Lonesome Dove Part 95

In those hours he would lose himself in memory of other times, of other men who had lived with horses, who had broken them, ridden them, died on them. He felt proud of the boy, and with it, anguish that their beginnings had been as they had. It could not be changed, though. He thought he might speak of it sometime, as Gus had wanted him to, and yet he said nothing. He couldn't. If he happened to be alone with the boy, his words went away. At the thought of speaking about it a tightness came into his throat, as if a hand had seized it. Anyway, what could a few words change? They couldn't change the years.

Newt was puzzled at first when the Captain began watching him with the horses. At first he was nervous-he felt the Captain might be watching because he was doing something that needed correcting. But the afternoons pa.s.sed, and the Captain merely watched, sometimes sitting there for hours, even if it turned wet or squally. Newt came to expect him. He came to feel that the Captain enjoyed watching. Because of the way the Captain had been behaving, giving him more and more of the responsibility for the work, Newt came to feel that Mr. Gus must have been right. The Captain might be his father. On some afternoons, with the Captain there by the corrals watching, he felt almost sure of it, and began to expect that the Captain would tell him soon. He began to listen-waiting to be told, his hope always growing. Even when the Captain didn't speak, Newt still felt proud when he saw him come to watch him work.

For two weeks, through the spring evenings, Newt was very happy. He had never expected to share such a time with the Captain, and he hoped the Captain would speak to him soon and explain all that had puzzled him for so long.

One night toward the end of May, Call couldn't sleep. He sat in front of the tent all night, thinking of the boy, and Gus, and the trip he had to make. That morning, after breakfast, he called Newt aside. For a moment he couldn't speak-the hand had seized his throat again. The boy stood waiting, not impatient. Call was annoyed with himself for his strange behavior, and he eventually found his voice.

"I have to take Gus back," he said. "I guess I'll be gone a year. You'll have to be the range boss. Pea will help you, and the rest are mostly reliable, though I think that Irishman is homesick and might go home."

Newt didn't know what to say. He looked at the Captain.

"That woman gets half the money when you sell stock," Call said. "It was Gus's request. You can bank it for her in Miles City. I'll tell her it's there when I see her."

Newt could hardly believe he would be made boss over the men. He expected more orders, but the Captain turned away.

Later in the morning, he and Pea Eye and Needle were riding the banks of the Milk, seeing if any cattle were bogged. They were always bogging. Getting them out was hard, muddy work, but it had to be done; if it rained, the river might rise in the night and drown the bogged animals.

The day was cold and blowy. Newt had to wade out into the mud three times to lift the hind ends of the bogged yearlings, while Needle roped the animals by the head and drug them out. Newt sc.r.a.ped the mud off his legs as best he could, put his pants back on, and was getting ready to turn back toward headquarters when he saw the Captain riding toward them. He was riding the h.e.l.l b.i.t.c.h and leading Greasy, the big mule that had come with them all the way from Texas, and a rangy dun named Jerry, the mount he preferred after the h.e.l.l b.i.t.c.h. Augustus's old sign was tied to the pack mule.

"I guess the Captain's going," Pea Eye said. "He's taking old Greasy and an extra horse."

Newt felt his spirits sink. He knew the Captain had to leave, and yet he hoped he wouldn't-not for another few days anyway.

Call rode up to the three men, dismounted and, to everyone's surprise unsaddled the h.e.l.l b.i.t.c.h and put the saddle on Jerry. Then he led the h.e.l.l b.i.t.c.h over to where Newt stood.

"See how your saddle fits her," Call said.

Newt was so surprised he could only look at the Captain in silence. He thought he must have misunderstood. No one but the Captain had ridden the mare since the Hat Creek outfit had acquired her.

"Do what?" he asked finally.

"Put your saddle on her," Call said. He felt tired and was finding it difficult to speak. He felt at any moment he might choke.

"I doubt she'd like it," Newt said, looking at the mare, who pointed her ears at him as if she knew what had been said. But the Captain didn't take back the order, so he unsaddled the little sorrel he had been riding, the one Clara had given him, and carried his saddle over to the mare. Call held the bridle while Newt saddled her. Then he handed Newt the reins and went over and took his big Henry out of its scabbard. He removed the Winchester from the boy's saddle and stuck the Henry in his saddle scabbard. It wasn't a perfect fit, but it would do.

"You'll need it for them big bears," he said.

When he turned back to look at the boy the choking feeling almost overcame him. He decided he would tell the boy he was his son, as Gus had wanted him to. He thought they would ride away a little distance, so they could speak in private.

And yet, when he looked at Newt, standing there in the cold wind, with Canada behind him, Call found he couldn't speak at all. It was as if his whole life had suddenly lodged in his throat, a raw bite he could neither spit out nor swallow. He had once seen a Ranger choke to death on a tough bite of buffalo meat, and he felt that he was choking, too-choking on himself. He felt he had failed in all he had tried to be: the good boy standing there was evidence of it. The shame he felt was so strong it stopped the words in his throat. Night after night, sitting in front of Wilbarger's tent, he had struggled with thoughts so bitter that he had not even felt the Montana cold. All his life he had preached honesty to his men and had summarily discharged those who were not capable of it, though they had mostly only lied about duties neglected or orders sloppily executed. He himself was far worse, for he had been dishonest about his own son, who stood not ten feet away, holding the reins of the h.e.l.l b.i.t.c.h.

Call thought he might yet say it, even if the men were there to hear. He trembled from the effort, and his trembling and the look on his face caused great consternation in Pea Eye, who had never known the Captain to be at a loss for words. The Captain would ride up and give an order, and that was that-but now he merely stood looking at Newt, a jerking in his throat.

Looking at the Captain, Newt began to feel sadder than he had ever felt in his life. Just go on, he wanted to say. Go on, if it's that hard. He didn't want the Captain to go on, of course. He felt too young; he didn't want to be left with it all. He felt he couldn't bear what was happening, it was so surprising. Five minutes before, he had been pulling a yearling out of a bog. Now the Captain had given him his horse and his gun, and stood with a look of suffering on his face. Even Sean O'Brien, dying of a dozen snakebites, had not shown so much pain. Go on, then, Newt thought. Just let it be. It's been this way always. Let it be, Captain.

Call walked the few steps to the boy and squeezed his arm so hard Newt thought his fingers had pinched the bone. Then he turned and tried to mount the dun. He had to try for the stirrup three times before he could mount. He wished he had died on the Musselsh.e.l.l with Gus. It would have been easier than knowing he could not be honest. His own son stood there-surely, it was true; after doubting it for years, his own mind told him over and over that it was true-yet he couldn't call him a son. His honesty was lost, had long been lost, and he only wanted to leave.

When he mounted, the feeling loosened a bit and he fell back into the habit he had vowed to discard-the habit of leading.

"There's two heifers bogged yet," he said. "They're half a mile downstream. You better go get them."

Then he rode over and shook Pea Eye's hand. Pea Eye was so astonished he couldn't close his mouth. Gus had never shaken his hand until the last minute, and now the Captain was shaking it too.

"Help Newt," Call said. "He'll need a steady man, and you qualify if anybody ever did."

He raised his hand to Needle Nelson and turned his horse.

"So long, boys," he said.

But he looked again at Newt. The boy looked so lonesome that he was reminded of his own father, who had never been comfortable with people. His father had fallen drunk out of a barn loft in Mississippi and broken his neck. Call remembered the watch that had been pa.s.sed on to him, an old pocket watch with a thin gold case. He had carried it since he was a boy. He raised up in his stirrups, took it out of his pocket and handed it to Newt.

"It was my pa's," he said, and turned and left.

"Dern, Newt," Pea Eye said, more astonished than he had ever been in his life. "He gave you his horse and his gun and that watch. He acts like you're his kin."

"No, I ain't kin to n.o.body in this world," Newt said bitterly. "I don't want to be. I won't be."

Despair in his heart, he mounted the h.e.l.l b.i.t.c.h as if he had ridden her for years, and turned downstream. He felt he never wanted to hope for anything again, and yet no more than a minute later the strange hope struck him that the Captain might have turned back. He might have forgotten something-perhaps an order he had meant to give. Even that he would have welcomed. It felt so lonely to think of the Captain being gone. But when he turned to look, the Captain was merely a speck on the long plain. He was gone, and things would never be as Newt had hoped-never. Somehow it had been too hard for the Captain, and he had left.

Pea Eye and Needle followed Newt silently. Pea Eye felt old and frightened. In a few minutes the whole ground of his life had s.h.i.+fted, and he felt stricken with foreboding. For thirty years the Captain had been there to give orders, and frequently the orders had kept them alive. He had always been with the Captain, and yet now he wasn't. He couldn't understand why the Captain had given Newt the horse, the gun and the watch. The business of the ax, and what he had heard when retrieving it, was forgotten-it had puzzled him so long that it had finally just slipped from his mind.

"Well, here we are," he said wearily. "I guess we'll just have to do the work."

The Texas bull was standing a hundred yards or so away with a small group of cows. When the riders drew near, he began to bellow and paw the earth. It irritated him if he saw several riders together, though he had not charged anyone lately.

"I'll tell you one thing, I may shoot that bull yet," Needle said. "I've put up with that son of a b.i.t.c.h about long enough. The Captain may like him, but I don't."

Newt heard the talk, but didn't speak. He knew the Captain had left him with too much, but he didn't say it. He would have to try and do the work, even if he no longer cared.

Feeling that it was pointless, but acting from force of habit, they pulled the two stuck heifers from the Milk River mud.

101.

IN MILES CITY, Call found that the storage of Augustus's remains had been bungled. Something had broken into the shed and knocked the coffin off the barrels. In the doctor's opinion it had probably been a wolverine, or possibly a cougar. The coffin had splintered and the varmint had run off with the amputated leg. The mistake wasn't discovered until after a blizzard had pa.s.sed through, so of course the leg had not been recovered.

The look on Call's face, when he heard the news, was so grim it made the doctor extremely nervous.

"We've mostly kept him," he said, avoiding Call's eye; "I had him repacked. He had done lost that leg before he died anyway."

"It was in the coffin when I left here," Call said. He didn't care to discuss the matter with the man. Instead, he found the carpenter who had built the coffin in the first place and had him reinforce it with strong planks. The result was a heavy piece of work.

By luck, the same day, Call saw a buggy for sale. It was old but it looked st.u.r.dy enough, and he bought it. The next day he had the coffin covered in canvas and lashed to the seat. The buggy hood was in tatters, so he tore it off. Greasy, the mule, was used to pulling the wagon and hardly noticed the buggy, it was so light. They left Miles City on a morning when it had turned unseasonably cold-so cold that the sun only cast a pale light through the frigid clouds. Call knew it was dangerous to go off with only two animals, but he felt like taking his chances.

The weather improved the next day and he rode for a time beside a hundred or so Crow Indians who were traveling south. The Crow were friendly, and their old chief, a dried-up little man with a great appet.i.te for tobacco and talk, tried to get Call to camp with them. They were all interested in the fact that he was traveling with a coffin and asked him many questions about the man inside it.

"We traveled together," Call said. He did not want to talk about Gus with the old man, or anyone. He wanted to get on, but he was cordial and rode with the Crow because he felt that if he were discourteous some of the young bucks might try to make sport with him farther south, when he was out of range of the old chief's protection.

Once he struck Wyoming, he rode for eleven days without seeing a soul. The buggy held up well, but Greasy lost flesh from the pace Call kept up. The coffin got some bad jolts crossing the gullies near the Powder River, but the reinforcements held it together.

The first people he saw, as he approached Nebraska, were five young Indians who had gotten liquor somewhere. When they saw he was carrying a dead man they let him alone, though they were too drunk to hunt successfully and begged him for food. None of them looked to be eighteen, and their horses were poor. Call started to refuse, but then he reflected that they were just boys. He offered them food if they would give up their liquor, but at that they grew quarrelsome. One drew an old pistol and acted as if he might fire at him, but Call ignored the threat, and they were soon gone.

He regretted that he had to take Gus to the women, but felt it was part of his obligation to deliver the notes Gus had written when he was dying. The Platte was so full of ducks and geese that he heard their gabbling all day, though he rode a mile from the river.

He thought often of the men he had left up on the Milk, and of the boy. He had not expected the parting to go as it had, and could not get his mind off it. For several hundred miles, down through Montana and Wyoming, he left them all over again in his mind, day after day. He imagined many times that he had said things he had not said, and, from concentrating on it too much as he traveled down the plains, he began to grow confused. He missed being able to sit at the corrals and watch Newt work with the horses. He wondered if the boy was handling the h.e.l.l b.i.t.c.h well and if any more men had left the ranch.

Then, before he had scarcely reined in at Clara's house, where he found Dish Boggett breaking horses with the young sheriff from Arkansas, the woman began a quarrel with him. She had acquired some small shrubs somehow and was out planting them, bareheaded and in overshoes, when he arrived.

"So you're doing it, are you, Mr. Call?" Clara said, when she saw him. She had a look of scorn in her eyes, which puzzled him, since he was merely carrying out the request of the man who had loved her for so long. Of course Dish had told her that Gus wanted his body taken to Texas.

"Well, he asked, and I said I'd do it," Call said, wondering why she disliked him so. He had just dismounted.

"Gus was crazy and you're foolish to drag a corpse that far," Clara said bluntly. "Bury him here and go back to your son and your men. They need you. Gus can rest with my boys."

Call flinched when she said the word "son," as if she had never had a doubt that Newt was his. He himself had once been a man of firm opinion, but now it seemed to him that he knew almost nothing, whereas the words Clara flung at him were hard as rocks.

"I told him that very thing," Call said. "I told him you'd likely want him here."

"I've always kept Gus where I wanted him, Mr. Call," Clara said. "I kept him in my memory for sixteen years. Now we're just talking of burying his body. Take him to the ridge and I'll have July and Dish get a grave dug."

"Well, it wasn't what he asked of me," Call said, avoiding her eyes. "It seems that picnic spot you had in Texas is where he wanted to lay."

"Gus was a fine fool," Clara said. "He was foolish for me or any other girl who would have him for a while. Because it was me he thought of, dying, is no reason to tote his bones all the way to Texas."

"It was because you picnicked in the place," Call said, confused by her anger. He would have thought a woman would feel complimented by such a request, but Clara clearly didn't take it that way.

"Yes, I remember our picnics," she said. "We mostly quarreled. He wanted what I wouldn't give. I wanted what he didn't have. That was a long time ago, before my boys died."

Tears came to her eyes when she said it, as they always did when the thought of her boys struck her. She was aware that she was being anything but hospitable, and that the man didn't understand what she said. She scarcely knew what she meant herself-she just knew that the sight of Woodrow Call aroused in her an unreasoning hate and disgust.

"He wrote you," Call said, remembering why he had come. "There's a letter for you and one for her. He left her his half of our cattle." He untied his saddlebag and brought out the two notes, handing them to Clara.

"I would have sent them with Dish but he left in the winter and there was no knowing if he'd get through," Call said.

"But you always get through, don't you, Captain?" Clara said, with a look so hard that Call turned aside from it and stood by the horses, tired. He was ready to agree with her that Gus had been foolish to make such a request of him.

Then he turned and saw Clara walk over to Greasy, the mule. She stroked the mule along his neck and spoke to him softly before breaking into sobs. She hid her face against the mule, who stood as if planted, though normally he was a rather skittish animal. But he stood while Clara sobbed against his side. Then, taking the notes and not looking at Call, she hurried into the house.

From the lots, Dish and July were watching. Dish felt a little queasy, seeing Gus's coffin. He had not gotten over his nervousness about the dead. It seemed to him quick burial was the best way to slow their ghosts.

July, of course, had heard all about Gus McCrae's death, and his strange request, but had not quite believed it. Now it had turned out to be true. He remembered that Gus had ridden down with him on the Kiowa campfire and killed every single man, while he himself had not been able to pull a trigger. Now the same man, dead a whole winter, had turned up in Nebraska. It was something out of the ordinary, of that he felt sure.

"I knowed the Captain would do it," Dish said. "I bet them boys up on the Milk are good and skeert, now he's gone."

"I hear it's hard winters up there," July said-not that they were easy in Nebraska.

The Captain, as if distracted, walked a little way toward the lots and then stopped. Dish walked out to greet him, followed by July, and was shocked by the change in the man. The Captain looked like an old man-he had little flesh on his face and his beard and mustache were sprinkled with gray.

"Why, Captain, it's fine to see you," Dish said. "How are them northern boys doing?"

Call shook Dish's hand, then July's. "We wintered without losing a man, or much stock either," he said, very tired.

Then he saw that Dish was looking beyond him. He turned and saw that the blond woman had come out of the house. She walked to the buggy and stood by the coffin. Clara's two daughters followed her out on the back porch, a toddling child between them. The girls didn't follow Lorena to the buggy. They watched a minute and then guided the child back in the house.

Dish Boggett would have given anything to be able to go to Lorena, but he knew he couldn't. Instead he led the Captain back down to the lots and tried to interest him in the horses. But the Captain's mind was elsewhere.

When the plains darkened and they went in to supper, Lorena still stood by the wagon. The meal was eaten in silence, except for little Martin's fretting. He was used to being the center of gay attention and couldn't understand why no one laughed when he flung his spoon down, or why no one sang to him, or offered him sweets.

"Oughtn't we to go get Lorie?" Dish asked, at one point, anguished that she was left to stand alone in the darkness.

Clara didn't answer. The girls had cooked the meal, and she directed the serving with only a glance now and then. Watching Woodrow Call awkwardly handling his fork caused her to repent a little of her harshness when he arrived, but she didn't apologize. She had stopped expecting July to contribute to the conversation, but she resented his silence nevertheless. Once Martin spat out a bite of perfectly good food and Clara looked at him sharply and said "You behave," in a tone that instantly put a stop to his fretting. Martin opened his mouth to cry but thought better of it and chewed miserably on his spoon until the meal was finished.

After supper the men went out of the house to smoke, all glad to escape the company of the silent woman. Even Betsey and Sally, accustomed to chattering through supper, competing for the men's attention, were subdued by their mother's silence, and merely attended to serving.

After supper Clara went to her bedroom. Gus's letter lay on her bureau, unread. She lit her lamp and picked it up, scratching at the dried blood that stained one corner of the folded sheet. "I ought not to read this," she said, aloud. "I don't like the notion of words from the dead."

"What, Momma?" Betsey asked. She had come upstairs with Martin and had overheard.

"Nothing, Betsey," Clara said. "Just a crazy woman talking to herself."

"Martin acts like he's got a stomach-ache," Betsey complained. "You didn't have to look so mean at him, Ma."

Clara turned for a moment. "I won't have him spitting out food," she said. "The reason men are awful is because some woman has spoiled them. Martin's going to learn manners if he learns nothing else."

"I don't think men are awful," Betsey said. "Dish ain't."

"Let me be, Betsey," Clara said. "Put Martin to bed."

She opened the letter-just a few words in a scrawling hand:

Dear Clara-I would be obliged if you'd look after Lorie. I fear she'll take this hard.I'm down to one leg now and this life is fading fast, so I can't say more. Good luck to you and your gals, I hope you do well with the horses.Gus

Clara went out on her porch and sat, twisting her hands, for an hour. She could see that the men were below, still smoking, but they were silent. It's too much death, she thought. Why does it keep coming to me?

The dark heavens gave no answer, and after a while she got up and went downstairs and out to Lorena, who still stood by the buggy, where she had been from the time Call arrived.

"Do you want me to read you this letter?" she said, knowing the girl couldn't read. "It's bad handwriting."

Lorena held the letter tightly in her hand. "No, I'll just keep it," she said. "He put my name on it. I can read that. I'll just keep if."

She didn't want Clara to see the letter. It was hers from Gus. What the words were didn't matter.

Clara stood with her for a bit and went back in.