It was just that the Garza boy didn’t sound like an ordinary bandit. Pea Eye had run into Charles Goodnight while at the blacksmith’s in Quitaque, and Goodnight had been startled to see him.
“Thought you went with Call to run down the Garza boy,” he said, looking gruff.
“No, my family’s got too big,” Pea Eye said. Charles Goodnight was a stern fellow, even when he wasn’t being gruff. Being even slightly in his disfavor was not comfortable.
“I’ve got a new little one, and my wife has to teach school,” Pea said, though he felt explanation was hopeless. All the good reasons he could muster for not going with the Captain weren’t likely to be good reasons to Mr. Goodnight. He would doubtless view them as the Captain had—excuse, made by a man who had no stomach for conflict, anymore.
“I don’t care to know the details,” Goodnight said, looking critically at the hoof of a horse that had just been shod.
“Well, the Captain went away, with the man from the railroad,” Pea explained. “That’s a young boy he’s after. I doubt he’ll give the Captain much trouble, the young ones never do.”
“You’re scarce on your facts,” Goodnight said, lifting the hoof so high that the horse almost fell over. Goodnight was a big man. Though old, he could still lift most of a horse, if it was necessary.
“What facts?” Pea Eye asked. “We don’t hear that much news, out at the farm.”
“They estimate Joey Garza has killed over thirty men, and that’s just the ones who’ve been found,” Goodnight said. “There may be more who haven’t been found and never will be found. He shoots a German rifle with a telescope sight. They say he can kill at five hundred yards, which is farther than most people can see. Half the line riders west of the Pecos may be dead, for all we know. Who’s going to find a line rider, if he’s shot fifty miles from the bunkhouse? Who would even miss one? Line riders don’t come back half the time, anyway.”
Pea had seen rifles with telescope sights. They had been available for many years. But they were too slow for most of the rangering action, and so he had never fired one. The notion that a man could be killed at five hundred yards, other than by a freak shot such as the famous one Billy Dixon had made during the Adobe Walls fight, was difficult to grasp. Most of the killing he had seen had taken place at distances under thirty yards, and in many cases, under twenty yards. Five hundred yards was about the distance from Lorie’s schoolhouse to the Red River. He himself could see a bull, or a buffalo, at that distance, but that didn’t mean he could hit it if he shot at it.
“Good Lord, I hadn’t heard any of that,” he told Goodnight.
“You ought to have gone with your Captain,” Goodnight said bluntly. “This is a time when he might need an experienced man.”
“Well, I swear,” Pea Eye said. He felt bad in his stomach, suddenly. Mr. Goodnight was probably right. He should have gone.
“I guess the Captain will manage,” he said, guiltily.
“In my opinion, Woodrow Call is a fool, to be pursuing young killers at his age,” Goodnight said. “I’m his age, and I ain’t pursuing young killers.”
Pea Eye was silent. His sense of guilt was swelling within him. He had become sick at his stomach, just from the weight of the old man’s displeasure.
“Is he that dangerous, this boy?” Pea asked.
“The whole Comanche nation would take a year to kill thirty men, and that would be in a good year, too,” Goodnight replied, looking at Pea Eye solemnly.
Then, as if suddenly weary of his thoughts, or perhaps even of thinking, Goodnight set the gelding’s foot down, and mounted him.
“There’s always a time when you don’t win,” he said. “With me, it’s lawyers. I’ve never won against any lawyer, not even the dumb ones. But lawyers just rob you legally. They don’t shoot German rifles with telescope sights.”
Pea Eye had met only two lawyers. One of them lived in Quanah and had drawn up the deed when he and Lorena bought the farm.
“There’s always a trip you don’t come back from,” Goodnight said. He turned his horse, as if to leave, and then turned back again, stood up in his stirrups, reached in his pocket and found several coins, which he handed to the blacksmith.
“Were you just going to let me ride off without paying you?” he asked the young blacksmith.
“Yes, sir,” the blacksmith, Jim Peeples, replied. It would never have occurred to him to ask Charles Goodnight for money.
“Well, that would have been a damn nuisance,” Goodnight said. “Then I’d have had to ride the whole way back to pay you. If you want to thrive in business, you better learn to speak up.”
“Yes, sir,” Jim Peeples said, terrified. He had never supposed Charles Goodnight would speak to him at all, much less lecture him. It was a little like being lectured by God, or at least, by the prophet Moses. Jim Peeples was a Baptist. He read the Bible every night, and much of Sunday, too. He didn’t really think he had a clear picture of how God looked, but he did think he could imagine the prophet Moses fairly accurately. In Jim Peeples’s opinion, Moses had looked a lot like Charles Goodnight.
Goodnight looked down at Pea Eye. The man had made a remarkable walk, nearly a hundred miles, naked, through the Cheyenne country to find Call and bring him to where his wounded partner, Augustus McCrae, lay dying. It was a great thing, in Goodnight’s view, that walk. Not too many men, in his experience, had achieved a great thing, even one. Very few ever achieved more than one, he knew. He had led men himself, many men. Men as faithful as Pea Eye had been to Call had served with him until they fell, and the best of them had fallen. Goodnight was a married man himself, but had no children. He had always wondered what it meant, to have offspring. How would it affect his leadership, his ability to go and keep going, his attitude toward the dangers of the trail? It hadn’t happened, but he didn’t suppose it would have simplified matters if he had. In a time of danger, he had sometimes thought of his wife, but he always thought of his men. He did not worry too much about his wife. He had never supposed himself to be a very good husband; he had always been too busy. His wife was an able woman, and would probably be happier with someone more settled, if something happened to him. But he had never had to worry about children, and the man who stood before him did have to worry about children.
“I suppose your wife don’t like it,” he said.
“Don’t like what?” Pea Eye asked. He was a little surprised to find himself in such a lengthy discussion with Charles Goodnight, a man known all over the West for his dislike of long conversations.
“You and Call,” Goodnight said. “Divided loyalties don’t appeal to women, not that I’ve noticed.”
“I ain’t divided, I’m loyal to them both,” Pea Eye replied.
“That would be fine if Call was bunking with you,” Goodnight said. “That fact is, he bunks with me, when he bunks, which ain’t much. He sure don’t bunk with you, though. Now, he’s in Mexico, chasing a boy with a German rifle and a dern good eye, if he can shoot people at five hundred yards.”
Pea Eye didn’t know what to say. Captain Call had been in danger much of his life, but Pea Eye, in the years he had been with him, had never really considered that the Captain might be killed. That was Goodnight’s point, though—the Captain might be killed.
“You think Joey Garza could kill the Captain?” he asked.
“Yes, I do,” Goodnight said, and turned and rode away.
Pea walked back to the house with Lorena, after her apology. They had a good supper. The children were peaceful, for once. Lorena read the boys stories until they fell asleep. Little Laurie liked to listen to the stories, too; at least, she liked to listen to her mother’s voice while her mother was reading. Her little eyes were so bright. She waved her hands but she was very quiet while Lorena read.
It was a fine evening, but in the middle of the night, Pea Eye woke with a start. He was shivering, as if with a chill. It seemed to him that death was in bed with them. When he had been trapped with Gus un
der the cutback in Montana, his death almost a certainty, he hadn’t given it much thought. He had too much to do, keeping alive, to worry about dying. Then, on the last day of the long, cold, hungry walk out, he had begun to feel that perhaps he was dead; in the dark of the last morning, he had felt that Deets, his friend the black cowboy, was walking beside him, guiding him. Deets was dead; if he was with Deets, he must be dead too.
But he hadn’t been. Within a few hours, Pea Eye found the herd, and Deets, if he was there, went back to the place of ghosts.
Now, though, with Lorena beside him and their five children in the house near him, Pea Eye faced death as a thought and as a fact, in a way he never had. Far south, below the border, Captain Call might be facing it, even at that moment. Little Laurie might be taken, the next time she had the croup. Lorie might be taken, the next time she bore a child. What would it mean, if any one of them died?
Lorena knew Pea Eye was awake. She had awakened while he slept, for he was restless in his sleep and had scraped one of her legs with a toenail. He was lazy about cutting his toenails and rarely cut them until she had complained two or three times.
But it wasn’t the scrape from the toenail that bothered her. A bad dream had come, from the past, from the time when she had been with bad men. She always tried to pull herself out of such dreams as quickly as possible. Better to face those memories awake, with thoughts of her husband and children to support her, than to let the dream carry her far down, into the depths of pain and fear.
“Lorie, I’m scared,” Pea Eye said. “I’m so scared, I’ve got a chill.”
Lorena put her arms around him. Indeed, he was clammy, as if sweating out a fever. His skin was cold.
“Maybe you’re getting what Georgie has,” Lorena said. Georgie had been running a high fever for several days.
“I’ll get you warm,” she said, pulling her body close to his.
“I ain’t cold outside—it’s inside,” Pea said, though he was glad Lorie was lying close to him. It had seemed a miracle, the first time she had drawn him into her body. It still seemed a miracle that he, who had never been able to rise higher than the rank of corporal, could be wanted by a woman as fine as Lorie, and have the warmth and the pleasure of her body, in the bed at night, through his life. She was generous with him. He knew from the complaints of other men, that all women weren’t so generous. He put his arms around her and held her, grateful and warmer, but still frightened.
Lorena liked it that she could comfort Pea Eye so easily, just by taking him into her arms. She hoped she wasn’t with child. It was too soon, for she was still tired from Laurie. But if she was, she did not plan to stop wanting her husband because of the inconveniences of pregnancy.
Lorena knew that Clara Allen must be very wise to have advised her to marry Pea Eye. She had never expected to marry any man, or even to share a bed with one and want him. Too much of her life had been spent at the mercy of men she didn’t want, even of men she despised; or in having to refuse the love of decent men—Dish Boggett was the main one, although there had been others in Ogallala—whose feelings she couldn’t return.
Why she had been able to return Pea Eye’s love, she really didn’t know. In a way, she thought Gus might have wished it. He and Pea had been friends. But perhaps that was silly. Gus had been as jealous as anyone, in his way. Still, Gus had loved Clara, and herself as well, and Pea had been Call’s corporal, and Clara her own best friend. Something had caused her to want Pea. Perhaps it was only his simple, honest need. And she still wanted him, which was more of a blessing than many people had in life. More than Clara had herself; she’d had no men since her husband’s death, years before.
That made it all the harder to turn loose, though, to allow him to do his duty by old Captain Call. She might have to turn loose yet, probably would have to, but she still wanted to fight it, woman against man. That was what it was, too: woman against man. Her body, her spirit, her affection and passion, the children she and Pea shared, the life they shared on the farm that had cost them all her money and years of their energy. It was that against the old man with the gun, and the way of life that ought to have ended. Probably there was more to it—it involved the loyalty of fighting men to one another and to their leader, but Lorena gave that no respect, not where Pea Eye was concerned. He was a gentle man. He should never have been a Ranger, should never have had to deal out violence. There were many men who dealt out violence naturally. Old Call should never have had the use of one like Pea, a man who was comfortable with gentleness, who would spend hours taking prickly pear stickers out of the boys’ hands, working at each one gently until he got it out.
Pea had never been meant for military life. He had turned out of it eagerly, happily, into a life with her. He loved best the days in the summer, when she didn’t have school to teach, when they could work together at some of the lighter tasks around the farm. He had driven a wagon all the way to Amarillo to get lilac bushes for her to plant, and had helped her cover the little plants against the biting northers and the freezes of February and March.
She ought to win, Lorena knew. She held him in her arms, put her legs over his. She wanted him to know that there was more life with her; more children, if he wanted them; and more of her love.
But Pea Eye was staring past her, even as he held her tight.
“It’s like I dread something,” he said. “I dread something, Lorie.” He whispered it. Pea was always nervous about waking the children. His voice, when he whispered, was exactly like Georgie’s voice, when Georgie whispered his little secrets into his mother’s ear.
Lorena felt some dread herself. She was only one woman, and she could only do so much. She knew she came first in Pea Eye’s affections. It wasn’t that he loved the Captain and not her. She had thought much about this subject—it had dominated their marriage, in a way—and the fact she couldn’t change was that the Captain had been there longer, in Pea Eye’s life. He was there first, and not by a week or two, either, but by many years. That was the fact she couldn’t eliminate. She could change her husband’s habits, and she had, but she couldn’t change his history, and it was in his history that the problem lay.
“I ought to go find him,” Pea Eye whispered. “He’s an old man. I ain’t.”
“You aren’t,” Lorena corrected. But then, what was the point of correcting his grammar if he was going to Call? Good grammar wouldn’t save him, and saving him was what mattered most, now.
The dread that Pea Eye felt crossed into Lorena. They were both gripped by it, husband and wife. Lorena had watched him go away several times, always with irritation, but never with such trepidation. She hated to see him leave, but always before, she had assumed he would return. She didn’t know why this trip should be so different, and neither did Pea Eye. Yet they lay together, equally troubled, equally frightened.
“At least I get paid in cash,” Pea Eye said.
“I don’t care if you get paid in cash,” Lorena said. “Cash can’t hug me. It can’t make me a baby. It can’t be a father to Augie and Georgie and Ben and the girls.”
“Well, it won’t have to,” Pea said. “I’ll come back.”
“I don’t believe you, this time,” Lorena said. “If you go you won’t come back. We’ll never lie in the bed like this, again. I’ll get old and I won’t have you, and neither will the children.”
Pea Eye said nothing. He had begun to have wild thoughts, one being that the Captain was already dead. That would mean that he didn’t have to go. But of course, if the Captain had been killed, he would have heard about it, and he hadn’t.
Lorena didn’t say a thing, either; her thoughts were disordered, too. If Pea got killed, she would probably have to turn Dish Boggett down again. He kept a store in New Mexico and was still single, unless he had recently married. If Pea got killed, Dish would soon hear of it and ride over to court her. He wasn’t a bad man; in fact, he was a good man. But she didn’t want him, never had, and all the tea in China wouldn’t c
hange that.
I wish this would stop, she thought. I wish it would stop. It’s going to drive me crazy, if it don’t stop.
In the morning, they were both as drained as if they had done three days’ work. Clarie had to deal with everything, including the chores and the younger children, too.
“What’s wrong, Mama?” she asked, disturbed. “What’s wrong, Pa?”
Neither parent would say. When Clarie went out to milk, Lorena made one last try.
“What makes you think you can find him?” she asked. “He’s been gone nearly a month. He could be in the middle of Mexico by now. He could be as far away as the Pacific Ocean.”
“I expect I can find the Captain,” Pea Eye said. “People notice, when he’s around. Roy Bean or somebody will know where he is.”
“Go on, then, today,” Lorena said. “Go now. I can’t stand another night like last night. Go right now, before I leave for school.”
Pea Eye got his slicker and his rifle and walked down to get his horse.
“You’re going to ride?” Lorena asked, when he came back. “You could take the train. He took the train.”
“No, I’ll ride. I might not find a trustworthy horse down on the border,” Pea said. Patches, his big bay with white spots, was a trustworthy horse.
Pea Eye kissed each of his children goodbye. All of them cried, Clarie the most. She was a big, strong girl. The boys cried themselves out, and Laurie cried because everybody else was crying.
Lorena went in and got ready for school. She dressed slowly, very slowly. Slowly, very slowly, she put her lesson books in order. Usually, she just threw them in her bag and sorted them out once she got to school. But this morning, she put them in order, carefully and slowly, as if her sanity or even her life depended upon keeping her schoolbooks in the correct order.
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