's better than nothing."

She put a little milk in the baby's bottle and showed Lorena how to feed him. The baby stared up solemnly at Lorena as he drank.

"He's taken with you, Miss Wood," Clara said. "He's never seen a blonde, I guess."

The baby took a sneezing fit and Lorena was afraid she had done something wrong, but Clara merely laughed at her anxiety and the child soon settled down.

A little later, while Clara was frying the chicken, Call came up from the lots. He wanted to buy some horses and had found some to his liking, but neither Cholo nor July would make the deal. They had shown him the horses readily enough, but informed him that Clara made all the deals. It seemed irregular to him: two grown men right there, and yet he was forced to do business with a woman.

"I was told you're the horse trader," he said.

"Yes," Clara said. "I'm the horse trader. You girls finish this chicken and I'll see what Captain Call has picked out."

She looked again at the boy who had blushed when she smiled at him. He was saying something to Sally and didn't notice her look. To her eye he was the spitting image of Captain Call, built the same way, and with the same movements. So why is your name Dobbs? she wondered.

On their way to the lots Call tried to think of something to say, but he was at a loss. "You have a pretty ranch," he said finally. "I hope we do as well in Montana."

"I just hope you get there alive," Clara said. "You ought to settle around here and wait five years. I imagine Montana will be safer by then. It ain't safe now."

"We're set on being the first there," Call said. "It can't be no rougher than Texas used to be."

Clara set such a stiff price for her horses that Call was tempted to balk. He felt sure he would have done better with her husband, if he had been up and about. There was something uncompromising in Clara's look when she named the prices. It was as if she dared him to bargain. He had bargained over many a horse in his day, but never with a woman. He felt shy. Worse, he felt she didn't like him, though so far as he could remember he had never given her any reason to take offense. He studied the situation in silence for several minutes-so long that Clara grew impatient.

Newt had followed them, thinking the Captain might need him to help with the horses if he bought some. He could see that the Captain was mighty put out with the woman. It surprised him that she didn't seem to care. When the Captain was put out with the men, they cared, but the woman just stood there, her brown hair blowing, not caring in the least and not giving an inch. It was shocking: he had never expected to see anyone stand up to the Captain, except maybe Mr. Gus.

"I'm neglecting my guests," Clara said. "There's no telling when I'll get to see Gus McCrae again. You take all the time you want to think it over."

Newt was even more shocked. The Captain didn't say a word. It was almost as if the woman had issued him an order.

The woman turned, and as she did, she looked at Newt. Before he could drop his eyes she had caught him looking at her in turn. He felt greatly embarrassed, but to his surprise Clara smiled again, a friendly smile that vanished when she turned back to the Captain…

"Well, it's a stiff price, but they're good horses," Call said, wondering how the men could bring themselves to work for such a testy woman.

Then he remembered that the younger man had been the sheriff chasing Jake. "You come from Arkansas, don't you?" he asked.

"Fort Smith," July said.

"We hung your man for you," Call said. "He fell in with a bad bunch. We caught them up in Kansas."

For a second, July didn't remember what he was talking about. It seemed a life ago that he had left Fort Smith in pursuit of Jake Spoon. He had long since ceased to give the man any thought. The news that he was dead did not affect him.

"I doubt I would have caught him myself," July said. "I had horse trouble, up around Dodge."

When Clara got back to the house she was in high color. The way Call had stood there silently, not even asking a question or making an offer, just waiting for her to come down on the price, struck her as arrogant. The more she thought about it, the less hospitable she felt toward the man.

"I can't say that I'm fond of your partner," she said to Augustus. He had talked the girls out of some chicken gizzards and was eating them off a plate.

"He ain't skilled with the ladies," Augustus said, amused that she was angry. As long as she wasn't angry at him, it just made her the better-looking.

"Ma, shall we take buttermilk?" Betsey asked. She and Sally had changed dresses without their mother's permission, and were so excited by the prospect of a picnic that they could hardly keep still.

"Yes, today we feast," Clara said. "I asked Cholo to hitch the little wagon. One of you go change that baby, he's rather fragrant."

"I'll help," Lorena said. It surprised Augustus, but she went off upstairs with the girls. Clara stood listening as their footsteps went up the stairs. Then she turned her deep-gray eyes on Augustus.

"She's hardly older than my daughters," Clara said.

"Don't you be scolding me," he said. "It ain't my fault you went off and got married."

"If I'd married you, you would have left me for somebody younger and stupider long before now, I imagine," Clara said. To his surprise she came over and stood near him for a moment, putting one of her large, strong hands on his shoulder.

"I like your girl," she said. "What I don't like is that you spent all these years with Woodrow Call. I detest that man and it rankles that he got so much of you and I got so little. I think I had the better claim."

Augustus was taken aback. The anger in her was in her eyes again, this time directed at him.

"Where have you been for the last fifteen years?" she asked.

"Lonesome Dove, mostly," he said. "I wrote you three letters."

"I got them," she said. "And what did you accomplish in all that time?"

"Drank a lot of whiskey," Augustus said.

Clara nodded and went back to packing the picnic basket. "If that was all you accomplished you could have done it in Ogallala and been a friend to me," she said. "I lost three boys, Gus. I needed a friend."

"You ought to wrote me that, then," he said. "I didn't know."

Clara's mouth tightened. "I hope I meet a man sometime in my life who can figure such things out," she said. "I wrote you but I tore up the letters. I figured if you didn't come of your own accord you wouldn't be no good to me anyway."

"Well, you was married," he said, not knowing why he bothered to argue.

"I was never so married but what I could have managed a friend," she said. "I want you to look at Bob before you go. The poor man's laid up there for two months, wasting away."

The anger had died out of her eyes. She came and sat down in a chair, looking at him in the intent way she had, as if reading in his face the events of the fifteen years he had spent away from her.

"Where'd you get Miss Wood?" she asked.

"She's been in Lonesome Dove a while," he said.

"Doing what?"

"Doing what she could, but don't you hold it against her," he said.

Clara looked at him coolly. "I don't judge women that harsh," she said. "I might have done the same under some circumstances."

"I doubt it," he said.

"Yes, but you don't know as much about women as you like to think you do," Clara said. "You're overrated in that regard."

"By God, you're sassy," Augustus said.

Clara just smiled, her old beguiling smile. "I'm honest," she said. "To most men, that's sassy."

"Well, it might interest you to know that Lorie started this trip with your old friend Jake Spoon," Augustus said. "He was his usual careless self and let her get kidnapped by a real rough man."

"Oh, so you rescued her?" Clara said. "No wonder she worships you. What happened to Jake?"

"He met a bad end," Augustus said. "We hung him. He was with a gang of murderers."

Clara didn't flinch at the news. She heard the girls coming back down the stairs. Lorena was carrying the baby. Clara stood up so Lorena could sit. The baby's eyes followed her.

"Betsey, go find July and the men and ask them if they want to wash up before we go," she said.

"I doubt you can get Woodrow Call to go to your picnic," Augustus said. "He'll be wanting to get back to work."

But Call went. He had come back to the house, still trying to think of a way to talk Clara down on the horses, only to find the girls loading a small wagon, Lorena holding a baby, and Gus carrying a crock of buttermilk.

"Could you drive for us, Captain?" Clara asked, handing him the reins to the little mule team before he could answer. With such a crowd there watching he couldn't muster a protest, and he drove the little wagon three miles west on the Platte to a place where there were a few small cottonwoods.

"It ain't as nice as our place on the Guadalupe, Gus, but it's the best we can do," Clara said.

"Oh, your orchard, you mean," Augustus said.

Clara looked puzzled for a moment-she had forgotten that that was what they called the picnic spot on the Guadalupe.

The day remained fair, and the picnic was a great success for everyone except Captain Call and July Johnson, both of whom felt awkward and merely waited for it to be over. The girls tried to get July to wade in the Platte, but he resisted solemnly. Newt waded, and then Lorena, rolling up her pants, and Lorena and Betsey walked far downstream, out of sight of the party. The baby dozed in the shade, while Clara and Augustus bantered. The sixteen-year gap in their communications proved no hindrance at all. Then Augustus rolled up his pants and waded with the girls, while Clara and Lorena watched. All the food was consumed, Call drinking about half the buttermilk himself. He had always loved buttermilk and had not had any for a long time.

"You don't plan on returning to Arkansas, Mr. Johnson?" he asked.

"I don't know that I will," July said. In fact, he had given no thought to his future at all.

Augustus ate most of the fried chicken and marveled at how comfortable Lorena seemed to be. She liked the girls, and seeing her with them reminded him that she was not much more than a girl herself, despite her experiences. He knew that she had been advanced too quickly into life, though perhaps not so far to yet enjoy a bit of girlhood.

When it came time to go back to the ranch he helped Lorie into the wagon with the girls, and he and Clara walked behind. Newt, who had enjoyed the picnic mightily, fell into conversation with Sally and rode beside the wagon. Lorena didn't seem concerned-she and Betsey had taken to one another at once, and were chatting happily.

"You should leave that girl here," Clara said, startling Augustus. He had been thinking the same thing.

"I doubt she'd stay," he said.

"If you stay out of it she might," Clara said. "I'll ask her. You have no business taking a girl like that into Montana. She might not survive."

"In some ways she ain't so young," he said.

"I like her," Clara said, ignoring him. "I expect you'll marry her and I'll have to watch you have five or six babies in your old age. I guess I'd be annoyed, but I could live with it. Don't take her up to Montana. She'll either die or get killed, or else she'll age before her time, like I have."

"I can't tell that you've aged much," Augustus said.

"You've just been around me one day," Clara said. "There's certain things I can still do and certain things I'm finished with."

"What things are you finished with?" he asked.

"You'd find out if you stayed around me much," Clara said.

"I notice you've taken a fancy to young Mr. Johnson," Augustus said. "I expect if I did stay around he'd beat me out."

"He's nearly as dull as Woodrow Call, but he's nicer," Clara said. "He'll do what he's told, mostly, and I've come to appreciate that quality in a man. I could never count on you to do what you're told."

"So do you aim to marry him?"

"No, that's one of the things I'm through with," Clara said. "Of course I ain't quite-poor Bob ain't dead. But if he passes away, I'm through with it."

Clara smiled. Augustus chuckled. "I hope you ain't contemplating an irregular situation," he said.

Clara smiled. "What's irregular about having a boarder?" she asked. "Lots of widows take boarders. Anyway, he likes my girls better than he likes me. He might be ready to marry again by the time Sally's of age."

At that moment Sally was chattering away to young Newt, who was getting his first taste of conversation with a sprightly young lady.

"Who's his mother?" Clara asked. She liked the boy's looks, and also his manners. "I never knew Call was prone to ladies," she added.

"Oh, Woodrow ain't," Augustus said. "He can barely stand to be within fifty yards of you."

"I know that," Clara said. "He's been stiff all day because I won't bargain away my horses. My price is my price. But that boy's his, and don't you tell me he ain't. They walk alike, they stand alike, and they look alike."

"I expect you're right," Augustus said.

"Yes, I'm right," Clara said. "You ain't answered my question."

"His mother was a woman named Maggie," he said. "She was a whore. She died when Newt was six."

"I like that boy," Clara said. "I'd keep him too, if I got the chance. He's about the age my Jimmy would be, if Jimmy had lived."

"Newt's a fine boy," Augustus said.

"It's a miracle, ain't it, when one grows up nice," Clara said. "He's got a quiet way, that boy. I like that. It's surprising to find gentle behavior when his father is Captain Call."

"Oh, Newt don't know Call's his father," Augustus said. "I expect he's heard hints, but he don't know it."

"And Call don't claim him, when anybody can see it?" Clara said, shocked. "I never had much opinion of Call, and now I have less."

"Call don't like to admit mistakes," Augustus said. "It's his way."

"What mistake?" Clara said. "I wouldn't call it a mistake if I raised a boy that nice. My Jimmy had wildness in him. I couldn't handle him, though he died when he was eight. I expect he'd have ended like Jake. Now where'd it come from? I ain't wild, and Bob ain't wild."

"I don't know," Augustus said.

"Well, I had two sweet ones, though," Clara said. "My last one, Johnny, was the sweetest. I ain't been the same since that child died. It's a wonder the girls aren't worse-behaved than they are. I don't consider that I've ever had the proper feeling for them. It went out of me that winter I lost Jeff and Johnny."

They walked in silence for a while.

"Why don't you tell that boy who his pa is?" Clara said. "I'd do it, if he was around here long. He should know who his pa is. He's got to wonder."

"I always thought Call would work up to it, eventually," Augustus said. "I still think so."

"I don't," Clara said.

A big gray wolf loped up out of the riverbed, looked at them for a moment, and loped on.

Ahead, the baby was fretting, and the girls and Lorena were trying to shush it.

When they got back to the ranch, Call gave in and told Clara he'd pay her price for the horses. He didn't like it, but he couldn't stay around there forever, and her horses were in far better condition than the nags he had looked at in Ogallala.

"Fine, go help him, boys," Clara said. Cholo and July went off to help. Newt was helping the girls carry the remains of the picnic in.

He was sorry they were leaving. Sally had been telling him all she planned to do when she grew up. She was going East to school and then planned to play the piano professionally, she said. That seemed unusual to Newt. The only musician he knew was Lippy, and he couldn't imagine Sally doing what Lippy did. But he enjoyed listening to her talk about her future life.

As he was coming down the steps, Clara stopped him. She put an arm across his shoulder and walked him to his horse. No woman had ever done such a thing with him.

"Newt, we've enjoyed having you," Clara said. "I want you to know that if Montana don't suit you, you can just head back here. I'll give you all the work you can stand."

"I'd like to," Newt said. He meant it. Since meeting the girls and seeing the ranch, he had begun to wonder why they were taking the herd so far. It seemed to him Nebraska had plenty of room.

For most of the trip Newt had supposed that nothing could be better than being allowed to be a cowboy, but now that they had got to Nebraska, his thinking was changing. Between the Buffalo Heifer and the other whores in Ogallala and Clara's spirited daughters, he had begun to see that a world with women in it could be even more interesting. The taste he had of that world seemed all too brief. Though he had been more or less scared of Clara all day, and was still a little scared of her, there was something powerfully appealing about her, too.

"Thank you for the picnic," he said. "I never went on one before."

Something in the boy touched Clara. Boys had always touched her-far more than girls. This one had a lonely look in his eye although he also had a quick smile.

"Come back when you can, we'll go on many more," she said. "I believe Sally's taken a fancy to you."

Newt didn't know what to say to that. He got on his horse. "I expect I better go help, ma'am," he said.

"If you get to choose one of my horses, choose that little sorrel with the star on his forehead," Clara said. "He's the best of that bunch."

"Oh, I imagine Dish will get the first pick," Newt said. "Dish is our top hand."

"Well, I don't want Dish to have him," Clara said. "I want you to have him. Come on."

She started for the lots and made straight for Call.

"Captain," she said, "there's a three-year-old sorrel gelding with a white star on his forehead in this lot you bought. I want to give that horse to Newt, so don't let anyone have him. You can deduct him from the price."

"Give it to him?" Call asked, surprised. Newt, who overheard, was surprised too. The woman who drove such a hard bargain wanted to give him a horse.

"Yes, I'm making him a gift," Clara said. "I'd feel better knowing Newt was well mounted, if you're really going to take him to Montana." With that she went back to the house.

Call looked at the boy. "Why'd she do that?" he asked. Of course it was fine for the boy to have the horse-it saved fifty dollars.

"I don't know," Newt said.

"That's the whole trouble with women," Call said, as if to himself. "They do things that don't make sense. She wouldn't give a nickel on the rest of them horses. Most horse traders would have taken off a dollar just to help the deal."

88.

AFTER CALL AND NEWT LEFT with the horses, Clara lit a lantern and took Augustus up to the room where her husband lay. Lorena sat at the kitchen table with the girls, playing draughts. July watched, but could not be persuaded to take part in the game. Even Betsey, his favorite, couldn't persuade him, and Betsey could usually get July to do anything she wanted him to do. Lorena's presence made him shy. He enjoyed sitting and looking at her in the lamplight, though. It seemed to him he had never seen anyone so beautiful. He had only seen her before on that dreadful morning on the plains when he had had to bury Roscoe, Joe and Janey, and had been too stricken to notice her. Then she had been bruised and thin from her treatment by Blue Duck and the Kiowas. Now she was neither bruised nor thin.

Clara and Augustus sat for an hour in the room where Bob lay. Augustus found it difficult to get used to the fact that the man's eyes were open. Clara had ceased to care, or even notice.

"He's been that way two months," she said. "I guess he sees some, but I don't think he hears."

"It reminds me of old Tom Mustard," Augustus said. "He rangered with us when we started the troop. His horse went over a cutbank on the salt fork of the Brazos one night and fell on him. Broke his back. Tom never moved a muscle after that, but his eyes were open when we found him. We started back to Austin with Tom on a travois, but he died a week later. He never closed his eyes in all that time, that I know of."

"I wish Bob would go," Clara said. "He's no use to himself like this. All Bob liked to do was work, and now he can't."

They walked out on the little upper porch, where it was cooler. "Why'd you come up here, Gus?" she asked. "You ain't a cowboy."

"The truth is, I was hoping to find you a widow," he said. "I didn't miss by much, either."

Clara was amused that her old beau would be so blunt. "You missed by years," she said. "I'm a bony old woman now and you're a deceiving man, anyway. You always were a deceiving man. I think the best thing would be for you to leave me your bride to be and I'll see if I can give her some polish."

"I never meant to get in the position I'm in, to be truthful," Augustus said.

"No, but you like it, now that you're in it," Clara said, taking his hand. "She's got nearly as high an opinion of you as you have of yourself, Gus. I could never match it. I know your character too well. She's younger and prettier, which is always a consideration with you men."

Augustus had forgotten how fond she was of goading him. Even with a dying husband in the next room, she was capable of it. The only chance with Clara was to be as bold as she was. He looked at her, and was thinking of kissing her.

Clara saw the look and was startled by it. Although she kissed her girls every day and lavished kisses on the baby, it had been years since she had been kissed by a man. Bob would occasionally kiss her cheek if he had returned from a trip-otherwise kissing played no part in his view of married love. Looking off the porch, with Augustus standing near her, Clara felt sad. She mainly had snatched kisses from her courtship, with Gus or Jake, twenty years before, to remember.

She looked at Gus again, wondering if he would really be so bold or so foolish. He didn't move to kiss her, but he still stood close and looked into her face.

"The older the violin, the sweeter the music," he said with a smile.

"That proves you're a deceiving man, if you think that," she said. "You've had a long ride for nothing, I guess."

"Why, no," he said. "It's happiness to see you."

Clara felt a sudden irritation. "Do you think you can have us both?" she said. "My husband isn't dead. I haven't seen you in sixteen years. I've mostly raised children and horses during those years. Three of the children died, and plenty of the horses. It took all the romance out of me, if romance is what you were hoping for. I read about it in my magazines but I left it behind for myself when I left Austin."

"Don't you regret it?" Augustus asked.

"Oh, well," Clara said, "yes and no. I'm too strong for the normal man and too jealous once my feelings get started. I'm surprised you dare bring another woman into my house."

"I thought you liked her," he said.

"I do like her," Clara said. "I mind you doing it, though. Don't you understand the facts of nature yet? She's younger and prettier."

"It happened accidentally, like I mentioned," Augustus said.

"I never noticed you having such accidents with ugly girls," Clara said. "I don't care how it happened. You've been my dream, Gus. I used to think about you two or three hours a day."

"I wish you'd wrote, then," he said.

"I didn't want you here," she said. "I needed the dreams. I knew you for a rake and a rambler but it was sweet to pretend you only loved me."

"I do only love you, Clara," he said. "I've grown right fond of Lorie, but it ain't like this feeling I have for you."

"Well, she loves you," Clara said. "It would destroy her if I was to have you. Don't you know that?"

"Yes, I know that," Augustus said, thinking there would never again be such a woman as the one who looked at him with anger in her face.

"Would you destroy her, then, if I said stay?" Clara asked.

"I expect so," Augustus said.

"That ain't an answer."

"Yes, you know I would," he said. "I'd smother Bob for you and send Lorie to perdition."

Clara sighed, and her anger wore out with the sigh.

"Such talk," she said. "Bob'll die when he can manage it, and I'll see what I can do for your bride. It's just her beauty that set me off. I was always the youngest and prettiest, and now I'm not."

"You're mighty pretty, and anyway pretty ain't everything," he said.

"Where men like you are concerned it's ninety-nine percent," she said. "You ain't had time to look at me close. I ain't the prettiest anymore. The prettiest is downstairs."

"I'd still like a kiss," he said.

A tickle of amusement took her. He saw her smile and took it for encouragement. When he bent forward the result was so bland that after a moment Clara drew back her head and laughed.

"You've ridden a long way for some pretty weak courting," she said, but she felt better. Gus looked rather hangdog at his failure-one of the few times she had ever seen him look that way.

"You beat any woman I ever saw for taking the starch out of a man," he said, a little perplexed. Despite all the complications, he felt his old love for her returning with its old power. So much feeling flooded him, just looking at her, that he felt shaky. It was a puzzle to him that such a thing could happen, for it was true she had become rather bony and her face had thinned too much, and certainly she was as taxing as a woman could be. And yet the feeling made him shaky.

"Think I'm rough, Gus?" she asked with a smile.

"I ain't been scorched by lightning, but I doubt it could be hotter than being scorched by you," he said.

"Still think you'd have been up to being married to me?"

"I don't know," he said truthfully.

Clara laughed and took his arm to lead him downstairs.

"What about the young sheriff?" he asked, stopping her. He was unwilling to end their privacy so soon.

"What sheriff?"

"Why, July Johnson," he said. "It seems you've adopted him."

"I mainly wanted the baby, but I guess it's only fair to keep the father too," she said.

"Keep him and do what with him?"

"What do you care?" Clara said. "You're engaged. You can ride all over the country with a pretty girl, I guess I can be allowed a man. I'd forgotten how jealous you were. You were jealous of Jake and I did little more than flirt with Jake."

"To hear him talk, you did," Augustus said.

"Neither of us will hear him talk again," Clara said. "And I won't marry again."

"What makes you so sure?"

"I don't have enough respect for men," she said. "I've found very few who are honest, and you ain't one of the few."

"I'm about half honest," Augustus said.

"That's right," she said, and led him on downstairs.

To his surprise, Clara simply walked into the kitchen and invited Lorena to stay with them while the herd went on to Montana.

"We could use your help and you'd be more than welcome, she said. "Montana's no place for a lady."

Lorena blushed when she said it-no one had ever applied the word "lady" to her before. She knew she didn't deserve it. She wasn't a lady like Clara. She had never even met a lady like Clara, and in the space of a day had come to admire her more than she had ever admired anyone excepting Gus. Clara had shown her nothing but courtesy and had made her welcome in her house, whereas other respectable women had always shunned her because of the way she lived.

Sitting in the kitchen with the girls and the baby, Lorena felt happy in a way that was new to her. It stirred in her distant memories of the days she had spent in her grandmother's house in Mobile when she was four. Her grandmother's house had been like Clara's-she had gone there only once that she could remember. Her grandmother had put her in a soft bed, the softest she had ever slept in, and sung songs to her while she went to sleep. It was her happiest memory, one she treasured so, that in her years of traveling she grew almost afraid to remember it-someday she might try to remember it and find it gone. She was very afraid of losing her one good, warm memory. If she lost that, she felt she might be too sad to go on.

But in Clara's house she wasn't afraid to remember her grandmother, and the softness of the bed. Clara's house was the kind of house she thought she might live in someday-at least she had hoped to when she was little. But when her parents sickened and died, she lost hope of living in such a house. Mosby's home had been nothing like it, and then she had started living in hotels or little rooms. She slowly stopped thinking of nice houses and the things that went with them, such as little girls and babies.

So when Clara came downstairs and asked her to stay, it felt like being given back something-something that had been lost so long that she had ceased to think about it. Just before Clara and Gus came in, the girls had been nagging her to teach them how to sew. Lorena could sew fairly well. The girls complained that their mother never took the time to teach them. Their mother, about whom they were full of gripes, was more interested in horses than in sewing.

The girls were not at all surprised when Clara asked Lorena to stay.

"Oh, do," Sally said. "We could learn to sew if you would."

"We could sew new dresses, we never get any," Betsey said.

Lorena looked at Gus. He seemed flustered, and he seldom was flustered. She thought he might be bothered by the thought of her staying.

"Would you come back, Gus?" she asked. It seemed all right to ask him in front of Clara and the girls. Clara, after issuing the invitation, had started making coffee.

Augustus saw that she wanted to stay. If asked that morning if such a thing could occur, he would have said it was impossible. Lorena had clung to him since the rescue. But being at Clara's, even for so short a space, had changed her. She had refused to go to Ogallala, and was frightened of the thought of going into a store, but she wasn't frightened of Clara.

"I sure will come back," he said, smiling. "A ladies' man like me could hardly be expected to resist such a passel of ladies."

"Good, that's settled, but I warn you, Lorie, these girls will wear you down," Clara said. "You may wish you were back in a cow camp before it's all over. I'm going to turn them over to you, you know. All they want to do is quarrel with me, and I'm tired of it. You can argue with them, and I'll break horses."

After the coffee, Clara made the girls go to bed, and tactfully went up herself, so that Augustus and Lorena could have a moment alone. She saw that Augustus was a little shocked that she had so easily persuaded the girl away from his side.

Lorena felt embarrassed-she had not expected to be asked to stay, or to want to, and yet both things had happened. She was afraid at first that Gus might have his feelings hurt. She looked at him a little fearfully, hard put to explain the strange desire she had to stay at Clara's. Only that morning she had been resolved to stay with Gus at all costs.

"I'll go if you want, Gus," she said. "But it's so nice here, and they're friendly."

"I'm happy for you to stay," Augustus said. "You'll be a help to Clara, and you'll enjoy those girls. You've spent time enough in that dirty tent of Wilbarger's. Winter's said to be hard in Montana, too."

"I didn't think I'd want to stay," Lorena admitted. "I never thought about it till she asked. Don't you still want to marry her, Gus?"

"No," Augustus lied.

"I don't see why you wouldn't," she said. Now that she knew Clara a little, it seemed perfectly natural that Gus would want to marry her.

"Well, time's changed us," he said, feeling very uneasy in the conversation. Lorena was looking at him solemnly. He had had women look at him solemnly before and it always made him uncomfortable-it meant they were primed to detect any lies.

"I don't think nobody could change you, Gus," she said. "Maybe you'll want to marry her when you come back."

"Why, I'll be coming back to you, Lorie," Augustus said. "Of course, by then you might change, too. You might not want me."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Because you'll have discovered there's more to the world than me," he said. "You'll find that there are others that treat you decent."

What he said caused Lorena to feel confused. Since the rescue, life had been simple: it had been just Gus. With him gone it might change, and when he came back it might have changed so much that it would never be simple again.

Yet when it had been simple, she had always worried that Gus didn't want it. Maybe he was just being kind. She didn't know-didn't know what things meant, or didn't mean. She had never expected to find, in the whole world, a place where someone would ask her to stay-even in her dreams of San Francisco no one had ever asked her to stay. She had seldom even spoken to a woman in her years in Lonesome Dove, and had no expectation that one would speak to her. The fact that Clara had volunteered made everything seem different.

"Can't you wait till morning to leave?" she asked.

"No, I'm going as soon as I can saddle up," Augustus said. "It takes willpower to leave a houseful of ladies just to ride along with some scraggly cowhands. I better do it now, if I'm going to."

Clara came downstairs to see him off; she held the baby, who was colicky and wakeful. They went outside with Augustus, Lorena feeling trembly, not sure of what she was doing. Cholo was going with him to Ogallala to bring back all the clothes he had bought her.

Clara devoted five minutes to trying to persuade him to settle somewhere on the Platte. "There's cheap land not three days' ride from here," she pointed out. "You could have the whole north part of this state if you wanted it. Why go to Montana?"

"Well, that's where we started for," he said. "Me and Call have always liked to get where we started for, even if it don't make a damn bit of sense."

"It don't, and I wish I knew of some way to divorce you from that man," Clara said. "He ain't worth it, Gus. Besides, the Montana Indians can outfight you."

"You bought these here Indians off with horses," he said. "Maybe we can buy those in Montana off with beef."

"It bothers me," Clara said. "You ain't a cattleman. Why do you want to be so stubborn? You've come far enough. You could settle around here and be some use to me and Lorie."

It amused Augustus that his Lorie had been adopted as an ally by his old love. The old love and the new stood by his horse's head, neither of them looking quite calm. Clara, in fact, was getting angry; Lorena looked sad. He hugged them both and gave them each a kiss.

"We've heard Montana's the last place that ain't settled," Augustus said. "I'd like to see one more place that ain't settled before I get decrepit and have to take up the rocking chair."

"You call Nebraska settled?" Clara asked.

"Well, you're here," he said. "It won't last long. Pretty soon it'll be nothing but schoolhouses."

With that he mounted, tipped his hat to them and turned toward the Platte.

The two women stood where they were until the sound of hoofbeats faded. Lorena felt wrong. Part of her felt she should have gone with him, to look after him. But she knew that was foolish: Gus, if anyone, could look after himself.

She was dry-eyed and felt blank, but Clara cried, tears born of vexation, long affection and regret.

"He was always stubborn like that," she said, attempting to control herself.

"He left so quick," Lorena said. "Do you think I should have gone? I don't know what's best."

"No. I'm glad you stayed," Clara said. "You've had enough rough living-not that it can't be rough around here. But it won't be as rough as Montana."

She put her arm around the girl as they turned toward the house.

"Come on in," she said. "I'll show you where to sleep. We've got a nice little room that might suit you."

89.

WHEN AUGUSTUS RETURNED without Lorena, Dish Boggett felt deeply unhappy. It shocked him that Gus would leave her. Though he had been constantly jealous while she was traveling with Gus, at least she was there. In the evening he would often see her sitting outside the tent. He dreamed about her often-once had even dreamed that she was sleeping near him. In the dream she was so beautiful that he ached when he woke up. That Gus had seen fit to leave her on the Platte made him terribly irritable.

Newt was happy with his new horse, which he named Candy. It was the first real gift he had ever been given in his life, and he talked to anyone who would listen of the wonderful woman on the Platte who knew how to break horses and conduct picnics too. His enthusiasm soon caused the other hands to be jealous, for they had accomplished nothing except a drunk in Ogallala, and had missed the nice picnic and the girls.

Though confident that he had done the right thing in leaving Lorena, Augustus soon found that he missed her more than he had expected to. He missed Clara, too, and for a few days was in a surly mood. He had grown accustomed to sleeping late and sitting outside the tent with Lorena in the mornings. Alone on the long plain, with no cowboys to disturb her, she was a beautiful companion, whereas the cowboys who, gathered around Po Campo's cookfire every morning were far from beautiful, in his view.

It was high summer, the days blazing hot almost until the sun touched the horizon. The cattle were mulish and hard to move, stopping whenever possible to graze, or simply to stand. For several days they trailed west along the Platte, but when the river curved south, toward Colorado, Call pointed the herd northwest.

Po Campo hated to leave the river. The morning they left it he lingered behind so long with the wagon that the herd was completely out of sight. Lippy, who rode on the wagon, found this fact alarming. After all, they were in Indian country, and there was nothing to keep a few Indians from nipping in and taking their scalps.

"What are we waiting on?" Lippy asked. "We're three miles behind already."

Po Campo stood by the water's edge, looking across the Platte to the south. He was thinking of his dead sons, killed by Blue Duck on the Canadian. He didn't think often of his sons, but when he did, a feeling of sadness filled him, a feeling so heavy that it was an effort for him to move. Thinking of them in their graves in New Mexico made him feel disloyal, made him feel that he should have shot himself and been buried with them, for was it not the duty of a parent to stay with the children? But he had left, first to go south and kill his faithless wife, and now to the north, while Blue Duck, the killer, still rode free on the llano-unless someone had killed him, which Po Campo doubted. Lippy's fears about Indians did not move him-the sight of flowing water moved him, stirring feelings in him which, though sad, were deep feelings. They made him want to sing his saddest songs.

He finally turned and plodded after the herd, Lippy following at a Slow walk in the wagon. But Po Campo felt they were wrong to leave the river. He became moody and ceased to have pride in his cooking, and if the cowboys complained he said nothing. Also, he grew stingy with water, which irritated the cowboys, who came in parched and dusty, dying for a drink. Po Campo would only give them a dipperful each.

"You will wish you had this water when you drink your own piss," he said to Jasper one evening.

"I ain't planning on drinking my own piss or anybody else's, either," Jasper said.

"You have not been very thirsty then," Po said. "I once drank the urine of a mule. It kept me alive."

"Well, it couldn't taste much worse than that Ogallala beer," Needle observed. "My tongue's been peeling ever since we was there."

"It ain't what you drink that causes your tongue to peel," Augustus said. "That's the result of who you bedded down with."

The remark caused much apprehension among the men, and they were apprehensive anyway, mainly because everyone they met in Ogallala assured them they were dead men if they tried to go to Montana. As they edged into Wyoming the country grew bleaker-the grass was no longer as luxuriant as it had been in Kansas and Nebraska. To the north were sandy slopes where the grass only grew in tufts. Deets ranged far ahead during the day, looking for water. He always found it, but the streams grew smaller and the water more alkaline. "Near as bad as the Pecos," Augustus said.

Call seemed only mildly concerned about the increasing dryness. Indeed, Call was cheerful, easier on the men than was his wont. He seemed relaxed and almost at ease with himself.

"Have you cheered up because I left Lorie behind?" Augustus asked as they were riding together one morning. Far to the south they saw a black line of mountains. To the north there was only the dusty plain.

"That was your business," Call said. "I didn't tell you to leave her behind, though I'm sure it's the best thing."

"I think we ought to have listened to our cook," Augustus said. "It's looking droughty to me."

"If we can make Powder River I guess we'll be all right," Call said.

"What if Jake lied to us?" Augustus said. "What if Montana ain't the paradise he said it was? We'll have come a hell of a way for nothing."

"I want to see it," Call said. "We'll be the first to graze cattle on it. Don't that interest you?"

"Not much," Augustus said. "I've watched these goddamn cattle graze all I want to."

The next day Deets came back from his scout looking worried. "Dry as a bone, Captain," he said.

"How far did you go?"

"Twenty miles and more," Deets said.

The plain ahead was white with heat. Of course, the cattle could make twenty miles, though it would be better to wait a day and drive them at night.

"I was told if we went straight west we'd strike Salt Creek and could follow it to the Powder," Call said. "It can't be too far."

"It don't take much to be too far, in this heat," Augustus said.

"Try going due north," Call said.

Deets changed horses and left. It was well after dark when he reappeared. Call stopped the herd, and the men lounged around the wagon, playing cards. While they played, the Texas bull milled through the cows, now and then mounting one. Augustus kept one eye on his cards and one eye on the bull, keeping a loose count of his winnings and of the bull's.

"That's six he's had since we started playing," he said. "That sucker's got more stamina than me."

"More opportunity, too," Allen O'Brien observed. He had adjusted quite well to the cowboy life, but he still could not forget Ireland. When he thought of his little wife he would break into tears of homesickness, and the songs he sung to the cattle would often remind him of her.

When Deets returned it was to report that there was no water to the north. "No antelope, Captain," he said. The plains of western Nebraska had been spotted with them.

"I'll have a look in the morning," Call said. "You rest, Deets."

He found he couldn't sleep, and rose at three to saddle the Hell Bitch. Po Campo was up, stirring the coals of his cookfire, but Call only took a cup of coffee.

"Have you been up here before?" he asked. The old cook's wanderings had been a subject of much speculation among the men. Po Campo was always letting slip tantalizing bits of information. Once, for example, he had described the great gorge of the Columbia River. Again, he had casually mentioned Jim Bridger.

"No," Po Campo said. "I don't know this country. But I'll tell you this, it is dry. Water your horse before you leave."

Call thought the old man rather patronizing-he knew enough to water a horse before setting off into a desert.

"Don't wait supper," he said.

All day he rode west, and the country around him grew more bleak. Not fit for sheep, Call thought. Not hardly fit for lizards-in fact, a small gray lizard was the only life he saw all day. That night he made a dry camp in sandy country where the dirt was light-colored, almost white. He supposed he had come some sixty miles and could not imagine that the herd would make it that far, although the Hell Bitch seemed unaffected. He slept for a few hours and went on, arriving just after sunup on the banks of Salt Creek. It was not running, but there was adequate water in scattered shallow pools. The water was not good, but it was water. The trouble was, the herd was nearly eighty miles back-a four-day drive under normal conditions; and in this case the miles were entirely waterless, which wouldn't make for normal conditions.

Call rested the mare and let her have a good roll. Then he started back and rode almost straight through, only stopping once for two hours' rest. He arrived in camp at midmorning to find most of the hands still playing cards.

When he unsaddled the mare, one of Augustus's pigs grunted at him. Both of them were lying under the wagon, sharing the shade with Lippy, who was sound asleep. The shoat was a large pig now, but travel had kept him thin. Call felt it was slightly absurd having pigs along on a cattle drive, but they had proven good foragers as well as good swimmers. They got across the rivers without any help.

Augustus was oiling his rifle. "How far did you ride that horse?" he asked.

"To the next water and back," Call said. "Did you ever see a horse like her? She ain't even tired."

"How far is it to water?" Augustus asked.

"About eighty miles," Call said. "What do you think?"

"I ain't give it no thought at all, so far," Augustus said.

"We can't just sit here," Call said.

"Oh, we could," Augustus said. "We could have stopped pretty much anywhere along the way. It's only your stubbornness kept us going this long. I guess it'll be interesting to see if it can get us the next eighty miles."

Call got a plate and ate a big meal. He expected Po Campo to say something about their predicament, but the old cook merely dished out the food and said nothing. Deets was helping Pea Eye trim one of his horse's feet, a task Pea Eye had never been good at.

"Find the water, Captain?" Deets asked, smiling.

"I found it, 'bout eighty miles away," Call said.

"That's far," Pea Eye said.

They had stopped the cattle at the last stream that Deets had found, and now Call walked down it a way to think things over. He saw a gray wolf. It seemed to him to be the same wolf they had seen in Nebraska, after the picnic, but he told himself that was foolish speculation. A gray wolf wouldn't follow a cattle herd.

Deets finished trimming the horse's hooves and wiped the sweat off his face with his shirtsleeve. Pea Eye stood silently nearby. Though the two of them had soldiered together for most of their lives, they had never really had a conversation. It had seemed unnecessary. They exchanged information, and that was about it. Pea, indeed, had always been a little doubtful of the propriety of talking to Negroes, although he liked and respected Deets and was grateful to him now for trimming the horse's feet. He knew Deets was a great deal more competent than he was in many areas-tracking, for example. He knew that if it had not been for Deets's skill in finding water they might have all starved years before in campaigns on the llano. He knew, too, that Deets had risked his life a number of times to save his, and yet, standing there side by side, the only thing he could think of to talk about was the Captain's great love for the Hell Bitch.

"Well, he's mighty fond of that horse," he said. "And she might kill him yet."

"She ain't gonna kill the Captain," Deets said. He had the sad sense that things were not right. It seemed they were going to go north forever, and he couldn't think why. Life had been orderly and peaceful in Texas. He himself had particularly enjoyed his periodic trips to San Antonio to deposit money. Texas had always been their country, and it was a puzzle to him why they were going to a country that would probably be so wild there wouldn't even be banks to take money to.

"We way up here and it ain't our country," he said, looking at Pea. That was the heart of it-best to stay in your own country and not go wandering off where you didn't know the rivers or the water holes.

"Now up here, it's gonna be cold," he added, as if that were proof enough of the folly of their trip.

"Well, I hope we get there before the rivers start icing," Pea said. "I always worry about that thin ice."

With that he turned away, and the lengthy conversation was over.

By midafternoon Call came back from his walk and decided they would go ahead. It was go ahead or go back, and he didn't mean to go back. It wasn't rational to think of driving cattle over eighty waterless miles, but he had learned in his years of tracking Indians that things which seemed impossible often weren't. They only became so if one thought about them too much so that fear took over. The thing to do was go. Some of the cattle might not make it, but then, he had never expected to reach Montana with every head.

He told the cowboys to push the cattle and horses onto water and hold them there.

Without saying a word, Augustus walked over, took off his clothes, and had a long bath in the little stream. The cowboys holding the herd could see him sitting in the shallow water, now and then splashing some of his long white hair.

"Sometimes I think Gus is crazy," Soupy Jones said. "Why is he sitting in the water?"

"Maybe he's fishing," Dish Boggett said facetiously. He had no opinion of Soupy Jones and saw no reason why Gus shouldn't bathe if he wanted to.

Augustus came walking back to the wagon with his hair dripping.

"It looks like sandy times ahead," he said. "Call, you got too much of the prophet in you. You're always trying to lead us into the deserts."

"Well, there's water there," Call said. "I seen it. If we can get them close enough that they can smell it, they'll go. How far do you think a cow can smell water?"

"Not no eighty miles," Augustus said.

They started the herd two hours before sundown and drove all night through the barren country. The hands had made night drives before and were glad to be traveling in the cool. Most of them expected, though, that Call would stop for breakfast, but he didn't. He rode ahead of the herd and kept on going. Some of the hands were beginning to feel empty. They kept looking hopefully for a sign that Call might slacken and let Po Campo feed them-but Call didn't slacken. They kept the cattle moving until midday, by which time some of the weaker cattle were already lagging well behind. The leaders were tired and acting fractious.

Finally Call did stop. "We'll rest a little until it starts to get cool," he said. "Then we'll drive all night again. That ought to put us close."

He wasn't sure, though. For all their effort, they had covered only some thirty-five or forty miles. It would be touch and go.

Late that afternoon, while the cowboys were lying around resting, a wind sprang up from the west. From the first, it was as hot as if it were blowing over coals. By the time Call was ready to start the herd again, the wind had risen and they faced a full-fledged sandstorm. It blew so hard that the cattle were reluctant to face it.

Newt, with the Rainey boys, was holding the drags, as usual. The wind howled across the flat plain, and the sand seemed to sing as it skimmed the ground. Newt found that looking into the wind blinded him almost instantly. He mostly ducked his head and kept his eyes shut. The horses didn't like the sand either. They began to duck and jump around, irritated at being forced into such a wind.

"This is bad luck," Augustus said to Call. He adjusted his bandana over his nose and he pulled his hat down as far as it would go.

"We can't stop here," Call said. "We ain't but halfway to water."

"Yes, and some of them will still be halfway when this blows itself out," Augustus said.

Call helped Lippy and the cook tie down everything on the wagon. Lippy, who hated wind, looked frightened; Po Campo said nothing.

"You better ride tonight," Call said to Po Campo. "If you try to walk you might get lost."

"We all might get lost tonight," Po Campo said. He took an old ax handle that he sometimes used as a cane and walked, but at least he consented to walk right with the wagon.

None of the men-no strangers to sandstorms-could remember such a sunset. The sun was like a dying coal, ringed with black long before it neared the horizon. After it set, the rim of the earth was blood-red for a few minutes, then the red was streaked with black. The afterglow was quickly snuffed out by the sand. Jasper Fant wished for the thousandth time that he had stayed in Texas. Dish Boggett was troubled by the sensation that there was a kind of river of sand flowing above his head. When he looked up in the eerie twilight, he seemed to see it, as if somehow the world had turned over and the road that ought to be beneath his feet was now over his head. If the wind stopped, he felt, the sand river would fall and bury him.

Call told them to keep as close to the cattle as possible and to keep the cattle moving. Any cattle that wandered far would probably starve to death.

Augustus thought the order foolish. "The only way to keep this herd together would be to string a rope around them-and we ain't got that much rope," he said.

Shortly after dark he was proven right. None of the animals wanted to go into the wind. It quickly became necessary for the cowboys to cover their horses' eyes with jackets or shirts; and despite the hands' precautions, little strings of cattle began to stray. Newt tried unsuccessfully to turn back two bunches, but the cattle paid him no mind, even when he bumped them with his horse. Finally he let them go, feeling guilty as he did it but not guilty enough to risk getting lost himself. He knew if he lost the herd he was probably done for; he knew it was a long way to water and he might not be able to find it, even though he was riding the good sorrel that Clara had given him.

Call felt sick with worry-the sandstorm was the worst possible luck, for it slowed down the herd and sapped the animals' strength just when they needed all they had just to reach the water. And yet there was nothing he could do about it. He tried to tie an old shirt around the Hell Bitch's eyes, but she shook him off so vigorously that he finally let it go.

At the height of the storm it seemed as if the herd might split into fragments. It was hard to see ten feet, and little bunches of cattle broke off unnoticed and slipped past the cowboys. Deets, more confident of his ability to find his way around than most, rode well west of the herd, turning back cattle whenever he found any. But it finally became pitch-dark, and even Deets could do nothing.

Augustus rode through the storm with a certain indifference, thinking of the two women he had just left. He took no interest in the straying cattle. That was Call's affair. He felt he himself deserved to be in the middle of a sandstorm on the Wyoming plain for being such a fool as to leave the women. Not a man to feel guilty, he was merely annoyed at himself for what he considered a misjudgment.

To Call's great relief, the storm blew itself out in three hours. The wind gradually died and the sand lay under their feet again instead of peppering them. The moon was soon visible, and the sky filled with bright stars. It would not be possible to judge how many cattle had strayed until the morning, but at least the main herd was still under their control.

But the storm and the long drive the day before had taken its toll in energy. By dawn, half the men were asleep in their saddles. They wanted to stop, but again Call pushed on; he knew they had lost ground, and was not going to stop just because the men were sleepy. All morning he rode through the herd, encouraging the men to push the cattle. He was not sure how far they had come, but he knew they still had a full day to go. Lack of water was beginning to tell on the horses, and the weaker cattle were barely stumbling along.

Deets alone brought back most of the strayed bunches, none of which had strayed very far. The plain was so vast and flat that the cattle were visible for miles, at least to Augustus and Deets, the eyesight champions.

"There's a bunch you missed," Augustus said, pointing to the northwest. Deets looked, nodded, and rode away. Jasper Fant looked and saw nothing but heat waves and blue sky. "I guess I need spectacles," he said. "I can't see nothing but nothing."

"Weak brains breed weak eyesight," Augustus said.

"We all got weak brains or we wouldn't be here," Soupy said sourly. He had grown noticeably more discontented in recent weeks-no one knew why.

Finally at noon Call stopped. The effort to move the drags was wearing out the horses. When the cowboys got to the wagon, most of them took a cup of water and dropped sound asleep on the ground, not bothering with bedrolls or even saddle blankets. Po Campo rationed the water carefully, giving each man only three swallows. Newt felt that he could have drunk a thousand swallows. He had never tasted anything so delicious. He had never supposed plain water could be so desirable. He remembered all the times he had carelessly drunk his fill. If he ever got another chance, he meant to enjoy it more.

Call let them rest three hours and then told them to get their best mounts. Some of the cattle were so weak the cowboys had to dismount, pull their tails and shout at them to get them up. Call knew that if they didn't make it on the next push, they would have to abandon the cattle in order to save the horses. Even after their rest, many of the cattle had their tongues hanging out. They were mulish, reluctant to move, but after much effort on the part of the exhausted men, the drive was started again.

Through the late afternoon and far into the night the cattle stumbled over the plain, the weaker cattle falling farther and farther behind. By daybreak the herd was strung out to a distance of more than five miles, most of the men plodding along as listlessly as the cattle. The day was as hot as any they remembered from south Texas-the distances that had spawned yesterday's wind refused to yield even a breeze, and it seemed to the men that the last moisture in their bodies was pouring out as sweat. They all yearned for evening and looked at the sun constantly, but the sun seemed as immobile as if suspended by a wire.

Toward midday many of the cattle began to turn back toward the water they had left two days before. Newt, struggling with a bunch, nearly got knocked off his horse by three steers that walked right into him. He noticed, to his shock, that the cattle didn't seem to see him-they were stumbling along, white-eyed. Appalled, he rode over to the Captain.

"Captain, they're going blind," he said.

Call looked grim. "It ain't real blindness," he said. "They get that way when they're real thirsty. They'll try to go back to the last water."

He told the men to forget the weaker cattle and try to keep the stronger one's moving.

"We ought to make the water by night," he said.

"If we make night," Augustus said.

"We can't just stop and die," Call said.

"I don't intend to," Augustus said. "But some of the men might. That Irishman is delirious. He ain't used to such dry country."

Indeed the terrible heat had driven Allen O'Brien out of his head. Now and then he would try to sing, though his tongue was swollen and his lips cracked.

"You don't need to sing," Call said.

Allen O'Brien looked at him angrily. "I need to cry, but I've got no tears," he said. "This goddamn country has burned up my tears."

Call had been awake for over three days, and he began to feel confused himself. He knew water couldn't be much farther, but, all the same, fatigue made him doubtful. Perhaps it had been a hundred miles rather than eighty. They would never make it, if so. He tried to remember, searching his mind for details that would suggest how far the river might be, but there were precious few landmarks on the dry plain, and the harder he concentrated the more his mind seemed to slip. He was riding the Hell Bitch, but for long moments he imagined he was riding old Ben again-a mule he had relied on frequently during his campaigning on the llano. Ben had had an infallible sense of direction and a fine nose for water. He wasn't fast but he was sure. At the time, some men had scoffed at him for riding a mule, but Call ignored them. The stakes were life or death, and Ben was the most reliable animal he had ever seen, if far from the prettiest.

The men had had the last of Po Campo's water that morning, barely enough to wet their tongues. Po Campo doled it out with severity, careful to see that no one got more than his share. Though the old man had walked the whole distance, using his ax-handle cane, he seemed not particularly tired.

Call, though, was so tired he felt his mind slipping. Try as he might, he couldn't stay awake. Once he slept for a few steps, then jerked awake, convinced he was fighting again the battle of Fort Phantom Hill. He looked around for Indians, but saw only the thirstblinded cattle, their long tongues hanging out, their breath rasping. His mind slipped again, and when he awoke next it was dark. The Hell Bitch was trotting. When he opened his eyes he saw the Texas bull trot past him. He reached for his reins, but they were not there. His hands were empty. Then, to his amazement, he saw that Deets had taken his reins and was leading the Hell Bitch.

No one had ever led his horse before. Call felt embarrassed. "Here, I'm awake," he said, his voice just a whisper.

Deets stopped and gave him his reins. "Didn't want you to fall and get left, Captain," he said. "The water ain't far now."

That was evident from the quickened pace of the cattle, from the way the horses began to prick their ears. Call tried to shake the sleep off, but it was as if he were stuck in it. He could see, but it took a great effort to move, and he wasn't immediately able to resume command.

Augustus loped up, seemingly fresh. "We better get everybody to the front," he said. "We'll need to try and spread them when they hit the water. Otherwise they'll all pile into the first mudhole and tromple themselves."

Most of the cattle were too weak to run, but they broke into a trot. Call finally shook the sleep off and helped Dish and Deets and Augustus split the herd. They were only partially successful. The cattle were moving like a blind army, the scent of water in their nostrils. Fortunately they hit the river above where Call had hit it, and there was more water. The cattle spread of their own accord.

Call had not recovered from his embarrassment at having been led. Yet he knew Deets had done the right thing. He had still been dreaming of Ben and that hot day at Phantom Hill, and if he had slipped off his horse he might just have laid there and slept. But it was the first time in his life he had not been able to last through a task in command of his wits, and it bothered him.

All during the night and the next day, cattle straggled into the river, some of them cattle Call had supposed would merely become carcasses, rotting on the trail. Yet a day on the water worked wonders for them. Augustus and Dish made counts, once the stragglers stopped coming, and it appeared they had only lost six head.

The Irishman spent most of the day sitting in a puddle in Salt Creek, recovering from his delirium. He could not remember having been delirious and grew angry when the others kidded him about it. Newt, who had planned to drink all day once he got to water, soon found that he couldn't drink any more. He devoted his leisure to complicated games of mumblety-peg with the Rainey boys.

Deets went on a scout and reported that the country to the west didn't improve-grass was as scarce as water in that direction. Far to the north they could see the outlines of mountains, and there was much talk about which mountains they were.

"Why, the Rocky Mountains," Augustus said.

"Will we have to climb them?" Jasper asked. He had survived rivers and drought, but did not look forward to climbing mountains.

"No," Call said. "We'll go north, up the Powder River, right into Montana."

"How many days will it take now?" Newt asked. He had almost forgotten that Montana was a real place that they might get to some day.

"I expect three weeks or a little more and we might hit the Yellowstone," Call said.

"The Yellowstone already?" Dish Boggett said. It was the last river-or at least the last river anyone knew much about. At mention of it the whole camp fell silent, looking at the mountains.

90.

THEY RESTED ON the Salt for two days, giving the animals and men plenty of time to recover. The men spent much of their time speculating about what lay on beyond the mountains, and how long it would take to get there.

Call slept a distance out of camp, as was his habit. He knew the men were in a good mood, for he could hear them singing most of the night. Now that he had the leisure to sleep, he found he couldn't, much. He had always thought his energies equal to any situation, but he had begun to have doubts. A tiredness clung to his bones, but not a tiredness that produced sleep. He felt played out, and wished they were already in Montana. There were only a few hundred miles left, but it seemed farther to him than all the distance they had come.

Trotting back into camp one morning he saw there was excitement around the cook fire. Several of the men were holding rifles. The sight surprised him, for it had seemed a peaceful night.

"Twelve horses are gone, Captain," Dish Boggett said. "Indians got 'em."

Deets was looking hangdog, and the Spettle boy could only shake his head. Neither of them had heard a thing, they said.

"Well, you boys was singing opry loud enough to wake the deaf," Augustus remarked. "I guess it was just their charity that they didn't take the whole herd. Nobody would have noticed."

Call was vexed. He had been awake almost all night and had had no suspicion of Indians. All his years of trying to stay prepared hadn't helped. "They must have been good with horses," he said.

Deets felt it was mainly his fault, since it was his job to watch for Indian sign. He had always had a good ear for Indians, but he had sat by the wagon, listening to the singing, and had heard nothing.

"They came on foot, Captain," he said. He had found their tracks, at least.

"That was bold," Call said. "But they ain't on foot now."

He decided to take only Augustus and Deets, though that left the camp without a really competent Indian fighter, in case the raid was a feint. On the other hand, whoever took the horses might have a good deal of help nearby. If it became necessary to take on an Indian camp, three men were about the minimum that could expect to succeed.

Ten minutes later the three men were ready to go. Call was well aware that they were leaving a camp full of scared men.

Augustus laughed at the sight. "You boys will get the drizzles if you don't relax," he said.

"If they got the dern horses they might decide to come back and get us," Jasper Fant pointed out. "They got Custer, didn't they? And he fought Indians his whole life."

Call was more worried about the grass situation. It was too sparse to support the herd for long.

"Graze 'em upriver," he said. "Start tomorrow if we ain't back, but don't push 'em. Just let 'em graze along. You'll make the Powder in a few days."

Newt felt very nervous when he saw the three men ride off. It was Lippy's fault that he felt so nervous-all morning Lippy had done nothing but talk about how it felt to be scalped. Lippy hadn't been scalped, and couldn't possibly know, but that didn't keep him from talking and scaring everybody.

The horsethieves had gone southwest. Call thought that with luck they might catch them within a day, but in that he was disappointed. The country grew more barren as they rode, and the only sign of life was an occasional buzzard and many, many rattlesnakes.

"If we was to settle around here we'd have to start a snake ranch," Augustus said.

They rested only a little while at night, and by midmorning of the next day were a hundred miles from the herd, with no results in sight.

"Hell, they'll be to the Wind River before we catch them," Augustus said. "I've always heard the Wind River country was worse than the Pecos country, when it comes to being dry."

"We're better mounted than they are," Call said. "We'll catch them."

It was another long day, though, before they closed the gap.

"You sure this is worth it for twelve horses?" Augustus asked. "This is the poorest dern country I ever saw. A chigger would starve to death out here."

Indeed, the land was bleak, the surface sometimes streaked with salt. There were ocher-colored ridges here and there, completely free of grass.

"We can't start putting up with horse theft," Call said.

Deets was ranging ahead, and in the afternoon they saw him coming back. The simmering heat waves made him appear larger than he was.

"Camp's up ahead," he said. "They're in a draw, with a little water."

"How many?" Call asked.

"Didn't get no count," Deets said. "Not many. Couldn't be many and live out here."

"I say we wait for night and steal the nags back," Augustus said. "It's too hot to fight. Steal 'em back and let the red man chase the white for a while."

"If we wait for night we might lose half the horses," Call said. "They'll probably post a better guard than we had."

"I don't want to argue with you in this heat," Augustus said. "If you want to go now, okay. We'll just ride in and massacre them."

"Didn't see many men," Deets said. "Mostly women and children. They're real poor, Captain."

"What do you mean, real poor?"

"Means they're starving," Deets said. "They done cut up one horse."

"My God," Augustus said. "You mean they stole them horses for meat?"

That proved to be the case. They carefully approached the draw where the camp was and saw the whole little tribe gathered around the dead horse. There were only some twenty Indians, mostly women, children and old men. Call saw only two braves who looked to be of fighting age, and they were no more than boys. The Indians had pulled the dead horse's guts out and were hacking them into slices and eating them. Usually there were dogs around an Indian camp, but there were no dogs around this time.

"I guess these ain't the mighty plains Indians we've been hearing about," Augustus said. The whole little tribe was almost silent, each person concentrating on eating. They were all thin. Two old women were cutting meat off the haunch, meaning to dry it, and two young men, probably the ones who had stolen the horses, had caught another and were preparing to cut its throat. To prevent this, Call drew his pistol and fired into the air.

"Oh, let's go," Augustus said. "We don't want to be shooting these people, although it would probably be a mercy. I don't think they even have guns."

"I didn't shoot nobody," Call said. "But they're our horses."

At the shot the whole tribe looked up, stunned. One of the young men grabbed an old single-shot rifle but didn't fire. It seemed to be the only firearm the tribe possessed. Call fired in the air again, to scare them away from the horse, and succeeded better than he had expected to. Those who had been eating got to their feet, some with sections of gut still in their hands, and fled toward the four small ragged tepees that stood up the draw. The young man with the gun retreated too, helping one of the older women. She was bloody from the feast.

"They were just having a picnic," Augustus said. "We had a picnic the other day without nobody shooting at us."

"We can leave them two or three horses," Call said. "I just don't want to lose that sorrel they were about to kill."

In the tribe's flight a child had been forgotten-a little boy barely old enough to walk. He stood near the neck of the dead horse, crying, trying to find his mother. The tribe huddled in front of the tepees, silent. The only sound, for a moment, was the sound of the child's crying.

"He blind," Deets said.

Augustus saw that it was true. The child couldn't see where he was going, and a second later tripped over a pile of bloody horse guts, falling into them.

Deets, who was closest to the dead horse, walked over and picked the child up. The little blind boy kept wailing.

"Hush now," Deets said. "You a mess. You done rolled in all that blood."

At that moment there was a wild yell from the tepees and Deets looked up to see one of the young braves rushing toward him. He was the one who had picked up the rifle, but he had discarded the rifle and was charging with an old lance, crying his battle cry. Deets held out the baby and smiled-the young man, no older than Newt, didn't need to cry any battle cry. Deets kept holding the baby out toward the tribe and smiling, trusting that the young brave would realize he was friendly. The young man didn't need his lance-he could just take the squalling baby back to its mother.

Call and Augustus thought too that the young man would probably stop once he saw that Deets meant no harm. If not, Deets could whop him-Deets was a good hand-to-hand fighter.

It was only at the last second that they both realized that the Indian wasn't going to stop. His charge was desperate, and he didn't notice that Deets was friendly. He closed at a run.

"Shoot him, Deets!" Call yelled, raising his own gun.

Deets saw, too, at the last second, that the boy wasn't going to stop. The young warrior wasn't blind, but the look in his eyes was as unseeing as the baby's. He was still screaming a war cry-it was unnerving in the stillness-and his eyes were filled with hate. The old lance just looked silly. Deets held the baby out again, thinking the boy hadn't understood.

"Here, take him, I just helping him up," he said. Only then he saw it was too late-the young man couldn't stop coming and couldn't stop hating, either. His eyes were wild with hatred. Deets felt a deep regret that he should be hated so by this thin boy when he meant no harm. He tried to sidestep, hoping to gain a moment so he could set the baby down and wrestle with the Indian and maybe calm him.

But when Deets turned, the boy thrust the lance straight into his side and up into his chest.

Call and Augustus shot almost at the same time-the boy died with his hands still on the lance. They ran down to Deets, who still had the baby in his hands, although he had over a foot of lance inside him.

"Would you take him, Captain?" Deets asked, handing Call the child. "I don't want to sit him back in all that blood."

Then Deets dropped to his knees. He noticed with surprise that the young Indian was near him, already dead. For a moment he feared that somehow he had killed him, but then he saw that his own gun was still holstered. It must have been the Captain, or Mr. Gus. That was a sad thing, that the boy had had to die just because he couldn't understand that they were friendly. It was one more regret-probably the boy had just been so hungry he couldn't think straight.

Then he realized that he was on his knees and tried to get up, but Mr. Gus put a hand on his shoulder and asked him to wait.

"No, you don't have to get up yet, Deets," Augustus said. "Just rest a minute."

Deets noticed the handle of the lance protruding from his side. He knew the dead boy had put it there, but he felt nothing. The Captain stood in front of him, awkwardly holding the Indian baby. Deets looked at the Captain sadly. He hoped that now the Captain would see that he had been right.to feel worried about leaving Texas. It was a mistake, coming into other people's country. It only disturbed them and led to things like the dead boy. People wouldn't understand, wouldn't know that they were friendly.

It would have been so much better to stay where they had lived, by the old river. Deets felt a longing to be back, to sit in the corrals at night and wonder about the moon. Many a time he had dozed off, wondering about the moon, whether the Indians had managed to get on it. Sometimes he dreamed he was on it himself-a foolish dream. But the thought made him sleepy, and with one more look of regret at the dead boy who hadn't understood that he meant no harm, he carefully lay down on his side. Mr. Gus knelt beside him. For a moment Deets thought he was going to try to pull the lance out, but all he did was steady it so the handle wouldn't quiver.

"Where's little Newt?" Deets asked.

"Well, Newt didn't come, Deets," Augustus said. "He's with the boys."

Then it seemed to Deets that something was happening to Mr. Gus's head. It had grown larger. He couldn't see it all well. It was as if he were looking through water-as if he had come back to the old river and were lying on the bottom, looking at Mr. Gus through the shallow brown water. Mr. Gus's head had grown larger, was floating off. It was rising toward the sky like the moon. He could barely see it and then couldn't see it at all, but the waters parted for a moment and he saw a blade or two of grass, close to his eye; then to his relief the brown waters came back and covered him again, deep this time and warm.

"Can't you take that lance out?" Call asked. He didn't know what to do with the baby, and there Deets lay dying.

"I will in a minute, Call," Augustus said. "Just let him be dead for a minute."

"Is he dead already?" Call asked. Though he knew from long experience that such things happened quickly, he could not accept it in Deets's case. "I guess it went to the heart," he added pointlessly.

Augustus didn't answer. He was resting for a moment, wondering if he could get the lance out or if he should just break it off or what. If he pulled it out he might bring half of Deets out with it. Of course Deets was dead-in a way, it didn't matter. Yet it did-if there was one thing he didn't want to do, it was tear Deets up.

"Can't you give that squalling baby to the women?" he asked. "Just set it down over there and maybe they'll come and get it."

Call took a few steps toward the huddled Indians, holding out the baby. None of the Indians moved. He went a few more steps and set the baby on the ground. When he turned back he saw Augustus put a foot against Deets's side and try to remove the lance, which did not budge.

Augustus gave up and sat down beside the dead man. "I can't do this today, Deets," he said. "Somebody else will have to do it if it gets done."

Call also knelt down' by Deets's body. He could not get over his surprise. Though he had seen hundreds of surprising things in battle, this was the most shocking. An Indian boy who probably hadn't been fifteen years old had run up to Deets and killed him.

It must have shocked Augustus just as much, because he didn't have anything to say.

"I guess it's our fault," Call said. "We should have shot sooner."

"I don't want to start thinking about all the things we should have done for this man," Augustus said. "If you've got the strength to ride, let's get out of here."

They managed to break the lance off so it wouldn't wave in the air, and loaded Deets's body on his horse. While Augustus was tying the body securely, Call rounded up the horses. The Indians watched him silently. He changed his mind and cut off three of the horses that were of little account anyway. He rode over to the Indians.

"You better tie them three," he said. "Otherwise they'll follow us."

"I doubt they speak English, Woodrow," Augustus said. "I imagine they speak Ute. Anyway, we killed their best warrior; they're done for now unless they find some better country. Three horses won't last them through the winter."

He looked around at the parched country, the naked ridges where the earth had split from drought. The ridges were varicolored, smudged with red and salt-white splotches, as if the fluids of the earth had leaked out through the cracks.

"Montana better not be nothing like this," he said. "If it is, I'm going back and dig up that goddamn Jake Spoon and scatter his bones."

They rode all night, all the next day and into the following night. Augustus just rode, his mind mostly blank, but Call was sick with self-reproach. All his talk of being ready, all his preparation-and then he had just walked up to an Indian camp and let Josh Deets get killed. He had known better. They all knew better. He had known men killed by Indian boys no older than ten, and by old Indian women who looked as if they could barely walk. Any Indian might kill you: that was the first law of the Rangers. And yet they had just walked in, and now Josh Deets was gone. He had never called the man by his first name, but now he remembered Gus's foolish sign and how Deets had been troubled by it. Deets had finally concluded that his first name was Josh-that was the way he would think of him from then on, Call decided. He had been Josh Deets. It deepened his sense of reproach that, only a few days before, Josh Deets had been so thoughtful as to lead his horse through the sandstorm, recognizing that he himself was played out.

Then he had stood there with a rifle in his hands and let the man be killed. They had all concluded the Indians were too starved down to do anything. It was a mistake he would never forgive himself.

"I think he knowed it was coming," Augustus said, to Call's surprise, as they rode through the cracked valleys toward the Salt Creek.

"What do you mean, knowed it?" Call asked. "He didn't know it. It was just that one boy who showed any fight."

"I think he knowed it," Augustus said. "He just stood there waiting."

"He had that baby in his hands," Call reminded him.

"He could have dropped that baby," Augustus said.

They came back the second night to where the herd had been, only to find it gone. Josh Deets had begun to smell.

"We could bury him here," Augustus said.

Call looked around at the empty range.

"We ain't gonna find no churchyard, if that's what you're looking for," Augustus said.

"Let's take him on," Call said. "The men will want to pay their respects. I imagine we can catch them tonight."

They caught the herd not long before dawn. Dish Boggett was the night herder who saw them coming. He was very relieved, for with both of them gone, the herd had been his responsibility. Since he didn't know the country, it was a heavy responsibility, and he had been hoping the bosses would get back soon. When he saw them he felt a little proud of himself, for he had kept the cattle on grass and had moved them along nicely.

"Mornin', Captain," he said. Then he noticed that something was wrong. There were three horses, not counting the stolen ones, but only two riders. There was something on the third horse, but it wasn't a rider. It was only a body.

"Who's that, Gus?" he asked, startled.

"It's what's left of Deets," Augustus said. "I hope the cook's awake." After feeling nothing for two days, he had begun to feel hungry.

Newt had taken the middle watch and was sleeping soundly when dawn broke. He was using his saddle for a pillow and had covered himself with a saddle blanket as the nights had begun to be quite cool.

The sound of voices reached him. One belonged to the Captain, the other to Mr. Gus. Po Campo's voice could be heard, too, and Dish Boggett said something. Newt opened his eyes a moment and saw they were all kneeling by something on the ground. Maybe they had killed an antelope. He was very drowsy and wanted to go back to sleep. He closed his eyes again, then opened them. It wasn't an antelope. He sat up and saw that Po Campo was kneeling down, twisting on something. Someone had been hurt and Po was trying to pull a stob of some kind out of his body. He was straining hard, but the stob wouldn't come out. He stopped trying, and Dish, who had been holding the wounded man down, turned away suddenly, white and sick.

When Dish moved, Newt saw Deets. He was in the process of yawning when he saw him. Instead of springing up, he lay back down and pulled his blanket tighter. He opened his eyes and looked, and then shut them tightly. He felt angry at the men for having talked so loud that they had awakened him. He wished they would all die, if that was the best they could do. He wanted to go back to sleep. He wanted it to be one of those dreams that you wake up from just as the dream gets bad. He felt that was probably what it was. When he opened his eyes again he wouldn't see Deets's body lying on the wagon sheet a few yards away.

Yet it didn't work. He couldn't go back to sleep, and when he sat up the body was there-though if it hadn't been black he might not have known it was Deets.

He looked and saw that Pea Eye knelt on the other side of the body, looking dazed. Far away, toward the river, he saw the Captain and Lippy, digging. Mr. Gus sat by himself, near the cook fire, eating. The three horses had been unsaddled but no one had returned them to the remuda. They grazed nearby. Most of the hands stood in a group near Deets's feet, just looking as Po Campo worked.

Finally Po Campo gave up. "Better to bury him with it," he said. "I would have liked to see that boy. The lance went all the way to his collarbone. It went through the heart."

Newt sat in his blankets, feeling alone. No one noticed him or spoke to him. No one explained Deets's death. Newt began to cry, but no one noticed that either. The sun had risen, and everyone was busy with what they were doing, Mr. Gus eating, the Captain and Lippy digging the grave. Soupy Jones was repairing a stirrup and talking in subdued tones to Bert Borum. Newt sat and cried, wondering if Deets knew anything about what was going on. The Irishman and Needle and the Rainey boys held the herd. It was a beautiful morning, too-mountains seemed closer. Newt wondered if Deets knew about any of it. He didn't look at the corpse again, but he wondered if Deets had kept on knowing, somehow. He felt he did. He felt that if anyone was taking any notice of him, it was probably Deets, who had always been his friend. It was only the thought that Deets was still knowing him, somehow, that kept him from feeling totally alone.

Even so, the Deets who had walked around and smiled and been kind to him day after day, through the years-that Deets was dead. Newt sat in his blankets and cried until he was afraid he would never stop. No one seemed to notice. No one said anything to him as preparations for burying Deets went on.

Pea Eye didn't cry, but he was so shaken he went weak in the legs.

"Well, my lord," he said, from time to time. "My lord." An Indian boy had killed him, the Captain said. Deets was still wearing a pair of the old patchy quilt pants that he had favored for so long. Pea Eye scarcely knew what to think. He and Deets had been the main hired help on the Hat Creek outfit ever since there had been a Hat Creek outfit. Now it was down to him. It would mean a lot more chores for him, undoubtedly, for the Captain only trusted the two of them with certain chores. He remembered that he and Deets had had a pretty good conversation once. He had been vaguely planning to have another one with him if the chance came along. Of course that was off, now. Pea Eye went over and leaned against a wagon wheel, wishing he could stop feeling weak in the legs.

The other hands were somber. Soupy Jones and Bert Borum, who didn't feel it appropriate for white men to talk much to niggers, exchanged the view that nevertheless this one had been uncommonly decent. Needle Nelson offered to help dig the grave, for Deets had been the man who finally turned the Texas bull the day the bull got after him. Dish Boggett hadn't said much to Deets, either, but he had often been cheered, from his position on the point, to see Deets come riding back through the heat waves. It meant he was on course, and that water was somewhere near. Dish wished he had said more to the man at some point.

Lippy offered to help with the grave-digging, and Call let him. It was the task that usually got assigned to Deets himself, grave-digging. Call had laid many a compañero in graves Josh Deets had dug, including, most recently, Jake Spoon. Lippy was not a good digger-in fact, he was mostly in the way, but Call tolerated him. Lippy also talked constantly, saying nothing. They were digging on a little rise, north of the juncture of where Salt Creek joined the Powder River.

Augustus wrapped Deets carefully in a piece of wagon sheet and tied the sheet around him with heavy cord.

"A shroud for a journey," Augustus said.

No one else said anything. They loaded Deets in the wagon. Newt finally got out of his blanket, though he was almost blind from crying.

Po Campo led the team down to the grave and Deets was put in and quickly covered. The Irishman, unasked, began to sing a song of mourning so sad that all the cowboys at once began to cry, even the Spettle boy, who had not shed a tear when his own brother was buried.

Augustus turned and walked away. "I hate funerals," he said. "Particularly this one."

"At the rate we're dropping off, there won't be many of us left by the time we get to Montany," Lippy said, as they were all walking back to camp.

They expected to start the herd that day, as Captain Call had never been known to linger. But this time he did. He came back from the grave, got a big hammer and knocked a board loose from the side of the wagon. He didn't explain what he was doing to anyone, and the look on his face discouraged anyone from asking. He took the board and carried it down to the grave. The rest of the day he sat alone by Deets's grave, carving something into it with his knife. The sun flashed on his knife, and the cowhands watched in puzzlement. They just didn't know what it could be that would take the Captain so long.

"He had a short name," Lippy observed.

"It wasn't his full name," Newt pointed out. He had stopped crying but he felt empty.

"What was the other one then?" Jasper asked.

"It was Josh."

"Well, I swear," Jasper said. "That's a fine name. Starts with a J, like mine. We could have been calling him that all the time, if we'd known."

Then they heard the sound of the hammer-it was the big hammer that they used for straightening the rims of the wagon wheels. Captain Call was hammering the long board deep into the dirt by the grave.

Augustus, who had sat by himself most of the day, walked over and squatted down by Newt, who sat a little way apart. He had been afraid he would start crying again and wanted a little privacy.

"Let's go see what he wrote for old Deets," Augustus said. "I've seen your father bury many a man, but I never saw him take this kind of pains."

Newt hadn't really been listening. He had just been sitting there, feeling numb. When he heard Augustus mention his father, the words sank into the numbness for a minute and didn't affect him.

Then they did. "My what?" Newt asked.

"Your father," Augustus said. "Your pa."

Newt thought it an odd time for Mr. Gus to make a joke. The Captain wasn't his pa. Perhaps Mr. Gus had been so affected by Deets's death that he had gone a little crazy. Newt stood up. He thought it best just to ignore the remark-he didn't want to embarrass Mr. Gus at such a time. The Captain was still hammering, driving the long board into the hard ground.

They walked down to the grave. Call had finished his hammering and stood resting. Two or three of the cowboys trailed back to the grave, a little tentative, not sure they were invited.

Captain Call had carved the words deeply into the rough board so that the wind and sand couldn't quickly rub them out.

JOSH DEETS

SERVED WITH ME 30 YEARS. FOUGHT IN 21 ENGAGEMENTS

WITH THE COMMANCHE AND KIOWA. CHERFUL IN ALL

WEATHERS, NEVER SHERKED A TASK. SPLENDID BEHAVIOUR.

The cowboys came down one by one and looked at it in silence. Po Campo crossed himself. Augustus took something out of his pocket. It was the medal the Governor of Texas had given him for service on the border during the hard war years. Call had one too. The medal had a green ribbon on it, but the color had mostly faded out. Augustus made a loop of the ribbon and put the loop over the grave board and tied it tightly. Captain Call had walked away to put up the hammer. Augustus followed. Lippy, who had not cried all day, suddenly began to sob, tears running into his loose lip.

"I do wish I'd just stayed in Lonesome Dove," he said, when he stopped crying.

91.

THEY TRAILED THE HERD up the Powder River, whose water none of the cowboys liked. A few complained of stomach cramps and others said the water affected their bowel movements. Jasper Fant in particular had taken to watching his own droppings closely. They were coming out almost white, when any came out at all. It seemed an ominous sign.

"I've met ladies that wasn't as finicky as you, Jasper," Augustus said, but he didn't bother to tease Jasper very hard. The whole camp was subdued by Deets's death. They were not missing Deets so much, most of them, as wondering what fate awaited them in the north.

When they crossed the Powder they could see the Bighorn Mountains looming to the west-not really close, but close enough that anyone could see the snow on top of them. The nights began to be cold, and many of the hands began to regret the fact that they had not bought better coats in Ogallala when they had the opportunity.

The discussions around the campfire began to focus mainly on storms. Many of the hands had experienced plains northers and the occasional ice storm, but they were south Texas cowhands and had seldom seen snow. A few talked of loping over to the mountains to examine the snow at close range and see what it was like.

Newt had always been interested in snow, and looked at the mountains often, but in the weeks following Deets's death he found it difficult to care much about anything, even snow. He didn't pay much attention to the talk of storms, and didn't really care if they all froze, herd and hands together.

Occasionally the strange remark Mr. Gus had made came back to him. He didn't know what to make of it-the clear meaning had been that Captain Call was his father. It didn't make sense to Newt. If the Captain had been his father, surely he would have mentioned it at some point in the last seventeen years.

At other times the question would have excited him, but under the circumstances he felt too dull to care much. Set beside the fact that Deets was gone, it didn't seem to matter greatly.

Anyway, if Newt had wanted to question the Captain about it, he would have had a hard time catching him. The Captain took Deets's job and spent his days ranging far ahead. Usually he only rode back to the herd about dark, to guide them to a bed-ground. Once during the day he had come back in a high lope to report that he had crossed the tracks of about forty Indians. The Indians had been heading northwest, the same direction they were heading.

For the next few days everyone was tense, expecting Indian attack. Several men took alarm at the sight of what turned out to be sagebrush or low bushes. No one could sleep at night, and even those hands who were not on guard spent much of the night checking and rechecking their ammunition. The Irishman was afraid to sing on night duty for fear of leading the Indians straight to them. In fact, night herding became highly unpopular with everyone, and instead of gambling for money men began to gamble over who took what watch. The midnight watch was the most unpopular. No one wanted to leave the campfire: the men who came in from the watches did so with profound relief, and the men who went out assumed they were going to their deaths. Some almost cried. Needle Nelson trembled so that he could barely get his foot in his stirrup. Jasper Fant sometimes even got off and walked when he was on the far side of the herd, reasoning that the Indians would be less likely to spot him if he was on foot.

But a week passed and they saw no Indians. The men relaxed a little. Antelope became more common, and twice they saw small groups of buffalo. Once the remuda took fright in the night; the next morning Call found the tracks of a cougar.

The country began to change slightly for the better. The grass improved, and occasionally there were clumps of trees and bushes along the river bed. It was still hot in the afternoon, but the mornings were crisp.

Finally Call decided to leave the valley of the Powder. He felt the threat of drought was over. The grass was thick and wavy and there were plenty of streams. Not long after leaving the Powder, they crossed Crazy Woman Creek. Every day it seemed there was more snow on the mountains. Traveling became comparatively easy, and the cattle regained most of the flesh they had lost on the hard drive.

Almost daily, from then on, Call saw Indian sign, but no Indians. It bothered him a little. He had fought Indians long enough not to underrate them, but neither did he exaggerate their capacities. Talk of Indians was never accurate, in his view. It always made them seem worse or better than they were. He preferred to judge the northern Indians with his own eyes, but in this case the Indians didn't oblige him.

"We're driving three thousand cattle," Call said. "They're bound to notice us."

"They ain't expecting cattle," Augustus said. "There's never been cattle here before. They're probably just out hunting, trying to lay in enough meat to last them the winter."

"I guess we'll meet soon enough," Call said.

"If not too soon. They may come biling out of them hills and wipe us out any day. Then they'd have enough meat to last the winter. They'd be rich Indians, and we'd be dead fools."

"Fools for doing what?" Call asked. "This country's looking better all the time."

"Fools for living the lives we've lived," Augustus said.

"I've enjoyed mine," Call said. "What was wrong with yours?"

"I should have married again," Augustus said. "Two wives ain't very many. Solomon beat me by several hundred, although I've got the same equipment he had. I could have managed eight or ten at least. I don't know why I stuck with this scraggly old crew."

"Because you didn't have to work, I guess," Call said. "You sat around, and we worked."

"I was working in my head, you see," Augustus said. "I was trying to figure out life. If I'd had a couple more fat women to lay around with I might have figured out the puzzle."

"I never understood why you didn't stay in Tennessee, if your family was rich," Call said.

"Well, it was tame, that's why," Augustus said. "I didn't want to be a doctor or a lawyer, and there wasn't nothing else to do in those parts. I'd rather go outlaw than be a doctor or a lawyer."

The next day, as they were trailing along a little stream that branched off Crazy Woman Creek, Dish Boggett's horse suddenly threw up its head and bolted. Dish was surprised and embarrassed. It had been a peaceful morning, and he was half asleep when he discovered he was in a runaway, headed back for the wagon. He sawed on the reins with all his might but the bit seemed to make no difference to the horse.

The cattle began to turn too, all except the Texas bull, who let out a loud bellow.

Call saw the runaway without seeing what caused it at first. He and Augustus were riding along together, discussing how far west they ought to go before angling north again.

"Reckon that horse ate loco weed or what?" Call asked, spurring up to go help hold the cattle. He almost went over the mare's neck, for he leaned forward, expecting her to break into a lope, and the mare stopped dead. It was a shock, for she had been quite obedient lately and had tried no tricks.

"Call, look," Augustus said.

There was a thicket of low trees along the creek, and a large, orangish-brown animal had just come out of the thicket.

"My lord, it's a grizzly," Call said.

Augustus didn't have time to reply, for his horse suddenly began to buck. All the cowhands were having trouble with their mounts. The horses were turning and running as if they meant to run back to Texas. Augustus, riding a horse that hadn't bucked in several years, was almost thrown.

Instead of fleeing, most of the cattle turned and looked at the bear. The Texas bull stood all by himself in front of the herd.

Call drew his rifle and tried to urge the Hell Bitch a little closer, but had no luck. She moved, but she moved sideways, always keeping her eyes fixed on the bear, though it was a good hundred and fifty yards away. No matter how he spurred her, the mare sidestepped, as if there were an invisible line on the prairie that she would not cross.

"Damnation, there goes the grub," Augustus said. He had managed to subdue his mount.

Call looked and saw that the mules were dashing off back toward the Powder, Lippy sawing futilely on the reins and bouncing a foot off the wagon seat from time to time.

"Captain, it's a bear," Dish Boggett said. He had managed to turn his horse in a wide circle, but he couldn't stop him and he yelled the words as he raced past.

There was confusion everywhere. The remuda was running south, carrying the Spettle boy along with it. Two or three of the men had been thrown and their mounts were fleeing south. The thrown cowhands, expecting to die any minute, though they had no idea what was attacking, crept around with their pistols drawn.

"I expect they'll start shooting one another right off," Augustus said. "They'll mistake one another for outlaws if they ain't stopped."

"Go stop them," Call said. He could do nothing except watch the bear and hold the mare more or less in place. So far, the bear had done nothing except stand on its hind legs and sniff the air. It was a very large bear, though; to Call it looked larger than a buffalo.

"Hell, I don't care if they shoot at one another," Augustus said. "None of them can hit anything. I doubt we'll lose many."

He studied the bear for a time. The bear was not making any trouble, but he apparently had no intention of moving either. "I doubt that bear has ever seen a brindle bull before," Augustus said. "He's a mite surprised, and you can't blame him."

"Dern, that's a bit big bear," Call said.

"Yes, and he put the whole outfit to flight just by walking up out of the creek," Augustus said.

Indeed, the Hat Creek outfit was in disarray, the wagon and the remuda still fleeing south, half the hands thrown and the other half fighting their horses. The cattle hadn't run yet, but they were nervous. Newt had been thrown sky-high off the sorrel Clara had given him and had landed painfully on his tailbone. He started to limp back to the wagon, only to discover that the wagon was gone. All that was left of it was Po Campo, who looked puzzled. He was too short to see over the cattle and had no idea there was a bear around.

"Is it Indians?" Newt asked. He had not yet seen the bear either.

"I don't know what it is," Po Campo said. "But it's something mules don't like."

Only the two pigs were relatively undisturbed. A sack of potatoes had bounced out of the fleeing wagon and the pigs were calmly eating them, grunting now and then with satisfaction.

The Texas bull was the only animal directly facing the bear. The bull let out a challenging bellow and began to paw the earth. He took a few steps forward and pawed the earth again, throwing clouds of dust above his back.

"You don't think that little bull is fool enough to charge that bear, do you?" Augustus asked. "Charging Needle Nelson is one thing. That bear'll turn him wrong side out."

"Well, if you want to go rope that bull and lead him to the barn, help yourself," Call said. "I can't do nothing with this horse."

The bull trotted forward another few steps and stopped again. He was no more than thirty or forty yards from the bear. The bear dropped on all fours, watching the bull. He growled a rough, throaty growl that caused a hundred or so cattle to scatter and run back a short distance. They stopped again to watch. The bull bellowed and slung a string of slobber over his back. He was hot and angry. He pawed the earth again, then lowered his head and charged the bear.

To the amazement of all who saw it, the bear batted the Texas bull aside. He rose on his hind legs again, dealt the bull a swipe with his forepaw that knocked the bull off its feet. The bull was up in a second and charged the bear again-this time it seemed the bear almost skinned him. He hit the bull on the shoulder and ripped a capelike piece of skin loose on his back, but despite that, the bull managed to drive into the bear and thrust a horn into his flank. The bear roared and dug his teeth into the bull's neck, but the bull was still moving, and soon bear and bull were rolling over and over in the dust, the bull's bellows and the bear's roar so loud that the cattle did panic and begin to run. The Hell Bitch danced backward, and Augustus's horse began to pitch again and threw him, though Augustus held the rein and managed to get his rifle out of the scabbard before the horse broke free and fled. Then Call found himself thrown too; the Hell Bitch, catlike, had simply doubled out from under him.

It came at an inopportune moment too, for the bull and the bear, twisting like cats, had left the creek bank and were moving in the direction of the herd, although the dust the battle raised was so thick no one could see who had the advantage. It seemed to Call, when he looked, that the bull was being ripped to pieces by the bear's teeth and claws, but at least once the bull knocked the bear backward and got a horn into him again.

"Reckon we ought to shoot?" Augustus said. "Hell, this outfit will run clean back to the Red River if this keeps up."

"ii you shoot, you might hit the bull," Call said. "Then we'd have to fight the bear ourselves, and I ain't sure we can stop him. That's a pretty mad bear."

Po Campo came up, holding his shotgun, Newt a few steps behind him. Most of the men had been thrown and were watching the battle tensely, clutching their guns.

The sounds the two animals made were so frightening that they made the men want to run. Jasper Fant wanted badly to run-he just didn't want to run alone. Now and then he would see the bear's head, teeth bared, or his great claws slashing; now and then he would see the bull seem to turn to bunched muscle as he tried to force the bear backward. Both were bleeding, and in the heat the blood smell was so strong that Newt almost gagged.

Then it stopped. Everyone expected to see the bull down-but the bull wasn't down. Neither was the bear. They broke apart, circling one another in the dust. Everyone prepared to pour bullets into the bear if he should charge their way, but the bear didn't charge. He Snarled at the bull, the bull answering with a slobbery bellow. The bull turned back toward the herd, then stopped and faced the bear. The bear rose on his hind legs again, still snarling-one side was soaked with blood. To the men, the bear seemed to tower over them, although fifty yards away. In a minute he dropped back on all fours, roared once more at the bull, and disappeared into the brush along the creek.

"Captain, can we go after him?" Soupy Jones said, clutching his rifle.

"Go after him on what?" Augustus asked. "Have you gone daft, Soupy? You want to chase a grizzly bear on foot, after what you've seen? You wouldn't even make one good bite for that bear."

The bear had crossed the stream and was ambling along lazily across the open plain.

Despite Augustus's cautions, as soon as the men could catch their horses, five of them, including Dish Boggett, Soupy, Bert, the Irishman and Needle Nelson, raced after the bear, still visible though a mile or more away. They began to fire long before they were in range, and the bear loped toward the mountains. An hour later the men returned, their horses run down, but with no bear trophies.

"We hit him but he was faster than we thought," Soupy explained. "He got in some trees up toward the hills."

"We'll get the next one," Bert predicted.

"Hell, if he was in the trees, you should have gone in and tapped him with your pistol butt," Augustus said. "That would probably have tamed him."

"Well, the horses wouldn't go in them trees," Soupy explained.

"I didn't want to either," Allen O'Brien admitted. "If we had gone in the trees we might not have come out."

The mules had run three miles before stopping, but because the plain was fairly smooth, the wagon was undamaged. The same could not be said for Lippy, who had bounced so hard at one point that he had bitten his tongue nearly in two. The tongue bled for hours, little streams of blood spilling over his long lip. The remuda was eventually rounded up, as well as the cattle.

When the Texas bull calmed down enough so that it was possible to approach him, his wounds seemed so extensive that Call at first considered shooting him. He had only one eye, the other having been raked out, and the skin had been ripped off his neck and hung like a blanket over one shoulder. There was a deep gash in his flank and a claw wound running almost the whole length of his back. One horn had been broken off at the skull as if with a sledgehammer. Yet the bull still pawed the earth and bellowed when the cowboys rode too close.

"It seems a pity to shoot him," Augustus said. "He fought a draw with a grizzly. Not many critters can say that."

"He can't walk to Montana with half his skin hanging off his shoulders," Call pointed out. "The flies will get on that wound and he'll die anyway."

Po Campo walked to within fifty feet of the bull and looked at him.

"I can sew him up," he said. "He might live. Somebody catch him for me."

"Yes, rope him, Dish," Augustus said. "It's your job. You're our top hand."

Dish had to do it or be embarrassed by his failure for the rest of the trip. His horse didn't want to go near the bull, and he missed two throws from nervousness and expected to be killed himself if he did catch the animal. But he finally got a rope over the bull's head and slowed him until four more ropes could be thrown on him.

Even then, it was all they could do to throw the bull, and it took Po Campo over two hours to sew the huge flap of skin back in place. When it was necessary to turn the bull from one side to another, it took virtually the whole crew, plus five horses and ropes, to keep him from getting up again. Then, when the bull did roll, he nearly rolled on Needle Nelson, who hated him anyway and didn't approve of all the doctoring. When the bull nearly rolled on him Needle retreated to the wagon and refused to come near him again. "I was rooting for the bear," he said. "A bull like that is going to get somebody sooner or later, and it might be me."

The next day the bull was so sore he could barely hobble, and Call feared the doctoring had been in vain. The bull fell so far behind the herd that they decided to leave him. He fell several miles behind in the course of the day. Call kept looking back, expecting to see buzzards in the sky-if the bull finally dropped, they would feast.

But he saw no buzzards, and a week after the fight the bull was in the herd again. No one had seen him return, but one morning he was there. He had only one horn and one eye, and Po Campo's sewing job was somewhat uneven, the folds of skin having separated in two or three places-but the bull was ornery as ever, bellowing at the cowboys when they came too close. He resumed his habit of keeping well to the front of the herd. His wounds only made him more irascible; the hands gave him a wide berth.

As a result of the battle, night herding became even more unpopular. Where there was one grizzly bear, there could be others. The men who had been worrying constantly about Indians began to worry about bears. Those who had chased the wounded bear horseback could not stop talking about how fast he had moved. Though he had only seemed to be loping along, he had easily run off and left them. "There ain't a horse in this outfit that bear couldn't catch, if he wanted to," Dish contended.

The observation worried Jasper Fant so much that he lost his appetite and his ability to sleep. He lay awake in his blankets for three nights, clutching his gun-and when he couldn't avoid night herding he felt such anxiety that he usually threw up whatever he ate. He would have quit the outfit, but that would only mean crossing hundreds of miles of bear-infested prairie alone, a prospect he couldn't face. He decided if he ever got to a town where there was a railroad, he would take a train, no matter where it was going.

Pea Eye, too, found the prospect of bears disturbing. "If we strike any more, let's all shoot at once," he suggested to the men repeatedly. "I guess if enough of us hit one it'd fall," he always added. But no one seemed convinced, and no one bothered to reply.

92.

WHEN SALLY AND BETSEY asked her questions about her past, Lorena was perplexed. They were just girls-she couldn't tell them the truth. They both idolized her and made much of her adventure in crossing the prairies. Betsey had a lively curiosity and could ask about a hundred questions an hour. Sally was more reserved and often chided her sister for prying into Lorena's affairs.

"She don't have to tell you about her whole life," Sally would protest. "Maybe she can't remember. I can only remember back to when I was three."

"What happened when you was three?" Lorena asked.

"That old turkey pecked me," Sally said. "A wolf got him and I'm glad."

Clara overheard part of the conversation. "I'm getting some more turkeys pretty soon," she said. "Lorie's so good with the poultry, I think we might raise a few."

The poultry chores had been assigned to Lorena-mainly just feeding the twenty-five or thirty hens and gathering the eggs. At first it seemed that such a small household couldn't possibly need so many eggs, and yet they absorbed them effortlessly. July Johnson was a big egg eater, and Clara, who had a ferocious sweet tooth, used them in the cakes she was always making. She made so many cakes that everyone got tired of them except her.

"I got to have sweets, at least," Clara said, eating a piece of cake before she went to bed, or again while she was cooking breakfast. "Sweets make up for a lot."

It didn't seem to Lorena that Clara had that much that needed making up for. She mostly did what she pleased, and what she pleased usually had to do with horses. Housework didn't interest her, and washing, in particular, didn't interest her. That became Lorena's job too, though the girls helped her. They asked questions all the time they worked, and Lorena just gave them whatever answers came into her head-few of them true answers. She didn't know if the answers fooled them-the girls were smart. Sometimes she knew she didn't fool them.

"Are you gonna marry that man?" Betsey asked one day. "He's already got white hair."

"That's no reason not to marry him," Sally said.

"It is, too," Betsey insisted. "If he's got white hair he could die any time."

Lorena found that she didn't think about Gus all that much. She was glad she had stayed at Clara's. For almost the first time in her life she had a decent bed in a clean room and tasteful meals and people around who were kind to her. She liked having a whole room to herself, alone. Of course, she had had a room in Lonesome Dove, but it hadn't been the same. Men could come into that room-letting them in was a condition of having it. But she didn't have to let anyone into her room in Clara's house, though often she did let Betsey, who suffered from nightmares, into it. One night Betsey stumbled in, crying-Clara was out of the house, taking one of the strange walks she liked to take. Lorena was surprised and offered to go find Clara, but Betsey wasn't listening. She came into the bed like a small animal and snuggled into Lorena's arms. Lorena let her stay the night, and from then on, when Betsey had a nightmare, she came to Lorena's room and Lorena soothed her.

Only now and then did she miss Gus, though then she missed him with a painful ache and felt almost desperate to see him. At such times she felt cowardly for not having gone with him, though, of course, he himself had urged her to stay. She didn't miss the rest of it at all-the cowboys watching her and thinking things about her, the hot tent, the unpredictable storms and the fleas and mosquitoes that were always there.

She didn't miss the fear, either-the fear that someday Gus would be off somewhere and Blue Duck would come back. What had happened had been bad enough, but she knew if he ever got her again it would be worse. Fearing him and missing Gus were mixed together, for Gus was the only person who could protect her from him.

Unlike the girls, Clara seldom asked her any questions. Lorena came to wish that she would. For a while she had an urge to apologize to Clara for not having always been able to be a lady. It still seemed to her a miracle that she had been allowed to stay in Clara's house and be one of the family. She looked for it to go bad in some way, but it didn't go bad. The only thing that changed was that Clara spent more and more time with the horses, and less and less time in the house.

"You came at a good time," she said one day as Lorena was coming in from feeding the hens. It was a task Lorena enjoyed-she liked the way the hens chirped and complained.

"How's that?" Lorena asked.

"I nagged Bob to build this house, and I don't really care about a house," Clara said. "We needed it for the girls, but that wasn't why I built it. I just wanted to nag him into it and I did. The main reason was he wouldn't let me work with the horses, although I'm better with them than he ever was. But he didn't think it fitting-so I thought, All right then, Bob, build me a house. But I'd rather be down with the horses, and now there's nothing to stop me."

Two weeks later, Bob died in the night. Clara went in in the morning to change him, and found him dead. He looked exactly as he had: he just was no longer breathing. He weighed so little by then that she could lift him. Having long concluded that he would die, she had had Cholo bring a pine coffin from town. He had brought it in at night and hidden it from the girls. It was ready.

Clara closed Bob's eyes and sat with her memories for an hour. The girls were downstairs now, pestering Lorena and eating. Now and then she could hear their laughter.

They were happy girls; they laughed often. It pleased Clara to hear them. She wondered if Bob could hear his two lively daughters laughing, as he lay dying. She wondered if it helped, if it made up in any way for her bad tempers and the deaths of the three boys. He had counted so on those boys-they would be his help, boys. Bob had never talked much, but the one thing he did talk about was how much they would get done once the boys got big enough to do their part of the work. Often, just hearing him describe the fences they would build, or the barns, or the cattle they would buy, Clara felt out of sorts-it made her feel very distant from Bob that he saw their boys mainly as hired hands that he wouldn't have to pay. He sees them different, she thought. For her part, she just liked to have them there. She liked to look at them as they sat around the table, liked to watch them swimming and frolicking in the river, liked to sit by them sometimes when they slept, listening to them breathe. Yet they had died, and both she and Bob lost what they loved-Bob his dreams of future work with his sons, she the immediate pleasure of having sons to look at, to touch, to scold and tease and kiss.

It struck her that endings were never as you would expect them to be. She had thought she would be relieved when Bob finally died. She hadn't felt he was part of their life anymore, and yet, now that he was gone, she knew he had been. A silent part, an uncomfortable part, but still there, still her husband, still the girls' father. He had been changed, but not removed.

Now he had gone where her boys had gone. As well as she knew the boys, as much as she loved them, time had robbed her of them. At times she found herself mixing details and events up, not in big ways but in small. In dreams she saw her sons' faces, and when she awoke could not remember which son she had dreamed about. She wondered if she would dream of Bob, and what she would remember if she thought of him in ten years. Their marriage had had few high spots. She had often been happy during it, but not because of anything Bob did. She had had more happiness from horses than from her husband, though he had been a decent husband, better than most women had, from what she could judge.

She didn't cry, but merely felt a wish, now he was gone, that she could somehow escape dealing with the tiresome formalities of death. Someone would have to go for a preacher; there would have to be some kind of funeral. They had no close neighbors, but the two or three closest would still feel they had to come, bring food, pay their respects.

She covered Bob with a clean sheet and went downstairs. Lorena was teaching the girls to play cards. They were playing poker for buttons. Clara stood in the shadows, wishing she didn't have to interrupt their fun. Why interrupt it for a death that couldn't be helped? And yet death was not something you could ignore. It had its weight. It was a dead man lying upstairs, not a man who was sick. It seemed to her she had better not form the practice of ignoring death. If she tried it, death would find a way to answer back-it would take another of her loved ones, to remind her to respect it.

So she walked into the room. Betsey had just won a hand. She whooped, for she loved to beat her sister. She was a beautiful child, with curls that would drive men mad some day. "I won the pot, Ma," she said, and then saw by the grave set of Clara's face that something was wrong.

"Good," Clara said. "A good cardplayer is just what this family needs. Now I have to tell you something sad. Your father's dead."

"Oh, he ain't!" Sally said.

"Honey, he died just now," Clara said.

Sally ran to her, but Betsey turned to Lorena, who was nearer. Lorena was surprised, but she put her arms around the child.

"Could you go get July?" Clara asked Lorena, when the girls had calmed a bit.

July now lived in a little room attached to the saddle shed. It wouldn't do when winter came, but for summer it was all right. He had never felt comfortable in the house with Clara and the girls, and since Lorena had come he felt even more uncomfortable. Lorena seldom spoke to him, and Clara mainly discussed horses, or other ranch problems, yet he felt nervous in their company. Day to day, he felt it was wrong to have taken the job with Clara. Sometimes he felt a strong longing to be back in his old job in Fort Smith, even if Roscoe was no longer alive to be his deputy.

But he had a son now, a baby he saw every day at supper and breakfast. His son was the darling of the ranch. The women and girls passed Martin around as if he belonged to them all; Lorena had developed a rapport with him and took the main responsibility for him when Clara was off with the horses. The baby was happy, and no wonder, with two women and two girls to spoil him. July could hardly imagine what the women would do if he tried to take the baby and raise him in Arkansas. Anyway, such a plan was not feasible.

So he stayed on and did his work, neither truly content nor bitterly discontented. He still dreamed of Elmira and felt an aching sadness when he thought about her.

Despite that ache, the thing that made July least comfortable of all was that he knew he was in love with Clara. The feeling had started even before he knew Elmira was dead, and it grew even when he knew he ought to be grieving for Elmira. He felt guilty about it, he felt hopeless about it, but it was true. At night he thought of her, and imagined her in her room, in her gown. At breakfast and supper he watched her, whenever he thought he could do so without her noticing. He had many opportunities, too, for she seemed to have ceased taking any notice of him at all. He had the sense that she had become disappointed in him, though he didn't know why. And when she did look at him it frightened him. Occasionally, when he caught Clara looking at him, he almost flinched, for he did not imagine that he could hide anything from her. She was too smart-he had the sense that she could figure out anything. Her eyes were mysterious to him-often she seemed to be amused by him, at other times irritated. Sometimes her eyes seemed to pierce him, as if she had decided to read his thoughts as she would read a book. And then, in a moment, she would lift her head and ignore him, as if he were a book she had glanced through and found too uninteresting for further perusal.

And she was married. Her husband lay sick above their heads, which made his love seem all the more hopeless. But it didn't stop the longing he felt for her. In his daydreams he fell to reinventing the past, imagining that he had married Clara instead of Elmira. He gave himself a very different marriage. Clara wouldn't sit in the loft with her feet dangling all day. She wouldn't have run off on a whiskey boat. Probably she wouldn't have cared that Jake Spoon shot Benny. He imagined them raising horses and children together.

Of course, they had begun to do just that-raise horses and children together. But the reality was far different from the daydream. They weren't together. He could not go into her room at night and talk to her. He knew that if he could, he probably wouldn't be able to think of much to say, or if he did and said something stupid, Clara would answer sharply. Still he longed for it and lay awake at night in his little shed, thinking of her.

He was doing that when Lorena came to tell him Bob was dead. Hearing the footsteps, he had the hope that it was Clara, and he pictured her face in his mind, not stern and impersonal, as it often was when she was directing some work, but soft and smiling, as it might be if she were playing with Martin at the dinner table.

He opened the door and saw to his surprise that it was Lorena.

"He died," Lorena said.

"Who?" July asked absently.

"Her husband," Lorena said.

Then she's free, July thought. He couldn't feel sad.

"Well, I guess it's for the best," he said. "The man wasn't getting no better."

Lorena noticed that he sounded happier than she had heard him sound since she arrived at the ranch. She knew exactly what it meant. She had often seen him looking at Clara with helpless love in his eyes. She herself didn't care one way or the other about July Johnson, but the dumb quality of his love annoyed her. Many men had looked at her that way, and she was not flattered by it. They wanted to pretend, such men, that they were different, that she was different, and that what might happen between them would be different than it would ever be. They wanted to pretend that they wanted pretty dresses and smiles, when what they really wanted was for her to lay down under them. That was the real wish beneath all the pretty wishes men had. And when she was under them, they could look down and pretend something pretty was happening, but she would look up and only see a dumb face above her, strained, dishonest and anything but pretty.

"She wants you to bring the coffin," she said to July, watching him. Let Clara worry about the man. Watching him only made her long for Gus. He gave things that no one else could give. He wasn't dumb, and he didn't pretend that he wanted smiles when he wanted a poke.

They put the coffin in the front room, and July carried the frail corpse downstairs and put him in the coffin. Then, on Clara's instructions, he rode off to inform the few neighbors and to find a preacher. Clara and Lorena and the girls sat with the body all night, while Cholo dug a grave on the ridge above the barn where the boys were buried. Betsey slept most of the night in Lorena's arms-Clara thought it nice that she had taken to the young woman so.

At dawn Clara went out and took Cholo some coffee. He had finished digging and was sitting on the mound of earth that would soon cover Bob. Walking toward the ridge in the early sunlight, Clara had the momentary sense that they were all watching her, the boys and Bob. The vision lasted a second; it was Cholo who was watching her. It was windy, and the grass waved over the graves of her three boys-four now, she felt. In memory Bob seemed like a boy to her also. He had a boyish innocence and kept it to the end, despite the strains of work and marriage in a rough place. It often irritated her, that innocence of his. She had felt it to be laziness-it left her alone to do the thinking, which she resented. Yet she had loved it, too. He had never been a knowing man in the way that Gus was knowing, or even Jake Spoon. When she decided to marry Bob, Jake, who was a hothead, grew red in the face and proceeded to throw a fit. It disturbed him terribly that she had chosen someone he thought was dumb. Gus had been better behaved, if no less puzzled. She remembered how it pleased her to thwart them-to make them realize that her measure was different from theirs. "I'll always know where he is," she told Gus. It was the only explanation she ever offered.

Now, indeed, she would know where he was.

Cholo was watching her to see if she was hurt. He loved Clara completely and tried in small ways to make life easier for her, although he had concluded long before that she wasn't seeking ease. Often in the morning when she came down to the lots she would be somber and would stand by the fence for an hour, not saying a word to anyone. Other times there would be something working in her that scared the horses. He thought of Clara as like the clouds. Sometimes the small black clouds would pour out of the north; they seemed to roll over and over as they swept across the sky, like tumbleweeds. On some mornings things rolled inside Clara, and made her tense and snappish. She could do nothing with the horses on days like that. They became as she was, and Cholo would try gently to persuade her that it was not a good day to do the work. Other days, her spirit was quiet and calm and the horses felt that too. Those were the days they made progress training them.

Clara had brought two cups. She was very glad to be out of the house. She poured Cholo his coffee and then poured some for herself. She sat down on the mound of dirt beside him and looked into the open grave.

"Sometimes it seems like grave-digging is all we do," she said. "But that's wrong. I guess if we lived in a big town it wouldn't seem that way. I guess in New York there are so many people you don't notice the dying so much. People come faster than they go. Out here it shows more when people go-especially when it's your people."

"Mister Bob, he didn't know mares," Cholo said, remembering that ignorance had been his downfall.

"Nope," Clara said. "He didn't know mares."

They sat quietly for a while, drinking coffee. Watching Clara, Cholo felt sad. He did not believe she had ever been happy. Always her eyes seemed to be looking for something that wasn't there. She might look pleased for a time, watching her daughters or watching some young horse, but then the rolling would start inside her again and the pleased look would give way to one that was sad.

"What do you think happens when you die?" she asked, surprising him. Cholo shrugged. He had seen much death, but had not thought much about it. Time enough to think about it when it happened.

"Not too much," he said. "You're just dead."

"Maybe it ain't as big a change as we think," Clara said. "Maybe you just stay around near where you lived. Near your family, or wherever you was happiest. Only you're just a spirit, and you don't have the troubles the living have."

A minute later she shook her head, and stood up. "I guess that's silly," she said, and started back to the house.

That afternoon July came back with a minister. The two nearest neighbors came-German families. Clara had seen more of the men than of the women-the men would come to buy horses and stay for a meal. She almost regretted having notified them. Why should they interrupt their work just to see Bob put in the ground? They sang two hymns, the Germans singing loudly in poor English. Mrs. Jensch, the wife of one of the German farmers, weighed over three hundred pounds. The girls had a hard time not staring at her. The buggy she rode in tilted far to one side under her weight. The minister was invited to stay the night and got rather drunk after supper-he was known to drink too much, when he got the chance. His name was the Reverend Spinnow and he had a large purple birthmark under one ear. A widower, he was easily excited by the presence of women. He was writing a book on prophecy and rattled on about it as they all sat in the living room. Soon both Clara and Lorena felt like choking him.

"Will you be thinking of moving into town now, Mrs. Allen?" the Reverend asked hopefully. It was worth the inconvenience of a funeral way out in the country to sit with two women for a while.

"No, we'll be staying right here," Clara said.

July and Cholo carried out the mattress Bob had died on-it needed a good airing. Betsey cried a long time that night and Lorena went up to be with her. It was better than listening to a minister go on about prophecy.

The baby was colicky and Clara rocked him while the minister drank. July came in and asked if there was anything else she needed him to do.

"No," Clara said, but July sat down anyway. He felt he should offer to rock his son, but knew the baby would just cry louder if he took him away from Clara. The minister finally fell asleep on the sofa and then, to their surprise, rolled off on the floor and began to snore loudly.

"Do you want me to carry him out?" July asked, hoping to feel useful. "He could sleep in a wagon just as well."

"Let him lie," Clara said, thinking it had been an odd day. "I doubt it's the first time he's slept on a floor, and anyway he isn't your lookout."

She knew July was in love with her and was irritated that he was so awkward about it. He was as innocent as Bob, but she didn't feel moved to patience, in July's case. She would save her patience for his son, who slept at her breast, whimpering now and then. Soon she got up with the baby and went to her room, leaving July sitting silently in a chair while the drunken minister snored on the floor.

Once upstairs she called Sally. Sally had not cried much. When she came into Clara's room she looked drawn. Almost immediately she began to sob. Clara put the baby down and held her daughter.

"Oh, I'm so bad," Sally said, when she could talk. "I wanted Daddy to die. I didn't like it that he just lay up there with his eyes open. It was like he was a spook. Only now I wish he hadn't died."

"Hush," Clara said. "You ain't bad. I wanted him to die too."

"And now you wish he hadn't, Ma?" Sally asked.

"I wish he had been more careful around horses, is what I wish," Clara said.

93.

AS THE HERD and the Hat Creek outfit slowly rode into Montana out of the barren Wyoming plain, it seemed to all of them that they were leaving behind not only heat and drought, but ugliness and danger too. Instead of being chalky and covered with tough sage, the rolling plains were covered with tall grass and a sprinkling of yellow flowers. The roll of the plains got longer; the heat shimmers they had looked through all summer gave way to cool air, crisp in the mornings and cold at night. They rode for days beside the Bighorn Mountains, whose peaks were sometimes hidden in cloud.

The coolness of the air seemed to improve the men's eyesight-they fell to speculating about how many miles they could see. The plains stretched north before them. They saw plenty of game, mainly deer and antelope. Once they saw a large herd of elk, and twice small groups of buffalo. They saw no more bears, but bears were seldom far from their thoughts.

The cowboys had lived for months under the great bowl of the sky, and yet the Montana skies seemed deeper than the skies of Texas or Nebraska. Their depth and blueness robbed even the sun of its harsh force-it seemed smaller, in the vastness, and the whole sky no longer turned white at noon as it had in the lower plains. Always, somewhere to the north, there was a swath of blueness, with white clouds floating in it like petals in a pond.

Call had scarcely spoken since the death of Deets, but the beauty of the high prairies, the abundance of game, the coolness of the mornings finally raised his spirits. It was plain that Jake Spoon, who had been wrong about most things, had been right about Montana. It was a cattleman's paradise, and they were the only cattlemen in it. The grassy plains seemed limitless, stretching north. It was strange that they had seen no Indians, though. Often he mentioned this to Augustus.

"Custer didn't see them either," Augustus pointed out. "Not till he was caught. Now that we're here, do you plan to stop, or will we just keep going north till we get into the polar bears?"

"I plan to stop, but not yet," Call said. "We ain't crossed the Yellowstone. I like the thought of having the first ranch north of the Yellowstone."

"But you ain't a rancher," Augustus said.

"I guess I am now."

"No, you're a fighter," Augustus said. "We should have left these damn cows down in Texas. You used them as an excuse to come up here, when you ain't interested in them and didn't need an excuse anyway. I think we oughta just give them to the Indians when the Indians show up."

"Give the Indians three thousand cattle?" Call said, amazed at the notions his friend had. "Why do that?"

"Because then we'd be shut of them," Augustus said. "We could follow our noses, for a change, instead of following their asses. Ain't you bored?"

"I don't think like you do," Call said. "They're ours. We got 'em. I don't plan on giving them to anybody."

"I miss Texas and I miss whiskey," Augustus said. "Now here we are in Montana and there's no telling what will become of us."

"Miles City's up here somewhere," Call said. "You can buy whiskey."

"Yes, but I'll have to drink it indoors," Augustus complained. "It's cool up here."

As if to confirm his remark, the very next day an early storm blew out of the Bighorns. An icy wind came up and snow fell in the night. The men on night herd wrapped blankets around themselves to keep warm. A thin snow covered the plains in the morning, to the amazement of everyone. The Spettle boy was so astonished to wake and see it that he refused to come out of his blankets at first, afraid of what might happen. He lay wide-eyed, looking at the whiteness. Only when he saw the other hands tramping in it without ill effect did he get up.

Newt had been curious about snow all the way north, but he had lost his jacket somewhere in Kansas, and now that snow had actually fallen he felt too cold to enjoy it. All he wanted was to be warm again. He had taken his boots off when he lay down to sleep, and the snow had melted on his feet, getting his socks wet. His boots were a tight fit, and it was almost impossible to get them on over wet socks. He went over to the fire barefoot, hoping to dry his socks, but so many of the cowboys were huddled around the fire that he couldn't get a place at first.

Pea Eye had scooped up a handful of snow and was eating it. The Rainey boys had made snowballs, but all the cowboys were stiff and cold and looked threatening, so the Raineys merely threw the snowballs at one another.

"This snow tastes like hail, except that it's soft," Pea Eye observed.

The sun came out just then and shone so brightly on the white plains that some of the men had to shield their eyes. Newt finally got a place by the fire, but by then the Captain was anxious to move on and he didn't get to dry his socks. He tried to pull his boots on but had no luck until Po Campo noticed his difficulty and came over with a little flour, which he sprinkled in the boots.

"This will help," he said, and he was right, though getting the boots on still wasn't easy.

The sun soon melted the thin snow, and for the next week the days were hot again. Po Campo walked all day behind the wagon, followed by the pigs, who bored through the tall grass like moles-a sight that amused the cowboys, although Augustus worried that the pigs might stray off.

"We ought to let them ride in the wagon," he suggested to Call.

"I don't see why."

"Well, they've made history," Augustus pointed out.

"When?" Call asked. "I didn't notice."

"Why, they're the first pigs to walk all the way from Texas to Montana," Augustus said. "That's quite a feat for a pig."

"What will it get them?" Call inquired. "Eaten by a bear if they ain't careful, or eaten by us if they are. They've had a long walk for nothing."

"Yes, and the same's likely true for us," Augustus said, irritated that his friend wasn't more appreciative of pigs.

With Deets dead, Augustus and Call alternated the scouting duties. One day Augustus asked Newt to ride along with him, much to Newt's surprise. In the morning they saw a grizzly, but the bear was far upwind and didn't scent them. It was a beautiful day-no clouds in the sky. Augustus rode with his big rifle propped across the saddle-he was in the highest of spirits. They rode ahead of the herd some fifteen miles or more, and yet when they stopped to look back they could still see the cattle, tiny black dots in the middle of the plain, with the southern horizon still far behind them.

"I never thought to see so far," Newt said.

"Ain't it something," Augustus said with a grin. "This is rare country, this Montana. We're a lucky bunch. There ain't nothing better than this-though you don't have to tell your pa I said it."

Newt had decided it must be one of Mr. Gus's many jokes, making out that the Captain was his pa.

"I like to keep Woodrow feeling that he's caused a peck of trouble," Augustus said. "I don't want him to get sassy. But I wouldn't have missed coming up here. I can't think of nothing better than riding a fine horse into a new country. It's exactly what I was meant for, and Woodrow too."

"Do you think we'll see Indians?" Newt asked.

"You bet," Augustus said. "We might all get killed this afternoon, for all I know. That's the wild for you-it's got its dangers, which is part of the beauty. 'Course the Indians have had this land forever. To them it's precious because it's old. To us it's exciting because it's new."

Newt noticed that Mr. Gus had a keen look in his eye. His white hair was long, almost to his shoulders. There seemed to be no one who could enjoy himself like Mr. Gus.

"Now there's women, of course," Augustus said. "I do cotton to them. But I ain't found the one yet who could hold me back from a chance like this. Women are persistent creatures, and will try to nail you down. But if you just dance on off, you'll usually find them close to the spot where you left them-most of 'em."

"Do you really know who my pa is?" Newt asked. Mr. Gus was being so friendly, he felt he could ask.

"Oh, Woodrow Call is your pa, son," Augustus said, as if it were a matter of casual knowledge.

For the first time Newt felt it might be true, although extremely puzzling. "Well, he never mentioned it," he pointed out. Just being told such news didn't settle much. In fact it just made new problems, for if the Captain was his father, then why hadn't he mentioned it?

"It's a subtle problem," Augustus said.

Newt didn't find that a helpful answer, mainly because he didn't know what subtle meant. "Looks like he'd mention it," he said softly. He didn't want to criticize the Captain, especially not to Mr. Gus, the only man who did criticize the Captain.

"It wouldn't be his way, to mention it," Augustus said. "Woodrow don't mention nothing he can keep from mentioning. You couldn't call him a mentioner."

Newt found it very puzzling. If the Captain was his father, then he must have known his mother, but he had never mentioned that either. He could remember times when he had daydreamed that the Captain was his father and would take him on long trips.

Now, in a way, the daydream had come true. The Captain had taken him on a long trip. But instead of feeling proud and happy, he felt let down and confused. If it was true, why had everybody been such a long time mentioning it? Deets had never mentioned it. Pea Eye had never mentioned it. Worst of all, his mother had never mentioned it. He had been young when she died, but not too young to remember something so important. He could still remember some of the songs she had sung to him-he could have remembered who his father was. It didn't make sense, and he rode beside Mr. Gus for several miles, puzzling about it silently.

"Did you ask me along just to tell me?" Newt asked finally.

"Yep," Augustus admitted.

Newt knew he ought to thank him, but he didn't feel in the mood to thank anybody. The information just seemed to make his whole life more puzzling. It spoiled every good thing he had felt, for most of his life-not only about his mother, but about the Captain, and about the Hat Creek outfit as a whole.

"I know it's tardy news," Augustus said. "Since Woodrow ain't a mentioner, I thought I'd tell you. You never know what might happen."

"I wish I'd known sooner," Newt said-it was the one thing he was sure of.

"Yes, I expect you do," Augustus said. "I ought to have discussed it sooner, but it was really Woodrow's place to tell you and I kept hoping he'd do it, though I knew he wouldn't."

"Is it that he don't like me?" Newt asked. He felt a longing to be back in Texas. The news, coming when it did, had spoiled Montana.

"No," Augustus said. "What you have to understand is that Woodrow Call is a peculiar man. He likes to think that things are a certain way. He likes to think everybody does their duty, especially him. He likes to think people live for duty-I don't know what started him thinking that way. He ain't dumb. He knows perfectly well people don't live for duty. But he won't admit it about anybody if he can help it, and he especially won't admit it about himself."

Newt saw that Mr. Gus was laboring to explain it to him, but it was no good. So far as he could tell, the Captain did live for duty. What did that have to do with the Captain being his father?

"Woodrow don't like to admit that he's like the rest of us," Augustus said, seeing the boy's perplexity.

"He ain't," Newt said. That was obvious. The Captain never behaved like other people.

"He ain't, that's true," Augustus said. "But he had a chance to be once. He turned his back on it, and now he ain't about to admit that he made the wrong choice. He'd as soon kill himself. He's got to keep trying to be the way he thinks he is, and he's got to make out that he was always that way-it's why he ain't owned up to being your pa."

Soon they turned and headed back toward the herd.

"It's funny," Augustus said. "I knew my pa. He was a gentleman. He didn't do much but raise horses and hounds and drink whiskey. He never hit me a lick in my life, nor even raised his voice to me. He drank whiskey every night and disappointed my mother, but both my sisters doted on him like he was the only man. In fact one of them's an old maid to this day because she doted on Dad.

"But he never interested me, Dad," he went on. "I lit out from that place when I was thirteen years old, and I ain't stopped yet. I didn't care one way or the other for Dad. I just seen that horses and hounds would get boring if you tried to make 'em a life. I 'spect I'd have wrecked every marriage in the county if I'd stayed in Tennessee. Or else have got killed in a duel."

Newt knew Mr. Gus was trying to be kind, but he wasn't listening. Much of his life he had wondered who his father was and where he might be. He felt it would be a relief to know. But now he knew, and it wasn't a relief. There was something in it that thrilled him-he was Captain Call's son-but more that felt sad. He was glad when Mr. Gus put the horses in a lope-he didn't have to think as much. They loped along over the grassy plains toward the cattle in the far distance. The cattle looked tiny as ants.

94.

THE MEN BEGAN TO TALK of the Yellowstone River as if it were the place where the world ended-or, at least, the place where the drive would end. In their thinking it had taken on a magical quality, partly because no one really knew anything about it. Jasper Fant had somehow picked up the rumor that the Yellowstone was the size of the Mississippi, and as deep. All the way north everyone had been trying to convince Jasper that it didn't really make any difference how deep a river was, once it got deep enough to swim a horse, but Jasper felt the argument violated common sense. The deeper the river, the more dangerous-that was axiomatic to him. He had heard about something called undercurrents, which could suck you down. The deeper the river, the farther down you could be sucked, and Jasper had a profound fear of being sucked down. Particularly he didn't want to be sucked down in the Yellowstone, and had made himself a pair of rude floats from some empty lard buckets, just in case the Yellowstone really did turn out to be as deep as the Mississippi.

"I didn't come all this way just to drown in the last dern river," Jasper said.

"It ain't the last," Augustus said. "Montana don't stop at the Yellowstone. The Missouri's up there somewhere, and it's a whale of a river."

"Well, I don't aim to cross it," Jasper said. It seemed to him he had spent half the trip imagining how it would be to be sucked down into a deep river, and he wanted it understood that he was only willing to take so many chances.

"I guess you'll cross it if the Captain wants to keep going," Dish said. Jasper's river fears grated on everybody's nerves. Nobody liked crossing rivers, but it didn't help to talk about the dangers constantly for three thousand miles.

"Well, Jake talked of a Milk River, and one called the Marais," Augustus said.

"Looks like you'd be satisfied," Jasper said. "Ain't we traveled enough? I'd like to step into a saloon in good old Fort Worth, myself. I'd like to see my home again while my folks are still alive."

"Why, that ain't the plan," Augustus said. "We're up here to start a ranch. Home and hearth don't interest us. We hired you men for life. You ought to have said goodbye to the old folks before you left."

"What are we going to do, now that we're here?" Lippy asked. The question was on everyone's minds. Usually when a cattle drive ended the men just turned around and went back to Texas, but then most drives stopped in Kansas, which seemed close to home compared to where they were now. Many of them harbored secret doubts about their ability to navigate a successful return to Texas. Of course, they knew the direction, but they would have to make the trip in winter, and the Indians that hadn't been troublesome on the way north might want to fight as they went south.

"I like a town," Lippy added. "It don't have to be St. Louis, just a town. As long as it has a saloon or two I can get by. But I wasn't meant to live out in the open during the winter."

Call knew the men were wondering, but he wasn't ready to stop. Jake had said some of the most beautiful land was far to the north, near Canada. It would be a pity to stop and make a choice before they had looked around thoroughly.

He contemplated leaving the men and going on a long look around himself, north of Yellowstone, but decided against it, mainly because of Indians. Things looked peaceful, but that didn't mean they would stay peaceful. There could easily be a bad fight, and he didn't want to be gone if one came.

Finally he decided to send Augustus. "I hate to give you the first look, but somebody's got to look," he said. "Would you want to go?"

"Oh, sure," Augustus said. "I'd be happy to get away from all this tedious conversation. Maybe I'll trot through this Miles City community and see if anyone stocks champagne."

"Take the look around first, if you can be bothered," Call said. "I doubt the main street of Miles Cty would make a good ranch, and I doubt you'll get any farther, once you spot a saloon. We need to find a place and get some shelters built before winter hits. Take a man with you, in case you get into trouble," Call suggested.

"I can get myself out of trouble," Augustus said. "But if I have to lead some quaking spirit like Jasper Fant it'll slow me down. None of these cowpokes is exactly wilderness hands. We buried the last reliable man down on the Powder, remember?"

"I remember," Call said.

"You don't want to make too many mistakes in this part of the country," Augustus said. "You'll end up bearshit."

"Take Pea," Call said. "Pea can follow orders."

"Yes, that's what he can do," Augustus said. "I guess I'll take him, though he won't provide much conversation."

Pea Eye was not enthusiastic about going on a scout with Gus, but since the Captain told him to, he tied his bedroll on his saddle and got ready. Other than securing his bedroll, his preparations consisted mainly of sharpening his knife. One thing Pea Eye firmly believed was that it was foolish to start on a trip without a sharp knife. Inevitably on a trip there were things that needed cutting or skinning or trimming. Once his knife was sharp, Pea Eye was ready, more or less. He knew he wouldn't get much relaxation on the trip because he was traveling with Gus, and Gus talked all the time. It was hard to relax when he had to be constantly listening. Besides, Gus was always asking questions which were hard to understand, much less answer.

It was a breezy morning when they started out-a dark cloud bank had formed in the northwest, and the men were talking of snow.

"I said way back in Lonesome Dove we'd be crossing the dern Yellowstone on the ice if we didn't get started," Jasper reminded them. "Now all this time has passed, and I may be right."

"Even if you was right, you'd be wrong, Jasper," Augustus said, as he stuffed an extra box or two of ammunition into his saddlebags.

"I'd like to know why, Gus," Jasper said, annoyed that Gus was always singling him out for criticism.

"I'll explain it when I get back," Augustus said. "Come on, Pea, let's go see if we can find Canada."

They loped off, watched by the whole camp. The crew had been made melancholy by the approaching clouds. Po Campo had wandered off looking for roots.

Augustus and Pea Eye passed him nearly a mile from camp. "Po, you're a rambler," Augustus said. "What do you expect to find on this old plain?"

"Wild onions," Po Campo said. "I'd like an onion."

"I'd like a jug of bourbon whiskey, myself," Augustus said. "I wonder which one of us will get his wish."

"Adios," Po Campo said.

A day and a half later the two scouts rode over a grassy bluff and saw the Yellowstone River, a few miles away. Fifty or sixty buffalo were watering when they rode up. At the sight of the horsemen the buffalo scattered. The cloud bank had blown away and the blue sky was clear for as far as one could see. The river was swift but not deep-Augustus paused in his crossing and leaned down, drinking from his cupped hands. The water was cold.

"Sweet water, but it don't compare with bourbon whiskey," he said.

"Jasper won't need them floats," Pea Eye remarked.

"He might," Augustus said. "He might fall off his horse if he gets real nervous. Let's chase the buffalo for a while."

"Why?" Pea asked. Po Campo had packed them plenty of meat. He couldn't imagine why Gus would bother with buffalo. They were cumbersome to skin, and he and Gus had no need for so much meat.

Nonetheless, it was follow or be left, for Augustus had loped off after the buffalo, who had only run about a mile. He soon put them to flight again and raced along beside them, riding close to the herd. Pea Eye, caught by surprise, was left far behind in the race. He kept expecting to hear Gus's big rifle, but he didn't, and after a run of about two miles came upon Gus sitting peacefully on a little rise. The buffalo were still running, two or three miles ahead.

"Kill any?" Pea asked.

"No, I wasn't hunting," Augustus said.

"Did you just want to run 'em off, or what?" Pea asked. As usual, Gus's behavior was a complete puzzle.

"Pea, you ain't got your grip on the point," Augustus said. "I just wanted to chase a buffalo once more. I won't have the chance much longer, and nobody else will either, because there won't be no buffalo to chase. It's a grand sport too."

"Them bulls can hook you," Pea Eye reminded him. "Remember old Barlow? A buffalo bull hooked his horse and the horse fell on Barlow and broke his hip."

"Barlow was a slow thinker," Augustus observed. "He just loped along and got hooked."

"A slow walker, too, once his hip got broke," Pea Eye said. "I wonder what happened to Barlow."

"I think he migrated to Seguin, or somewhere over in there," Augustus said. "Married a fat widow and had a passel of offspring. You ought to have done the same, but here you are in Montana."

"Well, I'd hate not to be a bachelor," Pea Eye said.

"Just because it's all you know don't mean it's all you'd enjoy," Augustus said. "You had a chance at a fine widow right there in Lonesome Dove, as I recall."

Pea Eye was sorry the subject of widows had come up. He had nearly forgotten the Widow Cole and the day he had helped her take the washing off the line. He didn't know why he hadn't forgotten it completely-he surely had forgotten more important things. Yet there it was, and from time to time it shoved into his brain. If he had married some widow his brain would probably have been so full of such things that he would have no time to think, or even to keep his knife sharp.

"Ever meet any of the mountain men?" Augustus asked. "They got up in here and took the beavers."

"Well, I met old Kit," Pea Eye said. "You ought to remember. You was there."

"Yes, I remember," Augustus said. "I never thought much of Kit Carson."

"Why, what was wrong with Kit Carson?" Pea Eye asked. "They say he could track anything."

"Kit was vain," Augustus said. "I won't tolerate vanity in a man, though I will in a woman. If I had gone north in my youth I might have got to be a mountain man, but I took to riverboating instead. The whores on them riverboats in my day barely wore enough clothes to pad a crutch."

As they rode north they saw more buffalo, mostly small bunches of twenty or thirty. The third day north of the Yellowstone they killed a crippled buffalo calf and dined on its liver. In the morning, when they left, there were a number of buzzards and two or three prairie wolves hanging around, waiting for them to leave the carcass.

It was a beautiful morning, crisp for an hour or two and then sunny and warm. The country rolled on to the north, as it had for thousands of miles, brown in the distance, the prairie grass waving in the breeze.

"Lord, how much land does the Captain want?" Pea Eye asked. "Looks like this country around here would be good enough for anybody."

"Plenty would settle for it, you're right," Augustus said. "Call might himself. But let's just go on for a day or two more. We ain't struck the Milk River yet."

"Does it run milk?" Pea Eye asked.

"Now think a minute, Pea," Augustus said. "How could it run milk when there ain't no cows up here yet?"

"Why did they call it the Milk, then? Milk is milk."

"Crazy is crazy, too," Augustus said. "That's what I'll be before long from listening to you. Crazy."

"Well, Jasper's mind might break if he don't stop worrying about them rivers," Pea Eye allowed. "I expect the rest of us will keep our wits."

Augustus laughed heartily at the notion of the Hat Creek outfit keeping its wits. "It's true they could be kept in a thimble," he said, "but who brought a thimble?"

There was a little rise to the west, and Augustus loped over to it to see what the land looked like in that direction. Pea trotted along north, as he had been doing, not paying much attention. Gus was always loping off to test the view, as he called it, and Pea didn't feel obliged to follow him every time.

Then Pea heard the sound of a running horse and looked for Gus, supposing he had jumped another little bunch of buffalo. What he saw froze him instantly in place. Gus was racing down the little slope he had just gone up, with at least twenty mounted Indians hot on his heels. He must have ridden right into them. The Indians were shooting both guns and arrows. A bullet cut the grass ahead of Pea and he yanked out his rifle and popped a shot back at the Indians before whirling his horse and fleeing. Gus and he had crossed a good-sized creek less than an hour back, with some trees along it and some weeds and shrubbery in the creek bed. He assumed Gus must be racing for that, since it was the only shelter on the wide prairie. Even as he started, Pea saw five or six Indians veer toward him. He swerved over to join Gus, who had two arrows in his leg. Gus was flailing his horse with his rifle barrel and the horse was running full out.

Fortunately the Indians were poorly mounted-their horses were no match for the Hat Creek horses, and the two men soon widened the gap between them and their pursuers. They were out of range of arrows, and of bullets too, Pea hoped, but he had hardly hoped it when a bullet stung him just above the shoulder blade. But the creek was only three or four miles ahead. If they could make it there would be time enough to worry about wounds.

Gus was trying to pull the arrows out of his leg as he rode, but he was having no luck.

They saw the curve of the little creek from two miles away and angled for the nearest juncture. The Indians had fallen nearly a quarter of a mile back, but were still coming. When they struck the creek Augustus raced along the bank until he found a spot where the weeds and brush were thickest. Then he jumped his horse off the bank and grabbed his saddlebags.

"Get all the ammunition you can," he said. "We're in for a shooting match. And tie the horses in the best cover you can find, or they'll shoot 'em. This is long country to be afoot in."

Then he hobbled to the bank, wishing he had time to cut the two arrows out of his leg. But if they were poisoned it was already too late, and if he didn't do some fine shooting it wouldn't matter anyway because the Indians would overrun them.

Pea heard the big Henry rifle begin to roar as he dragged the sweating horses into the thickest part of the underbrush. It was thick but low, and he didn't think there was much chance for the horses. He yanked the saddlebags and bedrolls off both horses and was hiding them under the bank when Gus stopped firing for a moment.

"Get my saddle," he said. "I'll show you a trick."

Then he began to fire again. Evidently he had turned the Indians, or they would already have been in the creek bed. Pea dutifully got the saddle.

When he got back Gus was reloading. Pea peeped over the bank and saw the Indians, stopped some distance away. Many of them had dismounted and were standing behind their horses, using them as shields.

"How many'd you kill?" he asked.

"Not but three," Augustus said. "This is a smart bunch we're up against. They seen right off a rush would cost them dear."

Pea Eye watched the Indians for a while. They weren't yelling, and they didn't seem excited.

"I don't see what's so smart about them," he said. "They're just standing there."

"Yes, but they're out of range," Augustus said. "They're hoping to tempt me to waste ammunition."

Augustus propped the saddle on the bank in such a way that he could shoot under it and be that much safer if the Indians shot back. He then proceeded to shoot six times, rapidly. Five of the Indians horses dropped, and a sixth ran squealing over the prairie-it fell several hundred yards away. The Indians fired several shots in reply, their bullets slicing harmlessly into the underbrush.

The party of Indians then split. Several Indians went north of them, several south, and eight or ten stayed where they were.

"Well, we're practically surrounded," Augustus said. "I don't expect we'll hear any more from them till dark."

"I'd hate to wait around here till dark," Pea Eye said.

"Did you know you're shot?" Augustus asked.

Pea had forgotten it. Sure enough, the front of his shirt was soaked with blood. He took it off and Augustus examined the wound, which was clean. The bullet had gone right through.

They turned their attention to the arrows in Augustus's left leg. Augustus twisted at them whenever he got a moment. One arrow he soon got out, but the other wouldn't budge.

"This one's in deep," he said. "That brave wasn't more than twenty yards away when he let fly. I think it's worked under the bone, but it ain't poisoned. If it was I'd be feeling it by now."

Pea had a try at removing the arrow, while Gus gritted his teeth and held his leg steady with both hands. The arrow wouldn't budge. It wouldn't even turn, though Pea Eye twisted hard enough to cause a stream of blood to flow down Gus's leg.

As they were working with the arrow there was a sudden terrified squeal from the horses. Augustus hobbled over, drawing his pistol, and saw that both horses were down, their throats cut, their blood very bright on the green weeds and bushes.

"Stay back, Pea," he said, crouching. The Indian that had killed the horses was there somewhere, in the underbrush, but he couldn't see him.

"Watch to the north, Pea," he said. "I don't think these boys want to stay around here till dark, either."

He quickly wiped the sweat from his forehead. Keeping a bush directly in front of him he edged very slowly to the bank, just high enough that he could see the tops of the weeds and underbrush. Then he waited. Once the dying horses finally stopped thrashing, it was very still. Augustus regretted that his preoccupation with the arrows had made him so lax that he had failed to protect the horses. It put them in a ticklish spot. It was over a hundred miles back to the Yellowstone and in all likelihood the herd hadn't even got there yet.

He kept his eyes focused on the tops of the underbrush. It was perfectly windless in the creek bottom, and if the underbrush moved it would be because someone moved it. His big pistol was cocked. He didn't move, and time stretched out. Minutes passed. Augustus carefully kept the sweat wiped out of his eyes, concentrating on keeping his focus. The silence seemed to ring, it was so absolute. There were no flies buzzing yet, no birds flying, nothing. He would have bet the Indian was not twenty yards away from him, and yet he had no inkling of precisely where he was.

"Ain't you coming back, Gus?" Pea Eye asked, after several minutes.

Augustus didn't answer. He watched the tops of the weeds, patiently. It was no time for hurry, much less for conversation. Patience was an Indian virtue. He, himself, didn't have it in day-to-day life, but he could summon it when it seemed essential. Then he heard a movement behind him, and glanced around quickly, to see if Pea had suddenly decided to take a stroll. When he did he saw the edge of a rifle extending an inch or two from the weeds, pointed not at himself but at Pea. He immediately fired twice into the weeds and an Indian flopped over as a fish might flop.

A second later, as the echo of the gun died, he heard a click a few yards to his right. He whirled and fired at it. A moment later the underbrush began to shake as if a huge snake were wiggling through it. Augustus ran into the weeds and saw the wounded Indian trying to crawl away. He at once shot him in the back of the head, and didn't stop to turn him over. Backing out of the weeds, he stepped on the pistol that had misfired, an old cap-and-ball gun. He stuck it in his belt and hurried back to Pea, who looked white. He had sense enough to realize he had just almost been shot. Augustus glanced at the other dead Indian, a fat boy of maybe seventeen. His rifle was an old Sharps carbine, which Augustus threw to Pea.

"We gotta move," he said. "This cover's working against us. But for luck we'd both be dead now already. What we need is a stretch with a steep bank and no cover."

They worked their way upstream, carrying the saddle, saddlebags and guns, for nearly a mile, hugging the bank. Augustus was limping badly but didn't stop to worry about it. Finally they came to a bend in the creek, where the bank was sheer and about ten feet high. The creek bottom was nearly bare of foliage.

"Let's dig," Augustus said, and began to work with his knife to create a shallow cave under the bank. They worked furiously for half an hour until both were drenched with sweat and covered with dirt. Augustus used the stock of the Indian boy's carbine as a rude shovel and tried to shape the dirt they raked out into low breastworks on either side of the cave. They watched as best they could, but saw no Indians.

"Maybe they gave up," Pea Eye said. "You kilt five so far."

"Five reasons why they won't give up," Augustus said. "They'll fight for their dead, since they expect to meet them agin. Ain't you learned that by now?"

Pea Eye could not be sure that he had learned anything about Indians except that he was scared of them, and he had learned that long before he ever saw one. The digging was hard work, but they didn't dare stop. The Indians might show up at any time.

"Which Indians is these we're fighting?" he asked.

"They didn't introduce themselves, Pea," Augustus said. "It might be written on these arrows. I'm going to be one-legged if we don't get this other arrow out pretty soon."

No sooner had he said it than it began to rain arrows, all arching over the south bank of the creek. "Crawl in," Augustus said. He and Pea scrunched back into the cave and stacked the saddlebags in front of them. Many of the arrows went over the creek bed entirely and into the prairie on the other side. A few stuck in the earthworks they had thrown up, and one or two fell in the water.

"They're just hoping to get lucky," Augustus said. "If my dern leg was better I'd sneak over to the other side of the creek and whittle down the odds a little more."

The shower of arrows soon stopped, but the two men stayed in the cave, taking no chances.

"I've got to push this arrow on through," Augustus said. "I may pass out, and if I do, I better do it now. When it gets dark we'll both need to be watching."

He stopped talking and listened. He put his finger to his lips so Pea Eye would be quiet. Someone was on the bank above them-at least one Indian, maybe more. He motioned to Pea to have his pistol ready, in case the Indians tried to rush them. Augustus was hoping for a rush, confident that with the two of them shooting they could decimate the Indians to such an extent that the survivors might leave. If the Indians couldn't be discouraged and driven off, then the situation was serious. They had no horses, the herd was more than a hundred miles away, and he was crippled. They could follow the creek down to the Yellowstone and perhaps strike Miles City, but it would be a slow trip for him to make crippled. Given his choice of gambles, he would prefer a fight. They might even be able to catch one of the Indian horses.

But the rush never came. Whoever was above them left. The creek bank on their side was already in shadow. Augustus uncocked his pistol and stretched his leg out again. He knew better than to put off anything to do with wounds, so he grasped the arrow and began to push it on through his leg. The pain was severe and caused a cold sweat to break out but at least the arrow moved.

"My lord, Gus, you're shot too," Pea Eye said. When Augustus bent over to twist the arrow, Pea noticed that the back of his shirt, down low near his belt, was caked with blood. The dirt from their diggings had covered it, but there was no doubt that it was blood.

"One wound at a time," Augustus said. It took both hands to move the arrow. The skin on his leg began to bulge.

"Cut," he said to Pea. "Pretend I'm snake-bit."

Pea went white. He hated even looking at wounds. The thought of cutting Gus made him want to be sick, but the fact that he had a sharp knife helped. He barely touched the skin and the cut was made. The bloody tip of the arrow poked through. Gus shoved the tip on out and then fainted. Pea Eye had to pull the arrow on through. It was as hard as pulling a bolt out of a board, but he got it out.

Then he felt deeply frightened. If the Indians came now, they were lost, he felt sure. He cocked his pistol and Gus's, and held them both at the ready until his hands grew tired. His head was throbbing. He laid the guns down and wet Gus's forehead from the water bag, hoping Gus would revive. If the Indians came, he would have to shoot quick, and his best shooting had always been done slowly. He liked to take a fine aim. It seemed Gus would never revive. Pea Eye thought he might be dying, although he could hear him breathing.

Finally Gus opened his eyes. His breathing was ragged but he reached over and took his pistol back as if he had just awakened from a refreshing nap. Then to Pea Eye's amazement he crawled out of the cave, hobbled down to the water's edge, and dug in the mud with his knife. He came back with a handful of mud the size of a cannonball.

"Montana mud," he said. "I ain't happy about this wound. Maybe this mud will cool it off."

He covered his wound with mud and offered Pea some. "It's free mud," he said. "Take some." Then he felt behind him, trying to judge the wound in his back that Pea had drawn attention to. "It wasn't a bullet," he concluded. "I could feel a bullet. It was probably another arrow, only it jiggled out during that run."

The twilight was deepening, the creek bed in shadow, though the upper sky was still light.

"I'll watch west and you watch east," Augustus said. Almost as soon he finished speaking a shot hit the cave bank just above their heads, causing dirt to shower down. Augustus looked down the creek and saw two horsemen cross it, too far away to make accurate targets in the dusk.

"I guess we're fairly surrounded," he said. "Some downstream and Some upstream."

"I don't see why we didn't stay in Texas," Pea Eye said. "The Indians was mostly whipped down there."

"Well, this is just bad luck we're having," Augustus said. "We just run into a little bunch of fighters. I imagine they're about as scarce as the buffalo."

"Reckon we can hold 'em off until the Captain comes and looks for us?" Pea asked.

"Yes, if I don't get sick from this leg," Augustus said. "This leg don't feel right. If it don't heal you may have to go for help."

The thought frightened Pea Eye badly. Go for help, when Gus had just said they were surrounded? Go and be scalped, was what that was an invitation to.

"I 'spect they'd catch me if I tried that," Pea said. "Maybe the Captain will figure out that we're in trouble and hurry on up here."

"He won't miss us for another week," Augustus said. "I don't fancy squatting here by this creek for a week."

A few minutes later they heard a loud, strange cry from the east. It was an Indian war cry. Another came from the west, and several from the far bank of the river. The evening would be still and peaceful for a few minutes and then the war cries would start again. Pea had never approved of the way Indians yelled when they fought-it upset his nerves. This yelling was no exception. Some of the cries were so piercing that he wanted to hold his ears.

Augustus, however, listened with appreciation. The war cries continued for an hour. In a lull, Augustus cupped his hands and let out a long, loud cry himself. He kept it up until he ran out of breath. Pea Eye had never heard Augustus yell like that and hardly knew what to make of it. It sounded exactly like a Comanche war cry.

The Indians surrounding them apparently didn't know what to make of it either. When Gus stopped yelling, they did too.

"I was just thanking them for the concert," Augustus said. "Remember that old Comanche that went blind and used to hang around the Fort? He taught me that. I doubt they've ever heard Comanche up in these parts. It might spook them a little."

"Reckon they'll sneak up in the dark?" Pea asked. That was his lifelong worry-being snuck up on in the dark by an Indian.

"I doubt it," Augustus said. "The eyesight of your average Indian is overrated. They spend too much time in them smoky tepees. The bulk of them can't see in the dark no better than we can, if as well. So it's a big chance for them, sneaking up on sharpshooters like us."

"Well, I ain't a sharpshooter," Pea Eye said. "I need to take a good aim or else I miss."

"You're near as depressing as Jasper Fant," Augustus said.

No Indians came in the night, and Augustus was glad of that. He began to feel feverish and was afraid of taking a chill. He had to cover himself with saddle blankets, though he kept his gun hand free and managed to stay awake most of the night-unlike Pea, who snored beside him, as deeply asleep as if he were in a feather bed.

By morning Augustus had a high fever. Though his leg worried him most, he also had pain in his side. He decided he had been wrong in his first analysis, and that he did have a bullet wound there, after all. The fever had him feeling weak.

While he was waiting, pistol cocked, to see if the Indians would try to rush them, he heard thunder. Within half an hour lightning was striking all around them, and thunder crashing.

"Oh, dern," Pea Eye said. "Now I guess we'll get lightning-struck."

"Go back to sleep, if all you can do is be pessimistic," Augustus said. "I smell rain, which is a blessing. Indians mostly don't like to fight in the wet. Only white men are dumb enough just to keep on fighting no matter what the weather is like."

"We've fought Indians in the wet," Pea Eye said.

"Yes, but it was us forced it on them," Augustus said. "They'd rather do battle on sunny days, which is only sensible."

"Here they're probably gonna kill us, and you take up for them," Pea Eye said. He had never understood Gus and never would, even if the Indians didn't kill them.

"I'm an admirer of good sense wherever I find it," Augustus said.

"I hope you find some today, then, and get us out of this," Pea said.

Then it began to rain in earnest. It rained so hard that it became impossible to see, or even talk. A muddy stream began to pour off the bank, only inches in front of them The rain struck so hard it reminded Pea of driving nails. Usually such freshets were short-lived, but this one wasn't. It seemed to rain for hours, and was still raining when dawn came, though not as hard. Alarmingly, to Pea, the creek had become a river, more than deep enough to swim a horse. It rose so that it was only two or three yards in from where they were scrunched into the cave, and it soon washed away their crude breastworks.

And it was still raining. It was cold, too, though fortunately they had a good overhang and were fairly dry. Gus had drug the bedrolls in before the rain started.

Pea was shocked to see that Gus didn't look himself. His face was drawn and his hands unsteady. He was chewing on some jerky he had pulled out of a saddlebag, but it seemed he barely had the strength to eat.

"Are you poorly?" Pea asked.

"I should have got that arrow out sooner," Augustus said. "This leg's gonna give me problems." He handed Pea some jerky and they sat in silence for a while, watching the brown flood sweep past them.

"Hell, a frog could have waded that creek yesterday," Pea said. "Now look at it. It's still raining, too. We may get drowned instead of scalped. It's a good thing Jasper ain't here," he added. "He's mighty afraid of water."

"Actually, this flood is an opportunity for you," Augustus said. "If we can last the day, you might swim past them tonight and get away."

"Well, but that wouldn't be right," Pea Eye said. "I wouldn't want just to leave you sitting here."

"I won't be sitting, I'll be floating, if this keeps up," Augustus said. "The good aspect of it is that it might cool off these Indians. They might go back to their families and let us be."

"I'd still hate to leave you, even so," Pea said.

"You can't carry me to the herd, and I doubt I can walk it," Augustus said. "I'm running such a fever I'm apt to go out of my head any time. You'll probably have to trot back and bring some of the boys, or maybe the wagon. Then I can ride back in style."

The thought struck Pea Eye for the first time that Gus might die. He had no color, and he was shaking. It had never been suggested that Gus might die. Of course, he knew any man could die. Pea himself had seen many die. Yet it was a condition he had never associated with Gus McCrae, or with the Captain either. They were not normal men, as he understood normal, and he had never reckoned with the possibility that either of them might die. Now, when he looked at Gus and saw his pallor and his shakes, the thought came into his mind and wouldn't leave. Gus might die. Pea knew at once that he had to do everything possible to prevent it. If he went back to the wagon and reported that Gus was dead, there was no telling what the Captain would say.

Yet he didn't know exactly what he could do. They had no medicine, it was raining fits, the Indians had them surrounded, and they were a hundred miles or more from the Hat Creek outfit.

"It's a soggy situation, I admit," Augustus said, as if reading Pea Eye's thoughts. "But it ain't fatal yet. I could hold out here for a few days. Call could make it back to this creek in one ride on that feisty mare of his. Best thing for you to do would be just to travel at night. If you walk around in the daytime, some of these red boys might spot you and you'd have about the chance of a rabbit. I guess you could make it to the Yellowstone in three nights, though, and they ought to be there by then."

Pea Eye dreaded the prospect. He hated night travel, and it would be worse afoot. He began to hope that maybe the rain had discouraged the Indians, but that hope only lasted an hour. Three times during the day the Indians fired on them. They shot from downriver, and Gus opened up on them at once. They were so respectful of his gun that their bullets only splattered uselessly in the mud, or else hit the water and ricocheted off with a whine. Gus looked so weak and shaky that Pea Eye wondered if he could still shoot accurately, but the question was answered later in the day when an Indian tried to shoot them from the opposite bank, using a little rain squall as cover. He got off his shot, which hit one of the saddles; then Gus shot him as he turned to crawl away. The shot caused the Indian to straighten up, and Gus shot him again. The second bullet seemed to suck the Indian backward-he toppled off the bank and rolled into the water. He was not dead; he tried to swim, so Gus shot him again. A minute or two later he floated past them face down.

"I expect he would have drowned," Pea Eye said, thinking it wasteful of Gus to shoot the man three times.

"He might have, or he might have lived to cut off your nuts," Augustus said.

There were no more attacks that day, but there was no doubt that the Indians were still there. Before sundown they raised their war cries again. This time Augustus didn't answer.

The day had never been bright, but it seemed to linger. There was a long, rainy dusk, so long that it made Pea Eye feel gloomy. It was cramped in the cave. He longed to stretch his legs, and then made the foolish mistake of saying so to Gus.

"Wait till it's full dark," Augustus said. "Then you can stretch 'em."

"What if I get lost?" Pea Eye said. "I ain't never been in this country."

"Go south," Augustus said. "That's all you have to remember. If you mess up and go north, a polar bear will eat you."

"Yes, and a grizzly bear might if I go south," Pea Eye said with some bitterness. "Either way I'd be dead."

He regretted that Gus had mentioned bears. Bears had been preying on his mind since the Texas bull had had his great fight. It struck him that things were tough up here in the north. It had taken Gus three shots to kill a small Indian. How many shots would it take to kill a grizzly bear?

"Well, you ought to start, Pea," Augustus said finally. It had been dark for over an hour, and the Indians were silent.

"That dern water looks cold," Pea Eye said. "I was never one for cold baths."

"Well, I'm sorry we didn't bring a bathtub and a cookstove," Augustus said. "If we had we could heat some water for you, but as it is you'll just have to rough it. The rain's stopped. The creek could start going down any time, and the more water in it the better for you. Get out in the middle and pretend you're a muskrat."

Pea Eye was half a mind not to go. He had never disobeyed an order in his life, but this time he was sorely tempted, and it was not just the cold swim or the chancy trek that made him hesitate. It was leaving Gus. Gus was close to being out of his head. If he went on out of his head the Indians would have a good chance to get him. He sat for a while, trying to think of some argument that would make Gus let him stay with him.

"Maybe we could both swim out," he said. "I know you're crippled, but you could lean on me once we started walking."

"Pea, go," Augustus said. "I ain't getting well, I'm getting sicker. If you want to help, go get Captain Call. Have him lope up here with an extra horse and tote me over to Miles City."

Pea Eye got ready with a heavy heart. It all seemed wrong, and none of it would have happened if they'd just stayed in Texas.

"Just take your rifle," Augustus said. "A pistol won't do you no good if you have to stop one of them bears. Besides, I'll need both pistols-any fighting that happens here will be close-range work."

"I can't swim and hold a dern rifle, Gus," Pea Eye said.

"Stick it through your belt and down your pants leg," Augustus said. "You can float downstream, you won't actually have to swim much."

Pea Eye took off his boots and his shirt and made a bundle of them. Then he did as Gus ordered and stuck his rifle through his belt. He stuffed some jerky in one boot for provisions. All he needed to do was leave, but it was hard.

"Now go on, Pea," Augustus said. "Go get the Captain, and don't worry about me. Don't let the Indians catch you, whatever you do."

Gus reached out a hand and Pea Eye realized he was offering a handshake. Pea Eye shook his hand, feeling terribly sad.

"Gus, I never thought I'd be leaving you," he said.

"Well, you are, though," Augustus said. "Trod carefully."

It was then that the conviction struck Pea Eye that he would never see Gus alive again. Mainly what they were into was just another Indian fight, and all of those had inconveniences. But Gus had never sustained a wound before that Pea could remember. The arrows and bullets that had missed him so many times had finally found him.

After the handshake, Gus treated him as if he were already gone. He didn't offer any messages or say another word. Pea Eye wanted to say something else, but couldn't think what. Feeling very disconsolate, he waded into the cold water. It was far colder than he had supposed. His legs at once felt numb. He looked back once and could dimly see the cave, but not Gus.

As soon as he reached swimming depth, he forgot Gus and everything else, due to a fear of drownding. The icy water pushed him under at once. Floating wasn't as easy as Gus had made it seem. The rifle was a big problem. Stuck in his pants leg, it seemed to weigh like lead. Also, he had no experience in such fast water. Several times he got swept over to the side of the creek and almost got tangled in the underbrush that the rushing water covered.

Worse than that, he almost immediately lost the little bundle of boots and pants, shirt, all his provisions and part of his ammunition. He had reached down with one hand to try and move the rifle a little higher up on his leg, and the water sucked the bundle away and swept it far ahead of him. Pea Eye began to realize he was going to drown unless he did better than he was doing. The water pushed him under several times. He wanted badly to climb up the bank but was by no means sure he was past the Indians. Gus said to go down at least a mile, and he wasn't sure he had gone that far. The water had a suck to it that he had constantly to fight against; to his horror he felt it sucking his pants off. He had been so disconsolate when he walked into the river that he had not buckled his belt tightly. He had nothing much in the way of hips, and the water sucked his pants down past them. The rifle sight was gouging him in the leg. He grabbed the rifle, but then went under. The dragging pants, with the rifle in one leg, were drownding him. He began to try frantically to get them off, so as to have the free use of his legs. He wanted to cuss Gus for having Suggested sticking the rifle in his pants leg. He could never get it out in time to shoot an Indian, if one appeared, and it was causing him terrible aggravation. He fought to the surface again, went under, and when he came up wanted to yell for help, and then remembered there Would be no one around to hear him but Indians. Then his leg was almost jerked off-he had been swept close to the bank and the dragging gun had caught in some underbrush. The bank was only a few feet away and he tried to claw over to it, but that didn't work. While he was struggling, the pants came off and he was swept down the river backwards. One minute he could see the south bank of the river, and the next minute all he could see was water. Twice he opened his mouth to suck in air and sucked in water instead, some of which came back out his nose. His legs and feet were so numb from the cold water that he couldn't feel them.

He never remembered getting out of the water, but somehow he did, for when he next took note of things he was laying in the mud, his feet still in the water. He was stark naked and the mud was cold, so he pulled himself up and laboriously climbed the bank. It was only eight or ten feet high, but it was slippery.

When he got up, he wanted to lay in the grass and go to sleep, but he was awake enough to think about his situation, and thinking soon made him wakeful. He hadn't drownded, but he was naked, unarmed, without food, and something like a hundred miles from the Hat Creek wagon. He didn't know the country and was up against some tough Indians who did. Gus was sick and maybe dying somewhere upriver. It would be daylight in a few hours and the danger from Indians would increase.

Pea Eye at once started walking as fast as he could. Though it had stopped raining, it was still cloudy, and he could not see one star or the moon or, for that matter, anything either on heaven or earth. The awful thought struck him that, rolling around and around in the water, he might even have confused north and south and crawled up the wrong bank. He might be walking north, in which case he was as good as dead, but he couldn't stop to worry about it. He had to move. He had lost his pack and his gun in the river, and as soon as the river sank to being a normal stream again, they would all be lying in the creek bed, in plain sight. If the Indians found them they would know he was gone, and that Gus was alone, which would make things hot for Gus. If they were in a tracking mood it would also make things hot for him. They had horses and could run him down in a matter of hours. The faster he traveled, the better chance he had.

After he had thought about it for a while, Pea was profoundly glad the night was so dark. He wished it could stay dark forever, or at least until he pulled in sight of the herd. When he thought of all the perils he was exposed to, it was all he could do to keep from running. He remembered vividly all the things Indians did to white men. In his rangering days he had helped bury several men who had had such things done to them, and memories of those charred and gouged corpses was with him in the darkness. With him too, and just as terrifying, was the memory of the great orange bear who had nearly ripped the Texas bull wide open. He remembered how fast the bear had gone when they tried to chase it on horseback. If such a bear spotted him he felt he would probably just lie down and give up.

The darkness didn't last. The only blessing the light brought was that Pea Eye caught a glimpse of the north star as the clouds were breaking. He knew, at least, that he was going in the right direction. The sun soon came up, and he remembered Gus's warning not to travel in the daytime. Pea Eye decided to ignore it. For one thing, he was on an absolutely open plain, where there was no good place to hide. He might as well be moving as sitting.

When he looked ahead he felt very discouraged, for the country seemed endless. It seemed to him he could see almost a hundred miles-just empty country, and he had to walk it. He had never been an advocate of walking, and coming up the trail horseback had given him even less affection for it. He had never bargained for doing so much walking, especially barefoot. Before he had gone more than a few miles his feet were cut and sore. The plains looked grassy and smooth, but there were rocks scattered here and there, and he stepped on a goodly number of them.

Also, it embarrassed him that he was naked. Of course, there was no one around to see him, but he could see himself, and it was disconcerting. The Captain would be mighty surprised to see him come tramping up naked; the boys would undoubtedly think it hilarious and would kid him about it for weeks.

At first the nakedness worried him almost as much as his sore feet, but before he had walked half a day his feet hurt so much that he had stopped caring whether he was naked, or even alive. He had to wade two little creeks, and he got into some thorny underbrush in one of them. Soon every step was painful, but he knew he had to keep walking or he would never find the boys. Every time he looked back, he expected to see either Indians or a bear. By evening he was just stumbling along. He found a good patch of high grass and weeds and lay down to sleep for a while.

He woke up bitterly cold to find it was snowing. A squall had blown in. Pea Eye heard a strange sound and took a minute to realize it was his own chattering teeth. His feet were so sore he could scarcely walk on them, and the snow didn't help. It was a wet snow, melting almost as it fell, but that didn't make it much more comfortable.

Somehow he hobbled south all night. The snow soon stopped, but his feet were very cold and every time he stepped on a rock in the dark they hurt so he could hardly keep from crying out. He felt very weak and empty and knew he wasn't making very good time. He bitterly regretted not having hung onto some of the jerky, or his rifle, or something. Gus would think him a fine fool if he found out he had lost everything before he even got clear of the creek.

In his weariness, he even forgot for a time that Gus had been left in the little cave. Several times he spoke to Gus as he stumbled along-mainly asking directions. For a time he felt Gus was just ahead, leading the way. Or was it Deets? Pea Eye felt confused. Whoever it was wouldn't speak to him, and yet he continued to ask questions. He took comfort in thinking Gus or Deets was there. They were the best scouts. They would lead him in.

When the second day dawned, Pea Eye stopped to rest. He realized no one was with him, unless it was ghosts. But then, it might be ghosts. Gus might be dead by then, and Deets was, for sure. Maybe one of them, having nothing to do, had decided to float along ahead of him, guiding him to the Yellowstone.

When he looked at his feet, it seemed to him that he might make almost as good time crawling or walking on his hands. His feet were swollen to twice their size, besides being cut here and there. Yet they were the only feet he had, and after dozing for an hour in the sun, he got up and hobbled on. He was very hungry and wished he had paid more attention to Po Campo, who could find things to eat just by walking along looking. Pea tried to look, but he saw nothing but grass and weeds. Fortunately he struck several small creeks and had plenty of water. Once he even managed to sluice some minnows up on dry land. They wiggled and flopped and were hard to catch, and of course they only made a few bites, but they were better than nothing.

His biggest piece of luck came late that day when he was able to knock over a big prairie chicken with a rock. He only broke the bird's wing and had to chase it through the grass a long way, but the bird tired before he did, and he finally caught it, skinned it and ate it raw. He rested three hours and then hobbled on through another night.

The third morning he could barely make himself move. His feet were worse than ever, the plains ahead still endless and empty. His eyes ached from looking so hard for the line of the Yellowstone, but he still couldn't see it.

It was the emptiness that discouraged him most. He had almost stopped worrying about Indians and bears. What he worried about was being lost. He knew by the stars he was still going south, but south where? Maybe he had veered east of the herd, or west of it, so that no one would spot him. Maybe he had already passed them, in which case there was little hope. The snows would just come and freeze him, or else he would starve.

He lay until midmorning, unable to decide what to do. For a time he thought the best plan might be just to sit. There were supposed to be soldiers in Montana, somewhere. If he sat long enough, maybe some would find him.

Finally, though, he got up and stumbled on. The soldiers would only find his bones, if they found anything. It was a blazing day, so hot it made him feel annoyed at Montana weather. What kind of country was it where you could get frostbite one night and sunburn two days later? He saw a couple of prairie dogs and wasted an hour trying to get one with a rock. But the prairie dogs were smarter than prairie chickens, and he never came close.

He stumbled on, feeling that the sun would burn off what skin he had left. Several times during the afternoon he fell. He grew lightheaded and felt as if he were floating. Then his swollen feet would refuse to work, and instead of floating he would fall. Once he came to lying flat on his back in the grass, the sun burning into his eyes. He scrambled up and looked around, feeling that the herd might have walked right past him when lie slept. He tried very hard to walk a straight line south, but his legs were so weak that he kept wobbling off course.

"Dern you, walk straight," he said. The sound of his own cracked voice startled him out of his fury.

Then he felt embarrassed. A man who would cuss his own legs just because they were weak was peculiar, he knew. He got the floating feeling again, so strong that he felt frightened. He felt he might be going to float right out of his own body. He wondered if he was dying, if that was how it felt. He had never heard of anyone dying while they were just walking along, but then dying was something he knew little about. He would take a few steps and then feel himself begin to rise out of his own body, which frightened him so that he stumbled and fell. He didn't want to stand up again, and he began to crawl, looking up now and then to see if the herd was in sight. He felt he couldn't live another night so alone and hungry. He would die in the grass like some beaten animal.

Then it grew dark, and he wanted to cry with disappointment. He had walked long enough-surely it was time the boys showed up. Once it was full dark, he stopped and listened. He felt the herd might be close, and if he listened maybe he would hear the Irishman singing. He heard no singing, but when he got up and tried to stumble on, he felt the presence of his guide again. This time he knew it was Deets. He couldn't see him because it was dark, and of course Deets was dark, but he lost the floating feeling and walked easier, though he was a little scared. He didn't know what the rules were with people who were dead. He would have liked to say something but felt he shouldn't. Deets might go away and leave him to stumble along in the dark if he said anything. Maybe travel was no trouble for the dead-Pea didn't know. It was a considerable trouble for him. He walked slow, for he didn't like to fall, but he walked on all night.

Two hours after sunup the next day, Dish Boggett, who had been sent off to do a little scout, thought he saw a figure, far to the north. At first he couldn't tell if it was a man or an antelope. If it was a man, it was an Indian, he imagined, and he raced back to the herd and got the Captain, who had been shoeing the mare-always an arduous task. She hated anyone to handle her feet and had to be securely snubbed before she would submit to it.

Fortunately Call was finished, and he rode back with Dish, to look for the man. There was no sign of him at first, but Dish had a good eye for country and knew where he had seen him. Call privately supposed it had only been an antelope, but he wanted to check. They had crossed the Yellowstone the day before-the men and all the stock had got across safely. Jasper Fant was in his best mood of the trip, having survived all the rivers after all.

"There he is," Dish said suddenly. "If it ain't Pea."

Dish was almost stunned with surprise. Pea was no longer walking. He was sitting down in the grass, naked, nodding his head as if in conversation with somebody. When he heard them he looked around, as if not particularly surprised, but when they dismounted there were tears in his eyes.

"Howdy, Captain," Pea Eye said, embarrassed by his own emotion. "You just missed Deets, I guess."

Call saw that Pea Eye was wounded and out of his head. There was blood on his chest from a shoulder wound, the sun had blotched his body, and his feet were swollen the size of a cow's bladder and cut to shreds.

"Is Gus dead?" Call asked, afraid to hear the answer. Though he knew Gus's penchant for trouble, it was a shock to see Pea Eye in such a state.

Pea Eye had been thinking of Deets, who had kindly walked him through the night. He was embarrassed to be naked, and he found it hard to turn his mind back to where he could deal with the question the Captain had asked him.

"The creek's up, it's why I lost my clothes," he said.

Call untied his slicker from his saddle and covered Pea Eye with it. Pea Eye immediately felt better. He tried to button the slicker so his dingus wouldn't show, but his fingers shook and Dish Boggett finally did it for him.

"Is Gus dead?" Call asked again.

Pea Eye let his mind turn slowly. Then he remembered that Gus had been sitting with two guns in his hands, not saying a word, when he waded into the river. He had had that bad wound in his leg.

"The creek was up when I left him," Pea Eye said. "I had to swim down past the Indians and I lost all my gear. Gus kept my pistol."

"Where was this?" Call asked.

"Up north, Captain," Pea Eye said. "We dug a cave in a riverbank. That's all I know."

"But he wasn't dead when you left him?"

"No, he sent me off," Pea said. "He said he wanted you to lope on up there and help him with those Indians."

Dish Boggett could not adjust to the fact that Pea Eye was naked and all scarred up. They had had such a peaceful time of it that he had lost the sense that they were in dangerous country.

"What was that about Deets?" he asked.

"Helped me," Pea said simply. "Are we going after Gus, Captain? We had a hard time getting one of them arrows out and his leg was giving him pain."

"You're going to the wagon," Call said. "You need some grub. How many Indians were there?"

Pea tried to think. "A bunch jumped us," he said. "About twenty, I guess. Gus shot a few."

Call and Dish had to lift him; all strength seemed to have left him, now that he knew he was safe. Dish had to hold him on his horse as they rode back, for Pea Eye had so little strength he could not even grip the saddle horn.

The crew, which had been in high spirits and drunk on their own celebrity-for weren't they the first men to bring a Texas herd across the Yellowstone?-sobered up immediately when they saw the condition Pea Eye was in.

"Why, hello, boys," Pea said, when he was helped off the horse. They all gathered around to greet him, and Bert and Needle Nelson helped him down. Po Campo had some coffee ready. Pea reached out for a cup, once they had him propped against the wagon, but his hands were too shaky to hold it. Po fed him a little with a spoon, and between one sip and the next, Pea slid from his position and passed out. He collapsed so quickly that no one even caught him.

"Is he dead?" Newt asked, anxious.

"No, just tuckered out," Call said.

He was filling his saddlebags with ammunition, glad that he had got new shoes on the mare.

"He said Deets helped him," Dish Boggett said. The way Pea said it had unnerved him. Deets was dead and buried, back on the Powder River.

Call didn't answer. He was pondering the question of whether to take a man with him.

"I guess he was out of his head," Dish said. "I guess that explains it."

Po Campo smiled. "The dead can help us if we let them, and if they want to," he said.

Jasper Fant, delighted not to be among the dead, looked at Po severely. "Ain't none ever helped me except my own pa," he said.

"How'd he help you?" Needle asked.

"Left me twenty dollars in his will. I bought this saddle with it and I been a cowboy ever since."

"You call yourself one, you mean," Soupy Jones said. He had poor relations with Jasper as a result of a dispute over cards.

"I'm here, ain't I?" Jasper said. "Just because you lost that hand don't mean I can't cow."

"Oh, shut your trap, Jasper," Dish said. He had had enough of Jasper and Soupy and felt that the whole question of Pea and Deets had been treated too brusquely. After all, the first words Pea had said was that they had just missed Deets. Dish didn't want to admit it, but he had been scared of ghosts all his life, and didn't like to think that any were wandering around. It would just make night herding more nerveracking, even if the ghost in question was one that might be friendly to him.

Then someone noticed that Captain Call was leaving. He took an extra rifle from the wagon and got the slicker that he had lent Pea, covering Pea with a blanket.

"Just move the stock on north," he said. "Be alert. I'm going to get Gus."

The thought of him leaving sent a ripple of apprehension through the camp. Though independent to a man in some respects, the outfit was happier in all respects when Captain Call was around. Or if not the Captain, then Gus. Only a few hours earlier, they had felt cocky enough to take on an army. After all, they were the conquerors of the Yellowstone. But now, watching the Captain catch a horse for Gus to ride back on, they all felt daunted. The vast plain was beautiful, but it had reduced Pea Eye to a scarred wreck. And the Indians had Gus holed up somewhere. They might kill him and the Captain too. All men were mortal, and they felt particularly so. A thousand Indians might come by nightfall. The Indians might fall on them as they had fallen on Custer.

Call had no time to soothe the men with elaborate instructions. If Gus was badly wounded, he would weaken rapidly, and every hour counted. Arriving ten minutes too late would be as bad as ten days, or a year, for that matter. Besides, the almost beseeching way the men looked at him was irritating. Sometimes they acted as if they would forget how to breathe if he or Gus wasn't there to show them. They were all resourceful men-he knew that, if they didn't-and yet at certain times they became like children, wanting to be led. All his adult life, he had consented to lead, and yet occasionally, when the men seemed particularly dumbstruck, he wondered why he had done it.

He and Augustus had discussed the question of leadership many times.

"It ain't complicated," Augustus maintained. "Most men doubt their own abilities. You don't. It's no wonder they want to keep you around. It keeps them from having to worry about failure all the time."

"They ain't failures, most of them," Call pointed out. "They can do perfectly well for themselves."

Augustus chuckled. "You work too hard," he said. "It puts most men to shame. They figure out they can't keep up, and it's just a step or two from that to feeling that they can't do nothing much unless you're around to get them started.

"It don't take on me, which is lucky," he added. "I don't care how hard you work, or where you go."

"I'd like to see something that could put you to shame," Call said.

"My pecker's done it a few times," Augustus said.

Call wondered what he meant by that, but didn't ask.

When he was packed, he mounted at once, and rode over to Dish Boggett. "You're in charge," he said. "Trail on north. I'll be back when I can."

Dish paled at the thought of so much responsibility. He had enough worries as it was, what with Pea Eye talking of ghosts.

The Captain looked angry, which made the men better reconciled to the fact that he was leaving. All of them feared his angers. But once he left, before he and the mare were even out of sight, their mood of relief changed back to one of apprehension.

Jasper Fant, so cheerful only an hour before, sank the fastest. "Good lord," he said. "Here we are in Montana and there's Indians and bears and it's winter coming on and the Captain and Gus both off somewhere. I'll be surprised if we don't get massacred."

For once Soupy Jones didn't have a word to say.

95.

AUGUSTUS KEPT HIS PISTOL COCKED ALL NIGHT, once Pea Eye left. He watched the surface of the river closely, for the trick he hoped might work for Pea could also work for the Indians. They might put a log in the water and float down on him, using the log for cover. He tried to look and listen closely, a task not helped by the fact that he was shaking and feverish.

He expected the Indians to come sliding out of the water like big snakes, right in front of him, but none came, and as his fever mounted he began to mumble. From time to time he was half aware that he was delirious, but there was nothing he could do about it, and anyway he preferred the delirium to the tedium of waiting for the Indians to attack. One minute he would be trying to watch the black water, the next he would be back at Clara's. At times he saw her face vividly.

The dawn broke sunny. Bad as he felt, Augustus still enjoyed seeing the sun. It helped clear his head and stirred him to thoughts of escape. He was sick of the little cold cave under the riverbank. He had thought to wait there for Call, but the more he considered, the more he felt it to be a bad plan. Call's arrival was days away, and dependent on Pea getting through. If Pea didn't get through-and the chances were good that he wouldn't-then Call might not even start to look for him for another week.

As a student of wounds, he knew just by looking at his leg that he was in trouble. The leg was yellowish, with black streaks striping the yellow. Blood poisoning was a possibility. He knew that if he didn't get medical attention within the next few days his chances were slim. Even waiting for nightfall might be folly.

If the Indians caught him in the open, his chances would be equally slim, of course, but it took no deliberation to know that if he had to choose, and he did, he would prefer the active to the passive course.

As soon as the sun was well up he eased out of the cave and stood up. The bad leg throbbed. Even to touch his toes to the ground hurt. The waters were rapidly receding. Fifty yards to the east, a game trail led up the creek bank. Augustus decided to use the carbine he had taken off the Indian boy as a crutch. He cut the stirrups off the saddle and lashed one over each end of the rifle, then padded one end of his rude crutch with a piece of saddle leather. He stuffed one pistol under his belt, holstered the other, took his rifle and a pocketful of jerky, and hobbled across along the bank to the animal trail.

He edged cautiously out of the riverbed, but saw no Indians. The broad plain was empty for miles. The Indians had left. Augustus wasted no time in speculation. He started at once, hobbling southeast toward Miles City. He hoped he had not more than thirty or forty miles to go before he struck the town.

He was not used to the crutch and he made poor time. When occasionally he forgot and set his bad foot to the ground, the pain was almost enough to make him pass out. He was weak, and had to stop every hour or so to rest. In the hot sun, sweat poured out of him, though he felt cold and feared a chill. Two or three miles from where he started, he crossed the tracks of a sizable herd of buffalo-they were probably the reason the Indians had left. With winter coming, buffalo were more important to the warriors than two white men, though probably they meant to return and finish off the whites once the hunt was over.

All day he persevered, dragging himself along. He stopped less frequently, because he found it hard to get started once he stopped. Rest was seductive, made more so by his tendency to improve the situation through imagination. Maybe the herd had moved north faster than he calculated. Maybe Call would show up the next day and save him the painful business of dragging along with his crutch.

Yet he hated waiting almost as much as he hated the traveling. His habit had been to go and meet whatever needed to be met, not to wait idly for what might approach.

What was approaching now was death, he knew. He had faced it before and overridden its motion with his own. To sit and wait for it gave it too many advantages. He had seen many men die of wounds, and had watched the turning of their spirits from active desire to live to indifference. With a bad wound, the moment indifference took over, life began to subside. Few men rose out of it: most lost all impulse toward activity and ended by offering death at least a halfhearted welcome.

Augustus didn't intend to do that, so he struggled on. When he took his rests he took them standing up, leaning on the crutch. It took less will to get started if one was standing up.

He hobbled over the plain through the long afternoon and twilight, finally collapsing sometime in the night. His hand slipped off the crutch and he felt it falling from him. In stooping to reach for it, he fell face down, unconscious before he hit the ground. In his deams he was with Lorena, in the tent on the hot Kansas plains. He longed for her to cool him somehow, touch him with her cool hand, but though she smiled, she didn't cool him. The world had become red, as though the sun had swollen and absorbed it. He felt as if he were lying on the surface of the red sun as it looked at sunset when it sank into the plain.

When he got his eyes open the sun was white, not red, and directly above him. He heard a spitting sound, such as a human would make, and his hand went to the pistol at his belt, thinking the Indians had come. But when he turned his head, it was a white man he saw: a very old, small white man in patched buckskins. The old man had a tobacco-stained beard and a bowie knife in his hand. A spotted horse grazed nearby. The old man was just squatting there, watching. Augustus kept his hand on his gun, but didn't draw it-he didn't know if he had the strength to draw it.

"Them was Blood Indians," the old man said. "It beats all that they didn't get you. You got enough of them."

"Five is all," Augustus said, raising himself to a sitting position. He didn't like to talk lying down.

"Seven I heard," the old man said. "I get along with the Bloods and the Blackfeet too. Bought lots of beaver from them in the beaverin' days."

"I'm Augustus McCrae," Augustus said.

"Hugh Auld," the visitor said. "Down Miles City they call me Old Hugh, although I doubt I'm eighty yet."

"Was you meaning to stab me with that knife?" Augustus asked. "I'd rather not shoot you unnecessarily."

Old Hugh grinned and spat again. "I was about to have a go at cutting off that rotten leg of yours," he said. "Before you come to, I was. That leg's ruint, but I might have a hell of a time cutting through the bone without no saw. Besides, you might have woke up and give me trouble."

"'Spect I would have," Augustus said, looking at the leg. It was no longer black-striped-just black.

"We got to take it off," Old Hugh said. "If that rot gets in the other leg you'll lose both of them."

Augustus knew the old man was right in everything he said. The leg was rotting, but a bowie knife was no instrument for taking it off.

"How far is Miles City?" he asked. "I guess they've got a sawbones there."

"Two, last time I went to town," Old Hugh said. "Both drunkards."

"You forgot to inform me of the distance," Augustus said.

"Forty miles and a fraction," Hugh said. "I don't believe you could have walked it."

Augustus used the crutch to pull himself up. "I might fool you," he said, though it was just pride talking. He knew quite well he couldn't have walked it. Just getting to his feet left him nauseous.

"Where'd you come from, stranger?" the old man asked. He rose to his feet but did not exactly straighten up. His back was bent. To Augustus he seemed scarcely five feet tall.

"I was setting a deadfall and let it fall on me," Old Hugh explained cheerfully. "Some Blood warriors found me. They thought it was funny, but my back never did straighten out."

"We all have misfortunes," Augustus said. "Could I borrow your horse?"

"Take it, only don't kick him," Old Hugh said. "If you kick him he'll buck. I'll follow along as best I can in case you fall off."

He led the spotted horse over and helped Augustus mount. Augustus thought he might pass out, but managed not to. He looked at Old Hugh.

"You sure you get along with these Indians?" he asked. "I'd be embarrassed if you came to any trouble on my account."

"I won't," Old Hugh said. "They're off stuffing themselves with fresh buffalo meat. I was invited to join 'em but I think I'll poke along after you, even though I don't know where you come from."

"A little fart of a town called Lonesome Dove," Augustus said. "It's in south Texas, on the Rio Grande."

"Dern," the old man said, clearly impressed by the information. "You're a traveling son of a bitch, ain't you?"

"Does this horse have a name?" Augustus asked. "I might need to speak to him."

"I been calling him Custer," Old Hugh said. "I done a little scouting for the General once."

Augustus paused a minute, looking down at the old trapper. "I got one more favor to ask you," he said. "Tie me on. I ain't got strength enough to mount again if I should fall."

The old man was surprised. "I guess you've learned some tricks, with all your traveling," he said. He fixed a rawhide loop around Augustus's waist and made it tight to the cantle.

"Let's go, Custer," Augustus said, giving the horse rein and remembering not to kick him.

Five hours later, as the sun was setting, he nudged the exhausted horse over a slope north of the Yellowstone and saw the little town of Miles City four or five miles to the east.

When he got to town it was nearly dark. He stopped in front of what appeared to be a saloon but found he could not dismount. Then he remembered that he was tied on. He couldn't untie the knots in the rawhide, but managed to draw his pistol and fire in the air. The first shot seemed to go unnoticed, but when he fired twice more several men came to the door of the saloon and looked at him.

"That's Old Hugh's horse," one said in a sullen voice, as if he suspected Augustus of horse theft.

"Yes, Mr. Auld was kind enough to loan him to me," Augustus said, staring the man down. "I've a ruined leg and would appreciate it if someone would locate me a medical man quick."

The men walked out and came around the horse. When they saw the leg, one whistled.

"What done that?" he asked.

"An arrow," Augustus said.

"Who are you, sir?" the oldest of the men asked, more respectfully.

"Augustus McCrae, Captain in the Texas Rangers," Augustus said. "One of you gentlemen will need to help me with these knots."

They hurried to help, but before they could get him off the horse the red water washed over his eyes again. The spotted horse named Custer didn't like so many men around him. He tried to bite one of them, then bucked twice, throwing Augustus, who had just been untied, into the street. Two of the men tried to catch the horse but he easily outran them and raced back out of town.

96.

AUGUSTUS FLOATED in the red water. Sometimes he saw faces, heard voices, saw more faces. He saw Bolivar and Lippy, his two wives, his three sisters. He saw men long dead whom he had rangered with, saw Pedro Flores and Pea Eye and a redheaded whore he had taken up with for a month in his riverboating days. He sloshed helplessly back and forth, as if something were churning the water.

When the redness receded and he opened his eyes again, he heard a piano playing in the distance. He was in bed in a small hot room. Through the open window he could see the great Montana prairie. Looking around, he noticed a small fat man dozing in a chair nearby. The man wore a black frock coat sprinkled with dandruff. A bottle of whiskey and an old bowler hat nearly as disreputable as Lippy's sat on a small bureau. The fat man was snoring peacefully.

Feeling considerable pain, Augustus looked down and saw that his left leg was gone. The stump had been bandaged, but the bandage was leaking. Blood seeped through it, though it was a thick bandage.

"If you're the sawbones, wake up and stop this drip," Augustus said. He felt irritable and sad, and wished the whiskey bottle were in reach.

The little fat man jerked as if poked with a fork, and opened his eyes. His cheeks were red-streaked-from excessive drinking, Augustus supposed. He put both hands on his head as if surprised that it was still there.

"And pass the whiskey, if you can spare any," Augustus added. "I hope you ain't thrown my leg away."

The doctor jerked again, as if every statement pricked him.

"You've got a mighty healthy voice for a sick man," the doctor said. "In this room, such a voice is a tight fit."

"Well, it's the only voice I got," Augustus said.

The doctor put his hands to his temple again. "It strikes my temples like a ten-pound hammer," he said. "Though I'm sorry to complain. The truth is I don't feel well myself."

"You probably drink too much," Augustus said. "If you'll hand me the bottle I'll reduce your temptations."

The doctor did, but not before taking a swig. Augustus took several while the doctor shuffled around and stood looking out the window. Across the street the piano was still playing.

"That girl plays beautifully," the doctor said. "They say she studied music in Philadelphia when she was younger."

"How old is she now?" Augustus asked. "Maybe I'll send her a bouquet."

The doctor smiled. "It's plain you're a man of spirit," he said. "That's good. I'm afraid you've a few fractuosities yet to endure."

"A few what?" Augustus asked. "You better introduce yourself before you start talking Latin."

"Dr. Mobley," the man said. "Joseph C. Mobley, to be precise. The C stands for Cincinnatus."

"More Latin, I guess," Augustus said. "Explain that first bunch of Latin you talked."

"I mean we've got to take off that other leg," Dr. Mobley said. "I should have done it while you were out, but frankly, getting the left leg off exhausted me."

"It's a good thing," Augustus said. "If you'd hacked off my right leg, you'd be the one who was out. I need that right leg."

His gun belt was hanging over a chair nearby, and he reached out and took his pistol from the holster.

The doctor looked around, reaching out his hand for the whiskey bottle. Augustus gave it to him and he took a long drink and handed it back.

"I understand your attachment to your own appendages," he said, opening the bandage. He winced when he looked at the wound, but kept working. "I don't want to cut your other leg off bad enough to get shot in the process. However, you'll die if you don't reconsider. That's a plain fact."

"Go buy me some more whiskey," Augustus said. "There's money in my pants. Is that girl playing the piano a whore?"

"Yes, her name is Dora," the doctor said. "Consumptive, I'm afraid. She'll never see Philadelphia again." He began to wrap the leg in a clean bandage.

Augustus suddenly grew faint. "Give her twenty dollars out of my pants and tell her to keep playing," he said. "And shove this bed a little closer to the window-it's stuffy in here."

The doctor managed to shove the bed over near the window, but the effort tired him so that he sat back down in the chair where he had been dozing.

Augustus recovered a little. He watched the doctor a moment. "Physician, heal thyself, ain't that what they say?" he remarked.

Dr. Mobley chuckled unhappily. "That's what they say," he said. He breathed heavily for a time, and then stood up.

"I'll go get the whiskey," he said. "While I'm about it, I'd advise you to take a sober look at your prospects. If you persist in your attachment to your right leg it'll be the last opportunity you have to take a sober look at anything."

"Don't forget to tip that girl," Augustus said. "Hurry back with my whiskey and bring a glass."

Dr. Mobley turned at the door. "We should operate today," he said. "Within the hour, in fact, although we could wait long enough for you to get thoroughly drunk, if that would help. There's men enough around here to hold you down, and I think I could have that leg off in fifteen minutes."

"You ain't getting that leg," Augustus said. "I might could get by without the one, but I can't without both."

"I assure you the alternative is gloomy," Dr. Mobley said. "Why close your own case? You've a taste for music and you seem to have funds. Why not spend the next few years listening to whores play the piano?"

"You said the girl was dying," Augustus said. "Just go get the whiskey."

Dr. Mobley returned a little later with two bottles of whiskey and a glass. A young giant of a man, so tall he had to stoop to get in the room, followed him.

"This is Jim," Dr. Mobley said nervously. "He's offered to sit with you while I go make my rounds."

Augustus cocked his pistol and leveled it at the young man. "Get out, Jim," he said. "I don't need company."

Jim left immediately-so immediately that he forgot to stoop and bumped his head on the door frame. Dr. Mobley looked even more nervous. He moved the bureau a little nearer the bed and sat both bottles within Augustus's reach.

"That was rude," he said.

"Listen," Augustus said. "You can't have this leg, and if you're thinking of overpowering me you have to calculate on losing about half the town. I can shoot straight when I'm drunk, too."

"I only want to save your life," Dr. Mobley said, taking a drink from the first bottle before pouring Augustus a glassful.

"It's my worry, mainly," Augustus said. "You stated your case, but the jury went against you. Jury of one. Did you pay the whore?"

"I did," Dr. Mobley said. "Since you refuse company, you'll have to drink alone. I have to go deliver a child into this unhappy world."

"It's a fine world, though rich in hardships at times," Augustus said.

"You won't need to worry about hardships much longer if you insist on keeping that leg," Dr. Mobley said somewhat pettishly.

"I guess you don't care much for stubborn customers, do you?"

"No, they irk me," Dr. Mobley said. "You might have lived, but now you'll die. Your reasoning escapes me."

"Well, I'll pay your bill right now," Augustus said. "My reasoning ain't your concern."

"Are you a man of property?" the doctor asked.

"I've funds in a bank in San Antonio," Augustus said. "Also I own half a cattle herd. It ought to be north of the Yellowstone by now."

"I brought pen and ink," the doctor said. "If I were you I'd make your will while you're still sober."

Augustus drank all afternoon and did not use the pen or ink. Once, when the music stopped, he looked out the window and saw a skinny pockmarked girl in a black dress standing in the street looking up at him curiously. He waved but could not be sure she saw him. He took another twenty-dollar gold piece from his pants pocket and sailed it out the window toward her. It landed in the street, to the puzzlement of the girl. She walked over and picked up the gold piece, lookingup.

"It's yours, for the music," Augustus said loudly. The pockmarked girl smiled, picked up the money and went back into the saloon. In a minute, Augustus heard the piano again.

A little later his fever rose. He felt hungry, though, and banged on the floor with his pistol until a timid-looking little bartender with a walrus mustache as good as Dish Boggett's opened the door.

"Is beefsteak to be had in this town?" Augustus asked.

"No, but I can get you venison," the bartender said. He was as good as his word. Augustus ate and then vomited in a brass spittoon. His leg was as black as the one that had been lost. He went back to the whiskey and from time to time recovered the misty feeling that he had always been so fond of-the feeling that reminded him of Tennessee mornings. He wished for a woman's company and thought of having someone ask the pockmarked girl if she would come and sit a while. But there was no one to ask, and in time he lost the impulse.

In the night, sweating heavily, he awoke to a familiar step. W. F. Call stepped into the room and set a lantern on the bureau.

"Well, slow but sure," Augustus said, feeling relieved.

"Not too dern slow," Call said. "We just found Pea Eye yesterday."

He turned back the covers and looked at Augustus's leg. Dr. Mobley was also in the room. Call stood looking at the black leg a minute. Its meaning was clear enough.

"I did plead with him, Captain," Dr. Mobley said. "I told him it should come off. I regret now that I didn't take it when we took the other."

"You should have," Call said bluntly. "I would have known to do that, and I ain't a medical man."

"Don't berate the man, Woodrow," Augustus said. "If I had waked up with no legs, I would have shot the first man I saw, and Dr. Joseph C. Mobley was the first man I saw."

"Leaving you a gun was another mistake," Call said. "But I guess he didn't know you as well as I do."

He looked at the leg again, and at the doctor. "We could try it now." he said. "He's always been strong. He might still live."

Augustus immediately cocked the pistol. "You don't boss me, Woodrow," he said. "I'm the one man you don't boss. You also don't boss most of the women, but that don't concern us now."

"I wouldn't think you'd shoot me for trying to save your life," Call said quietly. Augustus looked sweaty and unsteady, but the range was short.

"Not to kill," Augustus said. "But I'll promise to disable you if you don't let me be about this leg."

"I never took you for a suicide, Gus," Call said. "Men have gotten by without legs. Lots of 'em lost legs in the war. You don't like to do nothing but sit on the porch and drink whiskey anyway. It don't take legs to do that."

"No, I also like to walk around to the springhouse once in a while, to see if my jug's cooled proper," Augustus said. "Or I might want to kick a pig if one aggravates me."

Call saw that it was pointless unless he wanted to risk a fight. Gus had not uncocked the pistol either. Call looked at the doctor to see what he thought.

"I wouldn't bother him now," the doctor said. "It's much too late. I suppose I'm to blame for not outwitting him. He was brought to me unconscious, or I might have figured out what a testy character he is."

Augustus smiled. "Would you bring Captain Call a glass, and some of that venison?" he said. "I imagine he's hungry."

Call wasn't ready to give up, although he felt it was probably hopeless. "You got those two women, back in Nebraska," he pointed out. "Those women would race to take care of you."

"Clara's got one invalid already, and she's bored with him." Augustus said. "Lorie would look after me but it would be a sorry life for her."

"Not as sorry as the one you rescued her from," Call reminded him.

"You don't get the point, Woodrow," Augustus said. "I've walked the earth in my pride all these years. If that's lost, then let the rest be lost with it. There's certain things my vanity won't abide."

"That's all it is, too," Call said bitterly. "Your goddamn vanity." He had expected to find Gus wounded, but not to find him dying. The sight affected him so much that he felt weak, of a sudden. When the doctor left the room, he sat down in a chair and took off his hat. He looked at Gus for a long time, trying to think of some argument he might use, but Gus was Gus, and he knew no argument would be of any use. None ever had been. He could either fight him and take off the leg if he won, or else sit and watch him die. The doctor seemed convinced he would die now in any case, though doctors could be wrong in such matters.

He tried to gird himself for a fight-Gus might miss, or not even shoot, though both were doubtful-but his own weakness held him in the chair. He was trembling and didn't know why.

"Woodrow, I wish you'd relax," Augustus said. "You can't save me, and it would be a pity if we fought at this stage. I might kill you accidentally and them boys would sit out on the plains and freeze."

Call didn't answer. He felt tired and old and sad. He had pressed the mare all day and all night, had easily found the river where the battle took place, recovered Pea Eye's rifle and even his boots and shirt, found Gus's saddle, and raced for Miles City. He had risked ruining the Hell Bitch-he hadn't, though she was tired-and still he had arrived too late. Gus would die, and all he could do was keep a death watch.

The bartender brought a plate of venison, but he had no appetite. He accepted a glass of whiskey, though, and then another. They had no effect.

"I hope you won't become a drunkard over this," Augustus said.

"I won't," Call said. "You can uncock that pistol. If you want to die, go ahead."

Augustus laughed. "You act like you hold it against me," he said.

"I do," Call said. "You got a good head, if you'd use it. A man with a good head can be useful."

"Doing what, braiding ropes?" Augustus asked. "Not my style, Captain."

"Your goddamn style is your downfall, and it's a wonder it didn't come sooner. Any special funeral?"

"Yes, I've been thinking of that," Augustus said. "I've a big favor to ask you, and one more to do you."

"What favor?"

"The favor I want from you will be my favor to you," Augustus said. "I want to be buried in Clara's orchard."

"In Nebraska?" Call asked, surprised. "I didn't see no orchard."

Augustus chuckled. "Not in Nebraska," he said. "In Texas. By that little grove of live oaks on the south Guadalupe. Remember, we stopped by there a minute?"

"My God," Call said, thinking his friend must be delirious. "You want me to haul you to Texas? We just got to Montana."

"I know where you just got," Augustus said. "My burial can wait a spell. I got nothing against wintering in Montana. Just pack me in salt or charcoal or what you will. I'll keep well enough and you can make the trip in the spring. You'll be a rich cattle king by then and might need a restful trip."

Call looked at his friend closely. Augustus looked sober and reasonably serious.

"To Texas?" he repeated.

"Yes, that's my favor to you," Augustus said. "It's the kind of job you was made for, that nobody else could do or even try. Now that the country is about settled, I don't know how you'll keep busy, Woodrow. But if you'll do this for me you'll be all right for another year, I guess."

"You're one of a kind, Gus," Call said, sighing. "We'll all miss you."

"Even you, Woodrow?" Augustus asked.

"Yes, me," Call said. "Why not me?"

"I take it back, Woodrow," Augustus said. "I have no doubt you'll miss me. You'll probably die of boredom this winter and I'll never get to Clara's orchard."

Why do you call it that?

"We had picnics there," Augustus said. "I took to calling it that. It pleased Clara. I could please her oftener in those days."

"Well, but is that any reason to go so far to be buried?" Call said. "She'd allow you a grave in Nebraska, I'm sure."

"Yes, but we had our happiness in Texas," Augustus said. "It was my best happiness, too. If you're too lazy to take me to Texas, then just throw me out the window and be done with it." He spoke with vehemence. "She's got her family in Nebraska," Augustus added, more quietly. "I don't want to lie there with that dumb horse trader she married."

"This would make a story if there was anybody to tell it," Call said. "You want me to carry your body three thousand miles because you used to go picnicking with a girl on the Guadalupe River?"

"That, pius I want to see if you can do it," Augustus said.

"But you won't know if I do it," Call said. "I reckon I'll do it, since you've asked."

He said no more, and soon noticed that Augustus was dozing. He pulled his chair closer to the window. It was a cool night, but the lamp made the little room stuffy. He blew it out-there was a little moonlight. He tried to doze, but couldn't for a time. Then he did doze and woke to find Augustus wide awake, burning with fever. Call lit the lamp but could do nothing for him.

"That was the Musseishell River, where you holed up," he said. "I met that old trapper and he told me. We may take him with us to scout, since he knows the country."

"I wish I had some better whiskey," Augustus said. "This is a cheap product."

"Well, the saloon's closed, probably," Call said.

"I doubt they got better, open or closed," Augustus said. "I have a few more instructions, if you're ready to hear them."

"Why, fine," Call said. "I suppose now you've decided you'd rather be buried at the South Pole."

"No, but do stop in Nebraska a night and let the women know," Augustus said. "I'm leaving my half of the herd to Lorie, and don't you dispute with me about it. Just see she gets what money's coming to her. I'll leave you a note to hand her, and one for Clara."

"I'll pass them on," Call said.

"I told Newt you was his pa," Augustus said.

"Well, you oughtn't to," Call said.

"I oughtn't to have had to, but you never got around to it, so I did," Augustus said. "All you can do about it now is shoot me, which would be a blessing. I feel mighty poorly, and embarrassed to boot."

"Why embarrassed?" Call asked.

"Imagine getting killed by an arrow in this day and age," Augustus said. "It's ridiculous, especially since they shot at us fifty times with modern weapons and did no harm."

"You always was careless," Call said. "Pea said you rode over a hill and right into them. I've warned you about that very thing a thousand times. There's better ways to approach a hill."

"Yes, but I like being free on the earth," Augustus said. "I'll cross the hills where I please."

He paused a minute. "I hope you won't mistreat Newt," he said.

"Have I ever mistreated him?" Call asked.

"Yes, always," Augustus said. "I admit it's practically your only sin, but it's a big one. You ought to do better by that boy. He's the only son you'll ever have-I'd bet my wad on that-though I guess it's possible you'll take to women in your old age."

"No, I won't," Call said. "They don't like me. I never recall mistreating that boy."

"Not naming him is mistreatment," Augustus said. "Give him your name, and you'll have a son you can be proud of. And Newt will know you're his pa."

"I don't know that myself," Call said.

"I know it and you know it," Augustus said. "You're worse than me. I'm stubborn about legs, but what about you? Women are goddamn right not to like you. You don't want to admit you ever needed one of them, even for a moment's pleasure. Though you're human, and you did need one once-but you don't want to need nothing you can't get for yourself."

Call didn't answer. It seemed wrong to quarrel while Gus was dying. Always over the same thing too. That one thing, after all they had done together.

Gus slept through the morning, fitful and feverish. Call didn't expect him to wake. He didn't leave the room. He was finally eating the plate of cold venison when Gus came to his senses briefly.

"Do you want me to do anything about them Indians?" Call asked.

"Which Indians?" Augustus asked, wondering what his friend could be talking about. Call's cheeks looked drawn, as though he hadn't eaten for days, though he was eating even as he asked the question.

"Those that shot the arrows into you," Call said.

"Oh, no, Woodrow," Augustus said. "We won more than our share with the natives. They didn't invite us here, you know. We got no call to be vengeful. You start that and I'll spoil your appetite."

"I don't have much, anyway," Call said.

"Didn't I stick that sign in the wagon, that one I made in Lonesome Dove that upset Deets so much at first?" Augustus asked.

"Upset me too," Call said. "It was a peculiar sign. It's on the wagon."

"I consider it my masterpiece, that and the fact that I've kept you from not getting no worse for so long," Augustus said. "Take the sign back and stick it over my grave."

"Have you wrote them notes for the women yet?" Call asked. "I won't know what to say to them, you see."

"Dern, I forgot, and my two favorite women, too," Augustus said. "Get me some paper."

The doctor had brought in a tablet for Augustus to write his will on. Augustus drew himself up and slowly wrote two notes.

"Dangerous to write to two women at the same time," he said. "Especially when I'm this lightheaded. I might not be as particular in my sentiments as women expect a fellow to be."

But he wrote on. Then Call saw his hand drop and thought he was dead. He wasn't, but he was too weak to fold the second note. Call folded it for him.

"Woodrow, quite a party," Augustus said.

"What?" Call asked.

Augustus was looking out the window. "Look there at Montana," he said. "It's fine and fresh, and now we've come and it'll soon be ruint, like my legs."

Then he turned his head back to Call. "I near forgot," he said. "Give my saddle to Pea Eye. I cut his up to brace my crutch, and I wouldn't want him to think ill of me."

"Well, he don't, Gus," Call said.

But Augustus had closed his eyes. He saw a mist, red at first but then as silvery as the morning mists in the valleys of Tennessee.

Call sat by the bed, hoping he would open his eyes again. He could hear Gus breathing. The sun set, and Call moved back to the chair, listening to his friend's ragged breath. He tried to remain alert, but he was tired. Some time later the doctor came in with a lamp. Call noticed blood dripping off the sheet onto the floor.

"That bed's full of blood and your friend's dead," the doctor said.

Call felt bad for having dozed. He saw that one of Gus's notes to the women was still on the bed. There was blood on it, but not much. Call wiped the note carefully on his pants leg before going downstairs.

97.

WHEN CALL TOLD Dr. Mobley that Gus wanted to be transported to Texas to be buried, the little doctor merely smiled.

"People have their whimsies," he said. "Your friend was a crazy patient. I imagine we'd have quarreled if he'd lived."

"I imagine," Call said. "But I intend to honor the wish."

"We'll pack him in charcoal and salt," the doctor said. "It'll take a barrel or two. Luckily there's a good salt lick not far from here."

"I may need to leave him all winter," Call said. "Is there a place I could store him?"

"My harness shed would do fine," the doctor said. "It's well ventilated, and he'll keep better in the cool. Do you want his other leg?"

"Well, where is it?" Call asked, startled.

"Oh, I've got it," the doctor said. "Contrary as he was, he might have asked me to sew it back on. It's a rotten old thing."

Call went outside and walked down the empty street to the livery stable. The doctor had told him to rest and had offered to locate the undertaker himself.

The Hell Bitch looked up when he came into the livery stable, where he had put her. He felt an impulse to saddle her and ride out into the country, but weariness overcame him and he threw his bedroll on some straw and lay down. He couldn't sleep, though. He regretted not trying harder to save Gus. He should have disarmed him at once and seen that the other leg was amputated. Of course, Gus might have shot him, but he felt he should have taken the risk.

It seemed he only dozed a minute when the sun streamed into the livery stable. Call didn't welcome the day. All he had to think about were mistakes, it seemed-mistakes and death. His old rangering gang was gone, only Pea Eye left, of all of them. Jake was dead in Kansas, Deets in Wyoming, and now Gus in Montana.

An old man named Gill owned the livery stable. He had rheumatism and walked slowly and with a limp. But he was a kindly old man, with a rusty beard and one milky eye. He came limping in not long after Call woke up.

"I guess you need a coffin," the old man said. "Get Joe Veitenheimer, he'll make you a good one."

"It will have to be sturdy," Call said.

"I know," the old man said. "That's all the talk is in this town today, about the feller who wants to be hauled all the way to Texas to be stuck in the ground."

"He considered it his home," Call said, seeing no reason to go into the part about the picnics.

"My attitude is, why not, if he can find someone to tote him," old man Gill said. "I'd be buried in Georgia, if I could have my way, but it's a far piece to Georgia and nobody's gonna tote me. So I'll be buried up here in this cold," he added. "I don't like this cold. Of course, they say when you're dead the temperature don't concern you, but who knows the truth on that?"

"I don't," Call said.

"People got opinions, that's all they've got," the old man grumbled. "If somebody was to go and come back, now that's an opinion I'd listen to."

The old man forked the Hell Bitch a little hay. When he stood watching her eat, the mare snaked out her neck and tried to bite him, causing the old man to stumble backward and nearly stumble over his own pitchfork.

"Dern, she ain't very grateful," he said. "Struck at me like a snake, and I just fed her. Typical female. My wife done exactly the same a hunnert times. Buried her in Missouri, where it's considerable warmer."

Call found the carpenter and ordered a coffin. Then he borrowed a wagon and team and a big scoop shovel from a drunken man at the hardware store. It struck him that the citizenry of Miles City seemed to drink liquor day and night. Half the town was drunk at dawn.

"The lick's about six miles north," the hardware-store man said. "You can find it by the game trails."

Sure enough, several antelope were at the salt lick, and he saw the tracks of buffalo and elk. He worked up a sweat scooping the salt into the wagon.

When he got back to town the undertaker had finished with Gus. The undertaker was a tall man, with the shakes-his whole body trembled, even when he was standing still. "It's a nervous disease," he said. "I took it when I was young, and had it ever since. I put extra fluid in your friend, since I understand he'll be aboveground for a while."

"Yes, until next summer," Call said.

"I don't know how he'll do," the undertaker said. "If he weren't a human you could smoke him, like a ham."

"I'll try salt and charcoal," Call said.

When the coffin was ready, Call bought a fine bandana to cover Gus's face with. Dr. Mobley brought in the leg he had removed, wrapped in some burlap and soaked in formaldehyde to cover the smell. A bartender and the blacksmith helped pack the charcoal in. Call felt very awkward, though everyone was relaxed and cheerful. Once Gus was well covered, they filled the coffin to the top with salt and nailed it shut. Call gave the extra salt to the drunk at the hardware store to compensate him a little for the use of his wagon. They carried the coffin around and put it in the doctor's harness shed on top of two empty barrels.

"That'll do fine," Dr. Mobley said. "He'll be there, and if you change your mind about the trip, we'll just bury him. He'll have lots of company here. We've got more people in the cemetery already than we've got in the town."

Call didn't like the implication. He looked at the doctor sternly. "Why would I change my mind?" he asked.

The doctor had been nipping at a flask of whiskey during the packing, and was fairly drunk. "Dying people get foolish," he said. "They forget they won't be alive to appreciate the things they ask people to do for them. People make any kind of promise, but when they realize it's a dead creature they made the promise to, they usually squirm a little and then forget the whole business. It's human nature."

"I'm told I don't have a human nature," Call said. "How much do I owe you?"

"Nothing," the doctor said. "The deceased paid me himself."

"I'll get him in the spring," Call said.

When he got back to the livery stable he found old man Gill drinking from a jug. It reminded him of Gus, for the old man would hook one finger through the loop of the jug and throw back his head and drink. He was sitting in the wheelbarrow, his pitchfork across his lap, glaring at the Hell Bitch.

"Next time you come, why don't you just catch a grizzly bear and ride him in?" Gill said. "I'd rather stable a grizzly than this mare."

"She bite you or what?"

"No, but she's biding her time," the old man said. "Take her away so I can relax. I ain't been drunk this early in several years, and it's Just from having her around."

"We're leaving," Call said.

"Now, why would you keep a creature like that?" the old man said, once Call had her saddled.

"Because I like to be horseback when I'm horseback," Call said.

Old man Gill was not persuaded. "Hope you like to be dead when you're dead, then," he said. "I reckon she's deadlier than a cobra."

"I reckon you talk too much," Call said, feeling more and more that he didn't care for Miles City.

He found the old trapper, Hugh Auld, sitting in front of the drygoods store. It was a cloudy day and a cool wind blew. The wind had a wintry feel, though it had been hot the day before. Call knew they didn't have long before winter, and his men were poorly equipped.

"Can you drive a wagon?" he asked old Hugh.

"Yes, I can whip a mule as good as anybody else," Hugh said.

Call bought supplies-not only coats and overshoes and gloves but building supplies as well. He managed to rent the wagon he had carried the salt in, promising to return it when possible.

"You're restless," Old Hugh said. "You go on. I'll creep along in this wagon and catch you north of the Musselshell."

Call rode back toward the herd, but at a fairly slow pace. In the afternoon he stopped and sat for several hours by a little stream. Ordinarily he would have felt guilty for not heading back to the boys right away, but Gus's death had changed that. Gus was not a person he had expected to outlive; now that he had, much was different. Gus had always been lucky-everybody said so, and he said so himself. Only Gus's luck ran out. Jake's had run out, Deets's had run out; both deaths were unexpected, both sad, terribly sad, but Call believed them. He had seen them both with his own eyes. And, believing in the deaths, he had put them behind him.

He had seen Gus die, too-or seen him dying, at least-but it seemed he hadn't started believing it. Gus had left, and that was final, but Call felt too confused even to feel sad. Gus had been so much himself to the end that he wouldn't let even his death be an occasion-it had just felt like one of their many arguments that normally would be resumed in a few days.

This time it wouldn't be resumed, and Call found he couldn't adjust to the change. He felt so alone that he didn't really want to go back to the outfit. The herd and the men no longer seemed to have anything to do with him. Nothing had anything to do with him, unless it was the mare. For his part he would just as soon have ridden around Montana alone until the Indians jumped him, too. It wasn't that he even missed Gus yet all that much. Only yesterday they had talked, as they had talked for thirty years.

Call felt some resentment, as he almost always had when thinking of his friend. Gus had died and left the world without taking him with him, so that once again he was left to do the work. He had always done the work-only he suddenly no longer believed in the work. Gus had tricked him out of his belief, as easily as if cheating at cards. All his work, and it hadn't saved anyone, or slowed the moment of their going by a minute.

Finally, as night fell, he mounted and rode on, not anxious to get anywhere, but tired of sitting. He rode on, his mind a blank, until the next afternoon, when he spotted the herd.

The cattle were spread for three miles over the great plain, grazing peacefully along. No sooner had the hands spotted him than Dish and Needle Nelson came racing over. Both looked scared.

"Captain, we seen some Indians," Dish said. "There was a bunch of them but they didn't attack us yet."

"What did they do?" Call asked.

"Just sat on a hill and watched us," Needle Nelson said. "We were going to give them two of these slow beeves if they'd ask, but they didn't ask."

"How many in the bunch?"

"We didn't count," Dish said. "But it was a bunch."

"Women and children with them?" Call asked.

"Oh yes, a passel," Needle said.

"They seldom drag their womenfolk into battle," Call said. "Probably Crow. I'm told the Crow are peaceful."

"Did you find Gus?" Dish asked. "Pea can't talk about nothing else."

"I found him. He's dead," Call said.

The men were turning their horses to go back to the herd. They stopped as if frozen.

"Gus is dead?" Needle Nelson asked.

Call nodded. He knew he would have to tell the story, but didn't want to have to tell it a dozen times. He trotted on over to the wagon, which Lippy was driving. Pea Eye sat in the back end, resting. He was still barefoot, though Call saw at once that his feet were better. When he saw Call riding in alone he looked worried.

"Did they carry him off, Captain?" he asked.

"No, he made it to Miles City," Call said. "But he had blood Poisoning in both legs from those arrows, and he died day before yesterday."

"Well, I swear," Pea Eye said, "I wished he hadn't.

"I got away and Gus died," he added sadly. "Wouldn't you figure it'd be the other way around?"

"I would if I had to make odds," Jasper Fant said. He was close by and had loped over in time to hear.

Newt heard the facts from Dish, who soon rode around the herd, telling the boys. Many of them loped into the wagon to get more details, but Newt didn't. He felt like he had the morning he saw Deets dead-like turning away. If he never went to the wagon, he would never have to hear any more. He cried all afternoon, riding as far back on the drags as he could get. For once he was grateful for the dust the herd raised.

It seemed to him it would have been better if the Indians had ridden in and killed them all-having it happen one at a time was too much to bear, and it was happening to the best people too. The ones who teased him and made sport of him, like Bert and Soupy, were happy as pigs. Even Pea Eye had nearly died, and except for the Captain and himself, Pea was the last one left of the old Hat Creek outfit.

All the men were annoyed with Captain Call because he told of Gus's dying brusquely, got himself a little food and rode away to be alone, as he always did in the evening. His account was pregnant with mysteries, and the men spent all night discussing them. Why had Gus refused to have the other leg amputated, in the face of plain warnings?

"I knew a spry little fellow from Virginia who could go nearly as fast on crutches as I can on my own legs," Lippy reported. "He had two crutches, and once he got his rhythm he could skip along."

"Gus could have made a cart and got him a billygoat to pull it," Bert Borum suggested.

"Or a donkey," Needle said.

"Or his dern pigs, if they're so smart," Soupy said. Both pigs were under the wagon. Pea Eye, who slept in the wagon, had to listen to their grunts and snores all night.

Only the Irishman seemed sympathetic to Gus's stance. "Why, it would only have left half of him," he said. "Who wants to be half of himself?"

"No, half would be about the hips," Jasper calculated. "Half would be your nuts and all. Just your legs ain't half."

Dish Bogget took no part in the conversation. He felt sad about Gus. He remembered that Gus had once lent him money to visit Lorena, and this memory lent another tone to his sadness. He had supposed Gus would go back and visit Lorena, but now, clearly, he couldn't. She was there in Nebraska, waiting for Gus, who would never come.

Into his sadness came a hope that when the drive was over he could draw his wages and go back and win Lorena, after all. He could still remember her face as she sat in front of the little tent on the Kansas plains. How he had envied Gus, for Lorena would smile at Gus, but she had never smiled at him. Now Gus was dead, and Dish determined to mention to the Captain that he wanted to draw his wages and leave as soon as the drive was finished.

Lippy broke down and cried a time or two, thinking of Gus. To him, the mysterious part was why Gus wanted to be taken to Texas.

"All that way to Texas," Lippy kept saying. "He must have been drunk."

"I never seen Gus too drunk to know what he meant," Pea Eye said. He, too, was very sad. It seemed to him it would have been better if he could have persuaded Gus to come with him.

"All that way to Texas," Lippy kept saying. "I wager the Captain won't do it.'

"I'll take that wager," Dish said. "He and Gus rangered together."

"And me too," Pea Eye said sadly. "I rangered with them."

"Gus won't be much but a skeleton, if the Captain does do it," Jasper said. "I wouldn't do it. I'd get to thinking of ghosts and ride off in a hole."

At the mention of ghosts, Dish got up and left the campfire. He couldn't abide the thought of any more ghosts. If Deets and Gus were both roaming around, one might approach him, and he didn't like the thought. The very notion made him white, and he pitched his bedroll as close to the wagon as he could get.

The other men continued to talk of Augustus's strange request.

"Why Texas beats me," Soupy said. "I always heard he was from Tennessee."

"I wonder what he'd have to say about being dead?" Needle said. "Gus always had something to say about everything."

Po Campo began to jingle his tambourine lightly, and the Irishman whistled sadly.

"He never collected all that money he won from us at cards," Bert remembered. "That's the bright side of the matter."

"Oh, dern," Pea Eye said, feeling so sorrowful that he wanted to die himself.

No one had to ask him what he was derning about.

98.

OLD HUGH AULD soon replaced Augustus as the main talker in the Hat Creek outfit. He caught up with the herd, with his wagonload of coats and supplies, near the Missouri, which they crossed near Fort Benton. The soldiers at the tiny outpost were as surprised to see the cowboys as if they were men from another planet. The commander, a lanky major named Court, could scarcely believe his eyes when he looked up and saw the herd spread out over the plain. When told that most of the cattle had been gathered below the Mexican border he was astonished, but not too astonished to buy two hundred head. Buffalo were scarce, and the fort not well provisioned.

Call was short with Major Court. He had been short with everyone since Gus's death. Everyone wondered when he would stop going north, but no one dared ask. There had been several light snows, and when they crossed the Missouri, it was so cold that the men built a huge fire on the north bank to warm up. Jasper Fant came near to realizing his lifelong fear of drownding when his horse spooked at a beaver and shook him off into the icy water. Fortunately Ben Rainey caught him and pulled him ashore. Jasper was blue with cold; even though they covered him with blankets and got him to the fire, it was a while before he could be convinced that he was alive.

"Why, you could have waded out," Old Hugh said, astonished that a man would be frightened over such a little thing as a soaking. "If you think this water's cold now, try setting a few beaver traps around February," he added, thinking it would help the man put things in perspective.

Jasper couldn't speak for an hour. Most of the men had long since grown bored with his drownding fears, and they left him to dry out his clothes as best he could. That night, when he was warm enough to be bitter, Jasper vowed to spend the rest of his life north of the Missouri rather than cross such a stream again. Also, he had developed an immediate resentment against beavers and angered Old Hugh several times on the trip north by firing at them recklessly with his pistol if he saw some in a pond.

"Them's beaver," Old Hugh kept saying. "You trap beaver, you don't shoot 'em." A bullet will ruin the pelt and the pelt's the whole point."

"Well, I hate the little toothy sons of bitches," Jasper said. "The pelts be damned."

Call kept riding northwest until even Old Hugh began to be worried. The great line of the Rockies was clear to the west. Though Old Hugh was the scout, it was Call who rode on ahead. Once in a while Old Hugh might point out a landmark, but he was shy about offering advice. Call made it clear that he didn't want advice.

Though accustomed to his silences, none of the men could remember him being that silent. For days he didn't utter a word-he merely came in and got his food and left again. Several of the men became convinced that he didn't mean to stop-that he would lead them north into the snows and they would all freeze.

The day after they crossed the Marais, Old Dog disappeared. From being a lead steer, he had drifted back to the drags and usually trailed a mile or two behind the herd. Always he was there in the morning, but one morning he wasn't. Newt and the Raineys, still in charge of the drags, went back to look for him and saw two grizzlies making a meal of the old steer. At the sight of the bears their horses bolted and raced back to the herd. Their fear instantly communicated itself to all the animals and the herd and remuda stampeded. Several cowboys got thrown, including Newt, but no one was hurt, though it took an afternoon to gather the scattered herd.

A few days later they finally came to the Milk River. It was a crisp fall day, and most of the men were wearing their new coats. The slopes of the mountains to the west were covered with snow.

"That's the last one," Old Hugh said. "You go much north of that river and you're in Canada."

Call left the herd to graze and rode east alone for a day. The country was beautiful, with plenty of grass and timber enough in the creek bottoms for building a house and corrals. He came across scattered buffalo, including one large herd. He saw plentiful Indian sign, but no Indians. It was cold but brilliantly sunny. He felt that the whole top of the Montana territory was empty except for the buffalo, the Indians and the Hat Creek outfit. He knew it was time to stop and get a house of some kind built before a blizzard caught them. He knew one could come any time. He himself paid no attention to weather, and didn't care, but there were the men to think of. It was too late for most of them to go back to Texas that fall. Like it or not, they were going to be wintering in Montana.

That night, camping alone, he dreamed of Gus. Frequently he woke up to hear Gus's voice, so real he looked around expecting to see him. Sometimes he would scarcely fall asleep before he dreamed of Gus, and it was even beginning to happen in the daytime if he rode along not paying much attention to his surroundings. Gus dead invaded his thoughts as readily as he had when he was alive. Usually he came to josh and tease, much as he had in life. "Just because you've got to the top of the country, you don't have to stop," he said, in one dream. "Turn east and keep going until you hit Chicago."

Call didn't want to turn east, but neither did he particularly want to stop. Gus's death, and the ones before it, had caused him to lose his sense of purpose to such an extent that he scarcely cared from one day to the next what he was doing. He kept on going north because it had become a habit. But they had reached the Milk River and winter was coming, so he had to break the habit or else lose most of the men and probably the cattle too.

He found a creek with a good stand of sheltering timber and decided it would do for a headquarters, but he felt no eagerness for the tasks ahead. Work, the one thing that had always belonged to him, no longer seemed to matter. He did it because there was nothing else to do, not because he felt the need. Some days he felt so little interest in the herd and the men that he could simply have ridden off and left them to make the best of things. The old sense of being responsible for their well-being had left him so completely that he often wondered how he could ever have felt it so strongly. The way they looked at him in the morning, as they waited for orders, irritated him more and more. Why should grown men wait for orders every day, after coming three thousand miles?

Frequently he gave no orders-merely ate his breakfast and rode off, leaving them with puzzled expressions on their faces. An hour later, when he looked back, he would see that they were following, and that, too, irritated him. Sometimes he felt he would prefer to look back and see the plains empty, all the followers and cattle vanished.

But nothing like that happened, and when he had settled on a headquarters, he told the men to drive the cattle east for a day and then let them graze at will. The drive was over. The ranch would lie between the Milk and the Missouri. He would file on the land in the spring.

"What about them of us that want to go back to Texas?" Dish Boggett asked.

Call was surprised. Until then no one had suggested going back to Texas.

"It's late in the year," he said. "You'd be better advised to wait and go in the spring."

Dish looked at him stubbornly. "I didn't hire on for no winter in Montana," he said. "I guess if I could have my wages I'd take my chances."

"Well, you're needed for the building," Call said, reluctant to lose him. Dish looked as if he stood ready to ride south then 4nd there. "Once that's done any can go that wants," Call added.

Dish Boggett felt angry. He hadn't hired on to carpenter either. His first work for the Hat Creek outfit had been well-digging, and his last would be swinging an ax, it appeared. Neither was work fit for a cowhand, and he was on the verge of demanding his wages and standing up for his rights as a free man-but the Captain's look dissuaded him, and the next morning, when they started the herd east along the Milk, he took the point for the last time. With Old Dog dead, the Texas bull was frequently in the forefront of the drive. He looked ugly, for his wound had been sewn up unevenly, and being one-eyed and one-horned had made him even more irascible. He would often turn and attack anyone who approached him on his blind side. Several men had narrowly escaped disaster, and only the fact that Captain Call favored the bull had kept them from shooting him.

Dish resolved that as soon as the building was done he would go like a streak for Nebraska. The thought that a stranger might come along and win Lorie before he could get back was a torment to him-but it made him one of the more vigorous members of the logging crew once the building got started. Most of the other members of the crew, Jasper and Needle particularly, were less vigorous, and they irritated Dish by taking frequent breaks, leaving him to chop alone. They would sit around smoking, keeping a close watch for bears, while Dish flailed away, the sound of the striking ax echoing far across the valley of the Milk River.

Before the work had been in progress a week, an event occurred which changed the men's attitudes dramatically. The event was a blizzard, which howled out of the north for three days. Only the fact that Call had seen to it that ample firewood had been cut saved the outfit. The men had never known or imagined such cold. They built two large fires and huddled between them, feeding them logs, freezing on the side not closest to the fire. The first day there was no visibility at all-the men could not even go to the horses without the risk of being lost in the swirling snow.

"It's worse than a sandstorm," Needle said.

"Yes, and colder too," Jasper said. "I've got my feet practically in the fire and my dern toes are still frozen."

Dish found to his annoyance that his own breath caused his mustache to freeze, something he would not have imagined could happen. The men put on all the clothes they had and were still terribly cold. When the storm blew out and the sun reappeared, the cold refused to leave. In fact, it got colder, and formed such a hard crust on the snow that the men slipped and fell just going a few feet to the wagon.

Only Po Campo seemed to thrive in the weather. He still relied largely on his serape, plus an old scarf he had found somewhere, and he annoyed the men by nagging them to go shoot a bear. His theory was that bear meat would help them get used to the weather. Even if it didn't, a bearskin might come in handy.

"Yes, and them dern bears probably think a little man meat would come in handy," Soupy observed.

Pea Eye, the tallest man in the group, had developed a new fear, which was that he would be swallowed up in a snowdrift. He had always worried about quicksand, and now he was in a place where all he could see, for miles around, was a colder version of quicksand.

"If it was to cover you up, I reckon you'd freeze," he said, over and over, until the men were tired of hearing it. Most of the men were tired of hearing one another say anything-the complaints characteristic of each had come to bore them thoroughly as a group.

Newt found that he had no urge either to talk or listen, but he did have an urge to stay warm, and he spent as much time by the fire as he honorably could. The only parts of his body that he was still conscions of were his hands, feet and ears, all of which were dreadfully cold. When the storm abated and they rode out to check the cattle he tied an old flannel shirt over his ears and they still felt frozen.

The livestock weathered the storm fairly well, although some of the cattle had drifted far south and had to be pushed back toward the Milk.

Even so, within ten days of the blizzard, a sizable rough log house had been built, complete with fire place and chimney, both the work of Po Campo. He took advantage of a few days' thaw to make a great quantity of mud bricks, all of which froze hard with the next freeze. The roof had hardly been on the cabin a day when the next blizzard hit. This time, though, the men were comparatively warm.

To their amazement, Captain Call refused to live in the house. He set up the old tent of Wilbarger's in a sheltered spot on the creek, and spent his nights in it, sometimes building a small fire in front of it.

Every morning, the men expected to come out and find him frozen; instead, he came in every morning and found them sleeping too late, reluctant to leave their blankets for the chill.

But there were still corrals to build, and a smokehouse, and improvements on the cabin. Call saw that the men stayed at work while he himself did most of the checking on the livestock, sometimes taking Newt with him on his rounds. He killed several buffalo and taught Newt how to quarter them.

Old Hugh Auld came and went at will on his spotted pony. Though he talked constantly while he was with the crew, he often developed what he called lonesome feelings and disappeared for ten days at a time. Once in a prolonged warm spell he came racing in excitedly and informed Call that there was a herd of wild horses grazing only twenty miles to the south.

Since the Hat Creek remuda was not in the best of shape, Call decided to go see about the horses. They had a great stroke of luck and caught them in a box canyon only fifteen miles from the headquarters. The horses were smallish, but still fat from a summer's grazing. Bert Borum, the best roper in the outfit, caught eighteen of the horses and they were brought back, hobbled, to the remuda.

True to his word, Dish Boggett drew his wages and left the day after they caught the wild horses. Call had assumed the blizzards would have taught the young man the folly of leaving, and was annoyed when Dish asked for his pay.

"It's no time to be traveling in country you don't know," Call said.

"I pointed that herd the whole way up here," Dish said stubbornly. "I guess I can find my way back. Besides, I got a coat."

Call had little money on him, but he had arranged for credit in the little bank in Miles City and he wrote Dish out an order for his wages, using the bottom of a frying pan to rest his tablet on. It was just after breakfast and a number of the hands were watching. There had been a light snowfall the night before and the plains were white for miles around.

"Dern, we might as well hold the funeral right now," Soupy said. "He won't even make it to the Yellowstone, much less to Nebraska."

"It's that whore," Jasper said. "He's in a hurry to get back before somebody beats his time."

Dish reddened and whirled on Jasper. "She ain't a whore," he said. "You take that back or I'll box your dern ears."

Jasper was appalled at the challenge. His feet were cold and he knew he couldn't cut much of a figure in a fight with Dish. His hands were cold too-they were usually cold-and the thought of having to strike someone with a hard head with one of them was not pleasant.

"Well, I meant she was in her younger days," Jasper said. "I don't know what she does for a living now."

Dish stalked off in a cold silent fury. He had resented many of the men throughout the whole trip because of their casual talk about Lorie and saw no reason for elaborate goodbyes. Po Campo hung him with so many provisions that he could scarcely mount.

Dish thought them unnecessary. "I got a rifle," he reminded Po. "There's plenty of game."

"You may not want to hunt in the blizzards," Po Campo said.

Before Dish left, Call told him to take an extra horse. Dish had mainly ridden Sugar all the way north and planned to ride him all the way back, but Call insisted that he take a little buckskin for insurance.

"A horse can always go lame," he said.

All the men were standing around, disturbed that Dish was leaving. Newt felt like crying. Leavings and dyings felt a lot alike.

Dish, too, at the last moment, felt a powerful ache inside him at the thought of leaving the bunch. Though most of the hands were disgraceful, rude and incompetent, they were still his compañeros. He liked young Newt and enjoyed teasing Jasper. He even had a sneaking fondness for Lippy, who had appointed himself cook's helper and seldom got far from the big fireplace.

But Dish had gone too far to stop. He had no fear at all of the dangers. He had to go see Lorena, and that was that. He mounted and took the lead rope of the little buckskin.

Pea Eye, who had been off near the lots trying to loosen his bowels-the main effect on Montana had been to constipate him-missed the preparations for leave-taking. He had been in a sorrowful mood ever since the report had come back on Gus, and the sight of Dish ready to ride off, upset him all over again.

"Well, I swear, Dish," he said. Tears welled in his eyes and he could say no more. Several of the men were disturbed by the sight, fearing that they might behave no better. Dish shook hands quickly all around.

"So long, boys," he said. "Look for me south of the Brazos if you ever get home." Then he touched Sugar with his spurs and was soon only a black speck on the snow.

Call had debated giving him the letters Gus had written to the women, but thought better of it. If Dish was lost, and probably he would be, the letters would be lost too, and they were Gus's last words. Better to keep them and deliver them himself-though the thought didn't cheer him.

Sitting in his tent that night, he pondered the change in himself. He had let the young man override his warning and leave. He could have ordered him to stay and put a little more of himself into the order, as he often had at times when men were unruly. Dish had been determined, but not determined enough to buck a forceful command. As Captain he had given such commands many times and never had one failed to be obeyed.

But in this case he lacked the interest. When it came time to summon the force, he hadn't. He admired Dish Boggett, who indeed had held a true point for three thousand miles; he had also often proved himself the best man to break a stampede. But Call had let him go, and didn't really care. He knew that he wouldn't care if they all went, excepting Pea and the boy. He had no impulse to lead the men another step.

The next day, since the weather continued pretty, he decided to go to Fort Benton himself. Major Court had indicated that the Army might frequently need beef if the winter got bad and the tribes fared poorly. After all, he had come to Montana in the hope of selling cattle. Once the news reached Texas that they had made the drive, others would soon follow, probably by next fall, and it was well to establish good connections with the Army, the only buyer in the Territory who might want beef.

It was during the Captain's absence that Newt discovered a talent for breaking horses. Ben Rainey, an excellent rider, had been assigned the task of breaking the mustangs, but on the very first day of work a strong black horse threw him into a tree and broke his arm. Po Campo set the bone, but Ben declared he had had enough of bucking broncs. He meant to apply for another job when the Captain returned. Newt had been on wood detail, dragging dead timbers up from the creek and helping Pea Eye and Pete Spettle split them. He told Ben Rainey he would have a try at the black, and he rode him to a standstill, to the surprise of everyone, including himself.

Of course he knew that riding a horse through a bucking spell represented just a small part of a horse's education. They had to be gentled enough that it wouldn't be necessary to tie them down to saddle them. They had to be taught to rein, and, if possible. to take an interest in cattle.

When the Captain returned a week later with an order for three hundred beeves to be delivered to Fort Benton by Christmas, Newt was in the little sapling corral they had built, working with a hammerheaded bay. He looked nervously at the Captain, expecting to be reprimanded for changing jobs, but Call merely sat on the Hell Bitch and watched. Newt tried to ignore the fact that he was there-he didn't want to get nervous and upset the bay. He had discovered that if he talked a lot and was soothing in what he said it had a good effect on the horse he was working with. He murmured to the bay while the Captain watched. Finally Call dismounted and unsaddled. It pleased him to see the quiet way the boy worked. He had never been one for talk when there was work to be done-it was his big point of difference with Gus, who could do nothing without talking. He was glad the boy was inclined to his way. When they drove the beeves to Fort Benton he took Newt and two other men with him.

That winter there were several such trips-not merely to Fort Benton but to Fort Buford as well. Once when they arrived at Fort Benton the Army had just trailed in a bunch of raw, half-broken horses from the south. When they brought in beeves, the fort was always full of Indians, and there was much bargaining over how the beeves would be divided between the Major and an old Blackfoot chief the soldiers call Saw, because of the sharpness of his features. Some Blood Indians were there too on this occasion, and Call felt angry-he knew he was seeing some of the warriors who had killed Gus. When the Indians left he felt like tracking them and revenging his friend-though he didn't know which braves had done it. He held back, but it made him uneasy to leave an attack unanswered.

The Major found out that Newt was good at breaking horses and asked Call if he would mind leaving the boy at the fort for a few weeks to rough out the new string of horses. Call didn't want to, but the Major had dealt with him on fair terms and he didn't feel he could refuse the request, particularly since there was not much to do back at ranch headquarters. They spent their time making improvements on the log house, starting a barn and checking the cattle after the frequent storms. Most of the men spent their spare time hunting, and had already brought in more buffalo and elk meat than could he eaten in a winter.

So Call agreed, and Newt stayed at the fort a month, breaking horses. The weather improved. It was cold, but the days were often fine and sunny. Newt's only scare came when he took a strong sorrel gelding out of the fort for his first ride and the horse took the bit between his teeth and raced out onto the Missouri ice. When the horse hit the ice he slipped and, though he crashed through the ice, fortunately they were in shallow water and Newt was able to struggle out and lead the horse out too. A few soldiers coming in with a load of wood helped him get dry. Newt knew it would have been a different story if the horse had made it to the center of the river before breaking through the ice.

After that, when he took his raw mounts out for a ride, he turned them away from the river as soon as he left the fort.

99.

JULY JOHNSON PROPOSED to Clara in the first week of the new year. He had been trying to stop himself from doing just that for months, and then he did it one day when, at her request, he brought in a sack of potatoes. It had been very cold and the potatoes were frozen-Clara wanted them in the warm kitchen to thaw. His son Martin was crawling on the kitchen floor when he came in and Clara was stirring batter for one of the cakes she couldn't live without. As soon as he sat the frozen potatoes on the table, he did it. "Would you ever marry me?" was the way he put it, and immediately felt a terrible fool for having uttered the words. In the months he had worked for her their relations had been unchanged, and he supposed she would think him drunk or out of his head for raising such a thought.

Instead, Clara did a thing that amazed him-she stuck a finger in the sweet cake batter and held her hand out to him, as if he were just supposed to eat the glob of uncooked cake right off her finger.

"Have a taste, July," she said. "I think I've overdone the cinnamon."

July decided she must not have heard his question. He wondered if she were merely trying to be polite. Though he knew he should have been glad she hadn't heard it, he felt ready to say it again, and was about to when Clara stopped him with a look.

"You don't have to repeat yourself," she said. "I heard you. Do you Want to give me an opinion on this cinnamon or not?"

July felt awkward and embarrassed. He hadn't meant to ask such a question just then-and yet the question would be asked. He didn't know what to do about the cake batter, but didn't feel it proper just to lean over and eat it off her finger. He reached out and took as much of it as he could on one of his own fingers before he sampled it.

"Tastes fine," he said, but Clara looked annoyed, or scornful, or somehow displeased. He could never tell what her looks meant-all he registered was how uncomfortable they made him.

"I don't think you're much of a judge of sweets," Clara said, heat in her tone but a coldness in her gray eyes.

She ate the rest of the batter off her own finger and went back to stirring the cake. A minute later Lorena walked into the room and picked up the baby. July was hoping she would take the baby out of the kitchen, but instead she sat down at the table and began to sing to him. Then, to make matters worse, both girls came in and began to make over the baby too. Martin was laughing and trying to grab a spoon away from one of the girls. Clara looked at July again, and the look made him feel a fool. He didn't get an answer to his question and soon had to go back to doing his chores.

That night he wondered if he ought to leave. He could not stay around Clara without nursing hopes, and yet he could detect no sign that she cared about him. Sometimes he thought she did, but when he thought it over he always concluded that he had just been imagining things. Her remarks to him generally had a stinging quality, but he would often not realize he had been stung until after she left the scene. Working together in the lots, which they did whenever the weather was decent, she often lectured him on his behavior with the horses. She didn't feel he paid close attention to them. July was at a loss to know how anyone could pay close attention to a horse when she was around, and yet the more his eyes turned to her the worse he did with the horses and the more disgusted she grew. His eyes would turn to her, though. She had taken to wearing her husband's old coat and overshoes, both much too big for her. She wouldn't wear gloves-she claimed the horses didn't like it-and her large bony hands often got so cold she would have to stick them under the coat for a few minutes to warm them. She wore a variety of caps that she had ordered from somewhere-apparently she liked caps as much as she liked cake. None of them were particularly suited to a Nebraska winter. Her favorite one was an old Army cap Cholo had picked up on the plains somewhere. Sometimes Clara would tie a wool scarf over it to keep her ears warm, but usually the scarf came untied in the course of working with the horses, so that when they walked back up for a meal her hair was usually spilling over the collar of the big coat. Yet July couldn't stop his eyes from feasting on her. He thought she was wonderfully beautiful, so beautiful that merely to walk with her from the lots to the house, when she was in a good mood, was enough to make him give up for another month all thought of leaving. He told himself that just being able to work with her was enough. And yet, it wasn't-which is why the question finally forced itself out.

He was miserable all night, for she hadn't answered the question. But he had spoken the words and revealed what he wanted. He supposed she would think worse of him than she already did, once she thought it over.

It was three days before they were alone again. Some soldiers needing horses showed up, and Clara asked them to spend the night. Then Martin got a bad cough and developed a high fever. Cholo was sent to bring the doctor. Clara spent most of the day sitting with the baby, who coughed with every breath. She tried every remedy she knew, with no effect. Martin couldn't sleep for coughing. July went into the sickroom from time to time, feeling awkward and helpless. The boy was his child, and yet he didn't know what to do. He felt in the way. Clara sat in a straight chair, holding the child. He asked in the morning if there was anything special she wanted him to do and she shook her head. The child's sickness had driven out all other concerns. When July came back that evening, Clara was still sitting. Martin was too weak by then to cough very hard, but his breath was a rasp and his fever still high. Clara was impassive, rocking the baby's cradle, but not looking at him.

"I guess the doctor will be getting here soon," July said uncertainly.

"The doctor might have been gone in the other direction," Clara said. "This will be over before he gets here. He'll have had the ride for nothing."

"You mean the baby's dying?" July asked.

"I mean he'll either die or get well before the doctor comes," Clara said, standing up. "I've done all I can. The rest is up to Martin."

Clara looked at him and then, to his shock, walked over and put her head against his chest. She put her arms around him and held him tightly. It was so surprising that July almost lost his balance. He put his arms around her to steady himself. Clara didn't raise her head for what seemed like minutes. He could feel her body trembling and could smell her hair.

Then she stepped back from him as abruptly as she had come to him, though she caught one of his hands and held it a moment. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

"I hate it when a child is sick," she said. "I loathe it. I get too scared. It's like…" She stopped a minute to wipe the tears off her cheeks. "It's like there's something doesn't want me to get a boy raised," Clara said, her voice cracking.

July lay awake all night, remembering how it felt to have her take his hand. Her fingers had twined for a moment in his before she let go. It had seemed she needed him, else she wouldn't have squeezed so. It made him so excited that he couldn't sleep, yet when he went back upstairs in the morning and stepped into the sickroom, Clara was distant, though it was a fine sunny day and the baby's fever was down. His breath still rattled, but he was asleep.

"I could bring you up some coffee," July said.

"No, thanks, I know my way to the kitchen well enough," she said, standing up. This time she neither hugged him nor took his hand; she walked past him without a look. All he could do was follow her downstairs. Lorena and the girls had already made breakfast and Cholo came in to eat. July didn't feel hungry. The fact that Clara was displeased took his appetite away. He tried to think why she might be displeased, but could come up with no reasons. He sat numbly through breakfast and went out the door feeling that it would be hard to get his mind on work. He needed to repair the wheel of the big wagon, which had cracked somehow.

Before he could even get the wheel off, he saw Clara coming toward the tool shed. Though it was sunny, it was also very cold-her breath made little clouds. July was afraid the baby might have taken a turn for the worse, but that was not it. Clara was very angry.

"You'd do better to talk to me when I'm mad," she said, with no preamble. There were points of red in her cheeks.

"I'm no talker, I guess," July said.

"You're not much of anything, but you could be," she said. "I know you're smart, because Martin is, and he didn't get it all from your poor wife. But a fence post is more useful generally than you are."

July took it as a criticism of his work, which he felt he had done scrupulously.

"I've nearly got this wheel fixed," he said.

"July, I'm not talking about chores," she said. "I'm talking about me. I sat there all night in that room with your baby. Where were you?"

July had been thinking that he probably should have offered to sit with her. Of course, now it was too late. He wanted to explain that he was too shy just to come into a room where she was, particularly a bedroom, unless she asked him. Even coming into the kitchen, if she was alone, was not something he did casually. But he didn't know how to explain all the cautions she prompted in him.

"I wish now I had," he said.

Clara's eyes were flashing. "I told you how sickness frightens me," she said. "The only times I've ever wished I could die is when I've had to sit and watch a child suffer."

She was twisting one hand in the other. July, seeing that she was shivering, took off his coat and held it out to her, but Clara ignored the offer.

"I sit there alone," she said. "I don't want the girls to be there because I don't want them to get death too much in their minds. I sit there and I think, I'm alone, and I can't help this child. If it wants to die I can't stop it. I can love it until I bleed and it won't stop it. I hope it won't die. I hope it can grow up and have its time. I know how I'll feel if it does die, how long it'll take me to care if I draw breath, much less about cooking and the girls and all the things you have to do if you're alive."

Clara paused. In the lots a sorrel stallion whinnied. He was her favorite, but this day she appeared not to hear him.

"I know if I lose one more child I'll never care again," she said. "I won't. Nothing will make any difference to me again if I lose one more. It'll ruin me, and that'll ruin my girls. I'll never buy another horse, or cook another meal, or take another man. I'll starve, or else I'll go crazy and welcome it. Or I'll kill the doctor for not coming, or you for not sitting with me, or something. If you want to marry me, why didn't you come and sit?"

July realized then that he had managed to do a terrible thing, though all he had done was go to his room in the ordinary way. It startled him to hear Clara say she could kill him over such a thing as that, but he knew from her look that it wasn't just talk.

"Would you ever marry me?" he asked. "You never said."

"No, and I'm not about to say now," Clara said. "Ask me in a year."

"Why in a year?"

"Because you deserve to suffer for a year," Clara said. "I suffered a year's worth just last night, and I guess you were lying at your ease, dreaming of our wedding night."

July had no reply. He had never known a woman who spoke so boldly. He looked at her through the fog of their breath, wishing she would at least take the coat. The cold made goosebumps on her wrists.

"I thought you were a sheriff once," Clara said. The stallion whinnied again, and, still watching July, she waved at the horse. He had the eyes of a sweet but bewildered boy in the body of a sturdy man. She wanted the sturdiness close to her, but was irritated by the bewilderment.

"Oh, I was a sheriff," he said.

"Didn't you ever give orders, then?" she said.

"Well, I told Roscoe when to clean the jail," July said.

"It ain't much, but it's more than we hear from you around here," Clara said. "Try telling me when to clean something, just for practice, once in a while. At least I'd get to hear a sound out of your throat."

Again, she refused the coat, though it was clear to him that she was in a somewhat better temper. She went over and rubbed the stallion's neck for ten minutes before going back to the house.

Then the other man, Dish Boggett, had to come, bringing the news that Augustus McCrae was dead. He had picked his way along the Platte River in a January blizzard. Both his horses were exhausted, but Dish himself seemed no worse for wear. He treated blizzards as a matter-of-fact occurrence.

It seemed to July that Clara took an instant liking to Dish Boggett, and he couldn't help feeling resentful, although he soon perceived that Dish had come to court Lorena, not Clara. Lorena had hardly spoken since she learned that Gus was dead. Clara immediately offered Dish a job-it was a hard winter and they were always behind. The colts would start coming soon, and they would be farther behind, so of course it was only sensible to hire another man, but July hated it. He had grown used to working with Clara and Cholo, and he had a hard time adjusting to Dish. Part of it was that Dish was twice as competent with horses as he was himself, and everyone immediately recognized Dish's value. Clara was soon asking Dish to do things with the horses that she had once let July do. July was more and more left with the kind of chores that a boy could handle.

To make matters worse, Dish Boggett was standoffish and made no attempt to make friends with him. Dish knew many card games and could even play charades, so he was a great hit with the girls. Many a night through the long winter, July sat against a wall, feeling left out, while Clara, Dish and the girls played games at the big kitchen table.

Dish tried every way he could to draw Lorena into some of the games, but the most Lorena would do was sit in the room. She sat silently, not watching, while July sat just as silently. He could not help but wish that Dish Boggett had got lost in Wyoming or had somehow gone on to Texas. Hardly a day passed without him seeing what he thought were signs that Clara was taken with the man. Sooner or later, when Dish gave up on Lorena, he would be bound to notice. July felt helpless-there was nothing he could do about it. Sometimes he sat near Lorena, feeling that he had more in common with her than with anyone else at the ranch. She loved a dead man, he a woman who hardly noticed him. But whatever they had in common didn't cause Lorena to so much as look his way. Lorena looked more beautiful than ever, but it was a grave beauty since news of the death had come. Only the young girl, Betsey, who loved Lorena completely, could occasionally bring a spark of life to her eyes. If Betsey was ill, Lorena nursed her tirelessly, taking her into her own bed and singing to her. They read stories together, Betsey doing the reading. Lorena could only piece out a few words-the sisters planned to teach her reading, but knew it would have to wait until she felt better.

Even Sally, usually so jealous of any attention her sister got, respected the fact that Betsey and Lorena were especially close. She would let off teasing Betsey if Lorena looked at her in a certain way.

Clara felt no terrible stab of grief when the news of Gus's death came. The years had kept them too separate. It had been a tremendous joy to see him when he visited-to realize that he still loved her, and that she still enjoyed him. She liked his tolerance and his humor, and felt an amused pride in the thought that he still put her above other women, despite all the years since they had first courted.

Often she sat out on her upper porch at night, wrapped in Bob's huge coat. She liked the bitter cold, a cold that seemed to dim the stars. Reflecting, she decided there had been something in what she and Gus had felt that needed separation. At close quarters she felt she would have struggled bitterly with him. Even during his brief visit she felt the struggle might start, and if it did start, gentler souls, such as July and Lorena, might have been destroyed.

In the dark nights on the ice-encrusted porch she occasionally felt a cold tear on her cheek. In Gus she had lost her ultimate ally, and felt that much more alone, but she had none of the tired despair she had felt when her children died.

Now there was July Johnson, a man whose love was nearly mute. Not only was he inept where feelings were concerned, he was also a dolt with horses. Loving horses as she did, Clara was hard put to know why she could even consider settling in with a man who was no better with them than Bob had been. Of course, the settling-in process was hardly complete, and Clara was in no hurry that it should be. Closer relations would probably only increase her impatience with him.

It amused her that he was so jealous of Dish, who, though friendly, companionable and an excellent hand, was not interested in her at all. His love for Lorena leaped out of every look he cast in her direction, although not one of them penetrated Lorena's iron grief. Clara herself didn't try to touch or change Lorena's grief-it was like Martin's fever: either it would kill her or it wouldn't. Clara would not have been surprised by a gunshot if it had come from Lorena's room. She knew the girl felt what she had felt when her boys died: unrelievable grief. In those times, the well-meaning efforts of Bob or the neighbors to cheer her up had merely affronted her. She hadn't wanted to live, particularly not cheerfully. Kindly people told her that the living must live. I don't, if my boys can't, she wanted to say to them. Yet the kindly people were right; she came slowly back to enjoyment and one day would even find herself making a cake again and eating it with relish.

Watching Lorena, as she sat blank with grief every day, scarcely stirring unless Betsey urged her to, Clara felt helpless. Lorena would either live or die, and Clara felt it might be die. Lorena's only tie to life was Betsey. She didn't care for sweets or men or horses; her only experience with happiness had been Gus. The handsome young cowboy who sent her countless looks of love meant nothing to her. Pleasure had no hold on Lorena-she had known little of it, and Clara didn't count on its drawing her back to life. The young cowboy would be doomed to find his love blocked by Gus in death even as it had been in life. Betsey had a better chance of saving Lorena than Dish. Betsey worried about her constantly and tried to get her mother to do something.

"I can't make Mr. McCrae alive again, which is all she wants," Clara said. "What do you think I can do?"

"Make her not so sad," Betsey pleaded.

"Nobody can do that," Clara said. "I can't even make you not sad when you're sad."

Yet one day she did try. She came upon Lorie standing in the hall, her hair uncombed. She had the look of a beaten dog. Clara stopped and hugged her, as suddenly as she had hugged July Johnson. In him her hug had stirred a fever of hope; in Lorena it stirred nothing.

"I guess you wish you'd gone with him," Clara said. "It would have given you a little more time."

Lorena looked surprised-it was the one thing she had been thinking since the news came.

"I should have," she said.

"No," Clara said. "You would have had a little more time, I grant you, but now you'd be stuck in Montana with a bunch of men who don't care that you loved Gus. They'd want you to love them. Dish. wants it so much that he rode to you through the blizzards."

The thought of Dish merely made Lorena feel cold. "He wasted his time," she said.

"I know that, but don't expect him to realize it," Clara said.

"He bought me once, when I was a whore," Lorena said, surprised at the word on her tongue. She had never used it before.

"And Gus didn't?" Clara said.

Lorena was silent. Of course Gus had. She wondered if Clara would ask her to leave, knowing what she had been.

"Dish loved you and took the only way he had to get your attention," Clara said.

"He didn't get my attention," Lorena said. "He didn't get anything."

"And Gus did the same and got everything," Clara said. "Gus was lucky and Dish isn't."

"I ain't either," Lorena said.

Clara offered no advice. A few days later, when she was sewing, Lorena came and stood in front of her. She looked no better. "Why did you ask me to stay, when it was you Gus loved?" she asked. "Why didn't you ask him to stay? If you had he'd be alive."

Clara shook her head. "He loved us both," she said, "but Gus would never miss an adventure. Not for you or me or any other woman. No one could have kept him home. He was a rake and a rambler, though you'd have kept him longer than I could have."

Lorena didn't believe it. She remembered how often Gus had talked of Clara. Of course it no longer mattered-nothing like that mattered anymore, and yet she couldn't keep her mind from turning to it.

"It ain't so," she said. She had used her voice so little that it sounded weak.

"It is so," Clara said. "You're more beautiful and less bossy. When I told Gus I was marrying Bob, all those years ago, he looked relieved. He tried to act disappointed, but he was relieved. I've never forgot it. And he had proposed to me thirty times at least. But he saw it would be a struggle if he won me, and he didn't want it."

Clara was silent for a moment, looking into the other woman's eyes.

"Bob was too dumb to realize there'd be a struggle," Clara said. "Half the time he didn't notice it even when he was in it. So mainly I had the struggle with myself.

"It's been lonely," she added.

She thought the conversation a good sign. Maybe Lorie was going to come out of it. But it was the last conversation they had for months. Lorena lived through the winter in silence, only speaking to Betsey, who remained as loyal as ever.

Dish Boggett remained loyal too, although Lorena gave him no encouragement. He spent more and more time playing cards with Sally, whose bright girlish chatter he had come to like. Every day he tried his best with Lorena, but he had begun to feel hopeless. She would not even speak to him, no matter how sweetly he asked. She met everything he said with silence-the same silence she had had in Lonesome Dove, only deeper. He told himself that if the situation didn't improve by the spring he would go to Texas and try to forget her.

Yet when spring came Dish told Clara he would be glad to stay and help her with the colts.

100.

IT CAME TO RANKLE CALL that Gus had left his half of the cattle herd to the woman. The woman was down in Nebraska. She was not there helping. Of course, if she had been there helping, there would have been trouble, but that didn't lessen the aggravation of what Gus had done. He could simply have given her money-he had money. As it was, every time Call sold a bunch of stock to the Army he had to put aside half the money for a woman he had never approved of, who might, for all any of them knew, have already forgotten Gus and married someone else, or even gone back to being a whore.

Still, Call had halved the money. However aggravating it was, Gus had meant it, and he would do it, though when he went back with the body he planned to see if he could at least buy her out. He didn't like the thought of being in partnership with a woman, much less a whore-although he conceded that she might have reformed.

He lived in the tent all winter, keeping the men working but taking little interest in the result. Sometimes he hunted, taking the Hell Bitch and riding off onto the plains. He always killed game but was not much interested in the hunt. He went because he no longer felt comfortable around the men. The Indians had not bothered them, and the men did well enough by themselves. Soupy Jones had assumed the top-hand role, once Dish left, and flourished in it. The other men did well too, although there was some grumbling and many small disputes. Hugh Auld and Po Campo became friends and often tramped off together for a day or two so Hugh could show Po Campo some pond where there were still beaver, or some other interesting place he knew about. Lippy, starved for music, played the accordion and spent nearly the whole winter trying to make a fiddle from a shoebox. The instrument yielded a powerful screeching sound, but none of the cowboys were ready to admit that the sound was music.

At Christmas, hungering for pork, they killed Gus's pigs. The most surprising development was that Jasper Fant learned to cook. He took it up mainly out of boredom, but, tutored by Po Campo, his progress was so rapid that when Po Campo went off with Old Hugh the cuisine didn't suffer.

In the early spring, while the weather was still chancy, fifteen horses disappeared one night. It was only by luck that the theft was discovered, for in such a place at such a time horsethieves were the last thing they were expecting. Call had taken the precaution of going with Old Hugh to two or three of the nearest Indian camps to meet the chiefs and do the usual diplomacy, in the hope of preventing the sort of surprise encounter that had proven deadly for Gus. The visits made him sad, for the Indians were not belligerent and it was apparent that Gus had merely struck the wrong bunch at the wrong time, in the wrong manner. It was a depressing irony, for Gus had always been one to preach diplomacy with the red man and over the years had engaged in many councils that Call himself thought pointless. Gus had talked to many a warrior that Call would merely have shot, and yet had got killed in a place where most of the Indians were happy to talk, particularly to a man who owned an endless supply of beef.

But Call noticed on the visits that, in the main, the Indians had better horses than he did, and he had even arranged a trade with the Blackfeet: fifty beeves for ten horses. The negotiations had required Old Hugh to talk for two days and had left him hoarse.

Thus, when the Spettle boy came in to report the horses gone, Call was surprised. Where would a horsethief come from, and where would one go?

Still, a fact was a fact: the horses were gone. Call took Pea, Newt, Needle Nelson, and Old Hugh, and went in pursuit. He soon ruled out Indians, for the thieves were traveling too slow, and had even stopped to camp not thirty miles from their headquarters, which Indians with stolen horses would never have been foolish enough to do. It was soon plain that they were only chasing two men. They crossed into Canada on the second day and caught the thieves on the third, surprising them at breakfast. They were a shaky old man with a dirty gray beard and a strapping boy about Newt's age. The old man had a single-shot buffalo gun, and the boy a cap-and-ball pistol. The boy was cooking venison and the old man propped against his saddle muttering over a Bible when Call walked in with his pistol drawn. The boy, though big as an ox, began to tremble when he saw the five men with guns.

"I tolt you, Pa," he said. "Now we're caught."

The old man, who had a jug beside his saddle, was clearly drunk, and seemed scarcely conscious of what was occurring.

"Why, I'm a minister of the Lord," he said. "Don't point your dern guns at me, we're just having breakfast. This is my boy, Tom."

Call disarmed the two, which only took a second. The fifteen horses were grazing in plain sight not a hundred yards from the camp.

"We didn't know they were your horses," the boy said, quivering with fright. "We thought they were Indian horses."

"They're all branded," Call said. "You could see that, unless you're blind."

"Not blind and not sinners, either," the old man said, getting to his feet. He was so drunk he couldn't walk straight.

"Well, you're horsethieves, and that's a sin in my book," Call said. "Where do you people come from?"

"From God, man," the old fellow said.

"Where on earth, I meant," Call said, feeling weary. He wondered what had possessed a minister and a boy to run off their horses, each plainly branded. It struck him as a stupid and pointless crime, for they were driving the horses north, where there were no towns and no ranches. It was clear the two were poor, and the old man out of his head. Call could tell the hands were glum at the prospect of hanging such a pair, and he himself didn't relish it, but they were horsethieves and he felt he had no choice. His own distaste'for the prospect caused him to make a mistake-he didn't immediately tie the old man, who seemed so weak he could hardly stand. He was not too weak, though, to snatch up a hatchet and strike a blow at Needle that would have killed him had not Needle jerked back-as it was, the blade of the hatchet tore a bad cut in his arm. Call shot the old man before he could strike again. The boy took off running across the open prairie. He was easily caught, of course, but by the time he was tied and led back the old man was dead. The boy sat down in the thin snow and wept.

"He was all right until Ma died and Sister died," he said. "We were in a wagon train. Then he just went daft and said we had to go off by ourselves. I didn't want to."

"I wish he hadn't taken our horses," Call said.

The boy was trembling and crying. "Don't hang me, mister," he said. "I never stole in my life. I told him to leave them horses, but he said they were horses the Indians had already stole."

"I'll work for you," the boy added. "I can blacksmith. I worked two years at a forge back in Missouri, before we left."

Call knew there was not a decent tree in miles. It would be a hardship on them to ride along with the boy for a day in order to hang him. Besides, they needed a blacksmith. As for the boy's story, maybe it was true and maybe it wasn't. The old man had appeared to be mad, but Call had seen many thieves act that way in hopes that it would save them.

"Pa said he'd shoot me if I didn't help," the boy said.

Call didn't believe him. He had been about to cut the boy loose, but he didn't. He put him on one of the stolen horses, and they started back.

Newt felt sick at the thought of what would happen. He didn't want to see another person hang.

"You ask him," he said to Pea.

"Ask him what?" Pea said.

"Not to hang him," Newt said.

"He'll hang him," Pea said. "He hung Jake, didn't he?"

"His pa made him do it," Newt said.

"Maybe," Pea said. "And maybe he's just a dern horsethief."

When they came to a good tree, Call rode on, all the way to the Hat Creek headquarters. Once there, he cut the boy loose.

"You can work," he said.

For ten days the big boy was the friendliest person in the outfit. He shoed all the horses, cut wood, did every chore he was asked to do and some that he wasn't. He chattered constantly and tried his best to be friendly, and yet no one really liked him. Even Newt didn't really like him. Tom stood too close to him, when he talked, and he talked all the time. His large face was always sweaty, even on the coldest days. Even Po Campo didn't like him, and gave him food grudgingly.

Then, before dawn one morning Call caught Big Tom, as they called him, saddling a horse and preparing to ride off. He had four of the men's wallets on him, stolen so smoothly that none of the men had even missed them. He had also taken the best saddle in the outfit, which belonged to Bert Borum.

Call had been expecting the move for two or three days and had made Pea Eye help him watch. Big Tom tried to make a dash for it, and Call shot him off his horse. Cowboys ran out of their house in their long johns, at the shot. Even wounded, the boy proved full of fight-Call had to rap him with the barrel of his Henry before he could be tied. This time he was summarily hung, though he wept again and begged for mercy.

"It's wasted on horsethieves," Call said, before kicking the boy's horse out from under him. None of the men said a word.

"Should have hung him in the first place, although he did shoe them horses," Pea Eye commented later.

Call had begun to think of Gus, and the promise he had made. It would soon be spring, and he would have to be going if he were to keep the promise, which of course he must. Yet the ranch had barely been started, and it was hard to know who to leave in command. The question had been in his mind all winter. There seemed to be no grave danger from Indians or anything else. Who would best keep things going? Soupy was excellent when set a task, but had no initiative and was unused to planning. The men were all independent to a fault and constantly on the verge of fist fights because they fancied that someone had attempted to put himself above them in some way. Pea Eye was clearly the senior man, but Pea Eye had contentedly taken orders for thirty years; to expect him to suddenly start giving them was to expect the impossible.

Call thought often of Newt. He watched him with increasing pride all winter. The boy was the only one left in the crew whom he enjoyed being with. The boy's skill and persistence with horses pleased him. He knew it would be chancy to leave a seventeen-year-old boy in charge of a group of grown men-yet he himself had led men at that age, and that had been in rougher times. He liked the way the boy went about his work without complaint. He had filled out physically during the year and could work all day energetically and accomplish more than most of the men.

Once, watching the boy cross a corral after having worked with one of the mustangs, Pea Eye said innocently, "Why, Captain, little Newt walks just like you."

Call flinched, but Pea Eye didn't notice-Pea Eye was no noticer, as Augustus had often said.

That night, sitting in Wilbarger's little tent, Call remembered the remark. He also remembered Gus's efforts to talk to him about the boy. With Gus pressing him, it was his nature to resist, but with Gus gone he didn't find it so distasteful to consider that the boy was his son. He had certainly gone to his mother, hateful as the memory was. Maggie, of course, had not been hateful-it was the strange need she induced in him that he disliked to remember.

He started taking the boy with him on every trip he made to the forts, not merely to familiarize him with the country but to let him participate in the selling and trading. Once, as a test, he sent Pea and the boy and the Raineys to Fort Benton with a sizable bunch of cattle, stipulating that the boy was to handle the details of the sale and bring home the money. Newt did well, as well as he himself could have done. He delivered the cattle safely, sold them for a fair amount and brought the money home.

It didn't sit well with Soupy Jones that Newt was being given such authority. It seemed to Soupy that he should have taken the cattle, and possibly received a commission, in his capacity as top hand. Soupy was rude to Newt from time to time, and Newt ignored him as best he could. Call did nothing, but two weeks later he let it be known that he was preparing to send the boy to the fort again-at which point Soupy boiled over. He took it as a slight and said he would draw his wages and go if that was how things were going to be.

Call promptly paid him his wages, much to Soupy's astonishment. He had never imagined such an outcome. "Why, Captain, I don't want to leave," he said plaintively. "I got nothing to go to back down south."

"Then give me back the money and behave yourself," Call said. "I decide who'll do what around here."

"I know, Captain," Soupy said. He was aware that he had chosen a bad moment to make his scene-right after breakfast, with many of the hands standing around.

"If you have other complaints, I'm listening," Call said. "You seem to be mad at Newt."

The words made the hairs stand up on the back of Newt's neck. It was the first time he could ever remember the Captain having spoken his name.

"Well, no, I ain't," Soupy said. "He's a fair hand, but it don't seem right a fair hand should be put over a top hand unless there's a reason."

"He's young and needs the training-you don't. That's the reason," Call said. "If I tell you to take orders from him you will, or else leave. They'll be my orders, at second hand."

Soupy reddened at the disgusting thought of taking orders from a boy. He stuffed his wages in his pocket, planning to leave, but an hour's contemplation caused him to mellow and he gave Call back the wages. That night, though, he suddenly stuck out a foot and tripped Newt, when Newt walked past with a plateful of food. Newt fell on his face but he rose and flung himself on Soupy in a second, so angry at the insult that he even held his own for a few licks, until Soupy could bring his weight and experience into play-after which Newt got thoroughly pounded, so thoroughly that he was not aware when the fight stopped. He was sitting on the ground spitting blood, and Soupy had walked away. Call had expected the fight and watched impassively, pleased that the boy had fought so hard. Winning would have been beyond his powers.

The battle won Soupy no friends; he had assumed so many airs once Dish left that he had few friends anyway, whereas Newt was popular. Reaction was so unfavorable that a few days later Soupy drew his wages again and left, taking Bert with him. They had concluded they could make Texas, if they went together.

Call was worried for a few weeks about being short-handed, but then three young men he had seen at the fort decided to quit soldiering and try their hand at ranching. All three were from Kentucky. They were inept at first but industrious. Then two genuine cowboys showed up; lured all the way north from Miles City by the news that there was a ranch on the Milk. They had given up cowboying for mule skinning the year before and concluded they had made a bad mistake. Then a tall boy named Jim wandered in alone. He had been with a wagon train but had lost interest in getting to Oregon.

Soon, instead of being short-handed, Call found that he had almost more men than he needed. He decided to start the branding early. Several hundred calves had been born since they left Texas; many were yearlings, and a struggle to brand. A few of the men questioned the necessity, since they were the only cattle outfit in the Territory, but Call knew that would soon change. Others would come.

The roundup took ten days. The cattle had spread themselves wide over the range between the Milk and the Missouri in their foraging during the winter. Then the branding took a week. At first the men enjoyed the activity, competing with one another to see who could throw the largest animals the quickest. There was also much disagreement over who should get to rope and who should work on foot. Newt improved so rapidly as a roper that he was soon sharing that task with Needle Nelson, the only one of the original crew skilled with a lariat.

With the branding ended, and the spring grass spiking through the thin May snows, Call knew the time had come for him to fulfill his promise to his old friend. It was awkward-indeed, it seemed absurd-to have to tote a six-months-old corpse to Texas, but there it was.

Yet May wore on and June approached, and still he had not gone. The snows had melted, all down the plains, he imagined, and yet something held him. It wasn't work. There were plenty of men to do the work-they had even had to turn away three or four men who came looking to hire on. Many times Call spent much of the afternoon watching Newt work with the new batch of horses they had bought on a recent trip to the fort. It was work he himself had never been particularly good at-he had always lacked the patience. He let the boy alone and never made suggestions. He liked to watch the boy with the horses; it had become a keen pleasure. If a cowboy came over and tried to talk to him while he was watching he usually simply ignored the man until he went away. He wanted to watch the boy and not be bothered. It could only be for a few days, he knew. It was a long piece to Texas and back. Sometimes he wondered if he would even come back. The ranch was started, and the dangers so far had been less than he feared. He felt sometimes that he had no more to do. He felt much older than anyone he knew. Gus had seemed young even when he was dying, and yet Call felt old. His interest in work had not returned. It was only when he was watching the boy with the horses that he felt himself.

In those hours he would lose himself in memory of other times, of other men who had lived with horses, who had broken them, ridden them, died on them. He felt proud of the boy, and with it, anguish that their beginnings had been as they had. It could not be changed, though. He thought he might speak of it sometime, as Gus had wanted him to, and yet he said nothing. He couldn't. If he happened to be alone with the boy, his words went away. At the thought of speaking about it a tightness came into his throat, as if a hand had seized it. Anyway, what could a few words change? They couldn't change the years.

Newt was puzzled at first when the Captain began watching him with the horses. At first he was nervous-he felt the Captain might be watching because he was doing something that needed correcting. But the afternoons passed, and the Captain merely watched, sometimes sitting there for hours, even if it turned wet or squally. Newt came to expect him. He came to feel that the Captain enjoyed watching. Because of the way the Captain had been behaving, giving him more and more of the responsibility for the work, Newt came to feel that Mr. Gus must have been right. The Captain might be his father. On some afternoons, with the Captain there by the corrals watching, he felt almost sure of it, and began to expect that the Captain would tell him soon. He began to listen-waiting to be told, his hope always growing. Even when the Captain didn't speak, Newt still felt proud when he saw him come to watch him work.

For two weeks, through the spring evenings, Newt was very happy. He had never expected to share such a time with the Captain, and he hoped the Captain would speak to him soon and explain all that had puzzled him for so long.

One night toward the end of May, Call couldn't sleep. He sat in front of the tent all night, thinking of the boy, and Gus, and the trip he had to make. That morning, after breakfast, he called Newt aside. For a moment he couldn't speak-the hand had seized his throat again. The boy stood waiting, not impatient. Call was annoyed with himself for his strange behavior, and he eventually found his voice.

"I have to take Gus back," he said. "I guess I'll be gone a year. You'll have to be the range boss. Pea will help you, and the rest are mostly reliable, though I think that Irishman is homesick and might go home."

Newt didn't know what to say. He looked at the Captain.

"That woman gets half the money when you sell stock," Call said. "It was Gus's request. You can bank it for her in Miles City. I'll tell her it's there when I see her."

Newt could hardly believe he would be made boss over the men. He expected more orders, but the Captain turned away.

Later in the morning, he and Pea Eye and Needle were riding the banks of the Milk, seeing if any cattle were bogged. They were always bogging. Getting them out was hard, muddy work, but it had to be done; if it rained, the river might rise in the night and drown the bogged animals.

The day was cold and blowy. Newt had to wade out into the mud three times to lift the hind ends of the bogged yearlings, while Needle roped the animals by the head and drug them out. Newt scraped the mud off his legs as best he could, put his pants back on, and was getting ready to turn back toward headquarters when he saw the Captain riding toward them. He was riding the Hell Bitch and leading Greasy, the big mule that had come with them all the way from Texas, and a rangy dun named Jerry, the mount he preferred after the Hell Bitch. Augustus's old sign was tied to the pack mule.

"I guess the Captain's going," Pea Eye said. "He's taking old Greasy and an extra horse."

Newt felt his spirits sink. He knew the Captain had to leave, and yet he hoped he wouldn't-not for another few days anyway.

Call rode up to the three men, dismounted and, to everyone's surprise unsaddled the Hell Bitch and put the saddle on Jerry. Then he led the Hell Bitch over to where Newt stood.

"See how your saddle fits her," Call said.

Newt was so surprised he could only look at the Captain in silence. He thought he must have misunderstood. No one but the Captain had ridden the mare since the Hat Creek outfit had acquired her.

"Do what?" he asked finally.

"Put your saddle on her," Call said. He felt tired and was finding it difficult to speak. He felt at any moment he might choke.

"I doubt she'd like it," Newt said, looking at the mare, who pointed her ears at him as if she knew what had been said. But the Captain didn't take back the order, so he unsaddled the little sorrel he had been riding, the one Clara had given him, and carried his saddle over to the mare. Call held the bridle while Newt saddled her. Then he handed Newt the reins and went over and took his big Henry out of its scabbard. He removed the Winchester from the boy's saddle and stuck the Henry in his saddle scabbard. It wasn't a perfect fit, but it would do.

"You'll need it for them big bears," he said.

When he turned back to look at the boy the choking feeling almost overcame him. He decided he would tell the boy he was his son, as Gus had wanted him to. He thought they would ride away a little distance, so they could speak in private.

And yet, when he looked at Newt, standing there in the cold wind, with Canada behind him, Call found he couldn't speak at all. It was as if his whole life had suddenly lodged in his throat, a raw bite he could neither spit out nor swallow. He had once seen a Ranger choke to death on a tough bite of buffalo meat, and he felt that he was choking, too-choking on himself. He felt he had failed in all he had tried to be: the good boy standing there was evidence of it. The shame he felt was so strong it stopped the words in his throat. Night after night, sitting in front of Wilbarger's tent, he had struggled with thoughts so bitter that he had not even felt the Montana cold. All his life he had preached honesty to his men and had summarily discharged those who were not capable of it, though they had mostly only lied about duties neglected or orders sloppily executed. He himself was far worse, for he had been dishonest about his own son, who stood not ten feet away, holding the reins of the Hell Bitch.

Call thought he might yet say it, even if the men were there to hear. Fie trembled from the effort, and his trembling and the look on his face caused great consternation in Pea Eye, who had never known the Captain to be at a loss for words. The Captain would ride up and give an order, and that was that-but now he merely stood looking at Newt, a jerking in his throat.

Looking at the Captain, Newt began to feel sadder than he had ever felt in his life. Just go on, he wanted to say. Go on, if it's that hard. He didn't want the Captain to go on, of course. He felt too young; he didn't want to be left with it all. He felt he couldn't bear what was happening, it was so surprising. Five minutes before, he had been pulling a yearling out of a bog. Now the Captain had given him his horse and his gun, and stood with a look of suffering on his face. Even Sean O'Brien, dying of a dozen snakebites, had not shown so much pain. Go on, then, Newt thought. Just let it be. It's been this way always. Let it be, Captain.

Call walked the few steps to the boy and squeezed his arm so hard Newt thought his fingers had pinched the bone. Then he turned and tried to mount the dun. He had to try for the stirrup three times before he could mount. He wished he had died on the Musselshell with Gus. It would have been easier than knowing he could not be honest. His own son stood there-surely, it was true; after doubting it for years, his own mind told him over and over that it was true-yet he couldn't call him a son. His honesty was lost, had long been lost, and he only wanted to leave.

When he mounted, the feeling loosened a bit and he fell back into the habit he had vowed to discard-the habit of leading.

"There's two heifers bogged yet," he said. "They're half a mile downstream. You better go get them."

Then he rode over and shook Pea Eye's hand. Pea Eye was so astonished he couldn't close his mouth. Gus had never shaken his hand until the last minute, and now the Captain was shaking it too.

"Help Newt," Call said. "He'll need a steady man, and you qualify if anybody ever did."

He raised his hand to Needle Nelson and turned his horse.

"So long, boys," he said.

But he looked again at Newt. The boy looked so lonesome that he was reminded of his own father, who had never been comfortable with people. His father had fallen drunk out of a barn loft in Mississippi and broken his neck. Call remembered the watch that had been passed on to him, an old pocket watch with a thin gold case. He had carried it since he was a boy. He raised up in his stirrups, took it out of his pocket and handed it to Newt.

"It was my pa's," he said, and turned and left.

"Dern, Newt," Pea Eye said, more astonished that he had ever been in his life. "He gave you his horse and his gun and that watch. He acts like you're his kin."

"No, I ain't kin to nobody in this world," Newt said bitterly. "I don't want to be. I won't be."

Despair in his heart, he mounted the Hell Bitch as if he had ridden her for years, and turned downstream. He felt he never wanted to hope for anything again, and yet no more than a minute later the strange hope struck him that the Captain might have turned back. He might have forgotten something-perhaps an order he had meant to give. Even that he would have welcomed. It felt so lonely to think of the Captain being gone. But when he turned to look, the Captain was merely a speck on the long plain. He was gone, and things would never be as Newt had hoped-never. Somehow it had been too hard for the Captain, and he had left.

Pea Eye and Needle followed Newt silently. Pea Eye felt old and frightened. In a few minutes the whole ground of his life had shifted, and he felt stricken with foreboding. For thirty years the Captain had been there to give orders, and frequently the orders had kept them alive. He had always been with the Captain, and yet now he wasn't. He couldn't understand why the Captain had given Newt the horse, the gun and the watch. The business of the ax, and what he had heard when retrieving it, was forgotten-it had puzzled him so long that it had finally just slipped from his mind.

"Well, here we are," he said wearily. "I guess we'll just have to do the work."

The Texas bull was standing a hundred yards or so away with a small group of cows. When the riders drew near, he began to bellow and paw the earth. It irritated him if he saw several riders together, though he had not charged anyone lately.

"I'll tell you one thing, I may shoot that bull yet," Needle said. "I've put up with that son of a bitch about long enough. The Captain may like him, but I don't."

Newt heard the talk, but didn't speak. He knew the Captain had left him with too much, but he didn't say it. He would have to try and do the work, even if he no longer cared.

Feeling that it was pointless, but acting from force of habit, they pulled the two stuck heifers from the Milk River mud.

101.

IN MILES CITY, Call found that the storage of Augustus's remains had been bungled. Something had broken into the shed and knocked the coffin off the barrels. In the doctor's opinion it had probably been a wolverine, or possibly a cougar. The coffin had splintered and the varmint had run off with the amputated leg. The mistake wasn't discovered until after a blizzard had passed through, so of course the leg had not been recovered.

The look on Call's face, when he heard the news, was so grim it made the doctor extremely nervous.

"We've mostly kept him," he said, avoiding Call's eye. "I had him repacked. He had done lost that leg before he died anyway."

"It was in the coffin when I left here," Call said. He didn't care to discuss the matter with the man. Instead, he found the carpenter who had built the coffin in the first place and had him reinforce it with strong planks. The result was a heavy piece of work.

By luck, the same day, Call saw a buggy for sale. It was old but it looked sturdy enough, and he bought it. The next day he had the coffin covered in canvas and lashed to the seat. The buggy hood was in tatters, so he tore it off. Greasy, the mule, was used to pulling the wagon and hardly noticed the buggy, it was so light. They left Miles City on a morning when it had turned unseasonably cold-so cold that the sun only cast a pale light through the frigid clouds. Call knew it was dangerous to go off with only two animals, but he felt like taking his chances.

The weather improved the next day and he rode for a time beside a hundred or so Crow Indians who were traveling south. The Crow were friendly, and their old chief, a dried-up little man with a great appetite for tobacco and talk, tried to get Call to camp with them. They were all interested in the fact that he was traveling with a coffin and asked him many questions about the man inside it.

"We traveled together," Call said. He did not want to talk about Gus with the old man, or anyone. He wanted to get on, but he was cordial and rode with the Crow because he felt that if he were discourteous some of the young bucks might try to make sport with him farther south, when he was out of range of the old chief's protection.

Once he struck Wyoming, he rode for eleven days without seeing a soul. The buggy held up well, but Greasy lost flesh from the pace Call kept up. The coffin got some bad jolts crossing the gullies near the Powder River, but the reinforcements held it together.

The first people he saw, as he approached Nebraska, were five young Indians who had gotten liquor somewhere. When they saw he was carrying a dead man they let him alone, though they were too drunk to hunt successfully and begged him for food. None of them looked to be eighteen, and their horses were poor. Call started to refuse, but then he reflected that they were just boys. He offered them food if they would give up their liquor, but at that they grew quarrelsome. One drew an old pistol and acted as if he might fire at him, but Call ignored the threat, and they were soon gone.

He regretted that he had to take Gus to the women, but felt it was part of his obligation to deliver the notes Gus had written when he was dying. The Platte was so full of ducks and geese that he heard their gabbling all day, though he rode a mile from the river.

He thought often of the men he had left up on the Milk, and of the boy. He had not expected the parting to go as it had, and could not get his mind off it. For several hundred miles, down through Montana and Wyoming, he left them all over again in his mind, day after day. He imagined many times that he had said things he had not said, and, from concentrating on it too much as he traveled down the plains, he began to grow confused. He missed being able to sit at the corrals and watch Newt work with the horses. He wondered if the boy was handling the Hell Bitch well and if any more men had left the ranch.

Then, before he had scarcely reined in at Clara's house, where he found Dish Boggett breaking horses with the young sheriff from Arkansas, the woman began a quarrel with him. She had acquired some small shrubs somehow and was out planting them, bareheaded and in overshoes, when he arrived.

"So you're doing it, are you, Mr. Call?" Clara said, when she saw him. She had a look of scorn in her eyes, which puzzled him, since he was merely carrying out the request of the man who had loved her for so long. Of course Dish had told her that Gus wanted his body taken to Texas.

"Well, he asked, and I said I'd do it," Call said, wondering why she disliked him so. He had just dismounted.

"Gus was crazy and you're foolish to drag a corpse that far," Clara said bluntly. "Bury him here and go back to your son and your men. They need you. Gus can rest with my boys."

Call flinched when she said the word "son," as if she had never had a doubt that Newt was his. He himself had once been a man of firm opinion, but now it seemed to him that he knew almost nothing, whereas the words Clara flung at him were hard as rocks.

"I told him that very thing," Call said. "I told him you'd likely want him here."

"I've always kept Gus where I wanted him, Mr. Call," Clara said. "I kept him in my memory for sixteen years. Now we're just talking of burying his body. Take him to the ridge and I'll have July and Dish get a grave dug."

"Well, it wasn't what he asked of me," Call said, avoiding her eyes. "It seems that picnic spot you had in Texas is where he wanted to lay."

"Gus was a fine fool," Clara said. "He was foolish for me or any other girl who would have him for a while. Because it was me he thought of, dying, is no reason to tote his bones all the way to Texas."

"It was because you picnicked in the place," Call said, confused by her anger. He would have thought a woman would feel complimented by such a request, but Clara clearly didn't take it that way.

"Yes, I remember our picnics," she said. "We mostly quarreled. He wanted what I wouldn't give. I wanted what he didn't have. That was a long time ago, before my boys died."

Tears came to her eyes when she said it, as they always did when the thought of her boys struck her. She was aware that she was being anything but hospitable, and that the man didn't understand what she said. She scarcely knew what she meant herself-she just knew that the sight of Woodrow Call aroused in her an unreasoning hate and disgust.

"He wrote you," Call said, remembering why he had come. "There's a letter for you and one for her. He left her his half of our cattle." He untied his saddlebag and brought out the two notes, handing them to Clara.

"I would have sent them with Dish but he left in the winter and there was no knowing if he'd get through," Call said.

"But you always get through, don't you, Captain?" Clara said, with a look so hard that Call turned aside from it and stood by the horses, tired. He was ready to agree with her that Gus had been foolish to make such a request of him.

Then he turned and saw Clara walk over to Greasy, the mule. She stroked the mule along his neck and spoke to him softly before breaking into sobs. She hid her face against the mule, who stood as if planted, though normally he was a rather skittish animal. But he stood while Clara sobbed against his side. Then, taking the notes and not looking at Call, she hurried into the house.

From the lots, Dish and July were watching. Dish felt a little queasy, seeing Gus's coffin. He had not gotten over his nervousness about the dead. It seemed to him quick burial was the best way to slow their ghosts.

July, of course, had heard all about Gus McCrae's death, and his strange request, but had not quite believed it. Now it had turned out to be true. He remembered that Gus had ridden down with him on the Kiowa campfire and killed every single man, while he himself had not been able to pull a trigger. Now the same man, dead a whole winter, had turned up in Nebraska. It was something out of the ordinary, of that he felt sure.

"I knowed the Captain would do it," Dish said. "I bet them boys up on the Milk are good and skeert, now he's gone."

"I hear it's hard winters up there," July said-not that they were easy in Nebraska.

The Captain, as if distracted, walked a little way toward the lots and then stopped. Dish walked out to greet him, followed by July, and was shocked by the change in the man. The Captain looked like an old man-he had little flesh on his face and his beard and mustache were sprinkled with gray.

"Why, Captain, it's fine to see you," Dish said. "How are them northern boys doing?"

Call shook Dish's hand, then July's. "We wintered without losing a man, or much stock either," he said, very tired.

Then he saw that Dish was looking beyond him. He turned and saw that the blond woman had come out of the house. She walked to the buggy and stood by the coffin. Clara's two daughters followed her out on the back porch, a toddling child between them. The girls didn't follow Lorena to the buggy. They watched a minute and then guided the child back in the house.

Dish Boggett would have given anything to be able to go to Lorena, but he knew he couldn't. Instead he led the Captain back down to the lots and tried to interest him in the horses. But the Captain's mind was elsewhere.

When the plains darkened and they went in to supper, Lorena still stood by the wagon. The meal was eaten in silence, except for little Martin's fretting. He was used to being the center of gay attention and couldn't understand why no one laughed when he flung his spoon down, or why no one sang to him, or offered him sweets.

"Oughtn't we to go get Lorie?" Dish asked, at one point, anguished that she was left to stand alone in the darkness.

Clara didn't answer. The girls had cooked the meal, and she directed the serving with only a glance now and then. Watching Woodrow Call awkwardly handling his fork caused her to repent a little of her harshness when he arrived, but she didn't apologize. She had stopped expecting July to contribute to the conversation, but she resented his silence nevertheless. Once Martin spat out a bite of perfectly good food and Clara looked at him sharply and said "You behave," in a tone that instantly put a stop to his fretting. Martin opened his mouth to cry but thought better of it and chewed miserably on his spoon until the meal was finished.

After supper the men went out of the house to smoke, all glad to escape the company of the silent woman. Even Betsey and Sally, accustomed to chattering through supper, competing for the men's attention, were subdued by their mother's silence, and merely attended to serving.

After supper Clara went to her bedroom. Gus's letter lay on her bureau, unread. She lit her lamp and picked it up, scratching at the dried blood that stained one corner of the folded sheet. "I ought not to read this," she said, aloud. "I don't like the notion of words from the dead."

"What, Momma?" Betsey asked. She had come upstairs with Martin and had overheard.

"Nothing, Betsey," Clara said. "Just a crazy woman talking to herself."

"Martin acts like he's got a stomachache," Betsey complained. "You didn't have to look so mean at him, Ma."

Clara turned for a moment. "I won't have him spitting out food," she said. "The reason men are awful is because some woman has spoiled them. Martin's going to learn manners if he learns nothing else."

"I don't think men are awful," Betsey said. "Dish ain't."

"Let me be, Betsey," Clara said. "Put Martin to bed."

She opened the letter-just a few words in a scrawling hand:

DEAR CLARA

I would be obliged if you'd look after Lorie. I fear she'll take this hard.

I'm down to one leg now and this life is fading fast, so I can't say more. Good luck to you and your gals, I hope you do well with the horses.

Gus

Clara went out on her porch and sat, twisting her hands, for an hour. She could see that the men were below, still smoking, but they were silent. It's too much death, she thought. Why does it keep coming to me?

The dark heavens gave no answer, and after a while she got up and went downstairs and out to Lorena, who still stood by the buggy, where she had been from the time Call arrived.

"Do you want me to read you this letter?" she said, knowing the girl couldn't read. "It's bad handwriting."

Lorena held the letter tightly in her hand. "No, I'll just keep it," she said. "He put my name on it. I can read that. I'll just keep it."

She didn't want Clara to see the letter. It was hers from Gus. What the words were didn't matter.

Clara stood with her for a bit and went back in.

The moon rose late, and when it did the men walked to the little shack by the lots where they slept. The old Mexican was coughing. Later Lorena heard the Captain get his bedroll and walk away with it. She was glad when the lights went out in the house and the men were all gone. It made it easier to believe Gus knew she was there.

They'll all forget you-they got their doings, she thought. But I won't, Gus. Whenever it comes morning or night, I'll think of you. You come and got me away from him. She can forget and they can forget, but I won't, never, Gus.

The next morning Lorena still stood by the buggy. The men scarcely knew what to think about it. Call was perplexed. Clara made breakfast as silently as she had presided over supper. They could all look out the window and see the blond girl standing like a statue by the buggy, the letter from Augustus clutched in her hand.

"For that girl's sake I wish you'd forget your promise, Mister Call," Clara said finally.

"I can't forget no promise to a friend," Call said. "Though I do agree it's foolish and told him so myself."

"People lose their minds over things like this," Clara said. "Gus was all to that girl. Who'll help me, if she loses hers?"

Dish wanted to say that he would, but couldn't get the words out. The sight of Lorie, standing in grief, made him so unhappy that he wished he'd never set foot in the town of Lonesome Dove. Yet he loved her, though he could not approach her.

Clara saw that it was hopeless to hammer at Call. He would go unless she shot him. His face was set, and only the fact that the girl stood by the buggy had kept him from leaving already. It angered her that Gus had been so perverse as to extract such a promise. There was no proportion in it-being drug three thousand miles to be buried at a picnic site. Probably he had been delirious and would have withdrawn the request at once if he had been allowed a lucid moment. What angered her most was Gus's selfishness in regard to Call's son. He had been a sweet boy with lonesome eyes, polite. He was the kind of boy she would have given anything to raise, and here, for a romantic whim, Gus had seen to it that father and son were separated.

It seemed so wrong to her, and raised such anger in her, that for a moment she was almost tempted to shoot Call, just to thwart Gus. Not kill, but shoot him enough to keep him down until Gus could be buried and the folly checked.

Then, between one minute and the next, Lorena crumpled to the ground, unconscious. Clara knew it was only a faint, but the men had to carry her in and upstairs. Clara shooed them out as soon as she could, and put Betsey to watching her. By that time Captain Call had mounted and hitched the brown mule to the buggy and mounted his horse. He was ready to go.

Clara walked out to try once more. Dish and July were shaking hands with Call, but they beat an immediate retreat when they saw her coming.

"I put it to you once more, in the plainest terms, Mr. Call," Clara said. "A live son is more important than a dead friend. Can you understand that?"

"A promise is a promise," Call said.

"A promise is words-a son is a life," Clara said. "A life, Mr. Call. I was better fit to raise boys than you've ever been, and yet I lost three. I tell you no promise is worth leaving that boy up there, as you have. Does he know he's your son?"

"I suppose he does-I give him my horse," Call said, feeling that it was hell to have her, of all women, talk to him about the matter.

"Your horse but not your name?" Clara said. "You haven't even given him your name?"

"I put more value on the horse," Call said, turning the dun. He rode off, but Clara, terrible in her anger, strode beside him.

"I'll write him," she said. "I'll see he gets your name if I have to carry the letter to Montana myself. And I'll tell you another thing: I'm sorry you and Gus McCrae ever met. All you two done was ruin one another, not to mention those close to you. Another reason I didn't marry him was because I didn't want to fight you for him every day of my life. You men and your promises: they're just excuses to do what you plan to do anyway, which is leave. You think you've always done right-that's your ugly pride, Mr. Call. But you never did right and it would be a sad woman that needed anything from you. You're a vain coward, for all your fighting. I despised you then, for what you were, and I despise you now, for what you're doing."

Clara could not check her bitterness-even now, she knew, the man thought he was doing the right thing. She strode beside the horse, pouring out her contempt, until Call put the mule and the dun into a trot, the buggy, with the coffin on it, squeaking as it bounced over the rough plain.

102.

SO CAPTAIN CALL TURNED back down the rivers, cut by the quint of Clara's contempt and seared with the burn of his own regret. For a week, down from the Platte and across the Republican, he could not forget what she said: that he had never done right, that he and Gus had ruined one another, that he was a coward, that she would take a letter to the boy. He had gone through life feeling that he had known what should be done, and now a woman flung it at him that he hadn't. He found that he could not easily forget a word Clara said. He could only trail the buggy down the lonely plains, her words stinging in his heart and head.

Before he reached Kansas, word had filtered ahead of him that a man was carrying a body home to Texas. The plain was filled with herds, for it was full summer. Cowboys spread the word, soldiers spread it. Several times he met trappers, coming east from the Rockies, or buffalo hunters who were finding no buffalo. The Indians heard-Pawnee and Arapahoe and Ogallala Sioux. Sometimes he would ride past parties of braves, their horses fat on spring grass, come to watch his journey. Some were curious enough to approach him, even to question him. Why did he not bury the compañero? Was he a holy man whose spirit must have a special place?

No, Call answered. Not a holy man. Beyond that he couldn't explain. He had come to feel that Augustus had probably been out of his mind at the end, though he hadn't looked it, and that he had been out of his mind to make the promise he had.

In one week in Kansas he ran into eight cattle herds-he would no sooner pass one than he encountered another. The only advantage to him was that the trail bosses were generous with wire and pliers. The Miles City buggy had been patched so many times that it was mostly wire by then, Call felt. He knew it would never make Texas, but he determined to keep going as long as he could-what he would do when it finally fell apart he didn't know.

Finally he was asked about Augustus and the purpose of his journey so many times that he couldn't tolerate it. He turned west into Colorado, meaning to skirt the main cattle trails. He was tired of meeting people. His only moments of peace came late in the day when he was too tired to think and was just bouncing along with Gus.

He rode through Denver, remembering that he had never sent Wilbarger's brother the telegram he had promised, notifying him of Wilbarger's death. It had been a year and he felt he owed Wilbarger that consideration, though he soon regretted coming into the town, a noisy place filled with miners and cattlemen. The sight of the buggy with the coffin excited such general curiosity that by the time he was out of the telegraph office a crowd had gathered. Call had scarcely walked out the door when an undertaker in a black hat and a blue bow tie approached him.

"Mister, you ain't nowhere near the graveyard," the man said. He had even waxed his mustache and was altogether too shiny for Call's taste.

"I wasn't looking for it," Call said, mounting. People were touching the coffin as if they had the right.

"We give a nice ten-dollar funeral," the undertaker said. "You could just leave the fellow with me and come pick out the gravestone at your leisure. Of course the gravestone's extra."

"Not in the market," Call said.

"Who is it, mister?" a boy asked.

"His name was McCrae," Call said.

He was glad to put the town behind him, and thereafter took to driving at night to avoid people, though it was harder on the buggy, for he couldn't always see the bumps.

One night he felt the country was too rough for evening travel so he camped by the Purgatoire River, or Picketwire, as the cowboys called it. He heard the sound of an approaching horse and wearily picked up his rifle. It was only one horse. Dusk had not quite settled into night, and he could see the rider coming-a big man. The horse turned out to be a red mule and the big man Charles Goodnight. Call had known the famous cattleman since the Fifties, and they had ridden together a few times in the Frontier Regiment, before he and Gus were sent to the border. Call had never taken to the man-Goodnight was indifferent to authority, or at least unlikely to put any above his own-but he could not deny that the man had uncommon ability. Goodnight rode up to the campfire but did not dismount.

"I like to keep up with who's traveling the country," he said. "I admit I did not expect it to be you."

"You're welcome to coffee," Call said.

"I don't take much else at night," he added.

"Hell, if I didn't take some grub in at night I'd starve," Goodnight said. "Usually too busy to eat breakfast."

"You're welcome to get down then," Call said.

"No, I'm too busy to do that either," Goodnight said. "I've got interests in Pueblo. Besides, I was never a man to sit around and gossip.

"I reckon that's McCrae," he said, glancing at the coffin on the buggy.

"That's him," Call said, dreading the questions that seemed to be inevitable.

"I owe him a debt for cleaning out that mangy bunch on the Canadian," Goodnight said. "I'd have soon had to do it myself, if he hadn't."

"Well, he's past collecting debts," Call said. "Anyway he let that dern killer get away."

"No shame to McCrae," Goodnight said. "I let the son of a bitch get away myself, and more than once, but a luckier man caught him. He butchered two families in the Bosque Redondo, and as he was leaving a deputy sheriff made a lucky shot and crippled his horse. They ran him down and mean to hang him in Santa Rosa next week. If you spur up you can see it."

"Well, I swear," Call said. "You going?"

"No," Goodnight said. "I don't attend hangings, although I've presided over some, of the homegrown sort. This is the longest conversation I've had in ten years. Goodbye."

Call took the buggy over Raton Pass and edged down into the great New Mexican plain. Though he had seen nothing but plains for a year, he was still struck by the immense reach of land that lay before him. To the north, there was still snow on the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo. He hurried to Santa Rosa, risking further damage to the wagon, only to discover that the hanging had been put back a week.

Everyone in the territory wanted to see Blue Duck hanged, it seemed. The little town was full of cowhands, with women and children sleeping in wagons. There was much argument, most of it in favor of hanging Blue Duck instantly lest he escape. Parties were constantly forming to present petitions to the sheriff, or else storm the jail, but the latter were unenthusiastic. Blue Duck had ranged the llano for so long, and butchered and raped and stolen so often, that superstitions had formed around him. Some, particularly women, felt he couldn't die, and that their lives would never be safe.

Call took the opportunity to have a blacksmith completely rebuild the buggy. The blacksmith had lots of wagons to work on and took three days to get around to the buggy, but he let Call store the coffin in his back room, since it was attracting attention.

The only thing to do in town besides drink was to admire the new courthouse, three stories high and with a gallows at the top, from which Blue Duck would be hung. The courthouse had fine glass windows and polished floors.

Two days before the hanging was to take place, Call decided to go see the prisoner. He had already met the deputy who had crippled Blue Duck's horse. The man, whose name was Decker, was fat and stone drunk, leading Call to suspect that Goodnight had been right-the shot had been lucky. But every man in the Territory had insisted on buying the deputy a drink since then; perhaps he had been capable of sobriety before he became a hero. He was easily moved to sobs at the memory of his exploit, which he had recounted so many times that he was hoarse.

The sheriff, a balding man named Owensby, had of course heard of Call and was eager to show him the prisoner. The jail had only three cells, and Blue Duck was in the middle one, which had no window. The others had been cleared, minor culprits having simply been turned loose in order to lessen the chances that Blue Duck might somehow contrive an escape.

The minute Call saw the man he knew it was unlikely. Blue Duck had been shot in the shoulder and leg, and had a greasy rag wound around his forehead, covering another wound. Call had never seen a man so draped in chains. He was handcuffed; each leg was heavily chained; and the chains draped around his torso were bolted to the wall. Two deputies with Winchesters kept constant watch. Despite the chains and bars, Call judged that both were scared to death.

Blue Duck himself seemed indifferent to the furor outside. He was leaning back against the wall, his eyes half closed, when Call came in.

"What's he doing?" Sheriff Owensby asked. Despite all the precautions, he was so nervous that he had not been able to keep food down since the prisoner was brought in.

"Ain't doin' much," one deputy said. "What can he do?"

"Well, it's been said he can escape from any jail," the sheriff reminded them. "We got to watch him close."

"Only way to watch him closer is to go in with him, and I'll quit before I'll do that," the other deputy said.

Blue Duck opened his slumbrous eyes a fraction wider and looked at Call.

"I hear you brought your stinkin' old friend to my hanging," Blue Duck said, his low, heavy voice startling the deputies and the sheriff too.

"Just luck," Call said.

"I should have caught him and cooked him when I had the chance," Blue Duck said.

"He would have killed you," Call said, annoyed by the man's insolent tone. "Or I would have, if need be."

Blue Duck smiled. "I raped women and stole children and burned houses and shot men and run off horses and killed cattle and robbed who I pleased, all over your territory, ever since you been a law," he said. "And you never even had a good look at me until today. I don't reckon you would have killed me."

Sheriff Owensby reddened, embarrassed that the man would insult a famous Ranger, but there was little he could do about it. Call knew there was truth in what Blue Duck said, and merely stood looking at the man, who was larger than he had supposed. His head was huge and his eyes cold as snake's eyes.

"I despise all you fine-haired sons of bitches," Blue Duck said. "You Rangers. I expect I'll kill a passel of you yet."

"I doubt it," Call said. "Not unless you can fly."

Blue Duck smiled a cold smile. "I can fly," he said. "An old woman taught me. And if you care to wait, you'll see me."

"I'll wait," Call said.

On the day of the hanging the square in front of the courthouse was packed with spectators. Call had to tie his animals over a hundred yards away-he wanted to get started as soon as the hanging was over. He worked his way to the front of the crowd and watched as Blue Duck was moved from the jail to the courthouse in a small wagon under heavy escort. Call thought it likely somebody would be killed accidentally before it was over, since all the deputies were so scared they had their rifles on cock. Blue Duck was as heavily chained as ever and still had the greasy rag tied around his head wound. He was led into the courthouse and up the stairs. The hangman was making lastminute improvements on the hangrope and Call was looking off, thinking he saw a man who had once served under him in the crowd, when he heard a scream and a sudden shattering of glass. He looked up and the hair on his neck rose, for Blue Duck was flying through the air in his chains. It seemed to Call the man's cold smile was fixed on him as he fell: he had managed to dive through one of the long glass windows on the third floor-and not alone, either. He had grabbed Deputy Decker with his handcuffed hands and pulled him out too. Both fell to the the stony ground right in front of the courthouse. Blue Duck hit right on his head, while the Deputy had fallen backwards, like a man pushed out of a hayloft. Blue Duck didn't move after he hit, but the deputy squirmed and cried. Tinkling glass fell about the two men.

The crowd was too stunned to move. Sheriff Owensby stood high above them, looking out the window, mortified that he had allowed hundreds of people to be cheated of a hanging.

Call walked out alone and knelt by the two men. Finally a few others joined him. Blue Duck was stone dead, his eyes wide open, the cruel smile still on his lips. Decker was broken to bits and spitting blood already-he wouldn't last long.

"I guess that old woman didn't teach you well enough," Call said to the outlaw.

Owensby ran down the stairs and insisted that they carry Blue Duck up and string him from the gallows. "By God, I said he'd hang, and he'll hang," he said. Many of the spectators were so afraid of the outlaw that they wouldn't touch him, even dead. Six men who were too drunk to be spooked finally carried him up and left him dangling above the crowd.

Call thought it a silly waste of work, though he supposed the sheriff had politics to think of.

He himself could not forget that Blue Duck had smiled at him in the moment that he flew. As he walked through the crowd he heard a woman say she had seen Blue Duck's eyes move as he lay on the ground. Even with the man hanging from a gallows, the people were priming themselves to believe he hadn't died. Probably half the crimes committed on the llano in the next ten years would be laid to Blue Duck.

As Call was getting into his wagon, a newspaperman ran up, a redheaded boy scarcely twenty years old, white with excitement at what he had just seen.

"Captain Call?" he asked. "I write for the Denver paper. They pointed you out to me. Can I speak to you for a minute?"

Call mounted the dun and caught the mule's lead rope. "I have to ride," he said. "It's still a ways to Texas."

He started to go, but the boy would not give up. He strode beside the dun, talking, much as Clara had, except that the boy was merely excited. Call thought it strange that two people on one trip would follow him off.

"But, Captain," the boy said. "They say you were the most famous Ranger. They say you've carried Captain McCrae three thousand miles just to bury him. They say you started the first ranch in Montana. My boss will fire me if I don't talk to you. They say you're a man of vision."

"Yes, a hell of a vision," Call said. He was forced to put spurs to the dun to get away from the boy, who stood scribbling on a pad.

It was a dry year, the grass of the llano brown, the long plain shimmering with mirages. Call followed the Pecos, down through Bosque Redondo and south through New Mexico. He knew it was dangerous-in such a year, Indians might follow the river too. But he feared the drought worse. At night lightning flickered high above the plains; thunder rumbled but no rain fell. The days were dull and hot, and he saw no one-just an occasional antelope. His animals were tiring, and so was he. He tried driving at night but had to give it up-too often he would nod off, and once came within an ace of smashing a buggy wheel. The coffin was sprung from so much bouncing and began to leak a fine trail of salt.

A day above Horsehead Crossing, as he was plodding along half asleep in the still afternoon, he felt something hit him and immediately put his hand to his side. It came away bloody, although he had not seen an Indian or even heard a gunshot. As he turned to race for the river he glimpsed a short brown man rising from behind a large yucca plant. Call didn't know how badly he was shot, or how many Indians he was up against. He went off the bank too fast and the buggy crashed against a big rock at the water's edge. It splintered and turned over, the coffin underneath it. Call glanced back and saw only four Indians. He dismounted, snuck north along the river for a hundred yards, and was able to shoot one of the four. He crossed the river and waited all day and all night, but never saw the other three again. His wound felt minor, though the bullet was somewhere in him, and would have to stay until he made Austin, he knew.

The narrow-channeled Pecos was running and the coffin was underwater. Call finally cut it loose, and with the help of Greasy dragged it from the mud. He knew he was in a fine fix, for it was still five hundred miles to the south Guadalupe and the buggy was ruined. For all he knew, more Indians might arrive at any moment, which meant that he had to work looking over his shoulder. He managed to drag the coffin over, but it was a sorry, muddy affair by the time he was done. Also, the Pecos water scalded his innards and drained his strength.

Call knew he could never drag the coffin all the way to Austin-he himself would be lucky to get across the bleached, waterless land to the Colorado or the San Saba. On the other hand he had no intention of leaving Gus, now that he had brought him so far. He broke open the coffin and rewrapped his friend's remains in the tarp he had been using for a bed cover on wet nights-there were few of those to worry about. Then he lashed the bundle to Gus's sign, itself well weathered, with most of the lettering worn off. He cut down a small salt-cedar and made a crude axle, fixing the sign between the two buggy wheels. It was more travois than buggy, but it moved. He felt his wound a trifle less every day, though he knew it had been a small-bore bullet that hit him. A larger bore and he would be down and probably dead.

Several times he thought he glimpsed Indians slipping over a ridge or behind distant yucca, but could never be sure. Soon he felt feverish and began to distrust his own eyesight. In the shining mirages ahead he thought he saw horsemen, who never appeared. Once he thought he saw Deets, and another time Blue Duck. He decided his reason must be going and began to blame Gus for it all. Gus had spent a lifetime trying to get him into situations that confused him, and had finally succeeded.

"You done this," he said aloud several times. "Jake started me off, but you was the one sent me back across here."

His water ran out the third day.The mule and the dun chewed on the greasewood bushes or what sage there was, but both were weakening. Call longed for the Kiowa mare. He wished he had given the boy his name and kept the mare.

Then Greasy, the mule, stopped-he had decided to die. Call had to use the dun to pull the travois. Greasy didn't bother following them.

Call supposed the dun would die too, but the horse walked on to the Colorado. After that, there was little more to fear, although his wound festered somewhat, and leaked. It reminded him of Lippy-of ten his eyes would fill when he thought of the boys left up north.

By the time he finally rode onto the little hill with the live oaks above the Guadalupe, the sign was about gone. The Latin motto, of which Augustus had been so proud, being at the bottom, had long since been broken off. The part about the pigs was gone, and the part about what they rented and sold, and Deets's name as well. Most of Pea Eye's name had flaked off, and his own also. Call hoped to save the plank where Gus had written his own name, but the rope he had tied the body with had rubbed out most of the lettering. In fact, the sign was not much more than a collection of splinters, two of which Call got in his hand as he was untying Gus. Only the top of the sign, the part that said "Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium" was still readable.

Call dug the grave with a little hand shovel. In his condition it took most of a day; at one point he grew so weak that he sat down in the grave to rest, sweat pouring off him-if there had been anyone else to shovel he would have been inclined to be buried there himself. But he pulled himself up and finished the work and lowered Augustus in.

"There," he said. "This will teach me to be more careful about what I promise."

He used the plank with "Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium" on it as a crossbar, tying it to a long mesquite stick, which he drove into the ground with a big rock. While he was tying the crossbar tight with two saddle strings, a wagon with settlers in it came along the ridge. They were a young couple, with two or three children peeking shyly around them, narrow-faced as young possums. The young man was fair and the sun had blistered him beet-red; his young wife had a bonnet pulled close about her face. It was clear that the grave marker puzzled them. The young man stopped the wagon and stared at it. Not having seen him put Augustus under, they were not sure whether they were looking at a grave, or just a sign.

"Where is this Hat Creek outfit, mister?" the young man asked.

"Buried, what ain't in Montana," Call said. He knew it wasn't helpful, but he was in no mood for conversation.

"Dern, I was hoping to come to a place with a blacksmith," the young man said. Then he noticed that Call walked stiffly, and saw that he was wounded.

"Can we help you, mister?" the young man asked.

"Much obliged," Call said. "I've only a short way to go."

The young settlers moved down the ridge toward San Antonio. Call walked down to the little pool, meaning to rest a few minutes. He fell into a heavy sleep and didn't wake until dawn. The business of the sign worried him, one more evidence of Augustus's ability to vex well beyond the grave. If one young man supposed it meant there was a livery stable nearby, others would do the same. People might be inconvenienced for days, wandering through the limestone hills, trying to find a company who were mostly ghosts.

Besides, Augustus's name wasn't on the sign, though it was his grave. No one might ever realize that it was his grave. Call walked back up the hill and got out his knife, thinking he might carve the name on the other side of the board, but the old board was so dry and splintery that he felt he might destroy it altogether if he worked on it much. Finally he just scratched A.M. on the other side of the board. It wasn't much, and it wouldn't last, he knew. Somebody would just get irritated at not finding the livery stable and bust the sign up anyway. In any case, Gus was where he had decided he wanted to be, and they had both known many fine men who lay in unmarked graves.

Call remembered he had told the young couple that he only had a short way to travel. It showed that his mind was probably going, for he had no place in particular to travel at all. Worn out, and with a festering wound, he was in no shape to turn back for Montana, and Jerry, the dun, could never have made the trip, even if he himself could have. He didn't know that he wanted to go back, for that matter. He had never felt that he had any home on the earth anyway. He remembered riding to Texas in a wagon when just a boy-his parents were already dead. Since then it had been mostly roaming, the years in Lonesome Dove apart.

Call turned south toward San Antonio, thinking he might find a doctor. But when he came to the town he turned and went around it, spooked at the thought of all the people. He didn't want to go among such a lot of people with his mind so shaky. He rode the weary dun on south, feeling that he might just as well go to Lonesome Dove as anywhere.

Crossing the green Nueces, he remembered the snakes and the Irish boy. He knew he ought to go by and find the widow Spettle to tell her she had one less son, but decided the bad news could wait. It had already waited a year, unless she had gotten it from one of the returning cowhands.

He rode the dun into Lonesome Dove late on a day in August, only to be startled by the harsh clanging of the dinner bell, the one Bolivar had loved to beat with the broken crowbar. The sound made him feel that he rode through a land of ghosts. He felt lost in his mind and wondered if all the boys would be there when he got home.

But when he trotted through the chaparral toward the Hat Creek barn, he saw that it was old Bolivar himself, beating the same bell with the same piece of crowbar. The old man's hair was white and his serape filthier than ever.

When Bolivar looked up and saw the Captain riding out of the sunset, he dropped the piece of crowbar, narrowly missing his foot. His return to Mexico had been a trial and a disappointment. His girls were married and gone, his wife unrelenting in her anger at his years of neglect. Her tongue was like a saw and the look in her eyes made him feel bad. So he had left her one day forever, and walked to Lonesome Dove, living in the house the gringos had abandoned. He sharpened knives to earn a living, which for himself was merely coffee and frijoles. He slept on the cookstove; rats had chewed up the old beds. He grew lonely, and could not remember who he had been. Still, every evening, he took the broken crowbar and beat the bell-the sound rang through the town and across the Rio Grande.

When Call dismounted and dropped his reins old Bolivar walked over, trembling, a look of disbelief on his face. "Oh, Capitán, Capitán," he said, and began to blubber. Tears of relief rolled down his rough cheeks. He clutched at Call's arms, as if he were worn out and might fall.

"That's all right, Bol," Call said. He lead the shaking man to the house, which was all shambles and filth, spiderwebs and rat shit everywhere. Bol shuffled around and heated coffee, and Call stood on the front porch and drank a cup. Looking down the street, he was surprised to see that the town didn't look the same. Something wasn't there that had been. At first he couldn't place what, and he thought it might be the dust or his erratic vision, but then he remembered the Dry Bean. It was the saloon that seemed to be gone.

Call took the dun down to the roofless barn and unsaddled him. The stone watering trough was full of water, clear water, but there was not much to feed the horse. Call turned him out to graze and watched while he took a long roll.

Then, curious to know if the saloon was really gone, he walked across the dry bed of Hat Creek and into the main street.

He had no sooner turned into the street than he saw a one-legged man coming toward him through the dusk. Why, Gus? he thought, not knowing for a second if he were with the living or the dead. He remembered sitting in the grave on the Guadalupe, and for a moment could not remember climbing out.

But the one-legged man only turned out to be Dillard Brawley, the barber who had ruined his voice screeching the time he and Gus had had to take off his leg.

For his part, Dillard Brawley was so surprised to see Captain Call standing in the street that he almost dropped the few perch he had managed to catch in the river. In the growing dark he had to step close to see it was the Captain-there was only a little light left.

"Why, Captain," Dillard said in his hoarse whisper, "did you and the boys finally get back?"

"Not the boys," Call said. "Just me. What happened to the saloon?"

He could see that he had been right-the general store was still there, but the Dry Bean was gone.

"Burnt," Dillard whispered. "Burnt near a year ago."

"What started the fire?" Call asked.

"Wanz started it. Burnt up in it, too. Locked himself in that whore's room and wouldn't come out."

"Well, I swear," Call said.

"The pi-aner burnt up with him," Dillard said. "Made the church folks mad. They thought if he was gonna roast himself he ought to have at least rolled the pi-aner out the door. They've had to sing hymns to a fiddle ever since."

Call walked over and stood where the saloon had been. There was nothing left but pale ashes and a few charred boards.

"When she left, Wanz couldn't stand it," Dillard said. "He sat in her room a month and then he burnt it."

"Who?" Call asked, looking at the ashes.

"The woman," Dillard whispered. "The woman. They say he missed that whore."