Call considered that he had always been able to draw on more will than most men possessed. He could keep riding longer and keep fighting harder than any man he had worked with. He had never considered himself brilliant, and as a rider or a shot he was only average. But he could keep going in situations where others had to stop. He had never quit a fight, and the fight he was in now demanded just that persistence of him. He might be dying, but he couldn’t quit until he had killed his killer. If he failed, all his effort would have been futile, and the lives of people who trusted him deeply would, in all likelihood, be forfeit.
Call risked sitting up for a second to see if he could catch a glimpse of the rifleman. The hobbled horse was exactly where it had been. But Call saw no one—not a movement, not a hat, not a glint of sun on a rifle barrel.
He flattened himself on his belly and began to push the rifle ahead of him. He wished he could simply cut off the useless arm and the useless leg. The leg was the worst—he didn’t look at his knee, but he knew it must be nothing but bone fragments: The pain was beginning, and when he moved, sharp points of bone tore at what flesh was left. The arm he didn’t feel. He pulled himself along on his one good elbow. For a while he pushed the rifle ahead of him, but he soon abandoned the rifle and took out his pistol instead. If he got a shot at Joey Garza it would likely be at close range. If it wasn’t at close range, he would probably miss anyway, particularly if he tried to shoot a rifle with one hand.
Every few minutes, Call raised up. His vision annoyed him. He couldn’t see sharply. He could see the horse but not the shooter. It angered him. His eyesight was no longer adequate to the work he had tried to do. No doubt Gus McCrae or Charles Goodnight, men renowned for the sharpness of their vision, would have seen the boy under the horse while still safely out of rifle range. Either one of them could have seen that the horse was hobbled, and have avoided the bullets. He had tried spectacles but found them irritating, and he had not provided himself with any for the trip. That little neglect was another reason he was shot and dying.
Call kept on crawling. The hobbled horse had been some two hundred yards away when the shots came. Call wiggled for nearly half the distance, the pain in his leg growing more terrible with every movement. He left a trail of blood on the sand and on the sage bushes as he crawled. But he began to grow weak, and he began to feel light-headed. He saw that he wasn’t going to make it to the hobbled horse. He wouldn’t last that long.
Besides, the boy might not even be there. He might have been so confident of the wounds he had given that he had simply slipped away. Call felt his strength failing. He had crawled a long way, but he was still just half the distance to the horse, and had still not caught one glimpse of human movement.
He decided to tempt the boy, if the boy was there. He would show himself; maybe the boy would want to laugh at him, taunt him, shoot him again. If so, Call might be lucky enough to get off two or three pistol shots. If he was very lucky, he might put the boy down.
It was a gamble, of course. He had never shot especially well with the pistol, and the Garza boy would not likely be such a fool as to come close. So far, the Garza boy had been no sort of fool at all.
But it was a chance—his only chance. In another few minutes, he might pass out. Already he had lost so much blood that his hand was unsteady. Call wished he had kept pushing the rifle. It would make a fair crutch, something to support him when he stood up. But he had foolishly left it. He would just have to teeter as best he could and hope the Garza boy would be amused enough to expose himself.
Very carefully, Call got into a sitting position. He had his pistol on cock. He got his good leg under him and rested a minute. When he tried to take a deep breath to steady himself, he coughed. Again, he felt the first bullet, like a nut in his chest.
But he gathered himself, wiped the sweat out of his eyes with his good arm, wiped the blood off the gun with his shirttail, and slowly eased up. The hobbled horse was still hobbled. Call could see nothing beneath it.
Then he heard a movement to his left and shot three times at the sound. It had sounded like a human footstep—Joey Garza had probably been sneaking up to finish him. But to his immediate, bitter disappointment, Call saw that it was only the mule deer he had scared earlier. He had shot the big doe. She bucked a few times and ran off, the fawn bounding after her through the sage.
Call knew it was no good. It was a failure; a botch. Joey Garza had left. He might have already found Lorena and killed her. Perhaps Joey wouldn’t bother with her. After all, he had killed the bounty hunter, and there would be no one to interfere with his robbing for a while. Perhaps the clever boy would just ride away.
But it was clear that all the options belonged to Joey Garza. Call couldn’t see him, couldn’t find him, couldn’t affect his actions. He eased back down. He had begun to feel the dangling arm, as well as the shattered leg. He lay flat, concealing the pistol under his bloody shirttail. If the boy did happen to ride by to inspect the body, Call might yet get off a shot. But he didn’t expect this to happen. His head was swimming. He was so light in the head that he felt he was off the ground. He seemed to be somewhere between the sagebrush and the moving clouds. He tried to keep his eyes open. He felt dreamy and tried to fight the feeling. He kept telling himself that any moment he might look up and see the Garza boy standing over him, or looking down at him from horseback. He had to try to stay alert. But his eyelids wouldn’t obey. They kept closing, at first for only a fraction of a second. But then it seemed to Call that despite himself, he was floating away into the world behind his eyelids. They wouldn’t stay open. They wouldn’t.
In the world behind his eyelids, everything was white.
5.
WHEN LORENA HEARD the shooting, she quickly took her pistol out of her bag. In Presidio, Captain Call had given her one of his rifles; she took that, too.
“If we get separated, you’d have a gun you might kill an antelope or a deer with,” he had said.
“I’ve never killed a big animal,” Lorena had replied. “I’d rather we didn’t get separated.”
Now they were separated. Lorena had trouble getting the heavy rifle out of its scabbard. She finally had to take the scabbard off the saddle to do it. She took the pistol and the rifle and crawled quickly into a thick clump of chaparral near the camp. The thorns were sharp and she got scratched in several places, but she didn’t care. She clutched the guns and pushed on into the very center of the chaparral. If the shooter was Mox Mox and he had killed Captain Call, she meant to kill herself, or else fight so hard that Mox Mox would have to kill her to get her out of the brush. She didn’t intend to be Mox Mox’s prisoner again, not even if it meant losing the life she wanted to devote to her children. Clara and Pea Eye would have to raise the children. She would not live to let Mox Mox smear grease in her eyes again.
Lorena crouched in the brush listening, the pistol in her hand. After the first several rifle shots, there was a long silence. She could only endure it. She didn’t dare come out of her hiding place, although she knew it would be no hiding place at all to the killers if they came for her.
Then she heard three smaller reports—pistol shots, she supposed. Crouching, she remembered the night Gus had rescued her from Blue Duck and Ermoke. She remembered the shooting, and how she had hoped she would die somehow if Gus was killed. She felt that terrible feeling again. If Captain Call had fallen and left her to Mox Mox, she wanted to die. She wanted to have it over; her hope was that she would have the strength to shoot herself. She would have to not think too much of her children. She would have to let them pass in her mind to Clara and Pea.
But the cold hours passed, and Lorena heard nothing and saw nothing. There was not a movement anywhere. She twisted around and around in the thorny chaparral, hoping to catch a glimpse of the men who might be coming, so she could prepare.
But no men came. Lorena waited hours; four or more, judging by the weak sun. Finally she began to be a little less frightened. The terror th
at had tightened her chest and made it hard even to breathe began to loosen. It might be that no one was coming. It might be that Captain Call had killed Mox Mox, or the Garza boy, or whoever had been there. If he hadn’t, someone would have come.
She kept looking in the direction Captain Call had taken. She knew he must be injured or dead, otherwise he would have returned. She began to feel that she should go look for him, but it was midafternoon, and the sun was dropping in its arc before she could conquer her fear sufficiently to crawl out of the chaparral. The thorns had made her feel at least a little bit safe. She was reluctant to leave them, but she knew she had to. If Captain Call was dead, it was time to know it. Then she would have to try and go on alone. She knew where the Rio Grande was. That morning, Captain Call had said they would be there in two more days. She thought she could survive two days and find her way, if no one caught her.
When she stood up she could see one of the stray horses. It had not moved from where it had been that morning, though the other horse was gone. She mounted and rode toward the horse, her pistol in her hand. It took her only a few minutes to cover the distance to the stray horse.
The first thing she saw as she came near the stray was a dead horse: it was Captain Call’s. Lying not far from it was a dead mule deer. As Lorena approached, a fawn bounded away.
Then she saw the Captain’s rifle. There was blood on the sand near it, and a bloody trail leading toward the stray horse. Lorena dismounted and followed the trail of blood, pistol in hand.
When she found the Captain lying flat on his back behind a sage bush, a pistol lying near, she thought he was dead. Blood had pooled beneath him, some of it seeping out of a wound in his chest; the rest was from a smashed arm and smashed leg. She thought he was dead. She had better leave him and try to get to the river and find Pea Eye. But when she knelt by the Captain, she saw his eyelids flutter. He opened his eyes and his hand came up, as if he were about to fire a gun at her. Only he had no gun in his hand. The pistol lay not a foot away, beside his mangled leg.
Call saw that it was the woman, Pea Eye’s wife. Her face had collected itself out of the whiteness he lay in. She had a horse behind her. He had almost shot at her, thinking she was Joey Garza—it was lucky he had lost hold of his gun.
“He got me, you go on,” he whispered.
“Who got you—was it Mox Mox?”
“No,” Call said. “Mox Mox would have come to burn me. It was the boy. I never saw a trace of him.”
Then he fainted. His voice had been a feeble whisper. Yet he wasn’t dead. How he had lived with such wounds and such a loss of blood was a mystery, though Lorena knew that people did survive the most terrible wounds, all the time. Gus McCrae could have survived, if only he would have allowed his legs to be taken off. Lorena had felt angry for years that Gus would not allow that; as if she would have stopped loving him because he had no legs!
Now the same violence or worse had been done to the Captain. If he lived at all, he would probably have to lose the leg and the arm. Lorena didn’t know how she could move him without killing him. Yet she had to move him, or else build a fire where he was. When night came, he would freeze in his own blood if he had no fire.
Also, his horse was dead, and they had brought no pack animals. He would have to ride her horse, if he lived. Then she remembered the stray horse, still standing a hundred yards or so away. Maybe the stray was tame enough that she could ride him. Then the Captain could have her horse, if she could get him on it. She took the bridle off Call’s dead horse and walked out to the stray. The horse, a buckskin, whinnied when she approached; she saw that he was hobbled. No wonder he had stood there all day. She slipped the bridle on, and the horse let her lead him back to where the Captain lay.
Then Lorena went back to their camp and moved it. She had been mostly packed anyway. There was just the coffeepot and the skillet and a few other things. She had waited in the chaparral too long, and now it was too late to move the Captain. The best thing she could do for him was to build a big fire and try to get a little coffee in him. If she kept him warm, he might live through the night.
Lorena spent the last hour of sunlight gathering wood. She wanted to keep the fire hot until morning. The Captain whispered now and then, but so low that Lorena couldn’t hear what he was saying. He was still bleeding; she didn’t expect him to live. His hands twitched, but otherwise he scarcely moved. At times, the Captain lay so still that Lorena thought he was gone. She would have to put her hand on his breast to determine that he was still breathing.
The only water she had was in the four canteens, and there was no creek or river near where they had camped. Lorena knew she ought to wash the Captain’s wounds, but she was fearful of using up the water. If she couldn’t move him for several days, they would need it. If she left him to go look for water, she might be unable to find her way back—she might only make their situation worse.
She decided finally to sacrifice one canteen. She boiled water in the coffeepot, and very carefully opened the Captain’s shirt and cleaned the wound in his chest. The arm and the leg were more difficult, for she had to cut his shirtsleeve and pants leg away. Every time she moved the wounded limbs even a little, the Captain moaned. Once, when she was a little too rough with the leg, he cried out.
It was no wonder, either. His knee was nothing but splinters of bone, and the arm was not much better. Still, Lorena knew that it was the wound in his chest that threatened his life. The wound leaked only a little blood now, but a large bullet was somewhere in the Captain, near his heart, and that was bad.
Once in the night, Call woke. He had supposed Lorena was gone, but then he saw her putting sticks on the fire.
“You ought to go on,” he said, again. “You can make the river. Pea Eye ain’t far from the river. Just follow the Rio Concho into Mexico for half a day. You’ll find him.”
“Captain, I can’t ride off and leave you to die,” Lorena said. “If you die, I’ll go—but not until then.”
“Foolish,” Call whispered. “I might linger for a week. I can’t get well. I’d be obliged if you’d go.”
“Am I such poor company?” Lorena said, trying to josh a little. His breathing was labored, and she didn’t expect he would live.
“You’ve got a family, I don’t,” Call whispered.
“You need to quit talking and rest,” Lorena said.
That was easy advice to take. Call found that just lifting his tongue to make words was heavy work. It was as hard as lifting the side of a wagon to fix a busted wheel. A few words, just whispers, and he had to rest.
In the night the sky cleared, and the cold grew more bitter. Just before first light, Lorena used the last of her wood. She could hear the Captain breathing; there was a rasp in his breath. She had to walk a long way to find an armful of frozen sticks. For a moment she thought she was lost; but luckily, it was still dark enough that she caught a flash of her own fire. She made it back to camp and fed the fire, holding her cold hands over it.
Despite the good fire, the Captain was shivering. Lorena managed to pull and tug until she got the saddle free of his dead mount. She wanted the saddle blanket. They had only three blankets, and she put all of them on the Captain, placing the heavy saddle blanket over them. She had to keep arranging the blankets, because the Captain became restive. When he shifted, he cried out from the pain in his arm and leg.
Lorena knew she had to choose from between lesser evils. She could try to get the Captain on a horse and take him with her, or she had to leave and hope she could find a town and get back with help before he died. Probably he would die in either event, from moving or from staying.
He was not a large man; in the years since she had last seen him, he had become older and smaller. She was sure he hadn’t been so small when she had known him before her marriage. She felt sure she could lift him onto a horse, but whether the movement would kill him, she didn’t know. When it warmed a little, she would have to make her choice.
She
tried to feed Call a little coffee with a spoon, but he was shivering so that most of the coffee spilled onto his shirt.
“You need to take a little, it’ll warm you,” she said. But Call was unconscious; he didn’t respond.
Lorena decided then to take him with her. If she could get him on a horse while he was unconscious, the pain might not be so sharp. A few buzzards were circling in the cold sky, attracted by the dead horse and the dead deer. Lorena’s horse was an old black plug named Blackie. The Captain had chosen a solid mount for her, one that would not act up and throw her some cold morning.
She saddled Blackie and walked him over to the dead horse. The frost was so intense that the dead horse didn’t smell, not yet. The corpse would make a good stepladder, she decided; it was the only one available to her. She didn’t want to give herself time to think about the task too much. She didn’t want to waver.
When she lifted the Captain, she was shocked by how little he weighed. Clarie, her fifteen-year-old, far outweighed him. She had been tussling with Clarie not long before they left home, and had tried to lift her off the ground. It was all she could do to lift her daughter and carry her a few steps.
Captain Call wasn’t as heavy as Clarie, not nearly. It seemed absurd to her that this man, old and small, was still the man they sent after the meanest killers. They should have found a younger manhunter long since, and Captain Call should have been living a safer life.
That was wisdom come too late, though. As she was carrying him to the horse, the Captain woke. He looked at the ground, as if surprised that a woman was carrying him. But his eyes were not focusing, for he was in great pain.
“Captain, do you think you can ride?” Lorena asked. “I caught that other horse—I’ll put you on Blackie.”
Call blinked; the world was hazy. He saw the black horse standing by the dead horse. Lorena was carrying him as if he weighed nothing. The fact was, his weight had dropped in the last few years. But not being on his own feet startled him. It made him wonder if he was still himself. He had always had his own feet on the ground. To be carried, even the few steps to the horse, was like floating. He felt he was floating into another life, a life so different from his old one that he wondered if he would even have the same name.
The Lonesome Dove Chronicles (1-4) Page 274