Streets Of Laredo

STREETS OF LAREDO

by Larry McMurtry

Part I A Salaried Man

"Most train robbers ain't smart, which is a lucky thing for the railroads," Call said.

"Five smart train robbers could bust every railroad in this country." "This young Mexican is smart," Brookshire said, but before he could elaborate, the wind lifted his hat right off his head. He was forced to chase it--not the first time he had been forced to chase his hat since arriving in Amarillo. He had taken to ramming his hat down on his head nearly to his eyebrows, but the Texas winds were of a different order than the winds he had been accustomed to in Brooklyn, where he lived. Somehow, time after time, the Texas winds lifted his hat. Before he could even get a hand up to grab it, there it went.

It was just a common fedora; but on the other hand, it was his only hat, and it was not his custom to go through life bareheaded, at least not while he was conducting business for the railroad. Colonel Terry would not have approved. Brookshire was only a salaried man, and he could not afford to ignore Colonel Terry's preferences in such matters.

This time the hat rode the wind like a fat bird --it had a twenty-yard lead on its owner before it hit the ground, and when it did hit, it rolled rapidly along the gritty street.

Fortunately for Brookshire, a wagon was parked to the south of the station, and the hat eventually lodged against one of the wagon wheels. He strolled over and picked it up, trying to appear nonchalant, though in fact, he was more than a little out of sorts.

At the behest of his superiors--Colonel Terry in particular; Colonel Terry, the president of the railroad, was the only superior who counted--Brookshire had journeyed all the way from New York to hire a bandit killer.

Brookshire was an accountant. Hiring bandit killers wasn't his line of work, but the man who normally handled the task, Big Johnny Roberts, had accidentally swallowed a wine cork and choked to death, just as he was about to depart for Texas. From Colonel Terry's point of view, it was a nuisance; he took a look around the office and before Brookshire knew it, he was on a train going west, in Johnny Roberts's stead. In his years with the railroad, he had performed a number of services, but never in a place where his hat blew off every time he turned a corner. Having to chase his hat was an aggravation, but the real reason he was out of sorts was because he wasn't at all impressed with the killer he had been instructed to hire.

About the best thing Brookshire could find to say for the small, weary-looking man standing in front of the little shack of a depot, a saddle and a duffle roll stacked beside him, was that he had been punctual. He had ridden in at dawn, hitching his sorrel mare outside the hotel precisely at seven a.m., the time agreed upon. Still, Brookshire had barely been able to conceal his shock when he saw how old the man was. Of course, Brookshire was aware of his reputation: no one in the West had a reputation to equal Woodrow Call's. In Brookshire's view, reputation did not catch bandits--at least it didn't catch bandits who covered country as rapidly as young Joey Garza. The young Mexican was said to be only nineteen years old, whereas Captain Call, from the look of him, was edging seventy.

Nonetheless, Brookshire had been ordered to hire Woodrow Call and no one else. More than that, he had been entrusted with a fancy, engraved Colt revolver which Colonel Terry had sent along as a special gift.

To Brookshire's dismay, Captain Call scarcely glanced at the gun. He didn't even bother to lift it out of its rosewood box. He didn't twirl the chamber or admire the fine engraving.

"Thanks, but I'll pass," he said. He seemed more grateful for the coffee. Of course, it was wintry, and the old Ranger was only wearing a light coat.

"Good Lord, what will I tell Colonel Terry?" Brookshire asked. "This gun probably cost him five hundred dollars. This engraving is handwork. It don't come cheap." "Why, the Colonel can keep it himself, then," Call said. "I appreciate the thought, but I've no place to keep a fancy weapon.

I'd have to deposit it in a bank, and I prefer to avoid banks.

"I generally depend on the rifle, not the pistol," he added. "If you're close enough to a killer to be in reach of a pistol bullet, then generally you're too close." "Good Lord," Brookshire said, again. He knew Colonel Terry well enough to know that he wasn't going to be pleased when told that his gift had not been wanted. Colonel Terry hadn't been a colonel for nothing, either. Having such an expensive present rejected by a fellow who just looked like an old cowpoke would undoubtedly put him in a temper, in which case Brookshire and anyone else who happened to be in the office would have to scramble to keep their jobs.

Call saw that the man was upset--he supposed, really, that he ought to accept the gun.

That would be the polite thing. But in the past few years, governors and presidents of railroads and senators and rich men were always offering him fancy weapons, or expensive saddles, or the use of their railroad cars, or even fine horses--and always, something in him resisted.

For one thing, he despised fancy gear. He rode a plain saddle, and all that he required in a weapon was that it be reliable and accurate.

For another thing, he had never met a governor or a president of a railroad or a senator or a rich man that he liked or felt comfortable with. Why place himself in some arrogant fool's debt for the sake of a gun he'd never shoot nor probably even load?

Only a few days before, Call and Charles Goodnight had discussed the matter of gifts from the rich and powerful. It had been the day, in fact, that Goodnight had ridden out to the little line cabin he let Call use when he was between jobs, and handed Call the telegram asking him to meet a Mr. Ned Brookshire in Amarillo at seven a.m., in the lobby of the best hotel.

Goodnight himself was famous; probably as famous as a cattleman could get. He had also been offered twenty-five or thirty engraved Winchesters in recent years, but, like Call, he was skeptical of the rich and powerful and seldom felt comfortable in their company.

Throughout most of their lives, which had only occasionally intersected, Woodrow Call and Charles Goodnight had not exactly gotten along. Somehow in the old days, the Indian-fighting days, they had rubbed one another the wrong way almost every time they met. Even now, they did not exactly consider themselves friends. Once a week or so, when Goodnight was around his home ranch, he had formed the habit of riding out to the little line cabin to check on his guest, the famous Texas Ranger.

The shack sat not far from the north rim of the Palo Duro Canyon. Often the two men would sit, largely in silence, looking down into the canyon until dusk and then darkness filled it.

In the dusk and shadows they saw their history; in the fading afterlight they saw the fallen: the Rangers, the Indians, the cowboys.

"Let a man give you a fancy gun and he'll tell everybody in five counties that he's your friend, when in fact, you may despise him," Goodnight said, spitting. "I don't number too many rich fools among my friends--how about you?" "I have not had a friend for several years," Call said. Only after he said it did it occur to him that the remark might sound a little odd--as if he were asking for sympathy.

"Of course, there's Pea and there's Bol," he added, hastily. "Bol's out of his head, but I count him a friend." "Oh, your cook, I think he fed me once," Goodnight said. "If he's out of his head, how do you keep up with him?" "I left him with a family in San Antonio," Call said. "When I get a job down near the border I sometimes put him on his mule and take him with me. There's another family in Nuevo Laredo I can board him with when it comes time to do the work.

"He enjoys a little travel," Call added.

"He's still got his memories--he just can't put any two of them together." "Hell, I can barely sort out two memories myself," Goodnight said. "It's what I get for living too long. My head fills up and sloshes over, like a damn bucket.

Whatever sloshes out is lost. I doubt I still know half of what I knew when I was fifty years old." "You take too many train trips," Call observed, in a mild tone.

"I thought we were talking about my bad memory," Goodnight said, squinting at him. "What's train travel got to do with it?" "All this traveling by train weakens the memory --it's bound to," Call said. "A man that travels horseback needs to remember where the water holes are, but a man that rides in a train can forget about water holes, because trains don't drink." Goodnight let that observation soak in for a few minutes.

"I was never lost, night or day," he said finally. "How about you?" "I got turned around once, in Mexico," Call said. "It was a cloudy night. My horse fell and got up pointed in the wrong direction. I was yawny that night and didn't notice till morning." "Was you mad at the horse when you did notice?" Goodnight asked.

"I was mad at myself," Call said.

"Well, this is a pointless conversation," Goodnight said, turning abruptly toward his horse. Without another word, he mounted and rode away. He had always been abrupt, Call reflected. When Charles Goodnight concluded that a conversation had overrun its point, he was apt to make a swift departure.

While Mr. Brookshire was walking back across the street, trying to whack the dust out of his fedora by hitting it against his leg, the train he and Call had been waiting for came in sight. It was the train that would, in time, deliver them to San Antonio.

Call was trying to think of a polite way to inform Mr. Brookshire that the fedora wouldn't do in a windy place like Texas. A hat that kept blowing off could lead to no end of trouble when dealing with a bandit as advanced as Joey Garza.

Even more, Call wished Brookshire could be persuaded just to go on back to New York, leaving him to deal with the young Mexican bandit alone.

Traveling across the West with errand boys such as Mr. Brookshire took considerably more energy than tracking the bandits themselves. Call had little to say to such men, but they invariably had much to say to him. Six hundred miles of Mr.

Brookshire's conversation was not something he looked forward to.

"This wind puts me in mind of Chicago," Brookshire said, when he returned to where Call was standing. He didn't bother putting his hat back on his head. Instead, he clutched it tightly in both hands.

"I've not visited Chicago," Call said, to be polite.

"The wind's not like this back home," Brookshire said. "Back home I can go for months without my hat blowing off my head a single time. I got off the train here yesterday, and I've been chasing my hat ever since." The train wheezed and screeched to a halt. When it had come to a full stop, Captain Call picked up his saddle and duffle roll.

Brookshire, to his surprise, suddenly found that he was feeling a little desperate--he felt that he didn't dare move. The wind had become even more severe, and he had the sickening sense that he, not his hat, was about to blow away. There wasn't a tree in sight that he could see: just endless plain. Unless he could roll up against a wagon wheel, as his hat had, there would be nothing to stop him for days, if he blew away. He knew it was an absurd feeling: grown men, especially heavy men such as himself, didn't just blow away. Yet the feeling persisted, and every time he happened to glance across the street and see nothing --nothing at all except grass and sky--the feeling got worse.

Call noticed that Brookshire had an odd look on his face. The man stood with his fedora clutched to his stomach, looking as if he were afraid to move, yet he was standing on perfectly level ground on a sunny winter day.

"Are you ill, Mr. Brookshire?" Call asked. After all, the man had been polite; he had agreed to Call's terms and had cheerfully paid for the coffee as well.

"I'd like to get on the train," Brookshire said. "I believe I'll soon perk up if I could just get on the train." "Why, here it is, right behind you," Call told him. "I assume you've got the tickets. We can step right on." "I'm afraid I've left my valise--you see, that's my problem," Brookshire admitted.

"Oh, at the hotel?" Call asked.

"Yes, it's right in the lobby," Brookshire said, looking at the ground. He did not feel it would be wise to look across the street again. It was when he looked across the street that the blowing-away sensation seized him the most fiercely.

"Well, the train just pulled in--it'll be here awhile, I expect," Call said. "You've got plenty of time to go get your valise." Then he looked again and realized that his traveling companion was having some sort of attack.

Brookshire was frozen, his eyes fixed on his feet. He didn't appear to be capable of moving--walking the hundred yards to the hotel was, for the moment, clearly beyond him.

"I can't do it," Brookshire muttered. "I can't do it. I'd just like to get on the train." He paused, his eyes still on his feet.

"What I'd like very much is to get on the train," he said, again.

Call immediately set down his saddle and duffle roll and took Mr. Brookshire's arm. The man was close to panic, and when a man was close to panic, discussion rarely helped.

"Here, I'll just escort you to your car," he said, holding Brookshire's arm. Brookshire took one small step, and then another. Soon Call had him situated in a railroad seat.

Brookshire's chest began to heave and the sweat poured off him, but at least, Call reckoned, the panic was broken.

"Just stay here and settle in," Call said.

"I'll stroll over to the hotel and pick up that valise." "Grateful," was all Brookshire could say.

What he really wanted to do was crawl under the seat, but of course, that would be impossible-- anyway, the railroad car had walls. He wasn't going to blow away.

A few minutes later, Captain Call came walking in with the valise and with his own saddle and duffle roll. He sat down across from Brookshire as if nothing untoward had happened.

But Brookshire knew that something had happened-- something very untoward. He was embarrassed and also deeply grateful to the Captain. Not only had he guided him onto the train and then walked two hundred yards out of his way to fetch the valise, but he had done both things politely. He hadn't asked Brookshire why he couldn't walk a hundred yards and tote his own baggage; he just accepted that it was an impossibility and put him on the train without a fuss.

Brookshire worked for people who never let him forget that he was an underling. Captain Call hadn't been especially friendly when they met that morning, but he hadn't treated Brookshire as an underling. When he noticed that a crisis was occurring, he had dealt with it efficiently and with no evident feelings of contempt for Brookshire's weakness.

It was exceptional behavior, in Brookshire's view. He had met with a good deal of exceptional behavior in his years with Colonel Terry, but most of it had been exceptionally bad. He was not used to decent treatment, but he had received it from Captain Call. When his heart finally stopped pounding, he took another look at the man who sat across the aisle from him.

Call was smoking. If he even remembered that something out of the ordinary had happened on the railroad platform, he gave no sign.

The train started and they were soon cutting a narrow furrow through the endless miles of prairie.

The stiff wind was still blowing, ruffling the surface of the sea of grass.

"Does your hat ever blow off, Captain?" Brookshire asked.

"Rarely," Call said.

"You see, I've got mine trained," he added, looking over at the man from Brooklyn.

"You're new to these parts--it takes you a while to get yours trained just right." "I doubt mine will ever be trained--I'll probably have to chase it all over Texas," Brookshire said.

Then, relaxing, he fell asleep. When he awoke and looked out the window, there was nothing to see but grass. Captain Call seemed not to have moved. He was still smoking. The stock of a rifle protruded from his duffle roll. Brookshire felt glad Call was there. It was a long way to San Antonio--if he had no one to share the ride with, he might get the blowing-away feeling again. Probably, after all, his superiors had been right in their choice of bandit killers. Most likely Captain Call could do the job.

"How long have you been a lawman, Captain?" he inquired, to be polite.

Call didn't turn his head.

"I ain't a lawman," he said. "I work for myself." After that, a silence grew.

Brookshire felt rather as he felt when he went to a dance. Somehow he had stepped off on the wrong foot.

"Well, you picked an exciting line of work, I'd have to say," he said.

Captain Call didn't answer.

Brookshire felt at a loss. He began to regret having made the remark--he began to regret having spoken at all. He sighed.

The Captain still said nothing. Brookshire realized he didn't know much about Texans.

Perhaps they just weren't inclined to conversation.

Certainly Captain Call didn't appear to be much inclined to it. He didn't appear to be excited about his line of work, either.

Brookshire began to miss Katie, his wife. Katie wasn't lavish with her conversation, either. A month might pass with the two of them scarcely exchanging more than three or four words.

But the plains outside the window were vast and empty. The wind was still blowing, rippling and sometimes flattening the top of the grass.

Brookshire began to wish, very much, that he could go home to Brooklyn. If only he were in Brooklyn and not in Texas, he might not feel so low. If he were in Brooklyn, he felt sure he would be sitting with Katie, in their cozy kitchen. Katie might not say much, but in their cozy kitchen, the wind never blew.

Lorena woke to the sound of the baby coughing.

Pea Eye was up walking her, trying to get her quiet. For a minute or two, Lorena let him: she felt too sad to move--sad, or mad, or a mixture; even without a sick child she was apt to feel that way on nights before Pea Eye had to leave.

"I guess she's croupy," Pea Eye said.

"Give her to me," Lorena said. Wearily, she propped up a little, took the baby, and gave her the breast.

"It's not the croup, it's that dry cough--you ought to recognize the difference by now," Lorena said.

"The boys all had the same cough--Clarie didn't have it." As she said it she heard Clarie go past their bedroom, on her way to milk. Clarie was the oldest; at fifteen she already had more energy than most grown men, and she didn't have to be told to do the chores. Even Pea Eye admitted that there were days when his Clarie could outwork him, and Pea Eye was neither lazy nor weak.

"I guess I'm just the worrying kind," Pea Eye said, relieved that the baby had stopped coughing, if only in order to nurse.

"There's other diseases children can have besides croup," Lorena reminded him.

"Seems like every time I have to leave, someone around here is sick," Pea Eye said. "I'll be dreary company for the Captain, worrying about you and the children." He would worry about them, Lorena felt sure, but right at the moment what he wanted was sympathy, and right at the moment, sympathy was the last thing she was in the mood to give him.

"You're the one going off to get shot at," she reminded him--there was anger in her voice; she couldn't suppress it.

"Clarie and I can take care of things here," she said. "If we have trouble the neighbors will help us--I'm their only schoolteacher. They'll fetch me a doctor if Laurie gets worse." When the little girl finished nursing, Lorena held her out to Pea Eye. He took her with him to the kitchen--he needed to get the coffee started.

It was a four-hour trot to the railroad where he was supposed to meet the Captain. He needed to be on his way soon. But when he tried to saucer his coffee--he had long ago formed the habit of drinking his coffee from a saucer-- Laurie wiggled, causing him to pour too hard.

Most of the coffee splashed out. When Lorena came into the kitchen Pea Eye was looking for a rag. He needed to wipe up his spill.

"I wish you'd learn to drink coffee out of a cup, like the rest of us," Lorena said.

"It's just a habit I got into when I was rangering," Pea Eye said. "I didn't have no babies to hold in those days. I could concentrate better. I was just a bachelor most of my life --same as the Captain is." "You were never the same as the Captain is," Lorena informed him. She took the baby and scooted a chair well back from the table, so coffee wouldn't drip on her gown.

"I hadn't learned to be married yet, in those days," Pea Eye said, mildly.

Lorie seemed slightly out of temper--he thought it best to take a mild line at such times.

"No, you hadn't learned to be married--I had to teach you, and I'm still at it," Lorena said.

"We're both lucky. Clara got me started on my education and I got you started being a husband." "Both lucky, but I'm luckier," Pea Eye said. "I'd rather be married than do them fractions, or whatever they are that you teach the brats.

"At least I would if it's you that I'm married to," he said, reflecting.

"I don't like it that he keeps taking you away from us," Lorena said. She felt it was better to say it than to choke on it, and she had choked on it a good many times.

"Why can't he take someone younger, if he needs help with a bandit?" she asked. "Besides that, he don't even ask! He just sends those telegrams and orders you to come, as if he owned you." Though Pea Eye had not yet admitted it out loud to Lorie, he himself had begun to dread the arrival of the telegrams. The Captain dispatched them to the little office in Quitaque; they were delivered, within a week or two, by a cowboy or a mule skinner, any traveler who happened to be coming their way. They were short telegrams; even so, Lorena had to read them to him. She had learned to read years ago, and he hadn't. It was a little embarrassing, being the husband of a schoolteacher, while being unable to read. Clarie, of course, could read like a whiz--she had won the local spelling bee every year since she turned six. Pea Eye had always meant to learn, and he still meant to learn, but meanwhile, he had the farm to farm, and farming it generally kept him busy from sunup until sundown. In the harvesting season, it kept him busy from well before sunup until well after dark.

Usually the Captain's telegrams would consist of a single sentence informing him of a date, a time, and a place where the Captain wanted him to appear.

Short as they were, though, Lorena never failed to flush with anger while reading them to him. A deep flush would spread up her cheeks, nearly to her eyes; the vein on her forehead would stand out, and the little scar on her upper lip would seem whiter in contrast to her darkening face. She rarely said anything in words. Her blood said it for her.

Now, down on one knee in the kitchen, trying to wipe up the spilled coffee with a dishrag, Pea Eye felt such a heavy sadness descend on him that for a moment he would have liked just to lie down beneath it and let it crush him. Little Laurie was only three months old. Lorena had school to teach and the baby and the three boys to look after, and yet here he was, about to go away and leave them again, just because some railroad man wanted the Captain to run down a bandit.

Of course, Clarie was nearly grown and would be a big help to her mother, but knowing that wouldn't keep him from feeling low the whole trip--every night and morning he'd miss Lorie and the children; he would also worry constantly about the farm chores that weren't getting done. Even if little Laurie hadn't taken the croup--he considered her sickness the croup, though Lorie didn't--he wouldn't have wanted to go. It was beginning to bother Pea Eye a good deal that the Captain just couldn't seem to recognize that he was married. Not only was he married, but he was the father of five children. He had other things to do besides chase bandits. When he left he would be doing one duty, but at the same time he'd be neglecting others, and the ones he'd be neglecting were important. It meant feeling miserable and guilty for several weeks, and he didn't look forward to feeling that way. The truth was, half the time he felt miserable and guilty even when he wasn't neglecting his wife, or his children, or his chores.

"I've heard it's a young bandit, this time," Pea Eye said. "Maybe it won't take too long." "Why wouldn't it, if the man's young?" Lorena asked.

"The Captain's got too much experience," Pea Eye said. "The young ones seldom give him much trouble." "If it's going to be so easy, why does he need you?" she asked.

Pea Eye didn't answer because he didn't know. Twice he had gone to Wyoming with the Captain. Once they had gone to Yuma, Arizona, an exceptionally hot place in Pea Eye's view. Several times they'd gone to Oklahoma, and once or twice, into Old Mexico. But normally, they were able to corner their quarry somewhere in Texas. A few hard cases fought to the end, but the majority of the outlaws --bank robbers, mostly--realized once they were up against the famous Captain Call, it was time to surrender. As soon as they gave up, Pea Eye's duties really began. He was in charge of seeing they were handcuffed properly, or tied to their horses, or whatever the situation required.

Compared to Indian fighting, it was not particularly dangerous work. He rarely had to fire his gun or even draw it.

It hardly seemed important enough to leave home for; yet here he was, preparing to leave home and feeling blue all the way down to his bones as a result.

"I expect I'll worry the whole way," Pea Eye said. "But at least I'll be paid cash money." Lorena was silent. She hated the mornings when Pea Eye had to leave; hated the night before he left; just plain hated the whole period after one of the telegrams came. She knew Pea Eye no longer wanted to leave. Living with her, working the farm, helping her with the children, was what he wanted to do. She didn't doubt his love, or his devotion, or his loyalty, or his strength. All these were at her service, except when Captain Call needed some part of them to be at .his service.

Lorena had resolved, though, not to help Pea Eye leave. The fact that he had a loyalty to the Captain was part of the bargain she had made when she married him. Clara Allen--the woman Clarie was named for--had told her how it would be in that respect, and Clara had been right. were Pea Eye not loyal to the Captain, who had employed him most of his life, he wouldn't be likely to bring much loyalty to her, either. Clara pointed that out.

But she would not help Pea Eye leave. She wasn't going to pass a benediction on it.

As she was sitting in silence avoiding Pea Eye's miserable gaze, Clarie came in from the milking shed with a brimming pail of milk. It was a cold morning; the bucket steamed a little, and Clarie had color in her cheeks. Lorena couldn't help smiling. Even in unhappy moments, the sight of her beautiful young daughter was apt to make her smile. Clarie got a cheesecloth, spread it carefully over the old milk strainer, and slowly poured the hot, foamy milk through it.

"I'll help you, Ma, while Pa's gone," Clarie said.

"Why, yes, you'll help me, when you can spare the time from Roy Benson," Lorena said. Clarie was a young woman, and the cowboys were already coming around.

The gawky Benson boy was particularly attentive.

"Oh, Ma, don't talk about him," Clarie protested, embarrassed.

"Like I say, it's cash money," Pea Eye said, feeling that his problem had somehow been forgotten. It was often that way with women, it seemed. One minute Lorie would be drilling holes in him with her eyes, and the next minute she and Clarie would be combing one another's hair and singing tunes.

"We heard you," Lorena said. It was true that her wages for the schoolteaching were apt to be a side of beef or hand-me-down clothes for the children, or a horse that was getting along in years and might do to pull her buggy. Her wages were likely to be whatever folks could spare. It was a fair arrangement; indeed, the only possible arrangement in a place where there were still only a scattering of homesteads and not many settlements.

Pea Eye had only brought up the cash money in order to remind Lorena that the Captain didn't expect him to work for nothing. Having cash money never hurt.

Another bad aspect of the bandit-catching trips was that the very fact Lorena had secured enough education to become a schoolteacher, caused some tension between Pea Eye and the Captain. Lorena's educational accomplishments filled Pea Eye with pride, and he liked to talk about them. It was Clara Allen, the woman who sheltered Lorena in Nebraska, who had seen to it that Lorena learned to read and write and figure. Perhaps that was why the Captain got so stiff every time Pea Eye bragged about his smart wife. Clara and the Captain rubbed one another the wrong way. That was no reason, though, in Pea Eye's view, why he should be any less proud of Lorena's scholarly skills.

Clara had gone all the way to St. Louis to find acceptable teachers for Lorena, and of course, the teachers were expected to instruct Clara's two daughters as well. Clara boarded the teachers in her own home, often for months at a stretch. Betsey, her oldest daughter, had even married one of them.

Everyone agreed that Lorena was the sharpest pupil in that part of Nebraska. For a time, Clara ordered books for her, but soon Lorena was ordering them for herself. It was a proud day for all concerned when Lorena received her diploma from the correspondence college in Trenton, New Jersey.

Once they bought the farm in Texas the neighbors soon found out about Lorena's diploma, and they promptly persuaded her to teach their children. Her first classes were held in a barn.

Charles Goodnight rode by one day, saw her teaching in the cold, drafty barn, and wrote a check on the spot sufficient to allow the community to construct a one-room schoolhouse on a bluff overlooking the Red River. The school was a five-mile buggy ride each way from their farm, but Lorena drove it without complaint. When their babies came she took them with her, lining an old cartridge case with quilts to make a crib.

To Pea Eye, and to many citizens of the plains, it was impressive that Lorena would care enough about her teaching to bounce her children ten miles over the prairie every day. She didn't want to disappoint her pupils, most of whom could only expect three or four years of schooling at best.

Once the boys got to be nine or ten, they would be needed for work. The Benson boy who liked Clarie so much was still in school at fourteen, but that was exceptional. Even the girls would be needed in the fields by the time they were eleven or twelve.

Lorena thought Captain Call resented the fact that his old partner, Gus McCrae, had left her his half of the proceeds from the herd the Hat Creek outfit had trailed from Texas to Montana. Lorena's half didn't amount to that much money--not enough to resent, in Pea Eye's view. The whole Montana scheme had collapsed in less than two years. Gus was killed before they even established the ranch. Dish Boggett, their top hand, quit the first winter. The Captain left that spring. Newt--the Captain's son, most people thought, although the Captain himself had never owned to it--had been killed late in the summer when the Hell Bitch, the mare the Captain gave him, reared and fell back on him. The saddle horn crushed his rib cage, and crushed his heart as well. It was the view of everyone who knew horses that, while an able ranch manager, Newt was much too inexperienced to trust with a horse as mean and as smart as the Hell Bitch. Still, the Captain had given Newt the horse, and Newt felt obliged to ride her. He rode her, and one day she killed him, just as Lippy and Jasper and one or two others had predicted she would.

After Newt's death the ranch soon fell inffdisorder; the Captain had to come back and sell it. Cattle prices were down, so he didn't get much, but Lorena's half enabled her and Pea Eye to buy the farm in Texas.

Lorena's view, expressed to Clara, not to Pea, was that the Captain wasn't prepared to forgive her hard past.

"He don't think whores should become schoolteachers," she said.

To Pea Eye, Lorena advanced a different theory.

"He didn't like it that Gus liked me," she said. "Now that you married me I've taken two men from him. I took Gus and then I took you.

He'll never forgive it, but I don't care." Pea Eye preferred to put such difficult questions out of his mind. With so much farm work to do and no one to do it but himself--none of the boys was old enough to plow--he had little time to spare for speculation.

If he had more time, he wouldn't have used it trying to figure out why the Captain did things the way he did, or why he liked people or didn't like people.

The Captain was as he was, and to Pea Eye, that was just life. Lorena and Clara could discuss it until they were blue in the face: no talk would change the Captain.

It bothered Pea Eye considerably that the Captain had never ridden over to see their farm or meet their children. His shack on the Goodnight place was not that far away. Pea Eye was proud of the farm and doubly proud of his children. He would have liked to introduce the Captain to his family and show him around the farm.

Instead, in only half an hour, he would have to leave his wife and children to go help a man who didn't like his wife and had never met his children. The thought made Pea Eye sick at heart.

Catching bandits was tricky work. There was no telling how long it might take. Little Laurie was tiny. She had come nearly a month early and was going to have to struggle through a bitter Panhandle winter. Pea Eye loved little Laurie with all his heart. He thought she looked just like her mother, and could not get enough of looking at her.

He had bought a rabbit fur robe from an old deaf Kiowa man who lived on the Quitaque.

The robe made a nice warm lining for the cartridge-box crib. Lorena kept assuring him that it was a snug enough crib now that it was lined with rabbit fur, but still Pea Eye worried. The cold was bitter. Winter never failed to carry off several little ones from neighboring farms and ranches.

Pea Eye had many dreams in which little Laurie died. It tormented him to think she might not be there to look at when he returned.

For days he had been choking his fear down--no need to burden Lorie with his worries--but suddenly, kneeling on the kitchen floor and trying unsuccessfully to wipe up the spilled coffee, fear and sadness came rushing up from inside him, too swiftly and too powerfully for him to control.

"I don't want to go, this time!" he said.

"What if Laurie dies while I'm gone?" He thought Lorena would be mighty surprised to hear him say that he didn't want to go with the Captain. Never before had he even suggested that he might not accompany Captain Call if the Captain needed him.

Lorena didn't seem surprised, though.

Perhaps she was too busy with Laurie. Because Laurie was so tiny, she was a fitful nurser, giving up sometimes before she had taken enough milk to satisfy her. Lorie had just given her the breast again, hoping she would take enough nourishment to keep her asleep for a while.

"What if we all died, while you was gone?" Lorena asked, calmly. She didn't want any agitated talk while the baby was at the breast. But her husband had to be very upset to say such a thing, and she didn't want to ignore his distress, either.

"Well, I'd never get over it, if any of you died," Pea Eye said.

"You would--people get over anything--I've got over worse than dying myself, and you know it," Lorena said. "But that's in the past. You don't need to worry so much. I'm not going to die, and I won't let this baby die, either. I won't let any of our children die." Pea Eye stood up, but despite Lorie's calm words, he felt trembly.

He felt he could trust Lorie--if she said she'd keep their family alive, he knew she would do her best. But people did their best and died anyway. Sometimes their children outlived them. That was the natural order; but sometimes, they didn't. He knew Lorie meant well when she told him not to worry, but he also knew that he would worry anyway.

The Captain would be unlikely to sympathize, because he didn't understand it. Captain Call had always been a single man. He had no one to miss, much less anyone to worry about.

"I never finished cleaning those guns," Pea Eye said distractedly, looking down at his wife. August, the youngest boy, not yet two, came wandering into the kitchen just then. He was rubbing his eyes with his fists.

"Hongry," he said, only half awake.

He began to crawl into his mother's lap.

"You cleaned them enough to smell like gun grease all night," Lorena said. August had a runny nose, and she held out her hand for Pea Eye's rag.

"This is a dishrag," he said, still distracted.

"It was--now it's a snot rag," Lorena said. August arched his back and tried to duck away--he hated having his nose wiped. But his mother was too skilled for him. She pinned him to her with an elbow and wiped it anyway.

"You should take care of your weapons, if you're going after a killer," she said. "I don't want you neglecting important things, even if I complain about you being smelly." "I don't want to go," Pea Eye said.

"I just don't want to go, this time." There was a silence, broken only by August's whimpering, and the soft sucking sound the baby made as she drew on the nipple. Pea Eye had just said the words Lorena had long hoped to hear, but the fact was, she hadn't gotten her sleep out--she was drowsy and would have liked to go back to bed.

It was a hopeless wish. August was up, and Ben and Georgie would be crawling out of bed any time.

Whether she liked it or not, the day had begun.

She had long resented Pea Eye's blind loyalty to the Captain but knew there was nothing she could do about it. Mainly, she just tried to shut her mind to it.

Clara had told her that was how it would be, but Clara had advised her to marry Pea Eye anyway.

"He's simple--sometimes that's good," Clara said. "He's gentle, too, but he's not weak.

His horses respect him. I tend to trust a horse's respect.

"He doesn't talk much, though," she added.

"I don't care whether he talks or not," Lorena said. "I wouldn't marry a man just for conversation. I'd rather read, now that I know how, than listen to any man talk." "You're going to have to propose to Pea Eye, you know," Clara said. "He has no inkling that you want him. I doubt it's ever crossed his mind, that he could aspire to a beauty like you." Pea Eye had been working for Clara about a year, at that time. July Johnson, the former sheriff from Arkansas who had loved Clara deeply but failed to win her, drowned trying to ford the Republican River with a herd of seventy young horses. July had no judgment about horses, or water, or women, as it turned out. His son, Martin, was going to know more, but that was because Martin had her to teach him, Clara reflected.

After Newt's death and the breakup of the Hat Creek outfit, Pea Eye had drifted south, meaning to descend the ladder of rivers until he got home to Texas. But, as luck would have it--the best piece of luck in his whole life, in his view--he showed up in Ogallala at a time when Clara was shorthanded, and she hired him on the spot.

Out her window, as she was advising Lorena to marry him, Clara could see Pea Eye in the lots, trying to halter-break a young sorrel colt. Of course, Pea Eye was older; too old, in a way, for Lorena. But people couldn't have everything. Clara herself would have liked a husband.

She considered herself to be reasonably good-looking, she attempted to be considerate, and thought she was tolerably easy to get along with. But she had no husband, and no prospects. Decent men were scarce, and she knew that Pea Eye was a decent man. Lorena had little to gain by waiting for someone better to come along, and Clara told her so.

Looking at her husband, so shaky from the thought of leaving her that he could barely stand up, Lorena knew that Clara Allen had been right. He was loyal to her, and loyalty from men was a rarity in her life. Even Gus McCrae, her greatest love, had really been in love with Clara and would have left her to marry Clara, if he could have persuaded Clara to have him. Someday, Lorena imagined, some bandit would finally outshoot Captain Call, and she would finally have Pea Eye all to herself--if he could just stay alive, in the meantime.

Coffee was still dripping off the table--Pea Eye had made a poor job of wiping up his spill. He patted August on the head and left the room. In a few minutes he came back, wearing his hat and carrying his slicker. He didn't have his guns.

"Are your guns so dirty you're planning to leave them?" she asked, surprised. Never before had he left without his guns.

"I won't need them," Pea Eye said.

"I'm just going to the railroad, to tell the Captain I can't go on no more chases with him." Though it was exactly what she wanted to hear, Lorena felt a little frightened. Pea Eye had followed the Captain wherever the Captain went for many, many years, so many that she didn't know how many, and Pea Eye probably didn't know, either. Rangering with the Captain had been Pea Eye's life until she took him from it. For Pea Eye to end it now, just because the baby woke up coughing, represented a big change--indeed, a bigger change than she had anticipated having to face, on that particular day.

"Pea," she said, "you don't have to do this just because of me. You don't have to do it because of the children, either.

We aren't in any danger, and we'll all be here when you get back." Only lately had she been able to remember to say "aren't" rather than "ain't." She was proud of herself for remembering it so early in the morning, when she was sleepy.

"All I ever asked is that you be careful," she said. "Help this man if you want to. Just don't get killed for him." "I ain't going to get killed for him, because I ain't going," Pea Eye said. "I've got too many obligations here. This chasing bandits has got to end sometime." He walked out to the little smokehouse and got a slab of bacon. When he returned to the kitchen the three boys, Ben, Georgie, and August, were all propped up in their chairs, looking sleepy and eating bread soaked in the warm milk Clarie had brought in. It was their usual breakfast, although sometimes, if Lorena was up early, she made porridge. Clarie sat on a stool, churning--they had run out of butter the night before.

"You boys help your ma, while I'm gone," Pea Eye said, forgetting that he wasn't really going, this time.

Lorena turned to look at him, wondering if he had changed his mind. That would have been unlike him. It might take Pea Eye a while to make up his mind, but once he made it up, he rarely doubled back on himself.

"Oh," Pea Eye said, realizing from Lorie's look that he had made a slip of the tongue.

"Help your mother this morning," he said. "I'll be back this afternoon." "Daddy, buy me a gun," Ben said. Ben was nine, and fascinated with firearms.

"No, he's not buying you a gun," Lorena said. "You'd just shoot Georgie, and I can't spare Georgie." Georgie, seven, was straw-headed and buck-toothed, but he was Lorena's favorite, anyway. She couldn't help it. Every time she looked at Georgie, she felt her heart swell. He had a bit of a stammer, but he would grow out of it, probably.

"I'll shall-shall-shall-shoot have-have-him," Georgie countered.

Pea Eye picked up his slicker, and put on his hat. He looked at Lorena, who met his eye. She didn't say anything, but there was something disquieting in her look. Of course, that was nothing new. There was something disquieting in most of Lorena's looks.

Pea Eye tried to think of something more to say, but failed. He had never been a man of many words, and being married to a schoolteacher hadn't changed him much. Hundreds of Lorie's looks, like this one, left him baffled.

"See you for supper," he said, finally.

"If you don't show up, I'll know you changed your mind," Lorena said. "He might talk you into going yet." "No, he won't talk me into going," Pea Eye said.

All the same, loping across the plains, he dreaded the meeting he was riding to. It was a fine, crisp day, but Pea Eye didn't feel fine. He had never said no to the Captain, and now he would have to. The Captain wasn't going to like the news, either--the Captain definitely wasn't going to like the news.

When Captain Call saw Pea Eye standing by the railroad track, with no duffle and no firearms, he knew that the moment of change had come. It was an unpleasant shock, but it was not a surprise. Lorena had been tightening her hold on Pea Eye year by year. In the last two years, particularly, Pea Eye's reluctance to accompany him had been evident, and had even begun to affect his work. Half the time on their trips, he was too homesick, or woman-sick, to function as skillfully as he once had, and his skill had its limits, even when he was a young man.

"Well, I guess I've stopped this train for nothing, if you ain't getting on," Call said.

He was annoyed, and he knew Pea Eye knew it, but since Pea Eye had arrived without his equipment, he saw no profit in forcing the issue.

"I'd better just go," Call said. "Good luck with your farm." He shook Pea Eye's hand and got back on the train, which, in a moment, left. Soon even the caboose had vanished from Pea Eye's view, swallowed up by the sea of grass as surely as a boat would have been by the curving sea.

Pea Eye walked slowly over and caught his horse; it had grazed some distance away. He felt stunned: the Captain was gone. The Captain hadn't even argued with him, though he had looked a good deal put out. Of course, he noticed immediately that Pea hadn't brought his guns.

"Forget your arsenal?" the Captain asked, when he first stepped off the train.

"No, I didn't forget it, I just left it at home," Pea Eye said. A man in a fedora had been looking out the window of the train, at them. Pea Eye was uncomfortable anyway, and being stared at by a man in a fedora hat didn't help.

"Oh, that's Brookshire, he's with the railroad," the Captain said, glancing around at the man. "He'll have to replace that hat, if he expects to travel very far with me. A man who can't keep his hat on his head won't be much help, in Mexico." "I guess I won't be being no help in Mexico neither, Captain," Pea Eye said.

"I've got a wife and five children, and one's a baby. The time's come for me to stay home." Though Call had been expecting such a decision from Pea Eye for some time, hearing it was still a shock. He had paid Pea especially well on the last few trips, hoping to overcome his reluctance--it took money to farm, and what little Lorena had inherited from Gus must have been long gone by now.

But Call knew Pea Eye too well to suppose that money, or anything else, would prevail much longer. Pea Eye was through with rangering, and Call had to admit that what they were doing was only the shadow of rangering, anyway.

Call always felt angry when he anticipated Pea Eye's desertion--and, in his eyes, it was desertion--but, there by the train tracks, on the windy plain just north of Quanah, he swallowed the anger down, shook Pea Eye's hand, and got back on the train.

The woman had won. In the end, it seemed they always did.

Brookshire was startled when he saw the Captain come back alone. The man looked testy. Then the train pulled away, leaving the tall man and the grazing horses behind, on the prairie.

"What's wrong with your man?" Brookshire asked. "Was he sick?" "No, he's not sick, he's married," Call said. "Running down bandits don't tempt him no more." "But I thought it was arranged," Brookshire said, more than a little alarmed. His instructions from Colonel Terry had been to let Call bring his man. Pea Eye himself was a legend, in a small way--Brookshire had been looking forward to meeting him. It was said that he had escaped from the Cheyenne Indians and had walked over one hundred miles, naked, to bring help to the other famous ranger, Augustus McCrae. Not many men could have walked one hundred miles naked, in Cheyenne country, and survived. Brookshire doubted that he could walk one hundred miles naked across New Jersey, and yet New Jersey was settled country, and his home state to boot.

He had hoped to meet the man and hear about his adventures. So far, he was certainly not hearing about many of Captain Call's. It would have been entertaining to hear about the hundred-mile walk, but evidently, it was not to be.

"I apologize--he's always been a reliable man," Call said. "He served with me more than thirty years--he's the last man I would have thought likely to marry. He never sought women, when he rode with me." "Oh well, I married myself," Brookshire said, thinking of Katie's fat legs. Those legs had once had great appeal to him, but their appeal had diminished over the years. There were times when he missed Katie, and times when he didn't. When he wasn't missing her, he sometimes considered that he had been a fool, to tie himself down. Indeed, he was hoping that one bonus from his long train trip might be a Mexican girl. The popular view in Brooklyn was that Mexican girls were pretty, lively, and cheap.

"Who'll we get to replace him?" he asked, remembering that Colonel Terry expected results--and not next year, either.

Joey Garza had struck seven times, stopping trains in remote areas of the Southwest, where trains were rarely bothered. He had killed eleven men so far, seemingly selecting his victims at random. Seven of the dead had been passengers; the rest, crew. Four of the seven trains had been carrying military payrolls, and one of the seven had Leland Stanford aboard. At that time, Leland Stanford was thought to be the richest man in California. The boy had taken his rings, his watch, and the fine silk sheets off the bed in his private car. He also took his diamond cuff links. Leland Stanford was not a man who took kindly to having his sheets removed by a young Mexican not yet out of his teens. It was Stanford who stoked the fire under Colonel Terry, prompting him to hire expensive help such as Captain Woodrow Call.

It disturbed Brookshire that their plan had already gone awry, though they were still hundreds of miles from the border, and no doubt, many more hundreds of miles from where Joey Garza was to be found, if he was found.

One thing could be said with certainty about Colonel Terry: he did not like for plans to go awry. If some did go awry anyway, someone invariably got blamed, and most of the time that someone was Brookshire.

"I'll be lucky not to get fired," Brookshire said--he was mainly just thinking out loud.

"Why? Pea Eye was never your responsibility," Call said. "You never even met the man, and can't be blamed for the fact that he married and settled down." "I can be blamed for anything," Brookshire assured him. "I'm one of those people everybody blames, when there's a misfortune." For several minutes he sat with his head down, feeling sorry for himself. It seemed to him that life was nothing but one misfortune after another, and he got blamed for them all. He had been the seventh boy in a family of eight children. His mother had blamed him for not being the little girl she had hoped for; his father blamed him for not being able to go out in the world and get rich. His brothers blamed him for being a runt; and in the army, he was blamed for being a coward.

That one was fair, he had to admit. He was a coward, more or less. Fisticuffs appalled him, and gunfire alarmed him violently. He didn't like storms or lightning, and preferred to live on the first floor of apartment buildings, so escape would be easier in case of fire. He had been afraid that Katie wouldn't marry him, and once she did, he began to fear she would leave him, or else die.

But of all the things he had managed to be frightened of in his life, Colonel Terry's anger was unquestionably the most powerful.

Brookshire feared the Terry temper so much that he would rather bite his tongue off than give the Colonel even the smallest particle of bad news.

Call didn't doubt what Brookshire said.

A man who couldn't even control his hat was likely to attract a lot of blame. In that respect, Call reflected, Brookshire was not unlike Pea Eye himself. Pea had a strange tendency to assume that any bad turn of fortune was probably his fault. On the long cattle drive to Montana, various things happened that could not easily have been prevented.

One morning the little Texas bull that all the cowboys feared got into a fight with a grizzly.

The grizzly definitely didn't fear the bull; the fight was more or less a draw, though the bull got much of his hide ripped off, in the process of holding his own.

For reasons that no one could fathom, Pea Eye decided the encounter was his fault. He felt he should either have roped the bull, or shot the bear, though neither, in Call's view, would have been sensible procedure. If he had roped the bull, it might well have jerked Pea's horse down, in which case the bear would have got them both. If Pea had tried to kill the grizzly with a sidearm, the bear might have turned on the cowboys, instead of on the bull.

Five years and more later, Pea Eye was still worrying about his role in the encounter. What it showed was that people weren't sensible, when it came to assigning or assuming blame.

People were rarely sensible about anything, in Call's opinion. He had taken, he thought, a sensible approach to Pea Eye's desertion while he was actually in the man's presence--but now that he wasn't actually faced with his old corporal, Call found that his anger was rising. He had taken Pea Eye into his troop of Rangers when the latter was no more than a boy, too young to be an official member of any military organization.

But, because the boy looked honest, Call had bent the rules, which were more bendable then than they would become.

Now, it seemed, Pea Eye had deserted him in favor of matrimony, and the desertion left a bitter taste in his mouth. Call had supposed that if he could count on any of his old troop, he could count on Pea. Yet it turned out to be Lorena, once a whore, now a schoolteacher, who could count on Pea.

Call had no doubt that Clara Allen had been behind the match, and though fifteen years had passed, he still resented her interference. It was one thing to educate Lorena; whores had as much right to improve themselves as anybody else. But it was another thing to arrange matters so that the girl could take his most trusted helper.

Dish Boggett, the best of the Hat Creek cowboys and far better on horseback than Pea had ever been, had mooned over Lorena for years. Why couldn't Clara have nudged the girl into accepting Dish? Up to that time Pea had shown no great inclination to domesticity, though he briefly courted, or was courted by, a rather bossy widow in the village of Lonesome Dove.

The trail drive had ended that, if there'd been anything to end.

Because of Clara's meddling, or Lorena's boldness, or a combination of the two, Call was riding south with only a Yankee office worker, to go after the most enterprising young bandit to show up on the border in a decade or more.

It galled Call--when he next encountered Pea Eye, he intended to make that clear.

"I regret now that I didn't force him," Call said to Brookshire. "It leaves us shorthanded. It's just that I never expected to have to force Pea Eye. He's always followed me, before." Brookshire noticed that the Captain looked a little tight around the mouth.

"How long has your friend been married?" he asked.

"Fifteen years, I suppose. He had a number of children, though I have not met them," Call said.

"You have not married yourself, I take it?" Brookshire asked, cautiously. He did not want to annoy the man, as he clearly had earlier in the day by asking him how long he had been a lawman.

"Oh no," Call said. "It's one thing I never tried. But you're married, and you're here.

Your wife hasn't stopped you from doing your duty." "Why, Katie wouldn't care if I went to China," Brookshire said. "She's got her sewing, and then there's the cat. She's very fond of the cat." Call said nothing. He knew women were sometimes fond of cats, though the reason for the attraction escaped him.

"So what will we do for a second man, now that your deputy has declined?" Brookshire asked. "Know any good gun hands in San Antonio?" "Nobody reliable," Call said. "I don't know what a gun hand is, but if I ever happened to meet one I doubt I'd want to hire him." "No offense," Brookshire said. "That's just what we call them in New York." "I would rather do the job alone than to take someone unreliable, particularly if we have to go into Mexico," Call said.

"We might, I guess," Brookshire said.

"He did rob that train with the governor of Coahuila on it. That was his worst act, after robbing Mr. Stanford." "I doubt he knew the governor was on the train," Call said. "That was just luck. I doubt he ever heard of Mr. Stanford, either. I hadn't myself, until you mentioned him." "Maybe I ought to wire the Colonel," Brookshire suggested. "The Colonel could raise an army, if he wanted to. I'm sure he can find us one man." "No," Call said. "I'll do my own looking. Your Colonel might find the wrong fellow." "I leave it to you, Captain," Brookshire said.

Call didn't answer. The question of Pea Eye's replacement was not one he was ready to consider. He was still brooding about Pea Eye, the man who hadn't come. His temper kept rising, too. It rose so high that it took all his self-restraint to keep from stopping the train and going after Pea Eye. Part of his anger was directed at himself for having been so mild and meek in the face of plain desertion. Of course, in strict terms, it wasn't desertion; no war was on, he himself wasn't even a Ranger anymore, and neither was Pea. The man wasn't really in his employ, and they were just going to eliminate a bandit, no very glorious cause or glorious work, either.

But then, none of their work had been glorious.

It had all been bloody, hard, and tiring, from their first foray against the Kiowa until now. There were no bugles, no parades, and very few certainties, in the life they led as Rangers.

Call had killed several men, Indian, white, and Mexican, whose courage he admired; in some cases he had even admired their ideals. Many times, going into battle, a portion of his sympathies had been with the enemy. The Mexicans along the border had been robbed, by treaty, of country and cattle that had been their grandparents'; the Comanche and the Kiowa had to watch the settlement of hunting grounds that had been theirs for many generations.

Call didn't blame the Mexicans for fighting. He didn't blame the Comanche or the Kiowa, either. Had he been them, he would have fought just as hard. He was pledged to arrest them or remove them, not to judge them.

But he did blame Pea Eye for not coming with him on the trip. Of course, the reasons Pea gave were not empty excuses: he did have a wife to care for, children to raise, and a farm to work.

In Call's view, there was an obligation stronger than those, and that obligation was loyalty.

It seemed to him the highest principle, loyalty. He preferred it to honor. He had never been exactly sure what men meant when they spoke of their honor, though it had been a popular word during the time of the War. He was sure, though, what he meant when he spoke of loyalty. A man didn't desert his comrades, his troop, his leader. If he did he was, in Call's book, worthless.

Jake Spoon, a friend he had ended up having to hang--there was an example of a man without loyalty. Jake had rangered with Gus and Call. He was as pleasant and engaging a man as Call had ever known. But he had no loyalty, as he had proven in Kansas, when he ran off with a gang of thieving killers. When they caught him, Jake could scarcely believe that his old compa@neros would hang him--but they hung him.

Pea Eye's case was far less extreme, of course. He hadn't thrown in with killers and thieves; he had merely married. Pea was not a man who could be said to be without loyalty. But he had changed loyalties, and what did that say?

The whole point of loyalty was not to change: stick with those who stuck with you. Pea Eye had proven his loyalty countless times, on the old trails. But then he had chosen a new trail.

Thinking about the matter caused Call to alternate between anger and sorrow. One minute he wanted to ride over to the Quitaque and order Pea Eye to get his rifle and saddle and come; but the next moment, he felt he ought to respect Pea Eye's choice and leave him in peace with his wife, his children, and his farm. He himself would have enjoyed the trip south a great deal more if Pea had been along, but then, he was not in the business for enjoyment, he guessed. He was in the business to make a living. Once, there had been more to it than that, or at least, he had convinced himself that there was more to it. The politicians said that the killing he had done was necessary. Call was no longer so sure it had been necessary. But even if it had always been, in the main, a way to make a living, loyalty to one's own was still the first duty, and he felt a painful pressure in his breast when he thought of Pea Eye's defection.

Brookshire looked at the long plain outside the train window and sighed. The train seemed to creep. There was nothing but the horizon to measure its progress by, and the horizon was just an endless line. He remembered that he had some books in his valise--dime novels he had provided himself with in Kansas City, in case he came down with the doldrums during his travels.

There was also a pack of cards in his valise.

On the whole, he preferred card playing to reading. Card playing didn't wear the mind down so.

"Captain, are you a card-playing man?" he asked, hopefully. A good game of cards would go a long way toward relieving the tedium of train travel.

"No," Call said.

"Well, I didn't really think you were," Brookshire said. He sighed, and rummaged in his valise until he found the dime novels. He pulled them out, glanced at them, and put them back where he found them. After a little more rummaging, he located the pack of cards.

"I reckon it'll be solitaire, then," he said, with another hopeful glance at the Captain.

Captain Woodrow Call didn't say a word.

On his way home, Pea Eye made a detour in order to ride by the schoolhouse. The little building was perched on a low bluff overlooking the Red River. He could see it, in spots, from fifteen miles away.

Pea rarely went to the school. On the few occasions when he did show up there, Lorena made it plain that he should state his business and then go on about it. The school was her place. On an active day, she had as many as thirty children to manage, and she needed to pay attention. Clarie was so good with spelling, and also with arithmetic, that Lorena sometimes let her daughter help her with the little kids. But she was the schoolmistress, and most of what had to be done, she did.

Still, Pea Eye felt an urgent need to see his wife, even though he knew she would not be at her most welcoming. At first, when Captain Call politely shook his hand and got back on the train, Pea felt relieved. The Captain didn't seem quite himself, but at least he hadn't been angry, and he had not attempted to insist that Pea Eye go with him.

But Pea Eye's relief scarcely lasted until he was out of sight of the train. He felt good for a few minutes, but then he began to feel strange. It was as if he were leaking--emptying out, like a bucket that had bullet holes in it. He began to feel sad--the same sadness he had felt in bed the night before. He had lain beside Lorena then, warmed by her body, wishing he didn't have to go anywhere. Now, it was clear that he wouldn't have to go. He could be with his wife and children, and get on with his many chores. The spring winds had blown a corner off the roof of the barn. All summer and fall he had meant to get it mended, but he hadn't. Now, he could attend to it, and to other much needed repairs as well. He could do whatever he wanted to, around the place.

Yet he felt so sad he could hardly keep from crying. His memories were getting mixed up with his feelings. Thinking of the barn with the leaky roof reminded him of the barn that had belonged to the Hat Creek outfit, way south in Lonesome Dove.

That barn had no roof at all, for years. Of course, it seldom rained in Lonesome Dove, so the stock didn't suffer much, as it would have if that barn had been in the Panhandle. But the stock wasn't really what was on Pea Eye's mind, or in his memory. What was on his mind was the old Hat Creek outfit itself--his old compa@neros, the men he had ridden withfor years.

Captain Call, of course, and Gus McCrae and Deets and Newt and Dish Boggett, old Bol the cook, and Jake Spoon; Soupy and Jasper Fant and all the rest. Now they were scattered, not merely all over the cattle country, but between life and death as well. Gus had died in Miles City, Montana, of gangrene in his leg. Deets was killed by an Indian boy in Wyoming; Jake, they had to hang in Kansas. Then the boy Newt, a good boy whom Pea had always liked and respected, had the life crushed out of him by the Hell Bitch, way up on the Milk River.

Pea loved his wife and children, and he couldn't imagine life without them. He hadn't wanted to go with the Captain, and he still didn't. But, despite that, he missed his old partners of the trail. The boys would never ride out together again; they would never be an outfit again. It was sad, but it was life.

He knew, too, that the Captain must have had a hard time holding his temper, when he discovered that he would have to go after Joey Garza alone. The matter of the bandit didn't worry Pea Eye, though. He couldn't imagine a bandit that the Captain couldn't subdue. That was just the order of things. It was Lorena, though, who kept pointing out that the order of things could change.

"Nothing's permanent," she insisted. "We'll get old, and the children will grow up." "I'll get old first--I guess I'm old now," Pea Eye answered. "You won't get old for a long time." "I don't know about that," Lorena said.

"I've borne five children. It don't make you younger." Now, riding beside the pale river with its wide sandy bed, occasionally catching a glimpse of the schoolhouse where his wife spent her days, Pea Eye had to admit that the order of things had changed. This was one of the days when it changed.

Lorena saw Pea Eye coming, through the glass window of the school room. The glass had to be ordered from Fort Worth, and the whole of the Quitaque community was proud of it. Few were the settlers who could afford glass windows for themselves.

"Here comes your pa," she said to Clarie. "I wonder if Captain Call lit into him?" "He better not have. He don't own my pa," Clarie said. She deeply resented the Captain, a man she had never met. He had never even come to meet her and the other children, yet he loomed in her life because of the power he had to take her father away. She knew her father felt obligated to the Captain, but she didn't know why. It wasn't the Captain who had given her mother the money to buy the farm. Her mother resented the old man, too. Clarie knew that, from eavesdropping on her parents. Half the arguments she had overheard as she was growing up had to do with Captain Call. They were not arguments, really. Her father didn't know how to argue, or didn't want to, but her mother certainly knew how to argue. Her mother said many ugly things when she was mad. Mostly, her father just quietly obeyed her mother. He tried his best to do what she wanted him to do. The only times he didn't was when the Captain needed him. Then, he just saddled up and left.

"I thought he went with the Captain," Clarie said, surprised to see her father coming.

"No, he didn't go," Lorena said. "He finally stood up to the man." "Goodness!" Clarie said. It was a big shock, a big change. "Are you glad, Ma?" "I will be when I know I can trust it," Lorena said.

She had been about to test some of the older children in multiplication, but she closed her arithmetic book and went to the back door of the school. Pea Eye rode up, looking a little hangdog. He knew she didn't really like for him to show up at the school. She didn't like to see him looking hangdog, either, though--it made her feel that she must have been mean to him. She didn't want to feel that she had been mean to Pea. In the years of their marriage he had never raised his voice, much less his hand, to her in anger. He knew she wasn't an angel, and yet, year in and year out, Pea treated her like one. A man that steady was rare, and she knew it.

Still, the fact was, she was busy. She had an arithmetic class to teach, and few of her pupils were adept at arithmetic.

"Well, the Captain left without me," Pea Eye said quietly. He felt out of place; he always did, when he visited Lorie at the schoolhouse. He wasn't really even sure why he had come. He felt sad inside, and just wanted to be with his wife for a few minutes.

"Did he fuss at you?" Lorena asked.

She was touched, that Pea had come. She lived with many doubts, but she never had to doubt that Pea Eye needed her. If he needed anything, he needed her. At the moment he looked gloomy and pale; lately he had been waking up with bad headaches.

"Are you sick, honey?" She asked, softening suddenly. Why was she so stiff with him, so often? He just seemed to bring it out in her, for no better reason than that he loved her to distraction.

She liked it that he loved her, but she wished, sometimes, that he wouldn't be so obvious about it.

"No, he just shook my hand and left," Pea Eye said.

"Have you got one of those headaches?" she asked.

"It's pounding," Pea admitted. "This horse has got a stiff trot." It isn't the stiff trot, it's the stiff wife, Lorena thought to herself--no point in saying it to Pea. He usually didn't know he was being punished, even when he was being punished severely.

"Wait a minute," she said, turning back into the schoolhouse. Clarie was comforting a little boy who had wet his pants. The child's mother had gone berserk that winter and had to be sent away. Two days out of three, the little boy wet his pants in the schoolroom. He missed his mother badly.

"Clarie, you better go home with your pa," Lorena said. "He's feeling poorly." "But Ma, Roy and I were going to study together," Clarie protested, looking across the room at Roy Benson. Roy was the tallest boy in the school, by several inches, and he was also the nicest.

He was nearly as tall as her pa--maybe that was why she liked him so.

"You can study with Roy tomorrow--your pa needs you today," Lorena said.

"But who'll help you with Laurie and the boys, on the way home?" Clarie asked, trying hard to come up with a good reason why she should stay.

Roy's folks were thinking of taking him out of school, since he couldn't be spared from the ranch work much longer. She hated to miss even one day with Roy. The Benson ranch was fifteen miles from their farm. Clarie felt she would never get to see him, once he left school.

"Since when have I not been able to get home with my own children?" Lorena asked, a little impatiently. She was anxious to get Clarie and Pea Eye gone. The children were beginning to act up, as they always did when her attention wavered for more than a minute or two. Roy Benson was usually the instigator, too. He was a bright boy, but full of the devil.

"Well, you can take care of them, but Laurie is my sister and I like to help with her," Clarie said.

"You do help, but now I need you to help your father," Lorena said. "I wouldn't ask it, if I didn't need it." Clarie gave up. The look in her mother's eye was a look you didn't argue with, if you were smart.

"Can I just go tell Roy I can't study with him today?" she asked.

"I'll tell him," Lorena said. "He ain't made of air, Clarie. He'll be here tomorrow." "Ma, you said "ain't,"" Clarie told her, startled. Her mother's grammar only slipped when she was angry, or in a hurry.

"Yes, because you're vexing me," Lorena said.

"You know I slip up, when you vex me." "Roy might not be here tomorrow," Clarie said, returning to the original point at issue.

"His folks might make him work, and then I'll never get to see him." She felt bitter. Roy was the only nice boy she knew, and now his folks might make him leave her, in order to help with the cow work.

But, bitter or not, she knew it was unwise to provoke her mother past a certain point, and that point was not far away. With another futile glance at Roy--he was teasing a little kid and did not see her--she went outside and obediently climbed up behind her father. Windmill, her father's big gray horse, grunted, but at least didn't break wind. For some reason, hearing horses break wind embarrassed her keenly; at least it did when there was a man around, even if the man was her father.

"Pa, do you like Roy Benson?" she asked, as they were trotting homeward.

"Roy? He's gangly, but then so am I," Pea Eye said.

Billy Williams had to walk the last five miles into Ojinaga because he lost his horse. It was a ridiculous accident. It was sure to hurt his reputation as the last of the great scouts, and his reputation had been slipping badly, anyway.

The horse became misplaced as a result of the fact that Billy had to answer a call of nature. He had been riding at a sharp clip, all the way from Piedras Negras--the news he had was so urgent that it prompted him to neglect the call until disgrace was at hand.

Then, he failed to tether his mount properly and the horse wandered off. Perhaps because of the sharp clip he had maintained, or the tequila he had drunk while maintaining it, Billy relaxed so much in the course of his call of nature that he dozed off for a few minutes, still squatting. That in itself was nothing new, since he often nodded off for a few minutes while squatting in response to nature's call. Squatting was a position he found completely comfortable; in fact, it was one of the few that he did find comfortable. When he stood up straight, he coughed too much. His diagnosis was that a couple of his ribs were poking into a lung, the result of an encounter a few years back with a buffalo cow that looked dead but wasn't.

Lying flat on his back was not a good position, either. A headache usually accompanied that position, probably because Billy never lay flat on his back unless he was dead drunk.

The fact was, his horse wasn't very far away; Billy just couldn't see him. His vision had once been so sharp that he could see a small green worm on a small green leaf, at a distance of thirty yards. Now, he couldn't even see his own horse if the horse was thirty yards away. It was a sad state for a great scout to have come to.

"Willie, you best retire," his friend Roy Bean told him the last time the two of them visited. "A man as blind as you are ought not to be riding this river. You could fall in a hole and be swallowed up and that would be that." Roy Bean didn't deliver that opinion with much concern in his voice. Like most of Roy Bean's pronouncements, this one got said mainly because the man was vain and arrogant. He had never been able to get enough of the sound of his own voice, though it held no particular charm for anyone but himself.

"You're blind drunk nine days out of ten--what keeps you from falling in a hole and being swallowed up?" Billy asked.

"The fact is, I sit here in this chair in this saloon, not nine days out of ten but ten days out of ten," Roy Bean said. "If I could sit here in this chair eleven days out of ten, I would. I don't go wandering off where there might be a hole that could swallow me up." That point was hard to dispute. Roy Bean seldom left his chair; even seldomer did he leave his saloon; and never, so far as anyone living knew, had he been outside the town of Langtry, Texas, a town that consisted mainly of Roy Bean's saloon.

"But then I ain't the last of the great scouts," Roy Bean said. "I don't have to go traipsing through the gullies. I got no reputation to maintain." "I won't fall in no hole," Billy assured him. "I won't get swallowed up, neither.

"I would have to be a lot blinder than this, before I quit tracking," Billy added, though that claim was bravado. Traveling was becoming more and more worrisome, and as for tracking, he probably could track an elephant if he could stay in hearing distance of it. But tracking anything smaller, including his own horse, was a hopeless matter.

"Well, if you do avoid holes, there's the problem of killers," Roy Bean reminded him.

"You can't see in front of you, or behind you, or to the side. The dumbest killer in the West could sneak up on you and cut your throat." Billy refrained from comment. The two of them were sitting in Roy's dirty, flyblown saloon while they were having the discussion. The saloon was hot as well as filthy, and the liquor cost too much, but it was the only saloon around and contained the only liquor to be had along that stretch of the border.

Roy Bean, out of a combination of boredom, greed, and vanity, had recently appointed himself judge of a vast jurisdiction--the trans-Pecos West--and nowadays hung people freely, often over differences amounting to no more than fifty cents. It was an ominous practice, in Billy's view; he had often found himself having differences with Roy Bean amounting to considerably more than fifty cents. Roy had been told by many of his constituents that he shouldn't hang people over such paltry sums, and of course, he had a ready reply.

"A man that will steal fifty cents would just as soon steal a million dollars, and he would, if the opportunity presented itself," Roy said.

"Roy, the opportunity ain't going to present itself, not around here," Billy pointed out.

"Nobody around here has a million dollars to steal. Not many of them has fifty cents, not in cash money." "Well, I have fifty cents," Roy said.

"I mean to keep it, too." "If I was to steal it, would you hang me?" Billy asked. He didn't suppose Roy to be a man of much tolerance, but he thought he'd ask the question anyway.

"I'd hang you as soon as I could find my rope," Roy said amiably.

"We've known one another a long time," Billy reminded him. "I've nursed you through several fevers and I once killed a Mexican who had it in for you. I expect he would have cut your throat, later in life, if I hadn't laid him out." "What'd you shoot this Mexican fellow with?" Roy asked. He was a master of the diversionary question.

Billy had to stop and think. Several years had passed since the encounter, and his memory had grown almost as cloudy as his eyesight.

"It wasn't no Colt," he said, finally.

"I don't remember what it was. A gun of some kind. What difference does it make? He's dead, which is one reason you're alive. Now you're telling me you'd hang me for fifty cents. I consider that harsh." "Well, I don't know that I could put my hands on my hanging rope, in a hurry," Roy said. "You might escape, if you were agile." "Who said you could be a judge, anyway?" Billy inquired. "I'd want to see some papers on it, before I let you hang me." "Since when can you read law papers?" Roy asked. "I've known you for too long and I've never seen you read anything, unless you count a pack of cards." "I could read if it was that or be hung," Billy said. "You can't just say you're a judge and have it be true. There has to be some papers on it, somewhere." "Out here west of the Pecos you can be a judge if you want to bad enough," Roy said. "I want to bad enough." "Suppose I only stole a dime?" Billy asked. "What would happen then?" "Same sentence, if you stole it from me," Roy said. "I need my dimes. If you stole ten cents from a Mexican I might let you off.

"The loss of any sum is more than I can tolerate, officially," he added.

"I can't tell that you've ever amounted to much, Roy," Billy informed him. "It's irritating that you set up to be a judge of your fellowman, so late in life. It's all because of this saloon.

It's the only saloon around here, and that's why you think you can be a judge." "I admit it was a timely purchase," Roy said.

"You didn't purchase it, you shot the owner," Billy reminded him. "Tom Sykes, I knew him. He was nothing but a cutthroat himself." "That's right--so I purchased his saloon with a bullet," Roy said. "Three bullets in all. Tom wasn't eager to die." "That's still cheap," Billy said.

"Not as cheap as one bullet," Roy said. "The sad truth is, my marksmanship has declined.

In my prime, I would not have had to expend that much ammunition on Tommy Sykes." Because of the saloon, it was necessary to put up with Roy, but the more urgent necessity was to get to Ojinaga and give Maria the news he had picked up in Piedras Negras. It was a great annoyance to Billy that because of a long shit and a short nap he had lost his horse. But that was the truth of it, and there was nothing he could do but limp along.

By the time he finally stumbled up to Maria's house, Billy was exhausted. His head was swimming from the strain of the long walk, and he was sweating a rainstorm. He had to grope his way through Maria's goats. Her goats seemed to think he had come hurrying all the way from Piedras Negras just to feed them.

Maria heard the goats bleating and went out to have a look. Someone had seen a cougar, near the village; she didn't want a cougar getting one of her goats. But they were only bleating at Billy Williams, who looked as if he might fall on his face at any moment.

"Where's your horse?" she asked, walking out to have a better look at him. She had known Billy Williams for many years. Sometimes she let him stay at her house, because he loved her children and would help her with them, far more than any of her husbands ever had. He also loved her, but that was not a matter she allowed him to discuss.

"Where's Joey? I got bad news," Billy said, stopping amid the goats. Maria frightened him a little. She always had. He presumed nothing when he came to her house.

"Joey left--I don't know where he went," Maria said.

"Damn the luck," Billy said. "I've traveled a long way to bring him some news and now I'm tired. I'm tired and I'm blind and I'm old and I'm thirsty." "You can sleep in the saddle shed," Maria said.

"Come in--I'll feed you and give you coffee.

I can't do nothing about your other problems." "I'd rather have a bottle of beer, if you can spare one," Billy said, limping into the house.

"I seldom walk in the heat, and I wouldn't have today, but my horse escaped." "I don't keep beer in my house," Maria said. "You know that. You stay here. If you want beer you'll have to go to the cantina." "Well, what's the harm in beer?" Billy asked, wishing Maria didn't sound so stern. He didn't know why he had asked for beer, since he knew she didn't keep it. Maria had been wonderfully beautiful once; probably she was still beautiful. Because of his poor eyesight, all he could see when he looked at her face was a dim outline. He had to fill in the outline with his memories. When he was younger he had coveted her greatly. He would have married her, or given her anything, for a taste of her favors, but he had never tasted them. He still did covet Maria, although he couldn't really see her now, except in his memories.

"The harm is not in the beer," Maria told him. "The harm is in men. Drunk men. Some of them beat women. Some of them have beaten me. If you want beer, go to the cantina, but tell me your news first." "This is important news," Billy said.

He saw a water bucket sitting by the stove, with a dipper in it. He limped over and helped himself to a dipperful. The water was cool and sweet. Before he knew it he had helped himself to three dipperfuls.

"Don't you even know which direction Joey went?" Billy asked.

Maria didn't answer. She didn't like to answer questions--not about her son Joey, not about anything. What she knew was hers; no one had a right to it, unless it was her children, and even their rights had limits. Much of what she knew was for no one to know. It was hers, and by knowing it she had survived. People were curious; women were even worse than men, in that respect; but that was not her problem.

"Where does the wind go?" she said. "Joey's young. A thousand miles isn't long to Joey." "No, and a thousand miles might not be far enough, either--this time," Billy said.

Maria just looked at him. He was in disgusting condition, filthy and drunk. His weak eyes dripped rheum down his cheeks, which were red from years of drinking. But he had been loyal to her and her children for many years. Billy was the only man who had been good to Joey, when Joey was small.

He had bought Joey his first saddle. He just walked up with it one day and gave it to Joey, when Joey was six. It was Joey's happiest day, the day Billy brought him the saddle.

Maria was with Juan Castro then, her second husband, and her worst. Juan Castro was so jealous that Maria never dared tell him that Joey was her son, so she pretended he was her dead sister's child. Even so, in that same year, Juan Castro sold Joey to the Apaches. Maria was away in Agua Prieta, helping her mother die.

When she returned to Ojinaga and found her son gone, she was wild. She told Juan Castro she would kill him the first time he went to sleep.

He beat her--he had beaten her many times--and left. Maria never saw him again, but she didn't have to kill him. His own brother did it, in a fight over a horse.

At that point, she went to Billy Williams and begged him to go trade with the Apaches to get her son back. Maria had never sold herself. She had never been with any man she didn't want.

But she was desperate; she offered to be with Billy Williams, if he would go save her son. She had never said such words to a man before. She considered herself a modest woman. She had picked badly, when it came to men, but she had picked for love.

Joey was her firstborn, and she knew the Apaches would kill him if he angered them, or else they would trade him themselves, farther and farther north, so that she could never find him.

Maria didn't want to live if Joey was lost, and yet, she had her children to raise, the two she had by Juan Castro. Rafael, the boy, had no mind and would die without her care; Teresa, the girl, was bright and pretty and quick, but born blind. Rafael lived with the goats and the chickens.

Teresa, his sister, was never far from him, for she was the only one who could understand Rafael's jumbled words.

Maria knew she wouldn't have the strength to raise her damaged children unless she got Joey back.

If she lost her firstborn, she would give up.

She would whore, or do worse than whore.

Billy was said to be a good scout, since he could talk the Indian tongues. For the sake of her children, she didn't want to give up.

So she went to Billy Williams and offered herself. To her surprise, Billy Williams, who had often pursued her and even tried to marry her, looked embarrassed.

"Oh no, that wouldn't be right--I couldn't have that," Billy said. He tilted his chair back, as if to remove himself from the slightest temptation.

For a moment, Maria felt hopeless. She had nothing else to offer, and now the man was refusing what he had often sought.

"It wouldn't be right," Billy repeated.

"Don't disturb yourself about it, Mary. I'll find Joey." He found Joey, far to the north, in the Sierra Madre, but the Apaches wouldn't trade him. All he could tell Maria was that Joey looked healthy and could speak Apache better than he could.

A year later, when Maria was so unhappy Billy feared she would die, he went again to the Sierra Madre; but again, he had to return and report failure. He had taken enough money that time to buy Joey, but Joey was nowhere to be found.

He had escaped, and even the Apaches couldn't catch him. Since then, no one had caught him.

He showed up in Ojinaga a week after Billy's return, just as Maria was slipping into hopelessness.

Later, Joey claimed that it was his years with the Apaches that enabled him to rob gringo trains so easily. The Apaches held a hard school, but they knew much. Joey learned what they knew, and he had not forgotten it.

"Tell me your news," Maria said. "I'm here and Joey's not." "The railroad's hired Woodrow Call, that's it," Billy said--he was glad to have it out.

"You know who that is, don't you?" "I should--he hung my father and my brother," Maria said. "And my brother-in-law. My sister's a widow, because of Call." "Well, that's who they've hired," Billy said. "It's a compliment, I guess. A railroad wouldn't spend that kind of money on just any bandit." "Do you know Call?" Maria asked. The name sent a chill through her. She had loved her father and her brother. They had done no more than take back horses that the Texans had taken from them.

No living man had caused her as much grief as Woodrow Call: not the four husbands, three of whom beat her; not the gringos, who insulted her, assuming that because she was a brown woman, she was a whore.

Now Call wanted Joey. He wanted her firstborn.

"I know the man, but the acquaintance ain't real fresh," Billy said. "I rangered for him about a month once, but he turned me out for drinking on patrol. I'm older than he is, and I've drunk when I had a thirst, all my life. It don't affect my vigilance much, but the Captain didn't believe me. Or didn't like me or something. He turned me out." "Would you recognize him?" Maria asked.

"Why, yes. I expect I would," Billy said.

"If he comes here, show him to me," Maria said.

"Why, so you can kill him?" Billy said.

Maria didn't answer. Billy knew better than to repeat the question. Repeating questions only made Maria close up more tightly.

"What was your last husband's name?" he asked, changing the subject. "It's slipped my mind." "Roberto Sanchez," Maria said.

"I don't see him--did he leave?" he asked.

"He left," Maria said.

"That makes four husbands, by my count," Billy said. "The two mean ones and Benito and this one. I don't know if this one was mean." "Why are you counting my husbands?" Maria asked. Despite herself, she felt some amusement. Poor, skinny, and blind as he was, Billy still had some life in him. He was still interested in her, enough to want to know if her husband was around. Life still amused him. Once, it had amused them both, a lot. They had danced together, laughed together. There were times when it still amused Maria, but those times were rare. It interested her, though, that an old man with no money and almost no eyesight could still derive amusement from the things humans did. And he could still want her.

"I just like to keep track of your husbands.

It's my pastime," Billy said. "Why did Se@nor Sanchez leave, if I ain't prying?" "You're prying," Maria said.

"My feet hurt, tell me anyway," Billy said.

Maria smiled. Billy couldn't see the smile, but he could tell that her tone was a little less severe. He wished he could see her face. All he could see was a sort of outline.

"He left me because he didn't like me," Maria said.

"Why, he married you--why didn't he like you?" Billy asked.

"He liked the way I look," Maria said.

"He mistook that for me." "I sympathize with him, I've often made the same mistake," Billy said. "I'm sure I'd make it again, if I could see better." "I think Joey went to Crow Town," Maria said. She didn't want to talk about her husbands, or her dealings with men.

"Crow Town, good Lord," Billy said.

"Joey is young," Maria said. "He likes such places." "I'm old, I don't," Billy said.

"I'd almost rather crawl off and die than go to Crow Town." "Who said you had to go?" Maria asked.

"Woodrow Call has hung enough Mexicans," Billy said. "I better go and warn Joey. Swift as he is, he might get away. If my going to Crow Town will help, then I'll go to Crow Town." "You don't listen," Maria said. "You don't let me talk, and when I do you don't listen.

I'll go to Crow Town myself." "You'll go?" Billy said. "How long do you think you'll last, in that stink hole?" "Long enough to warn my son," Maria said.

"No, I'll go. Joey relies on me to keep him informed about lawmen and such," Billy said.

"You lost your horse," Maria reminded him.

"Well, it ain't the only horse," Billy said. "I can get another horse.

"I doubt even Woodrow Call would go to Crow Town," he added. "Everybody that lives there hates him. He'd have to kill the whole town." "You've forgotten how he is," Maria said.

"If he's hired to go there, he'll go. If they sent him to kill Joey he'll go wherever Joey is." "Well, I mean to get there first, even if I have to walk," Billy said. "The man turned me out. I can't forget it." Thinking about Crow Town gave him such a terrible thirst that he limped off to the cantina and bought two bottles of tequila. There was an outhouse behind the cantina that afforded him a little shade, and he sat down in the shade and drank one bottle rapidly. Midway through the second bottle, as he was about to pass out, a vaquero came riding up, leading Billy's lost horse.

"I found your horse, old man," Pedro, the vaquero, said.

Billy found that the mere thought of his horse, not to mention the sight of him, to the extent he could see him, made him furious. The willful beast had caused him not only discomfort but embarrassment.

For a man of his prestige to have to walk into a one-saloon town such as Ojinaga was little short of disgraceful.

Without hesitation, but not without difficulty, he managed to extract his pistol from its holster. His hand didn't seem to want to go where his brain told it to. His hand often rebelled in such fashion when he was drunk. But he eventually got the pistol more or less firmly in his grasp, and without worrying too much about aiming, he emptied it in the direction of Pedro and the horse. Of course, he had no wish to injure Pedro, who was a decent vaquero. He only meant to shoot the horse, in the head, if possible. But the only casualty of the fusillade was a little white goat who happened to be standing idly by, just in the wrong spot.

"Gracias," Pedro said, tipping his hat to the old man who leaned against the outhouse wall.

"That's one less goat to get in my way." Pedro was a little disgusted. The old man had once been a renowned scout. He had been good enough to track Indians, it was said. He had once been a notable shot, too. Now he couldn't hit his own horse, at a distance of twenty yards. In Pedro's view, it would be better for such men to die and not go around shooting other people's goats.

Later, Billy found a bush that offered better shade than the light outhouse. He finished the second bottle of tequila and took a little nap. When he awoke, with an empty bottle and an empty gun beside him, Maria was kneeling by his legs. She seemed to be looping a rope around his legs. Her spotted mare was standing with her.

He could just make out the spots. Then he was being dragged, slowly. If the dragging had been rapid, it would have upset his stomach. When the dragging stopped, he was behind Maria's house, near the pump. Before Billy could give the matter more thought, he found himself under a waterfall. Cold water was splashing in his face. He felt he could drown, if he wasn't lucky, from the flood of water. But when it stopped splashing, he was not drowned. He tried to raise up and bumped his head hard on Maria's pump. She had been pumping water in his face.

"I have to go find Joey," Maria said.

"Look after my children. Don't let anything happen to them." "Well, I won't," Billy said. "Are you armed?" "No, I don't like guns," Maria said.

"You ought to take my pistol. You'd be safer," he told her.

"I don't want your gun, Billy," Maria said. "If I have a gun some man might take it away from me and beat me with it. I want you to stay here and see that Rafael and Teresa come to no harm." But Billy persisted; finally, Maria took the gun. As she rode away on her spotted mare, Billy realized that she had called him by his name. That was a change. It had been several years since Maria had called him by his name.

When Bolivar saw the Captain, he began to cry.

"Capit@an, capit@an," he said, sobbing. Call had grown used to it, since Bol cried every time he showed up. But Brookshire, meeting the old man for the first time, was embarrassed.

The place where the old man boarded was only a hovel made of mud, or of a mudlike substance, at least.

Soon Josefeta, the mother of the family that cared for Bolivar, was crying too.

"God sent you just in time, Captain," she said, in a shaking voice. "We can't have Bolivar with us, no more. Roberto has no patience with him.

He hits him." "Well, he oughtn't to hit him," Call said.

"What's Bol done, to bring it on?" "Last week he set himself on fire," Josefeta said. "Sometimes he cuts himself. In the night he cries out and wakes the children." Call sighed. Bol's hair was snow white.

He was still crying and shaking.

"He needs a haircut," Call said. The old man's hair was nearly to his shoulders, making him look shakier than he was.

"Last time we cut it he grabbed the scissors and tried to stab Ramon," Josefeta said. "Then he cut himself. I think he wants to end his life. It's a mortal sin." Call had a good deal of respect for Josefeta. She had nine or ten children and a husband who was apparently none too nice. The money he paid her for keeping Bol was probably about all that kept the family going. He knew that dealing with the old man must be a trial, but he had not supposed it to be such a severe trial that they were considering putting the old man out.

Brookshire was appalled. The old man was sure to be an impediment to their travels, although the Captain had made it clear that they were only taking him as far as Laredo. Still, in Brookshire's reckoning, every minute counted. That was Colonel Terry's philosophy, too; of that there could be no doubt. The Colonel expected them to catch Joey Garza before he robbed any more trains, particularly any more trains that might happen to be carrying a military payroll. The military did not take kindly to having its money snatched. Hints had been received; the military let it be known that they might have to find other modes of conveyance if the young Mexican struck one more time.

One of Josefeta's little boys came around the house, leading Bolivar's mule. The boy had saddled it for him. It was with some difficulty that they managed to hoist Bolivar onto the mule's skinny back. The experience darkened Brookshire's mood even more. The old fellow could not even mount his own mule unassisted. But Captain Call seemed undisturbed. He was patient with Bolivar, and he gave the woman a nice sum of money for the trouble she'd had.

"I'm sorry for the trouble, Josefeta," Call said. "He's just old, and wandering in his mind. Maybe a little travel will improve his spirits." As they got ready to depart, children began to gather around the old man and his mule. They seemed to be about half and half, boys and girls, and all were weeping.

"We don't want him to go, we love him," Josefeta said. "Only Roberto has no more patience. I'm afraid something bad will happen." Brookshire had been worried all morning, but, as they made their way at a slow pace toward the outskirts of town, he found that the heat was so great it overwhelmed even his capacity for worry.

It was winter on the plains, but summer still in San Antonio. At night Brookshire lay in his little hotel room, as hot as if he slept in a box with a stove under it. His underclothes were soaked, his bedclothes soaked. He sweated so much that he awoke in a puddle. The hotel room had windows, but no breeze blew through them. All that came through them was mosquitoes, wasps, and other flying bugs. Each morning he woke up feeling more fatigued than he felt when he went to bed.

If the Captain was bothered by the heat, it didn't show. If he was bothered by anything, it didn't show. He had taken Brookshire with him to visit the sheriff of San Antonio. Call wanted to see if the man might have a reliable deputy he could spare.

"Mr. Brookshire represents the railroad," Call said. He thought that was enough information to give out.

Being introduced as if he were Colonel Terry, or somebody important, perked Brookshire up briefly. It made him feel like a banker--he had often regretted that he hadn't become a banker. It was a breeze to his vanity, going around with the famous Ranger.

But long before evening came, Brookshire had sweated out his vanity. The one cheering thing he could think of was that his wife, Katie, wasn't along.

Katie disapproved of sweat. She considered it uncivilized. In her view, nice people didn't get drunk, spit in public, break wind, or sweat. On occasion, in the summertime, when the Brooklyn heat was at its most intense, Katie even denied him her favors in order to maintain her standards in regard to sweat.

Walking around San Antonio in the heat, or lying in his little box of a room at night, Brookshire had at least one thing to be grateful for: he and Katie weren't leading their conjugal life in south Texas. Feeling as she did about sweat, life would be bleak if they lived in San Antonio, where even the briefest embrace would be bound to give rise to a good deal of sweat.

A sheriff in the town, a young man much in awe of the Captain, had no deputies to spare, so the Captain spent the rest of the day looking at horses and pack mules, or choosing the equipment they would need on a journey up the river.

It was at this point that Brookshire gave the Captain a bad start. When Colonel Terry instructed his people to send the Captain a telegram, he meant, of course, to make it clear that Brookshire was to accompany him from beginning to end; that is, until Joey Garza was dead, or caught. The Colonel didn't spend money recklessly. Brookshire was a trained accountant. For more than twenty years, he had kept up with the Colonel's bills. The only bills he wasn't allowed to see were those that pertained to the Colonel's mistress, a mystery woman named Miss Cora. No one in the office had ever seen Miss Cora, though it was known that the Colonel kept her in an apartment on Fifth Avenue. Once in a while a bill for flowers or jewelry would get misdirected and arrive in the office, a circumstance that invariably threw the Colonel into a temper.

"Why, that idiot, that's for Cora," he would say, snatching the bill and stuffing it into his pocket. The Colonel's wife, another mystery figure, was known in the office as Miss Eleanora. She was thought to be prim, and her primness, in the minds of the office workers, explained Miss Cora and the apartment on Fifth Avenue, and the jewelry, and the flowers.

Now and then, seeing one of the misdirected bills--they were always from establishments of high repute--Brookshire would dream a little.

He would imagine that he was as rich as the Colonel and able to keep a nice girlie, one whose standards in the matter of sweat were not as high as Katie's. He thought of this girlie as his Miss Belle, for he liked the name Belle. Of course, it was just a little dream. Brookshire knew that he would never be as rich as the Colonel, and even if he did acquire a little more money he might never find a girl named Belle who would care to live in an apartment on Fifth Avenue and receive flowers and jewelry, from him. It was just his little dream.

The point, though, that startled Captain Call was that Colonel Terry expected Brookshire and his ledger books to accompany Call on his chase. The Captain had been promised his expenses, as well as a substantial bonus, in the event of rapid success. An expedition, even a small one, was bound to incur expenses, so naturally, Brookshire was expected to keep a full accounting. Mostly, when trouble had arisen in the past, it had involved dirty work on the part of Colonel Terry's rivals in Chicago or Cleveland or Buffalo--someplace civilized.

In those cases, Brookshire's job was to rein in the Pinkertons. As a rule, Pinkertons were inclined to be casual about money, and the Colonel wasn't.

Employing Captain Call to catch Joey Garza was not as simple as hiring the Pinkertons to beat up a switch buster. There was only one point of similarity, which was that in both cases, the Colonel's money was being spent. And when the Colonel's money was being spent, he expected a full accounting.

"Why? Doesn't the man trust me?" Call asked, when Brookshire revealed that he was expected to accompany him.

"The Colonel don't trust God," Brookshire said. The comment just slipped out.

Colonel Terry's unwillingness to trust was not lost on any of his employees. He was constantly popping into the office to inspect their work.

When Brookshire turned in his ledgers at the end of each week, the Colonel sat right down, took out his big magnifying glass, and went over the pages line by line.

Call was inspecting a stout gray gelding that he thought might do, when Brookshire revealed that he was expected to come along. Call had just lifted the horse's foreleg, in order to inspect the hoof. He was going into rocky country and the animals would need good feet. The notion that Brookshire, a man who couldn't keep his hat on his head, was planning to go with him into Mexico had never occurred to Call. Bol, shaky as he was, would be less of an impediment. At least Bol was used to hard living, and he was Mexican.

Brookshire seemed to be a decent man, but decency was one thing, experience entirely another.

Call had no idea whether the man could even ride.

"But Mr. Brookshire," he said. "You're not equipped, and this isn't your line of work. I know you're a family man, and there is some danger involved. To be blunt, I'd rather not take you." "I'd rather not go, neither, but what choice do I have?" Brookshire asked. "I'm a salaried man. I work for Colonel Terry. He expects me to keep the daily accounts--besides that, he expects reports." "Reports?" Call asked.

"Yes, I'm expected to report," Brookshire said. It was clear from the Captain's stern look that he was not pleased with what he was hearing.

"If you capture the young Mexican, or kill him, the Colonel's going to want to know right away," Brookshire added. "He's a stickler for promptness." "I expect he's a stickler for results, too," Call said. "What if I don't catch the young bandit promptly enough? What if he manages to rob the army a few more times?" Brookshire felt uncomfortable with the question. He had not been the only one in the office to voice doubts about the Captain's age. Of course, everyone admired Call's reputation. He had undoubtedly been the best there was, once; in his prime, Joey Garza probably wouldn't have lasted a week, with the Captain in pursuit.

But now the man was old, and looked it. If Colonel Terry could see him, he would probably have taken back his offer, or at least reduced the stipend.

"I hope I'm not getting deaf," Call said. "I didn't hear you answer. What happens if I ain't quick enough?" "He'll fire you in a minute," Brookshire said.

"I'm glad you admit it," Call said.

"I'll get Joey Garza for you, but I can't say when I'll get him, and God couldn't either.

Mexico is a big place--so is West Texas. We might not be handy to a telegraph office the day the Colonel decides to fire me." "Captain, just catch the bandit," Brookshire said. "Don't worry about Colonel Terry, too much. Worrying about the Colonel is my job." "Couldn't you get another job?" Call asked. "I don't think you enjoy this one too much. This Colonel of yours sounds like he's rough on the help." Brookshire didn't deny it, but refrained from confirming it. He had learned to be cautious in remarking about the Colonel. Remarks uttered hundreds of miles from the office nonetheless had a way of reaching the man's ear.

"I like a loyal man," Call said, seeing that Brookshire had nothing to say. "I think you are a loyal man. But being loyal don't mean you're suited for this work. It's unreasonable of your boss to expect you to do work you're not trained for." "He is unreasonable, though," Brookshire said, before he could check his tongue. "He expects me to go, and I better go. I admit I ain't qualified. I'm about as unqualified a man as you could find anywhere. But here I am.

I'm expected to go." "Send the Colonel a telegram," Call suggested. "Tell him you've caught the Texas itch. Tell him the doctor says you're not to ride for six weeks." "What's the Texas itch?" Brookshire asked, wondering if he would catch it. "How do you get it?" "You just get it," Call said, amused. The man was so green it was almost painful to see. Call couldn't help thinking what a time his old friend Gus McCrae would have had with Mr. Brookshire.

Gus would have joshed him within an inch of his life.

No doubt he could have thought up diseases far more frightening than the Texas itch.

"Well, I don't want it," Brookshire said.

"I don't want to take you off and get you killed, either," Call said. "Can you shoot?" "I can point a rifle, fairly well," Brookshire said. "I learned that much in the War, but then they made me a medical orderly. I haven't pointed a rifle since." "How long since you've ridden a horse?" Call asked.

"My experience with horses is mostly limited to horse cabs," Brookshire admitted. "I may not have personally ridden a horse myself in a fair number of years.

"I did sit on a camel once," he remembered. "It was at the Hippodrome. It was the Colonel's birthday." "What's the Hippodrome?" Call asked.

"It's a show place," Brookshire said.

"Buffalo Bill has performed there--I've seen him three times. I even saw old Sitting Bull. The Colonel has met Buffalo Bill, and Sitting Bull too, I expect." Call said nothing.

"Have you met Mr. Cody?" Brookshire inquired, feeling a little uneasy. Stern as the Captain could be when he spoke, he was even more stern when he kept silent.

"I've not had the pleasure," Call said, dryly. He considered Cody a show-off and braggart. No doubt he had killed a number of buffalo, but any man with a gun and a reasonably good aim could have killed a number of buffalo back when there were millions of them. Once, while in El Paso, Call had seen a picture of some of the Indians who worked in Cody's show. The Indians were Sioux, and they were playing baseball. Call supposed, when he reflected on it, there was no reason why Sioux Indians shouldn't play baseball. What else did they have to do? There was no reason why they shouldn't be paid money to race around a ring and pretend to rob stagecoaches, either. Cody was clearly a man of some enterprise; he figured out that people who had never seen a free Indian, much less fought one, would pay money to watch such things.

There might be no harm in it, but it didn't cause him to be eager to make the acquaintance of Bill Cody, or of Sitting Bull, either.

"Anyway, the Colonel insisted that I sit on the camel and get my picture took," Brookshire said. It had been innocent enough--just a birthday party at the Hippodrome-- but Brookshire felt merely mentioning it had taken him down a notch in the Captain's estimation. He didn't suppose he had ever occupied a very high place in the Captain's estimation, but he couldn't afford to drop many more notches.

"You can't ride and you don't know whether you can shoot," the Captain said, in a tone that was not unkind. "Your hat blows off every few minutes, and the heat don't suit you. We may have to cross a desert or two, to catch Joey Garza. We may never catch up with him, and if we do he might shoot us both." "Shoot you?" Brookshire said, surprised.

"Why, I don't expect he could shoot you." "He might," Call said. "He's said to be a notable shot." "But you've got a reputation," Brookshire said. "The Colonel wouldn't have hired you, otherwise." "There's one sure thing about my reputation, Mr. Brookshire," Call said. "It won't stop a bullet. That's why I'd rather not take you with me. I don't want to take you off and get you killed." "Killed?" Brookshire said. "Why would I get killed?" It occurred to Brookshire that the heat might have affected his hearing. He had worked for the railroad for many years, but never before had the question of dying arisen. Accountants didn't get killed, not even traveling accountants such as himself. During the worst troubles in the Chicago yards, he had still rested comfortably in a hotel room at night and had even allowed himself a nip of brandy now and then.

"Killed or not, the Colonel expects me to go," Brookshire repeated, in a voice that wavered a little.

"Try him with the Texas itch, while I inspect these horses," Call said. "You'll have ample time to send your telegram." Brookshire did send a telegram. He didn't mention any disease or disability, for that might only cause the Colonel to put him out to pasture. After much thought and a few trial runs, he whittled his telegram down to a sentence and a query:

Captain Call unwilling to take me on the expedition. Stop. Advise.

Brookshire.

The reply was immediate, and also brief:

Insist that you accompany Call. Stop. No compromises entertained. Terry.

Brookshire showed the telegram to Call, just before they set off to collect Bolivar. Call looked at it and handed it back to him.

"I'll compromise, if he won't," Call said. "I'll try you as far as Laredo. You can help me watch Bol. Sometimes he wanders off, in the night. You can ride one of the spare horses." "Could I have a gun?" Brookshire asked.

"What kind of gun?" Call asked.

"A rifle, I guess," Brookshire said.

"Or a shotgun, and a few pistols. I believe I'd feel more comfortable if I was armed." "Help yourself," Call said. "There's a hardware store right across the street. I've got to see a blacksmith and buy some extra horseshoes. I'll see if I can locate you a saddle, while I'm at it. I'll be ready in thirty minutes." Call arrived back thirty minutes later, riding one horse and leading two more plus a pair of mules, to find that Brookshire had equipped himself with two large Colt revolvers, a Winchester, and an eight-gauge shotgun.

"Good Lord," Call said. "What do you expect to do with an eight-gauge shotgun?" "Well, the fellow in the hardware store recommended it," Brookshire said, defensively. He had been proud of his big shotgun, but now the Captain was looking askance at it, and his confidence began to sag.

The Captain picked up the gun and hefted it to his shoulder a time or two.

"It'll take a whole mule, just to carry the shells," he remarked, handing the shotgun back to Brookshire.

"The man said it would be useful for self-defense," Brookshire said.

"I can't dispute that," Call said. "It'll kick you into next week, but if you survive the kick, you probably won't have to worry much about the enemy." "The revolvers are the newest model," Brookshire said, unhappily. The sense that he was totally unfit for what he was about to do struck him with renewed force. But the die seemed cast. Captain Call had turned away, and he was methodically strapping baggage onto one of the pack mules.

From there they went to retrieve the old Mexican who was out of his mind. By the time the full heat of the day arrived, they had left the last mud hovel behind and were headed across a dusty, thorny plain toward the Mexican border. The horse that had been chosen for Brookshire was a thin sorrel named Dob.

"I don't understand the name," Brookshire said, wishing the beast's spine weren't so thin. He had expected his saddle to afford him more comfort than it did.

"It's just a name," Call said. "Maybe he was named after a dirt dobber, but that's just a guess." Brookshire was wondering if Colonel Terry would honor the bill for Dob. The horse had cost eighty-five dollars, a vast sum in Brookshire's mind. What if Colonel Terry had only meant to allow him a sixty-dollar horse? Where would the difference come from?

Call had insisted that Brookshire dispense with the fedora and buy a proper felt hat. He had also insisted on equipping him with rough clothes, boots, even chapaderos, the leggings that were necessary in the brush country near the border.

The result, Call had to admit, made the man look ridiculous, not only in his eyes, but in the eyes of almost everyone who saw him. Somehow, his Yankeeness was more potent with the clothes--he looked like nothing so much as a New York accountant who had been forced to assume a costume that was completely out of keeping with his nature.

Brookshire himself had felt quite self-conscious in his new clothes, but once they rode out of San Antonio, he found that how he looked was the least of his worries. His new hat seemed to weigh several times as much as his beloved fedora. He had not considered the fedora beloved until he tried the new hat, which, besides being heavy, fitted him so tightly that it gave him a headache. The heat didn't help his headache, nor did the boots help his feet.

"They squeeze, don't they," Brookshire said, but Captain Call looked as if he had no idea what Brookshire could be talking about. The Captain's boots apparently didn't squeeze.

To Brookshire's surprise and dismay, sitting on Dob was somewhat like sitting on a saw. The horse was very lean, and the saddle narrow and hard. Though his head hurt and his feet hurt, and he felt that within a few miles he would probably be sawed in two, none of these discomforts was as troubling to Brookshire as the nature of the country they were traveling through. He had not supposed there could be country so bleak and inhospitable anywhere in the American nation. The ground was covered with flat cactuses; the Captain called them prickly pear. There were also thick, gray thornbushes called chaparral, interlaced amid the equally thorny mesquite.

Several times they encountered rattlesnakes, which buzzed alarmingly. Though it was only midafternoon, Brookshire was feeling tired. But looking at the ground beneath him, he had a hard time imagining where he was going to sleep.

The one thing he didn't expect he would have to fear was a chill. The sky was not like the skies of home. It was vast, and instead of being blue, it was white, not with cloud but with heat.

Captain Call was not satisfied with the behavior of one of the mules. The beast was skittish. He jumped around so much that the Captain was finally forced to get down and lash the baggage more securely.

"Do snakes crawl around at night?" Brookshire asked.

"That's when they hunt," Call said. "I'm sorry I chose this mule." The mule, as if annoyed by the comment, tried to bite Call, who whacked him on the nose with a glove.

"I expect I'd better replace him in Laredo," Call said. "I'm glad Bol's calmed down. He usually does, once we get moving." Indeed, the old Mexican seemed much calmer. Once in a while, he muttered something in Spanish, but his eyes were dreamy, and he seemed happy to be on a mule.

Brookshire found that, despite the many discomforts and the prospect of a thorny sleep, he was not entirely discontented. The clothes took some getting used to, particularly the boots. He was sweating so much that Katie would probably divorce him on sight, in her shock at discovering that he contained such reservoirs of sweat.

Still, it was an adventure, the first of his life, unless you counted the War; but he had been so young and so scared during the War that he couldn't enjoy himself.

Now, though, he was riding out of San Antonio, bound for Mexico, with the famous Captain Call. They were going in search of a dangerous Mexican bandit, Joey Garza. It might be uncomfortable, but it was exciting, too.

He owned four guns, and they were loaded. He was on his own in the West--on his own, except for Captain Call. Colonel Terry couldn't find him to yell at him. He couldn't even yell at him by telegram, not for a while. The Captain had said it would take about three days to reach Laredo. Brookshire felt that he would be an accomplished horseman by the time they got there.

Perhaps he would be an accomplished shot, too.

That night, to his surprise, he slept heavily, so heavily that if any snakes crawled over him, he didn't notice.

Breakfast was only coffee. The Captain suggested that Brookshire familiarize himself with his guns by loading them and unloading them a few times, to learn the mechanisms. While the Captain was making coffee, Brookshire did just that. The eight-gauge was the easiest. All he had to do was open the breech and stuff two of the big shells into the barrels.

"Hold it tight, if you ever shoot it," the Captain said. "I doubt either one of those mules could kick as hard as that gun." "I don't believe I'll shoot it," Brookshire said.

Indeed, he had no intention of ever shooting the big gun, not unless he was heavily besieged.

He was about to unload it and put the shells back in their case when, to his dismay, old Bolivar suddenly jumped up, grabbed the shotgun, and fired both barrels at the nearest mule. The shotgun kicked the old man so hard that he fell backward over a saddle, dropping the gun. With scarcely a kick the mule died, its stomach blown away.

"He shot the wrong mule, dern it," the Captain said. "This was the good mule." He was disgusted with himself for not keeping a closer eye on the old man. Bol's fancies were apt to get away from him, particularly in the mornings.

"Los indios," Bol said, jumping up.

Call grabbed the shotgun.

"No Indians, Bol, just mules," Call said, in pity. He wondered what happened to an old man's brain to disturb it so that it could confuse a mule with an Indian. He himself would be old soon, if he lived. He could not help wondering if a morning or an evening would come when he was as confused as Bol, confused enough that he could mistake a brown mule for a brown man.

"We'll have to split this baggage until we get to the border and replace this mule," he said.

He soon had it divided among his mount, the sorry mule, and Brookshire's lean sorrel.

Seeing the dead mule, its side blown away, destroyed Brookshire's taste for coffee. In the War, he had seen a great many dead horses and mules, but that had been a long time ago.

"How much did the mule cost, Captain?" he asked, as they were mounting. He had his ledger in his saddlebags, and he wanted to record the lost property before he forgot.

"Forty-five dollars," Call said.

"I'll make an entry--I'm the accountant," Brookshire said. "I should have entered all this yesterday, but I was getting used to my new clothes and I forgot." "One decent mule and two shotgun shells.

If your boss is such a stickler, I'd be sure I listed the shells," Call said.

Joey Garza had first gone to Crow Town when he was seventeen. A cowboy, so drunk he had forgotten which side of the border he was on, insulted Maria in the streets in Ojinaga. When Maria tried to walk away, the cowboy opened his pants and showed himself to her. Joey was standing in front of their house, a few yards away. He agreed with the gringo. His mother was a whore. Why else would she have four husbands? But he had been wanting to kill a Texan, and the cowboy was right there handy. Joey put a pistol in his belt, walked past Maria who was hurrying home, her eyes down, and went over to the gringo, who was attempting to button up.

Without saying a word, Joey stuck his pistol in the man's face and blew his brains out.

The cowboy was too drunk even to realize that he was about to die. But Maria knew. She felt death in Joey when he walked past her. Joey was smiling, but not at her. She knew her son didn't like her. He was smiling because of the death he was about to deal. Joey's smile soon became part of the legend the gringos made about him: Joey Garza always smiled before he killed.

Maria gave Joey her horse and made him leave. She knew the gringos would be back to kill him. He had to leave. She didn't suppose he had killed the cowboy because of the insult to her, either. Joey didn't do things for other people. He did things for himself. It didn't matter to him that a drunk gringo had showed himself to his mother. He just wanted to kill, and chose that moment, and that man.

When the men came from the ranch where the dead cowboy had worked, they beat her with a lariat and then pretended they were going to hang her with the same rope. After they pretended to hang her, they beat her again. Maria wanted to be silent, but the men were determined; she cried out. It was merely for pleasure that the men beat her; they didn't expect her to tell them where to find Joey.

It was easier to beat her than to go look for Joey. She knew it wouldn't end with the beating, either, and it didn't. Later that night, after they had been to the cantina, the men came to her house.

Maria had given Joey her horse; she had no way to flee, and anyway, she could not leave her children.

What happened in her house was worse than the beating. Maria had never been used by men who hated her. She was a modest woman and had not supposed she would have to bear such shame, such humiliation. She fought, but as a woman without spirit would fight: her spirit had become a crow. It flew to Crow Town to be with her son, the son she had to love, despite the bitter knowledge that he was no good.

The white men from the ranch across the border were men without purpose. Even degrading Maria was not purpose enough to interest them for long. They degraded her until they lost interest in degrading her, and then they left.

As deep as the shame of being handled by men in their lust, was the pain of knowing that she would not have Joey much longer. When the men left, Maria cried until she was empty. For days, she would fill up with tears, and then cry until she was empty. Whether Joey lived or not, Maria knew she had lost her son--the good son she had until Juan Castro sold him. That son was gone, farther away even than Crow Town. He was only seventeen, but already he belonged to death.

When Joey returned, Maria told him that.

Joey only laughed.

"We all belong to death, Mother," he said.

"You're too young to say that to me," Maria said angrily. "I don't belong to death. I brought you out of me. I want you to stay alive. You have only killed one American. You should go to the mountains. The whites won't hunt you for long." "I don't like the mountains," Joey said. Then he left, just in time. The next day, four lawmen came. The bad one named Doniphan, the hard sheriff, only watched while the others did the work. The lawmen were rougher than the cowboys. They tied Maria's feet together and loped around the village, dragging her. After that, they dragged her into a prickly pear. Then, they strapped her over a mule and took her across the river. The river was up; their horses had to swim, and so did the mule. In the middle of the river the men let the mule go. Maria and the mule were swept far downstream. Maria thought she would drown.

But the mule finally struggled up the rocky bank, hitting Maria's head against a rock as it struggled. Maria heard the men laughing; not the sheriff, but the others. They kept her in jail for a month, during which time she was feverish from the festering cactus wounds. Because they kept her handcuffed, she could only draw out a few thorns. She could only sleep slumped against a wall. If she lay down, she merely mashed the cactus thorns deeper into her flesh.

Though the lawmen never said it, Maria knew they were keeping her in jail in hopes that Joey would try to free her. The lawmen didn't know that her son disliked her. Only she knew it. Joey wouldn't try to free her. He had no loyalty to her.

But she had loyalty. She ignored the lawmen's questions. She wouldn't tell them which way Joey went. They didn't degrade her, but they starved her. Some days she would get nothing, and when they did feed her it would only be a tortilla and a little water. She grew tired and very weak.

When they finally let her out, Maria was so weak she couldn't walk across the street. She didn't have the strength to walk to the river, much less to cross it. She fell and had to crawl to the shade of a small mesquite tree to rest.

While she was resting, she began to think about dying.

Her body would heal, but she didn't know about her spirit. Her spirit smelled old. It no longer smelled like the spirit of a woman who wanted to be a woman, a woman who wanted to live. Her spirit smelled too bad to her. She thought she ought to die and let it go to some new life, someone who smelled like birth and not like death.

But there was Rafael, and Teresa. She couldn't die. While she was resting and trying to summon the will to go on living, Billy Williams found her.

He rode into town, rather drunk, and saw a brown woman sitting under a tree. That was not uncommon in Presidio. He had almost ridden past before he saw that the brown woman was Maria.

"Good God, Mary," he said, and immediately brought her water, and then more water. He went to the house of a Mexican woman and begged a little menudo, but Maria was too weak to eat.

Seeing Maria's condition, Billy began to boil. Her hands were almost black from poor circulation caused by the handcuffs. Most of her cactus wounds had festered.

"I despise lawmen," he said. "I despise their stinkin' hearts." He went back to his horse, his face red with anger, and yanked his rifle out of its scabbard.

"What are you doing?" Maria asked, alarmed.

"I am going to kill those sorry dogs," Billy said.

"No, take me home, I'm sick," Maria said.

"All right, then--I will kill them later," Billy said.

Tom Johnson, the oldest of Doniphan's deputies, came and watched as Billy carefully loaded Maria onto his horse.

"I didn't know you fancied Mexican whores, Billy," Tom Johnson said.

"I fancy cutting your stinkin' heart out, Tom," Billy said. "I expect I'll come back and do it, once I take Mary home." The lawman laughed. "You old-timers have got rough tongues," he said. "Do you fancy all whores, or just this one?" He turned to see if his deputy, Joe Means, was coming to watch the fun. He only glanced off for a second, it seemed, but when he turned back toward Billy Williams, there was a crack and his right ear went numb. He thought a wasp might have got him, but when he put his hand up to his head he found that his ear was just dangling by a little strip of skin. Blood was pouring down his cheek.

"What'd you do, Billy?" Tom asked, astonished. The old man was walking toward him, a big knife in his hand. Tom became frightened; these old scouts were unpredictable. He thought he should draw his gun, but he felt paralyzed. Before he could reach for his weapon, the old man was there. He severed the little strip of skin that held the ear. Then he shook the severed ear in front of the shocked lawman's eyes.

"It could just as easy be your stinkin' heart," he said. Then he stuffed the ear in the man's shirt pocket and backed away. He didn't think Tom Johnson would recover from his shock in time to shoot him, but there was no point in taking chances.

Tom Johnson walked back to the jail, still in shock. Joe Means had his boot off and was shaving a callus off his right big toe when Tom Johnson walked in. Blood covered one side of Tom's face, so much blood that Joe almost slit his toe instead of the callus. His first thought was Apaches. Tom had only left the jail a minute before. Could the man have somehow gotten scalped?

"Good God, Tom, where's your other ear?" Joe Means asked, horrified.

"It's in my shirt pocket," Tom said, numbly. It didn't occur to him that the remark might sound odd. After all, Joe had asked where the ear was, and the ear did happen to be in his shirt pocket.

The line would be repeated along the border for the rest of Tom Johnson's life. He considered himself an able lawman. If nothing else, he outlasted his friend Joe Means by more than three decades. Joe was killed the very next year by a rattlesnake. He had ridden home one night, rather in his cups, and had the misfortune to step off his horse right onto a coiled rattlesnake.

Normally, the snake would have rattled loudly enough to have warned Joe, but it was Joe's bad luck that the snake had broken off all but one of its rattles. If it rattled its one rattle, Joe didn't hear it. Most men didn't die of snakebite, but Joe Means gave up the ghost within twenty-four hours. He was mourned by few in the town of Presidio. Joe had a tendency to be surly, since being a deputy had gone to his head. He frequently arrested people for minor offenses that a more seasoned lawman would have overlooked.

Tom Johnson felt he was a seasoned lawman, but that was lost on the populace, such as it was. All anyone on the border could remember was that he had once kept his ear in his shirt pocket. Tom took to drink. When drunk, he often cursed Billy Williams.

He didn't forget the Mexican woman, either.

She had been the start of it all. It was because of her that he had become a figure of fun along the border. If he ever had occasion to arrest her again, he meant to do worse than he had done. In the meantime, there were other brown women in Presidio or across the river that he could wreak vengeance on, and he did. Any brown woman who got taken to Tom Johnson's jail knew she was in for trouble. Two suffered so much that they died. Several times Tom Johnson had gone to Ojinaga meaning to arrest Maria herself, to show her she could not get away with making a mockery of a white lawman.

In his memory, Maria had mocked him.

But for some reason, when the moment came, he didn't arrest her. Sometimes he took a substitute. He would take another unlucky brown woman, strap her on a mule, and pull her across the river. Once, in a drunken moment, he told a cowboy in a bar that the reason he wasn't arresting Maria was because he wanted her to worry. He wanted her to wake up thinking about what he would do to her the next time.

Billy Williams laughed when the cowboy told him that story.

"That ain't why he leaves Mary alone," he said.

"Well, he said it was," the cowboy said.

"He leaves her alone because he knows if he harms her I'll do worse than shoot his ear off," Billy said. "Next time, I'll tie him to a stump and cut his stinkin' heart out." "Whoa," the cowboy said. His name was Ben Bridesall. "You'd cut a deputy sheriff's heart out?" "I would," Billy assured him.

"Whoa, that's strong talk," Ben said again. "Killing a lawman's as bad as stealing horses, in the law's eyes. You better keep a fast horse handy, if you do that. They'll chase you clean to Canada." "I wouldn't go to Canada," Billy said.

"I'd go to Crow Town." "That might do it," Ben said. "They'd have to want you pretty bad to come and get you there."

Maria was a midwife, the only one in Ojinaga. She did not want to be gone to Crow Town too long; several women in the village would need her soon. Crow Town lay two hundred miles north of the border, in the sandhills. Maria had never been there, but she knew its reputation--everyone knew its reputation, an evil one. In earlier times, slaves had been traded in the sandhills; stolen children, white or brown; stolen women. To have gone to Crow Town and survived was a mark of pride to the young pistoleros along the border.

Years before, when the buffalo were being killed, a large remnant of the great southern herd had wandered south, off the plain and into the sandhills. There they were pursued by the Kiowa and Comanche, and by the most unremitting of the buffalo hunters. More than fifteen thousand were slaughtered by the buffalo hunters, in a last great frenzy of killing. The skins were piled in great heaps, awaiting wagons to transport them east. But the hide market collapsed, and the wagons never came. The towering heaps of hides slowly rotted. The ropes that bound them into piles were chewed by rodents. In the fierce winds of winter and spring the hide stacks began to blow apart. Wolves, coyotes, and badgers played with them. Soon the hides swarmed with lice and fleas. The thousands of hides were scattered throughout the sandhills. One spring, two years after the last buffalo had died, cowboys began to see crows in the sandhills, crows and crows and then more crows. Something in the hides, some nit or flea, attracted the crows. At night, hundreds roosted on the few piles of hides that remained. In the daytime, a crowd of wheeling crows could be seen from far away. At certain times of the year, thousands of crows could be seen, and heard. Their cawing was audible thirty miles away.

An Indian named Blue Skin built the first structure in Crow Town, a one-room adobe hut. Blue Skin was shot by a vaquero, on the run from trouble in Mexico. The vaquero took Blue Skin's hut. He lived in it for a while, and then went back to Mexico. The hides continued to rot; more and more crows came, to caw and to wheel.

Then a Basque sheepherder built himself a little shack, not far from Blue Skin's hut. The Basque had been horse-whipped in Kansas for bringing sheep into cattle lands. The sandhills of the Pecos were not yet cattle land, and only Charles Goodnight and his partner, Loving, passed through them with cattle. The Basque felt that he wouldn't be bothered, since the land was too poor for cattle; sheep could barely survive it. Then the famous killer John Wesley Hardin passed through and killed the Basque, on a whim. John Wesley found the crows amusing.

"If there was another building or two here we could call it Crow Town," he said, speaking to his horse. John Wesley Hardin traveled alone. What conversation he made, he made with his horse. He repeated the remark in El Paso, and the name stuck.

Later, with the law after him, John Wesley fled to Crow Town. Two rough brothers from Chicago were sharing Blue Skin's hut. It was kill neither or kill both; fatigued, John Wesley chose to kill neither. He contented himself with a tent the old Basque had left. The soil around Crow Town boiled with fleas, from the thousands of rotting hides, but John Wesley wasn't bothered by fleas. His only problem with Crow Town, the community he had named, was the unavailability of victims. He didn't have to kill every day, or even every month or every year, but he did like to have people handy, in case the killing mood came on.

He left, but returned to Crow Town whenever he needed a respite after some killing spree.

Every year he found more people there--adobes that were smaller and more crude than the one Blue Skin had built, low frame houses and ragged tents.

Finally, there were twelve houses and a little saloon.

An Irishman named Patrick O'Brien owned the saloon. Whiskey deliveries were few and far between. When wagons did arrive Patrick O'Brien stacked the whiskey around his house, to the height of his roof. He had unpredictable customers, and was nervous about running out of liquor.

It was risky, stacking whiskey outside in such country. Patrick slept with four guns in his bed, and often had to run outside and empty two or three of them into the darkness, to protect his whiskey.

In Crow Town, where the sound of cawing could be heard night and day, the tamer types of citizens rarely appeared. Most of those who rode in were bad ones; not a few of them were worse than bad.

Many a traveler had been casually shot down in the street, his death watched only by the crows. The crows rested in the skinny mesquite. Sometimes they walked among the buildings, as if they were people.

The air, even on nice spring days, had a kind of rotten smell, the legacy of thousands of rotting hides.

Behind the town was a low, sandy hill with one skinny mesquite tree on it. Bodies of the dead were casually buried there; most of them would be dug up again, within a day or two, by enterprising varmints.

The most enterprising of the varmints was a giant feral hog, which showed up one Sunday and consumed substantial portions of three bodies. The locals, annoyed by the impudence of the swine, assembled a hasty firing squad and fired a fusillade at it; but, to their amazement, the hog defied them. It didn't die, or even retreat. It kept on eating. In the night it disappeared and was not seen for a month. Then one day, it reappeared and ate an unfortunate mule skinner who had been gored by his own ox. The ox, normally a placid creature, suddenly went insane and killed the mule skinner, though he had coaxed it across the prairies for eight years.

In time, the great pig grew bolder. Sometimes it would walk through town, attended by a contingent of crows, who would flank it or walk ahead of it, cawing. When the pig stretched out to sleep in the hot sun, several crows would attend it, cleaning nits and ticks out of its hide. The poor people who worked in the sandhills feared the pig. They called it the devil pig.

The pig disappeared for long stretches, only to reappear just when people had begun to hope that it had gone forever. The most superstitious of the poor people believed the pig walked down to hell to receive instructions from the devil, entering through a long tunnel that was said to open in the riverbank, just south of Boquillas. Sightings of the pig came from all points of the compass: from as far east as Abilene, as far north as Tascosa, and as far south as Piedras Negras. An old woman who lived near Boquillas claimed to have seen it go into the tunnel that led to hell.

Only the handful of people who stayed in Crow Town ever got used to the crows. Gamblers or outlaws who passed through found their cawing so distracting, they almost went mad. One famous gambler, known throughout the West as Tennessee Bob, became so maddened by the cawing that he pulled his revolver in the midst of a card game and blew his own brains out--and he'd been holding a winning hand, too. Tennessee Bob had played cards successfully from Dodge to Deadwood to Yuma, and he was playing cards successfully in Crow Town. What he couldn't deal with was the cacophony of the crows.

Tennessee Bob's real name was Sam Howard.

Like most of the temporary residents of Crow Town, he had gone there because he had more or less used up the West. His career had taken him from Memphis to Abilene, from Abilene to Dodge City, from Dodge City to Silver City, from Silver City to Denver, from Denver to Deadwood, from Deadwood to Cheyenne, from Cheyenne to Tombstone, and from Tombstone to Crow Town.

Other renegades, whether Mexicans, Swedes, Indians, Irish, or American, took the same route in different order. What they shared was a sense that there weren't too many places left where life was so cheap that the law wouldn't bother trying to preserve it. Why send Rangers, or the army, to clean out a dirty little village in the sandhills, whose residents were so quarrelsome that they could be counted on to eliminate one another themselves, at the rate of one or two a month?

Renegades of all descriptions could reside in Crow Town and feel themselves safe from the law-- they just weren't safe from one another. The few women who came there enjoyed no illusions about their safety. They weren't safe from anyone, and they knew it.

Very few lawmen ventured into the sandhills.

"I doubt even Woodrow Call would go to Crow Town," Billy Williams said, some two months before Maria left. He was discussing the matter in Maria's kitchen with an experienced smuggler named Olin Roy, whose specialty was moving gold across the border, at the behest of corrupt Mexican generals who were afraid they would be robbed by generals yet more corrupt.

Olin Roy was a large man, weighing just over three hundred pounds. He had trouble finding mounts that could carry him swiftly over the distances he sometimes had to cover.

"I expect Call would go to Crow Town if he felt like it," Olin said. "Probably he don't feel like it, though." Maria overheard the conversation. She could not have avoided it, since Billy and Olin were in her kitchen. Olin Roy had once tried to marry her. She had refused him, but he still had hopes.

He and Billy were opposites in one respect: Billy was always drunk, Olin always sober.

Though large, Olin was delicate in his appetites. He could stomach only the mildest of peppers, preferring to diet on raw eggs stirred into a little sugary milk. In his travels, eggs were often unavailable to him. As a concession to the great fondness Maria knew he bore her, she tried to have eggs on hand when he came to visit. She could tell that Olin appreciated such small attentions.

When Billy and Olin were in Ojinaga at the same time, Maria was careful. She was no man's woman, but men were men and she had a lot of trouble with men who became confused about her affections.

Her first husband, Carlos Garza, was so jealous that he would fight any man who turned his eyes in Maria's direction. She was beautiful then; men often turned their eyes; there were many fights. She tried to soothe Carlos, to see that he rose content from their bed, but her love, though she gave it all, was not enough. Even if he had just left her bed, jealousy burned in Carlos's dark eyes. He loved, but he could not trust, and when she became pregnant with Joey he beat her and accused her of taking a lover. He would not accept that the child was his.

For Maria, his distrust brought pain and shock.

She was young, and she had given herself body and soul to Carlos. She could not understand how he could think she would accept another man. She wanted no other man, could not even imagine wanting one. Only Carlos Garza could move her. He was very handsome, and he could move her with a touch or a look. Many times she begged him not to be foolish, not to fight over things that wouldn't happen, over feelings she didn't have. But Carlos was like a deaf man. From him, Maria learned that few men trusted women. Carlos heard only his own fears. Maria's words meant nothing, for to Carlos, women were liars.

When Joey was one year old, Carlos noticed a soldier turn his eyes to Maria.

She was making tortillas, outside in the sun.

The soldier, a fat Federale, was sitting in a wagon, across the street. It was a hot day.

Probably the soldier was hungry, and only wanted a few of the tortillas Maria was making.

But Carlos didn't think the soldier only wanted tortillas. Maria had seen the man look, but her mind was on her task. Carlos was supposed to be carrying water. She thought he was at the river, until she heard the sound of his voice, raised in anger. The soldier had a crowbar, since the Federales had been repairing the telegraph. She saw the soldier strike Carlos once, but he struck so hard that Maria was a widow before she could even run across the street. Carlos had been right about the soldier, too. Three weeks later, he was back in Ojinaga. Maria spat on him in full view of several Federales. She expected to be killed, but in fact, the man was a coward and did nothing. For a year, Maria felt guilty. She felt she had not done enough to make Carlos happy.

If she had done even a little more, perhaps Carlos would not have been so tormented by jealousy. If he had lived, surely in time he would have come to accept that she wanted no other man.

But Carlos died, leaving Joey fatherless and herself a widow. Since then, she had been cautious around males. She treated them carefully, as vaqueros treated bulls. Everyone knew that bulls were at their most dangerous when they fought, and at such times, the loser was more dangerous than the winner.

Maria didn't want Billy and Olin to fight. She valued their experience and their affection and didn't want to lose one of them in a silly fight.

"I don't think either of you know this Woodrow Call," Maria said.

"I know him, but I'll be perfectly happy to leave him alone," Olin said.

The two men fell silent. Mention of Call seemed to remind them of the uncertainty of life, along the border.

"I'll do better than that," Olin added.

"I'd ride about a hundred miles out of my way, to avoid the man." "Didn't you sell Call the horse that killed his boy?" Billy asked.

"No, no," Olin said, wishing the legend of the Hell Bitch would just die.

"Why, I thought, you sold her to Call," Billy said. "That's what everybody thinks." "I did once own that mare," Olin admitted. "At the time, I had no idea Call had a son for her to kill." It was growing dark; great shadows stretched into Chihuahua. The two men talked too much history, too much about things that were past. Bad things had happened to her, too, but she did not like to dwell on them. A certain restlessness took her, when she heard too much about the past. She still liked to laugh, to dance a little in the cantina.

Roberto Sanchez, her last husband, had not been a very good man, but despite that, she missed him. She would have liked to have a husband. She enjoyed being with a man at night, and not just a pistolero or a man of the cantina. She wanted a man who was not so prone to comings and goings, one who would spend months or even years with her; someone whose hands she liked, whose ways she liked. Perhaps this man, if she could find him, would also like her ways, and would welcome the laughter in her. Not all men liked happiness in a woman; they seemed to fear her laughter. Was it only men who were supposed to laugh?

Of her four husbands, only Benito, the third, had laughed with her. Carlos and Juan, her first two husbands, had been too jealous.

Juan was also too violent. Roberto Sanchez had been too restless; he didn't like to stay put. He could not even stay in bed all night, much less stay with her for months. He didn't live in the past, though. Men who lived in the past brought out her restlessness. Life was there, in the house, in the yard, in the town; in the bedroom, in her hands, in her womb. It was not in the past. The bad things that had happened to her had not killed her.

They had not even killed the laughter in her.

She became a little annoyed at Billy and Olin, because they so easily turned their eyes backward. Men were odd. One day they were hard, far too hard; the next day they were soft, far too soft. They were like porcupines: prickly on the outside, but with soft bellies.

Benito, her third husband, had not even been prickly on the outside. He never scolded her, and would never have thought of striking her. His only fault was laziness. Benito would lie in bed all day, looking at her with his big eyes. If she happened to stop in her chores, to pause near the bed, Benito would put out a hand.

"Is that all you can think about?" she asked one day, flattered if a little flustered. "I'm old --why do you want me?" Benito shrugged, and smiled his little-boy smile. He was younger than Joey, Benito--not in years, but in feeling. Joey had never been young. Benito would never have been old, even if he had lived. But Benito got a toothache, a bad one. After a month, the toothache was so bad, Benito could scarcely think. He ceased putting out his hand to Maria, when she stopped near the bed.

Maria wanted him to let her pull the tooth, or let the priest pull it, or the blacksmith, or anyone. But Benito kept shaking off this advice. He had beautiful white teeth and was vain about them. He wanted to keep them all.

"Why, so you will look beautiful in heaven?" Maria asked, vexed by his attitude.

"Yes, I want to look handsome in heaven," Benito agreed, smiling shyly. He thought it was a worthy goal, though he could tell it didn't please Maria. Her nostrils flared a little, when she looked at him, flared as a mare's might flare.

"Who says you will even go to heaven?" Maria asked. "You are too lazy. You never get out of bed. When I'm gone you might become a sinner, you might have to go to the bad place." "When you're gone? I don't want you to be gone," Benito said. The thought of being without his Maria frightened him terribly. What would he do?

Who would take care of him? Everyone agreed that Maria was the most competent person in Ojinaga.

His clothes were only simple clothes, but they were always cleaner than other men's clothes. His meals were tastier than the meals other men's wives cooked for them. Sometimes Maria walked far down the river, looking for chilies or herbs that would make her posole more tasty.

But it was not only her competence that he needed.

There was her smile, her cool hands, her soft breasts. The thought that he might lose all that caused him a moment of panic. He wondered if he pleased Maria, really pleased her, in their embraces. She seemed to be pleased, but she was a woman. It was hard to tell; perhaps she was merely pretending. Perhaps she had already found a lover--he suspected the butcher, Gordo Dominguez. Gordo had always wanted Maria, and perhaps he wanted her now. Perhaps they were doing things that were more pleasing than anything else Benito was able to do. Maybe Maria liked what Gordo did so much that she was preparing to run away with him.

Maria saw the worry in her husband's eyes, for there was no missing it.

"An angel might come and get me," she said, smiling. The remark was intended to show Benito that she was teasing. No angel ever came to Chihuahua. She was not going to heaven.

"I need you, the angel can't have you," Benito said. He felt a quick desire for his wife, which overpowered his toothache. He was so insistent that Maria closed the door and went to the bed. Few people in Ojinaga closed their doors, in the hot mornings. She wondered what people would think might be happening.

But neither Maria's competence nor Benito's insistence dulled the toothache for long. In a few more days, it hurt so badly that he couldn't eat the tasty meals, or appreciate the clean clothes, or be affected by the soft breasts.

"Go to Chihuahua City," Maria said.

"There's a dentist there." "But it's a long way," Benito complained.

"It's a long time that you've been sick, too," Maria told him. "You might die." Finally, one day the toothache got so bad that Benito decided to go to Chihuahua City, after all. Maria fixed him a poultice of hot cornmeal to hold against his tooth. She gave him the gentlest of goodbye kisses. His jaw was very swollen.

"I wish you would come," he mumbled. "I hate to ride so far alone." "I have the children," Maria said, looking at them.

Teresa was holding her new chick, just born the day before. Rafael sat with his goat, singing a little song whose words only he understood. Brother and sister were happy together. They were never apart more than a few minutes. Sometimes Rafael led Teresa; always, Teresa thought for Rafael.

Though they were happy together, it made Maria sad to look at them and to know that they would never be as other children were. They were damaged; Joey was damaged, too. His limbs were normal, his eyes were clear, but his soul was sick. The children were only a little unhappy; yet, because of them, at times Maria felt a failure. None of her children were as other children were, and they would never be. She felt she didn't know how to be a mother. Though she was a midwife, and a good one, in her own birthings something went wrong. She didn't know what errors she had committed, to cause her children to be so damaged.

She could not feel that she was a good wife, either.

Benito was lazy, and she had not tried to cure him of it. She let him be as he was. Two of her husbands had been killed, and now a third one was sick. She felt oppressed. She did her best, and yet, the knowledge she had was often the wrong knowledge.

"The dentist better not hurt," Benito said.

"I don't want to ride all the way to Chihuahua City to be hurt." "You'll be glad you went," Maria said.

"You'll feel so much better, that I won't be able to fight you off, even when the children are in bed." Later, she was to cry and cry over that remark.

When she made it, she did not realize that it would be the last thing she would ever say to Benito, who didn't make it to Chihuahua City, or to the dentist. Less than ten miles from Ojinaga his horse was shot out from under him. Benito tried to run, but the killer roped him and hoisted him up the side of a large boulder. Then the killer cut off his hands and feet, with a machete. The killer loosened the rope and rode away, leaving Benito to bleed to death. Benito crawled almost three hundred yards, back toward Ojinaga, before he died.

The killer was never found. The Federales came, but they didn't look very hard. Benito's mother and sisters were more upset by his mutilation than by the death. They felt it might mean that Benito's soul would be rejected by God. They felt he might never be allowed to rest.

Maria didn't worry about Benito being allowed to rest. He was good at resting. It made her smile, to think of him resting; now he could rest forever. He was not a traveling man; it may have been what she liked best about him. He was always there where she could find him, in the bed.

Benito had been a kind man. Maria knew she would miss his touch. He had been more kind to her than her father, her brothers, her uncles, her other husbands. It was wrong that he should die so cruelly; but at least he had crossed the border, into a land where there was no pain. Maria didn't believe in hell. If there was a hell it came to you in life. The Texans brought it.

They had evil in them and they had exercised their evil on her, when they caught her in her house.

That was hell, and it had happened to her in her own house. Hell was not happening to Benito. He had always liked to rest, and now he was resting.

But he would not be able to put out his hand to her, when she came near the bed; she would not be able to take his hand and guide it to her. Maria felt that the killer might have known what she and Benito did, when she shut the doors, in the morning. Perhaps that was why the hands were taken, she didn't know. Some old ones still made necklaces of fingers; perhaps someone had taken Benito's hands and feet, to be made into necklaces. Maria didn't know, would never know.

Beneath Maria's sorrow was anger. She felt a loyalty to Benito, and though her sorrow was deep, her anger was deeper. Her first two husbands were selfish men. They would have taken younger women, given time. But Benito wanted no one but her--he would never have taken a younger woman. That knowledge fueled her anger. Someday the killer might reveal himself to her. When that happened, she would take her own vengeance, even if it resulted in her death.

She would have liked to sit on the bed and touch Benito's hands, one more time. But it couldn't be.

"Do you think the killer is in Mexico or Texas?" she asked Joey, a day or two after the funeral. He had gone to the place and looked at the ground, but if he reached any conclusions he kept them to himself.

"Texas or Mexico, what's the difference?" Joey asked. He liked to take questions and make them into other questions.

There were times when her son was so insolent that she wanted to slap him. He toyed with her, in a way that made her angry. He was a smart boy, but too good-looking. He thought his looks gave him the right to be disrespectful to his mother. Joey was blond, a g@uero. He would look at Maria insolently, waiting for her next question.

It did not occur to him to be helpful. It would not have occurred to his father, either. He would rather twist her questions, make them into other questions.

"One is Texas and the gringos own it," Maria said. "This is Mexico. We own it. That's a difference." "It's two names for the same place," Joey said. "We should own it all. It was ours once, and we didn't have to smile at gringos when we crossed the river." "I don't smile at gringos, but Texas was never mine," Maria said. "I'm a woman-- nothing is mine. Not even my children. Not even you." "I am nobody's," Joey said, smugly.

Maria suddenly slapped him. He was too much like all men. He was insolent, and he didn't care that she was sad about Benito, the only kind husband she had ever had.

Joey didn't move, when she slapped him; the cold came into his eyes. He had a hat on when she hit him, a little white sombrero.

Her slap knocked it off. Joey picked it up quickly and examined it carefully, to see if it was smudged. He turned it around and around in his hands.

He was particular about his clothes. The tiniest speck would spoil the hat, for Joey.

"That is the last time you hit me, Mother," Joey said, carefully setting the hat back on his head.

Maria slapped him again, harder, and again the spotless white hat got knocked to the floor.

"You're my son," she said. "I'll slap you when you need it." Joey picked up his hat and took it outside, to dust it off. He left, and was gone for a week. When he returned he didn't speak to Maria. He took his dirty clothes out of his saddlebags, and handed them to her, to clean. He was riding a black horse. Maria had never seen the horse before, or the saddle. He was also wearing silver spurs.

Maria didn't ask Joey about the horse.

She went outside, to Rafael and Teresa. They were sitting with their chickens and goats, under a little tree. Rafael was chanting one of his melancholy songs. Rafael was a big boy, and much nicer than Joey, only Rafael was lost in his mind.

Maria grew sad, thinking about it. She gathered her washing and started to walk to the river.

Rafael followed, with two of his goats.

Teresa stopped to talk to an old woman who was grinding corn. Teresa was popular in the village. She was so quick and got around so well that some people almost forgot she was blind.

Her children dirtied a lot of clothes. It took Maria three trips to get all the clothes to the place where the women washed. That morning, because it was late, only one woman was there, old Estela.

Old Estela had borne thirteen children, and outlived them all. One drowned in a flood and the rest were killed wasdiseases. Old Estela had only a few clothes to wash because she had no family. Once she told Maria that she came to the river because she heard the voices of her dead children call, from the water. She had convinced herself that her children were not really dead. They lived in the river, with the frogs and the fish and the little snakes. God had given them gills, like the fish had, so they could breathe. Old Estela knew they were there; every morning, she heard them.

Rafael helped Maria with the clothes. There were one or two simple tasks he could do, and he always did them. He liked to beat the clothes against the rocks, and to spread them so that the cold water ran over them. Once in a while a shirt would slip away, before he could place a rock on it.

Then Rafael would have to wade in the water to retrieve it. The sheep, disturbed by seeing him in the water, would set up a bleating. Sometimes Teresa would follow them. She knew the path to the river, and all the other paths around the village.

Teresa and Rafael did not like to be apart too long. They needed one another. Teresa could not sleep, except with Rafael. He had become her eyes; she became his mind. It touched Maria, that her boy and her girl were so careful to help one another.

"Do you hear your children today, Estela?" Maria asked.

"I hear the girls," Estela said, in her tiny crack of a voice. "They are over by that bush, where the coyote drinks." Near the bush, the water made a rilling sound.

"The boys, I don't hear them," Estela said. "Maybe they have gone to Piedras Negras." "I think that's where my boy went," Maria said, thinking of the black horse and the silver spurs.

Joey Garza journeyed to the City of Mexico in search of a better gun. When he was seventeen, an old prospector named Lichtenberg had come through Ojinaga, carrying a little case made of fine leather, with a crest stamped on it in gold. Joey was interested in fine things.

He admired the little case, and wanted to know what was in it. Old Tomas, who had once worked for the German on one of his prospecting ventures, said it was where Se@nor Lichtenberg carried his rifle.

Joey thought that a gun carried inside a case would be useless when trouble arrived. If trouble arrived, it usually arrived quickly. The Apaches who bought him from Juan Castro could kill you several times, in several ways, while you were trying to get a rifle out of a leather case. Joey had seen them kill people who had their guns in their hands, but were too terrified to fire. Because they were terrified of dying, they died.

The old German was very tired, when he reached Ojinaga. He was weaving on his feet. He politely asked Maria for board, and he gave her a gold coin, which she accepted. Then he removed his high-topped boots and was soon asleep. He took no precautions at all with his possessions.

Maria had a husband then, Roberto Sanchez. He came home from the cantina to find that Maria had rented their bed. He took the gold coin from her, but raged anyway, about the loss of the bed. Due to a fear of scorpions, Roberto hated to sleep on the ground. He was a fool, Joey thought. Scorpions could come in a house and bite people, they often did. Roberto raged for a long time, but Maria finally persuaded him that renting the bed was a smart move. One night on the ground wouldn't hurt them. She herself would clean the ground, to make sure no scorpions were there to bother them.

Roberto Sanchez was still drinking tequila, but he finally stumbled after Maria.

Rafael, the idiot boy, was playing with a chicken behind the house while he sang a little idiot song. A sad tone came into his voice when he saw his mother go into the darkness. Teresa sat near Rafael. When she heard the sad note enter the song she scooted closer to Rafael and put her fingers to his lips, to feel from his breath what sadness he felt. She herself didn't care that her mother had gone out of the house. She heard her go, but for Teresa it only meant that she could whisper through the night, to Rafael, and not be scolded. Teresa loved whispering to her brother at night. In the darkness she felt that she and Rafael were the same. Neither could see, and it didn't matter that Rafael sang songs that had meaning only to him.

As soon as Maria and Roberto left, Joey took the little case into another room, where he lit a lamp and examined it carefully. It had a small lock, but he opened it with a piece of wire.

Inside the case, resting in velvet grooves, was a rifle, the most beautiful Joey Garza had ever seen. The barrel was heavy; it weighed as much as most rifles. In Joey's mind that gave the gun dignity. This rifle was not merely a gun; it was so beautifully crafted that holding it made him feel powerful.

The stock was of polished wood, and the trigger guards curved beautifully. The German rifle was the most desirable weapon Joey had ever seen.

He determined at once that he must have it, or one that was as good or better. If he had to kill the old German, he would do it, but he didn't intend to kill him right away.

Almost as fascinating as the rifle was a little spyglass that nestled in its own velvet groove. It had a fitting that attached it to the gun barrel. Joey attached it, and looked through the spyglass. Even in the dark room, lit only by the flickering lamp, he could see what the spyglass did. It brought the target near, even when the target was far. He slipped outside and practiced sighting through the spyglass, with only the moon and stars for light. He wished it were day.

At first light, he meant to take the gun and sight through the spyglass. Having the spyglass was like having a better eye. The rifle was so well balanced that Joey knew he could kill from great distances with it. He could lie on a roof in Ojinaga and kill gringos across the river in Presidio. If the wind was blowing strongly the gringos would never even hear the report of the rifle. Three gringos could be walking in the street, and in a second, two of them would be dead. The third would have no idea who was shooting.

Joey considered stealing the rifle, then and there.

He could leave and go where no one would ever find him.

He knew the mountains to the south, in the great bend of the river, and knew the Madre. He could live in the mountains for years, eating the roasts of fat mule deer. But the old prospector's rifle was the first fine gun he had ever seen. In the City of Mexico there were bound to be many, and perhaps some that were even finer.

He sat outside his mother's house until almost dawn, simply holding the gun in his hands. Then he detached the little spyglass, took the rifle apart, and put it carefully back in its case.

He felt divided; impatient, yet patient.

He wanted to take the rifle and go, but he also wanted to learn patience. Among the Apaches, the best hunters and the best man killers were the most patient men in the tribe. Though it was hard to wait, they waited. The best hunters did not take the first deer they saw; they waited for the fattest deer. They shot when they were sure, and Joey resolved to do the same. He would shoot when he was sure.

When the old German woke up the next morning, Joey politely asked about the little case. The old man seemed surprised, but after he had several cups of Maria's strong coffee, he opened the little case and showed Joey the rifle.

He explained the function of the little spyglass, and showed Joey how to attach it. Joey pretended to be amazed, when he looked through the little glass.

Later in the morning, the old German walked up and asked Joey if he would like to shoot with him.

He suggested a little contest.

"If we shoot I will beat you," Joey said.

He had nothing against the old man until he saw him looking at his mother when she was bending over, getting a tick off her old dog's ear. His mother loved the old brown dog for some reason, though the dog was mangy and had a broken tail, and a sore that had never really healed, from where a javelina had gored him.

Joey considered his mother a whore, and if Roberto Sanchez died he had no doubt she would take another man. Only a whore would seek four husbands, Joey thought, but that didn't lessen his hatred of the men who helped his mother whore. The minute he saw old Lichtenberg looking at his mother's bosom he decided to kill him someday. For now, he would be content with a shooting lesson.

Joey took some melons far down the river and lined them up on rocks.

"But they are too far," Lichtenberg complained, when Joey came walking back. There was something about the light-skinned Mexican boy that was a little disturbing. He had a coldness in his face like some of the Indians had, particularly the Indians in the mountains. His mother was a desirable woman, though.

Lichtenberg had meant to leave that morning, but he thought he might stay a few days. Perhaps for a coin or two the woman would go with him. In his travels in Mexico he had paid for many brown women. He could afford to pay for one more.

First, though, he would show the cold blond boy, the g@uero, how to shoot.

"You first," Lichtenberg said. "When you miss, I will shoot." Joey had lined up eight melons on the rocks. He took the beautiful rifle with the heavy barrel and caused the eight melons to explode, one by one.

Lichtenberg was startled. The boy could never have shot such a gun before, yet he hadn't missed.

One of his own beliefs was that Indians had better eyesight than white men. In the Madre the Indians would sometimes see things he could not see at all.

Often they would mention landmarks that to them were obvious but that he could not see until he had walked several hours. This boy must have some Indian in him, Lichtenberg thought.

Joey set up eight more melons.

Lichtenberg, on his mettle, burst them all.

"A draw," Lichtenberg said, relieved. His hand was shaky that day. It would have been embarrassing to be beaten with his own gun, by a boy who had never shot a German rifle before.

"Can we shoot again?" Joey asked, politely. "I will find something smaller." Lichtenberg was not eager. He would have been happy with a draw. But the boy had a challenge in his tone that he, as a German, could not simply ignore.

This time, Joey chose prickly pear apples, handling them carefully, so as not to get the tiny, fuzzy stickers in his fingers.

"Would you like to shoot first?" he asked the old man politely.

"No--you first," Lichtenberg said. He was sorry he had been polite to the boy. Better to have stayed in the hut and waited for the woman's husband to leave. Then he could have tried his money.

He had a bad feeling about the shooting. It was as if the boy was the teacher, the one with confidence. He had young eyes, eyes that were accustomed to the distances of Chihuahua, to the space that the great eagles looked across. Lichtenberg didn't know if he could hit a prickly pear apple at such a distance, even with his scope.

Joey hit ten apples. He balanced the gun beautifully and aimed only for an instant, before firing. When he finished he politely gave the gun to Lichtenberg, who took it and missed five times. Twice he hit the rock beneath the little red apples, the bullets whining off down the valley. The rest of the time he shot high. After the fifth miss, he quit. He did not feel it would be a good day. The Mexican woman wouldn't accept his coin; his horse might go lame; a snake might bite him; he might be robbed; he would not find any gold, or even a stream in which to pan for it. A sense of the melancholy of life began to crush him. Why had he come to this stinking village, in a stinking country, where neither the water nor the food agreed with him?

Why had he left Prussia? He had known Bismarck once--if he had stayed in Prussia he might have been a minister, or a rich man; not a tired, wandering prospector, going from village to village, trying to scrape up a few flecks of gold. Any day he might be killed, by a bandit, an Indian, anyone he happened to meet. Now he had been defeated by a boy who could shoot his own rifle better than he could. He walked slowly back to Maria's hut and put the rifle back in its case. For a moment, looking across the hot plain, he considered shooting himself with it. One bullet and he would not have to go on with such an uncomfortable existence, traveling on a horse that was narrow-backed and surly.

But he put the gun back in its case. In a few minutes he began to feel a little better.

The sun shone beautifully, and the coffee that Maria brewed had a fine aroma. Lichtenberg loved coffee. He had thought of going south, far south, where they grew coffee in the mountains. He decided not to kill himself, because of the coffee smells and the comely woman. Her husband was a brute, that was clear. The brute had made it known that he did not like Lichtenberg sleeping in his house. The husband smelled of drink. But the woman was very comely. The husband might go away, and even if he didn't go away, Lichtenberg could always look.

For her part, Maria wished the old German would go. She saw him looking at her. There were many men who showed their lust in their eyes; she could not keep them all from looking at her.

Roberto, her husband, had a harelip. He had once worked across the river, for a big ranch, shoeing horses--the cowboys teased him about his harelip, so much that he hated all whites, and the old German was very white. In the wrong mood, if he intercepted one of the old man's lu/l looks, Roberto might take a knife to him, or an axe, or a gun.

A more likely problem, though, was that Joey would rob him of something valuable. Joey was a quick and gifted thief. Although the old man's clothes were ragged, from neglect and hard wear, many of the things he owned were nice. There was the fine rifle, and, in another leather case, a set of mining instruments.

His belt had a silver buckle, and he wore a ring with a green stone in it. Maria had not touched his bags, but he had produced the gold coin from one of them and might have other gold coins in his valise.

Joey might steal any of it, Maria knew that. He might steal it out of curiosity. Joey liked to look at interesting things, particularly weapons. There was no telling what the old German might have that Joey would like to steal, but if he did steal something, trouble would come from across the river. The hard sheriff, Doniphan, liked nothing better than to beat Mexicans who stole things. The river meant nothing to Doniphan. The notion that Mexico was a nation with rights, like other nations, andwitha border that needed to be respected, made Joey laugh. Mexico was a nation of whores, lazy men, Indians, and bandits, in Doniphan's view. He crossed the border when it suited him, taking any prisoners he wanted to take. In Ojinaga there was no one to stand up to him.

If Joey stole from the old German, he would steal and go. When Doniphan arrived, with his rough deputies and their quirts, it would not be Joey who would suffer their vengeance. It would be Roberto Sanchez, or some man on the street that they just happened to notice--the shoemaker, perhaps.

They were not coming to do justice; they were coming to hurt Mexicans.

There would be less danger if the old German would just go, before Roberto lost his temper or Joey stole from him. But if Maria hoped for something, it seemed that that fact alone, the fact of her hope, made the something not occur. The old German didn't go. He drank tequila all day, smoked cigars, made water frequently, and wiped the sweat off his face with a fine silk handkerchief.

When he was not drinking or wiping sweat off his forehead, he looked at Maria, or talked to Joey.

"Are there many rifles like this in your country?" Joey asked him.

"Oh yes, many," Lichtenberg replied.

"Would I find some in the City of Mexico, if I went there?" Joey asked.

"You would find beautiful guns, but what would you buy them with? You are just a poor boy!" Lichtenberg said, startled that this youth, living in a filthy village, would aspire to travel to the City of Mexico, in search of a rifle.

"I would buy them with money," Joey said.

There was something a little frightening about the boy, Lichtenberg thought. A chill in his look, or in his tone. He reminded Lichtenberg of someone he had once known, long ago, an Austrian named Blier, a young count and assassin whose task it was to murder Hungarian rebels. There were many Hungarian rebels, and the Emperor wanted to avoid the expense of many trials. Young Blier killed forty rebels before they caught him and impaled him on a pole. Count Blier died hard, but he had done his job, saving the Emperor the expense of forty trials.

Lichtenberg had not known Count Blier well, but he had been with him a few times and remembered the look in his eyes. This boy, Joey, had the same eyes. Such eyes could look on a hundred deaths, or a thousand, without pity.

Lichtenberg had seen men executed, both in Mexico and in Europe. He had seen them shaking in front of firing squads, or crying and begging as the noose was put around their necks. Some lost their water, as they awaited death; some emptied their bowels as well. He could not, without pity, look upon men staining themselves as their deaths came near.

But Count Blier could see it without pity; and so, probably, could this boy Joey, a boy who could outshoot him with his own gun. Joey was very good-looking. He was a g@uero, as they said in Mexico; g@uero, almost white. In certain moods, Lichtenberg might have offered him a coin.

Boys were usually easier than women, but not this boy, this g@uero with eyes like the famous Count Blier's.

Maria saw Joey looking at the old German's things. His eyes turned again and again to the rifle case. She also saw that the old German looked at Joey as he looked at her. She wished the man would go; too much trouble would come, of his visit. But when you wished men to go they never did, and the old German was no exception. He stayed for four nights. Four times she had to persuade Roberto to sleep on the ground. He didn't like it. He cursed her and he cursed the German, but he only hit her once, and he didn't bother the German.

On the fifth morning, as Lichtenberg was leaving, Joey stole six coins from his valise.

Lichtenberg was drunk when he left, and didn't notice. Joey went down the river and bought a horse, a black gelding, three years old.

When he rode home with it, Maria knew he had robbed the German. Her best hope was that the old German wouldn't notice. Otherwise, Doniphan and his deputies would come.

"I didn't know you owned a horse," Maria said to Joey. "Yesterday you didn't own a horse." "I only stole six coins, Mother," Joey said. "If the old man comes back, I'll just kill him." "What if Doniphan comes?" Maria asked.

"Tell him to find me in the City of Mexico," Joey said.

That night, he left. After four or five days, Maria relaxed a little. Lichtenberg was many miles away. Even if he missed the coins, he wouldn't come back. A year later, she learned that the old man had drowned in Sonora.

He had attempted to cross a wash, when the wash was running, and the water had swept him away. The vaquero who found his body took some silver ore from his saddlebags, but Lichtenberg was dead and could not tell where he had found the silver.

The news of his death made Maria feel light. That night, she danced in the cantina, and several vaqueros fell in love with her. When she danced, she often became happy, became welcoming, and men fell in love with her. It was the death of the German that allowed her to feel light.

If he was dead, she was safe from his vengeance.

Only when men were dead could she feel really safe from their vengeance. If he were alive, old Lichtenberg might ride in someday, with Doniphan to back him up, and beat her half to death, because Joey had stolen those coins.

In the City of Mexico, Joey Garza felt at home for the first time. He felt that he had come to the place where he belonged. All night there were people in the streets. The air was soft, the ringing of the church bells beautiful. Young priests went barefoot in the street, particularly around the great cathedral. Joey was not a worshiper, but he loved the great cathedral. Several times he came back to stand inside, happy just to look at the high ceiling and the great space it contained. In Ojinaga all the ceilings were low. As he walked in the night, whores followed him, because of his horse.

They thought he was rich, for in the City of Mexico not many boys his age had fine black geldings.

Joey ignored the whores, and didn't frequent the cantinas. He had come for a gun-- if possible, one with a little spyglass on it. It took him three days to find the gun he wanted.

An old trader had it, a Frenchman, a man with a vast belly and empty eyes. Joey had the urge to stick a knife in the man's belly, to see if he could cause the emptiness to leave his eyes. Perhaps as he died, the man would look alive for a few moments. When Joey showed him the five coins--he had spent one on the gelding--the man didn't say a word. He just put the rifle away and nodded for Joey to get out of his shop.

That night, Joey walked the cantinas, looking for card players who were winning. In a cantina not far from the great cathedral, he saw a small man with quick hands who had many gold coins.

When the man had enough of the card game, he put the coins in a little sack and had a whore carry it.

When a second whore wanted to go with him, he shoved her away. Joey followed the man for a while, as he lurched along. He kept sticking his hand under the dress of the young whore. It reminded Joey of the way Benito had behaved with his mother; of how all men behaved with his mother. All her husbands put their hands on her, in the house.

They didn't care who saw them.

Joey followed the man and the whore until they were well away from the cantina. As he was walking along a cobbled street, he saw a cobblestone that had come loose. Joey believed in omens. The loose cobblestone meant that it was time for him to act.

He picked up the cobblestone, came quickly up behind the small man, and smashed his head with it. He grabbed the whore and took the sack of money from her. The whore became frightened, and fled.

Joey did not check to see whether the small man was dead. He took the sack of coins, got his horse, and rode to the edge of the City of Mexico, where he slept. The next day, he walked into the fat Frenchman's shop, jingling the coins. The fat man didn't change expressions, but he sold Joey the rifle.

Later, Joey bought some bullets, two pistols, and a fine saddle. He went to stand in the great cathedral once more, and then rode north, out of Mexico.

Ten days later, on the Texas border west of Laredo, Joey robbed his first train. The robbery was an accident, in a sense. The train was stopped at a water tank. It was a train carrying sheep. Two sheepherders and the four men who ran the train were standing around the water tank, smoking. Joey was three hundred yards away.

The heat was so great that it cast a haze. No one from the train crew had seen him. Joey decided it was an excellent chance to practice with his new rifle, so he tied his horse and crept a little closer to the men. He shot the two sheepherders first; it was easy to tell they were sheepherders because they wore huge sombreros and looked shaggy, like the animals they cared for. Joey then shot two of the railroad men, the two fat ones. He didn't like fat people, there were too many of them in the world. Juan Castro and Roberto Sanchez, two of the husbands his mother whored with, had been fat.

As a child, he had often wakened to see a fat body on his mother's. Her husbands grunted like pigs, when they were on her. Shooting the fat railroad men was only a small revenge, for the pain his whoring mother had caused him.

The two other railroad men began to run, not into the train, but down the river, toward Laredo. Joey watched them run. He was trying to judge what would be a fair distance to shoot, a distance that would allow his rifle to perform at its best.