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 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 into disorder; 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 sh-sh-sh-shoot h-h-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.
3.
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 l
uck 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.
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