“Hurry up, Deets, there’s bluffs out here she might fall off of,” Augustus said.
“I don’t know how anybody could feel like a hero with that poor woman running around out of her mind,” Call said.
“Well, but she might have been dead,” Long Bill said. “That brave had a knife at her throat.”
“She might prefer to be dead,” Call replied. “I expect she would prefer it.”
Just then Deets came back, leading Maudy, talking to her softly; all the men became silent. The woman’s despair dampened all their moods. They had not even had a lively card game on the trip south.
“I’m longing to see my Clara,” Augustus said—they were in country that was familiar, where they had patrolled often; the familiar hills and streams made him think of his many picnics with Clara, the laughter and the kissing he had enjoyed throughout his long courtship. Surely, now that he had been promoted to captain, Clara wouldn’t make him wait any longer. Surely she would marry him now.
“I hope we can find this woman’s husband,” Call said.
“You better hope he’ll take her back, while you’re hoping,” Gus said.
“That’s right, Woodrow,” Long Bill said. “Some men won’t have their wives back, once they’ve been with the Comanches.”
“That’s wrong,” Call said. “It wasn’t her fault she got taken. He oughtn’t to have gone off and left her unguarded.”
“Sing to us, Deets,” Augustus said. “It’s too boresome at night, without no singing.”
Deets had been singing to the two little children at night, to quiet them and put them to sleep. Without his singing they grew restless and fearful; their mother rarely came near them now. Deets had a low soothing voice, and knew many melodies, hymns mostly, and a few songs of the field; it was not only the children that were soothed by his singing. Long Bill was able to accompany Deets on his harmonica, most of the time.
Though the men were calmed by the singing, Call wasn’t. Usually, after listening a few minutes, he took his rifle and went off to stand guard. What rested him, after a day of contending with the circumstances of travel—the girth on the pack mule might break, or they might strike a creek that looked dangerous to cross—was to be by himself, a hundred yards or so from camp. Whereas guard duty seemed to make most of the rangers sleepy—there being nothing to do but sit and stare—it made Call feel at his most alert. He had a keen ear for night sounds—the rustling of varmints, the cries of owls and bullbats, deer nibbling leaves, the death squeak of a rabbit when a coyote or bobcat caught it. He listened for variations in the regular sounds, variations that could mean Indians were near; or, if not Indians, then some rarely encountered animal, like a bear. Often he would sit all night at his guard post, refusing to change guards even when it was time.
From time to time in the night, Maudy Clark shrieked—just two or three shrieks, sounds that seemed to be jerked out of her. Call wondered if it might be dreams that called up the shrieks. He doubted the poor woman would live long enough for the violent memories to fade.
When he came back to camp, a little before dawn, only Deets and Maudy were awake. The woman was fiddling with the buttons of an old shirt Long Bill had given her. She looked wild in her eyes, as if she might be getting ready to make one of her dashes out of camp. There was gray mist rising, making it hard to see more than a few feet. If the woman got away, with it so foggy, there might be a long delay while they located her.
Deets anticipated the very thing that Call feared.
“Don’t you be running now, ma’am,” he said. “You’ll get thorns in your feet if you do. Prickly pear all over the ground. You’ll be picking them little fine stickers out all day, if you go running off now.”
She had untied the cotton rope that he bound her ankles with. Gently, Deets retied it, and Maudy Clark made no protest.
“Just till breakfast,” Deets assured her. “Then I’ll let you go.”
26.
THEY BROUGHT THE HORSES and the rescued captives into Austin on a fine sunny morning. Nothing prompted a crowd like the rangers’ return, whether they had been patrolling north or south. Folks that had been dawdling in stores came into the street to ask questions. The blacksmith neglected his tasks until he heard the report. The barber left customers half shaven. The dentist ceased pulling teeth. Somebody ran to alert the Governor and the legislators, though most of the latter were drunk or in bordellos and thus not easily rounded up.
The first thing everybody noticed was that no short man on a big horse was leading the troop back home: where was the great Captain Scull?
“Tracking a horsethief, that’s where,” Augustus said, a little annoyed that most of the questions were about the captain who had cavalierly deserted them while they were doing brave work. Gus saw Jake Spoon lurking over by the blacksmith’s and waved at him to come help with the horses. He was anxious to get on to a barroom and sample some whiskey, quick.
“Don’t get too drunk,” Call said, when he saw where Gus was heading. “The Governor will be wanting a report.”
“Well, you report,” Augustus said. “If the both of us go we’ll just confuse the old fool.”
“We’re both captains, we both should go,” Call insisted.
“I despise governors, and besides, I need to see my girl before I get into business like that,” Gus said. One of the reasons he was feeling a little grim was that there was, as yet, no sign of Clara. Usually, when he rode in with the boys, she came running out of the store to give him a big kiss—it was something he would begin to look forward to while still fifty miles away.
But today, though the street was thronged, there was no Clara.
Call spotted Maggie, watching their return from a discreet spot in the shade of a building; he nodded and tipped his hat to her, an act that didn’t escape the attention of Augustus McCrae. The other rangers had just penned the horses; Long Bill Coleman immediately headed for a saloon, to fortify himself a little before heading home to Pearl, his large, enthusiastic wife.
“This is a damn disgrace,” Augustus muttered. “Your girl’s here to smile at you and Billy has Pearl to go home to, but Clara’s lagging, if she’s home.”
“I expect she’s just running errands,” Call said. “It’s a passel of work, running a store that size.”
Augustus, though, was growing steadily more annoyed, and also more agitated. In his mind Clara’s absence could mean only one of two things: she had died, or else she’d married. What if the big horse trader Bob Allen had showed up while he was away; what if Clara had lost her head and married the man? The thought disturbed him so that he turned his horse and went full tilt back up the street toward the Forsythe store, almost colliding with a buggy as he raced. He jumped off his horse, not even bothering to hitch him, and plunged into the store, only to see old Mr. Forsythe, Clara’s father, unpacking a box of women’s shoes.
“Hello, Clara ain’t sick, is she?” he asked at once.
Mr. Forsythe was startled by Augustus’s sudden appearance.
“Who, Clara?—I’m trying to count these shoes and see that they’re properly paired up,” the old man said, a little nervously, it seemed to Gus. Normally George Forsythe was loquacious to a fault; he would pat Gus’s shoulder and talk his arm off about any number of topics that held no interest for him, but this morning he seemed annoyed by Gus’s question.
“Sorry to disturb you, I just wondered if Clara was sick—I had the fear that she might have taken ill while we were gone,” Gus said.
“Oh no, Clara’s healthy as a horse,” Mr. Forsythe said. “Clara’s never been sick a day in her life.”
Where is she, then, you old fool? Gus thought, but he held his tongue.
“Is she out? I’d like to greet her,” he said. “We traveled nearly to the North Pole and back since I was here.”
“No, she’s not here,” Mr. Forsythe said, glancing at the back of the store, as if he feared Clara might pop out from behind a pile of dry goods. Then he went bac
k to counting shoes.
Augustus was taken aback—Mr. Forsythe had always been friendly to him, and had seemed to encourage his suit. Why was he so standoffish suddenly?
“I expect she’s just making deliveries,” Gus said. “I hope you’ll tell her I stopped in.”
“Yes sir, I’ll tell her,” Mr. Forsythe said.
Augustus turned toward the door, feeling close to panic. What could have happened to make George Forsythe so closemouthed with him?
Then, just as Gus was about to go out the door, Mr. Forsythe put down a pair of shoes and turned to him with a question.
“Lose any men, this trip?” he asked.
“Just Jimmy Watson,” Gus said. “Jimmy had fatal bad luck. We brought back three captives, though. One of them’s a woman who’s out of her mind.”
Jake Spoon was waiting in the street, eager to tag along with him like a puppy dog, but Augustus was in no mood to be tagged—not then.
“Hello, Mr. McCrae, did you kill any Indians?” Jake asked, an eager look on his young face.
“Two. Now don’t tag me, Jake, I have to report to the Governor,” Gus said. “Neely will tell you all about the Indian fighting.”
“Oh,” Jake said, his face falling. Mr. McCrae had always been friendly with him; never before had he been so brusque.
Augustus felt guilty for being short with young Jake, but the fact was he could think of nothing but Clara—not at the moment. They had been gone for weeks: perhaps she had married. The thought stirred his mind to such a frenzy that the last thing he needed was to have to be gabbing about rangering with a green boy.
“Woodrow Call and me got made captains,” he said, trying to soothe the boy’s feelings a little. “Being a captain is just one duty after another, which is why I have to go see the Governor right now. He wants a report.”
“Yes, we all want one,” Jake said.
“You may want it, but he’s the Governor and you ain’t,” Gus said, as he prepared to mount. His mind was in such an agitated state that—as young Jake watched in astonishment—he put the wrong foot in the stirrup and mounted the horse facing backward.
It was only when Gus leaned forward to pick up his bridle reins and saw that in fact he was looking at his horse’s rump that he realized what he had done. To make matters worse, most of the rangers, having stabled their horses, were walking toward the saloon, to join Long Bill, and saw him do it. They immediately started laughing and pointing, assuming Gus was so happy to be home that he had decided to ride his horse backward, as some sort of prank.
Augustus was so stunned by what he had done that for a moment he was paralyzed. “Well, I swear,” he said, unable to believe that he had accidentally done such an absurd thing. He was about to swing down and try to pretend it only had been a prank when he happened to look up the road that led into Austin, down a long slope.
There was a buggy coming, a buggy with two people in it—it seemed to him that the two people were holding hands, though he couldn’t be sure. The woman in the buggy was Clara Forsythe, and the man looked from a distance like Bob Allen, the Nebraska horse trader.
One look was all it took to propel Gus off the horse. He didn’t intend to be sitting in front of the Forsythe store, looking backward off a horse, when Clara arrived with big dumb Bob.
He swung to the ground so quickly that he almost kicked young Jake Spoon in the face with his boot.
“Go put this horse in the stable,” he said, handing Jake the reins. “If Captain Call needs me, tell him I’ll be in the saloon. And if he wants me to visit that Governor, he better come quick.”
“Why, are you leaving again?” Jake asked, surprised.
“That’s right, leaving—I’ll be departing from my right mind,” Augustus told him. Then he hurried across the street and strode into the saloon so fast that he almost knocked over a customer who stood a little too close to the swinging door.
“Why, hello, Captain,” Long Bill said, when Gus burst in and strode to the bar. Without a word to anyone, including the bartender, Augustus reached for a full bottle of whiskey and immediately yanked out the cork. Then he threw his hat at the hat rack, but missed. His hat landed behind the bar.
“Don’t call me ‘Captain,’ I’m plain Gus McCrae,” he said. He raised the whiskey bottle to his mouth and—to the astonishment of the patrons—drank nearly a third of it straight off.
Long Bill, perceiving that his old compañero, now his captain, was a little disturbed, said nothing. In times of disturbance, silence seemed to him the best policy. The other rangers began to file into the saloon just then, all of them eager to wet their whistles.
“You better grab your liquor if you want any, boys,” Long Bill said. “Gus means to drink the place dry and he’s off to a fine start.”
Augustus ignored the tedious palaver that ensued. All he could think about was Clara—he had by then convinced himself that she had unquestionably been holding hands with dull Bob. Instead of getting the homecoming kiss he had yearned for for several days, what did he see but the love of his life holding hands with another man! No disappointment had ever been as keen. It was worse than disappointment, it was agony, and all he could do was dull it a little with the whiskey. He took another long draw, scarcely feeling the fire of the liquor in his belly.
Quietly the rangers took their seats; quietly they ordered their own drinks.
“Gus, why did you get on your horse backward?” Neely Dickens asked. “Did you just happen to put your off foot in the stirrup, or what?”
Augustus ignored the question. He decided to refuse all discussion, of the horse incident or anything. The boys, Neely especially, would have to make of it what they could.
“It’s bad table manners to drink out of the bottle,” Neely observed. “The polite thing is to drink out of a glass.”
Long Bill could scarcely believe his ears. Why would Neely Dickens care what Gus drank out of, and, even if he did care, why bring it up when Gus was clearly more than drunk?
“Now, Neely, I’ve seen men drink liquor out of saucers—there ain’t just one right way,” he said, nervous about what Augustus might do.
“I would not be caught dead drinking no whiskey out of a saucer,” Neely said firmly. “Coffee I might drink out of a saucer, if it was too hot to sip from a cup.”
Augustus got up, went behind the bar, took the largest glass he could find back to his table, filled the glass, and drank it.
“Does that suit you?” he asked, looking at Neely.
“Yes, but you never told me why you got on your horse backward,” Neely said. “I don’t sleep good when people won’t answer my questions.”
Just then Call stepped into the saloon. He saw that the whiskey bottle in front of him was half empty.
“Let’s go before you get any drunker,” he said. “The Governor sent his buggy for us.”
“I see,” Augustus said. “Did the buggy just come by itself, or is somebody driving it?”
“His man Bingham is driving it,” Call said. “Bingham always drives it. Hurry up.”
“I wish you’d just let me be, Woodrow,” Augustus said. “I ain’t in the mood for a governor today, even if he did send Bingham to fetch us.”
Bingham was a very large black man who rarely spoke—he saw to it that the Governor came to no bodily harm.
“Your mood don’t matter,” Call said. “We’re captains now, and we’re due at the Governor’s.”
“Captaining’s the wrong business for me, I expect,” Augustus said. “I think I’ll resign right now.”
“What?” Call said. “You’ve been talking about being a captain for years. Why would you resign now?”
Without a word Augustus corked the whiskey bottle, retrieved his hat, and went outside.
“I may resign and I may not,” he said. The buggy he had seen Clara riding in was parked by the Forsythe store, with no one in it, and the Governor’s buggy, with Bingham in it, stood beside it.
“Dern, Bingham, you�
��re nearly as wide as this buggy,” Augustus observed. “The man who rides behind you won’t have much of a view.”
“No sir,” Bingham said. “Mostly get a view of me.”
“I’m surprised you’d drink like that before you say hello to Clara,” Call said.
“Why would I say hello to her?” Gus asked. “I saw her taking a buggy ride with that dumb horse trader.”
“No she wasn’t, that was her uncle,” Call told him. “Her ma’s poorly and he’s come for a visit.”
Augustus, who had just climbed in the buggy, was so startled he nearly fell out. It had not occurred to him that Clara could be with a relative, when he saw her come down the hill.
“Oh Lord—you mean she’s in the store?” he asked.
“Why, yes, I suppose so,” Call said. “Were you so drunk you got on your horse backward? That’s what the boys are saying.”
Augustus ignored the inquiry.
“Hold this buggy, Bingham!” he demanded. “I’ve got to pay a short visit—then I’ll report to the Governor until he’s sick of listening.”
“But the Governor’s waiting,” Call protested.
“It don’t take long to kiss a girl,” Gus said, jumping out of the buggy and running into the store.
Clara had her back to him when he rushed in—he had her in his arms before she even got a good look at him. But the color came up in her cheeks and the happy light into her eyes.
“Why, it’s my ranger,” she said, and gave him the kiss he had been yearning for.
“Yep, I’m a captain now, Clara—Woodrow’s one too. We’re off to see the Governor on urgent business.”
“The Governor? My goodness,” Clara said.
“Yes, and I’ll have to hurry or Bingham might lose his job,” Gus said. “The Governor expects us to report.”
Clara didn’t try to stop him but she followed him out the door and watched him as he vaulted into the Governor’s buggy and straightened his hat.
The Lonesome Dove Chronicles (1-4) Page 67