It made Lorena sad, to see the boy looking so forlornly for his mother. He was a large boy, but sweet; his main problem was that he could not attend to himself very well. He was always spilling things on his clothes, or sitting down in puddles, or forgetting to button his buttons in the mornings.
“My mother isn’t by the river,” Teresa told Lorena. “She is among the dead. Rafael doesn’t understand where the dead live.”
“I don’t understand that too well, myself,” Lorena said. “I know they’re somewhere you can’t see them.”
Later, she felt bad about the remark. She had made it to a little girl who had never seen her mother.
“I dream of my mother,” Teresa said. “I dream she is with me and my rooster.”
8.
BILLY WILLIAMS DROVE them to Fort Stockton, when Call was finally strong enough to make the trip. Billy knew a bartender in Presidio who owned a wagon he didn’t need. He persuaded the bartender to lend it for the journey, promising to bring it back loaded with cases of whiskey.
“You ought to come with us to the Panhandle,” Pea Eye told him. He and Billy had become fast friends, during the period of Call’s convalescence.
“Come to the Panhandle. I’ll make a farmer out of you,” Pea Eye said.
“Nope, I imagine I’d miss Old Mex,” Billy replied.
Gordo, the butcher, was annoyed when the wagon pulled away. Lorena had allowed Rafael to bring two goats. Teresa had her rooster, and three hens. Gordo didn’t care how many goats and chickens the gringos took away; he was annoyed because they took the little blind girl. She was almost as pretty as her mother had been, and soon she would be old enough to marry. Of course, she was blind; she might be a poor housekeeper, and she might not cook well. But he could cook for himself, and cooking and housekeeping were not the only things to consider. The butcher thought he might have liked to marry the girl, if the gringos hadn’t taken her away.
9.
CALL HARDLY SPOKE during the wagon ride to Fort Stockton. He held on to the side of the wagon with his one hand. The bullet in his chest still pained him, and it pained him even more when he was jostled, as he was when they crossed the many gullies along the way.
Now and then they met travelers, cowboys mostly. Call dreaded such meetings; he dreaded being seen at all. Fortunately, though, the travelers weren’t much interested in him. They were far more interested in Pea Eye. His victory over Joey Garza was the biggest thing to happen on the border since the Mexican War, and none of the cowboys were old enough to remember the Mexican War.
Pea Eye felt embarrassed by all the attention he was getting. What made his embarrassment even worse was that he was getting that attention right in front of the Captain. Pea Eye had always been just a corporal—it was the Captain who had killed Mox Mox and his men. He didn’t feel right being a hero, not with the Captain sitting right there in the same wagon. The Captain didn’t seem to mind, though. He didn’t even appear to be listening most of the time. But Pea Eye was still embarrassed.
“Mox Mox was worse than Joey,” Pea Eye told Lorena.
“Yes, he was worse,” Lorena agreed. She started to tell her husband that she had been Mox Mox’s captive, but she caught herself. That had happened before Pea Eye was her husband. He didn’t need to know about it.
10.
THEY ROLLED INTO Fort Stockton beside the railroad. When they came to the dusty, one-room station, they saw a private car sitting by itself on the track.
“I wonder what swell came in that?” Lorena said.
They soon found out. The stationmaster emerged from the little building with a short, white-haired man with a curling mustache and a quick, restless walk. The two came right out to meet the wagon, though by the time they got there, the white-haired man was twenty yards in front of the stationmaster.
“I’m Colonel Terry, I’ve come to look for Brookshire—why ain’t he with you?” the white-haired man said to Pea Eye.
“He started with you, I know that much, because I ordered him to,” Colonel Terry said, before Pea Eye could think of a nice way to inform him that Mr. Brookshire was dead.
“It was a foolish order,” Call said. The Colonel’s manner irritated him. Lately, Call had used his voice so seldom that what he said came out raspy.
“What’s that? Who are you, sir?” the Colonel asked.
“I’m Woodrow Call,” the Captain replied. “Your man’s dead. Mrs. Parker brought the body out, at considerable risk to herself. Mr. Brookshire’s at an undertaker’s, in Presidio.”
“Well, his sister’s been raising hell, trying to get us to find him—so much hell that I came here myself,” the Colonel said. “Did the man do his duty?”
“I reckon he did,” Pea Eye said. “I wouldn’t be here driving this wagon, if he hadn’t bought that big shotgun.”
“If he did his duty, then his sister will get the pension,” the Colonel told them.
“It was a foolish order,” Call repeated. “Brookshire was no fighting man, and he should not have been sent to chase bandits.”
He looked at the Colonel and noticed a detail that had escaped him at first: the Colonel’s empty right sleeve was pinned neatly to his coat.
“Now hold on, Call—I sent Brookshire to keep the accounts,” Colonel Terry said. “You were the man sent to catch the bandit, and from the looks of you, you made a botch of it.”
Pea Eye nearly dropped the reins. Never in his life had he heard anyone speak so bluntly to the Captain.
To his amazement, Captain Call smiled.
“That’s accurate,” Call said. “I made a botch of it. But Mr. Parker is an able man, and he finished the job for you.”
“Grateful,” Colonel Terry said, glancing up at Pea Eye briefly. His custom did not run to extended compliments.
“If Brookshire did his job, where’s the ledgers?” he asked.
Call didn’t answer, and Pea Eye wasn’t too sure what the Colonel was referring to.
“Oh, them big account books?” he said, finally. “We used them to start fires, back when it was so cold. We was in a country where there wasn’t no kindling, and very little brush.”
Call looked over the side of the wagon at Colonel Terry. He recalled that after Brookshire’s first little panic at the Amarillo station, the man had been an uncomplaining companion. He did not intend to let the Colonel abuse him.
“Where’d you lose your arm?” Call asked him.
“First Manassas,” Colonel Terry said. He looked into the wagon and saw that Call had lost not only an arm, but a leg as well. He had been about to rethink the matter of the pension. An accountant who burned the account books because of a little weather was not doing his job, in the Colonel’s view. At least, he wasn’t doing it well enough that his family could simply expect to get his pension. But Captain Call was a frosty sort. It was known that he had killed the manburner, Mox Mox, another sizable threat to the security of paying customers. Colonel Terry seldom paused for anyone; but Captain Call had a distinguished record, and it seemed he felt strongly about Brookshire. It was not the moment to harp on pensions, paid or unpaid, the Colonel decided.
“Brookshire’s sister lives in Avon, Connecticut,” the Colonel told them. He remembered that the Garza menace had been ended, and the primary goal had been accomplished. Perhaps Brookshire had been some help. The pension was a modest one anyway, enough to keep a widow or an old maid sister, if the widow or the old maid was frugal.
“Well, without those ledgers, it will be damn hard to get the books to balance,” he said, annoyed as he always was by irregularities in regard to the accounting.
He surveyed the group in the wagon. There was Call, minus an arm and a leg; there was Mr. Parker and a handsome blond woman—very handsome, he decided upon taking a second look. Then there was a greasy old fellow in buckskins, and a Mexican boy with shaggy hair and eyes somewhat like a sheep’s. There was a pretty little girl who appeared to be blind, plus a bit of a menagerie: two goats, three hens, and a
rooster.
Colonel Sheridan Terry—“Sherry Terry,” as he was known in the military, because of his thirst for sherries and ports—had an abrupt shift of mood. It seemed to him that the people in the wagon had had too much hard travel, and all of them looked dirty and all of them looked tired. He gave the blond woman the smile that had won Miss Cora’s heart, and the hearts of not a few others, too. The blond woman was a beauty. If she had a wash, she might look better than Cora. The truth was, he had begun to grow a little tired of Cora.
“You people look like you need a wash,” he said. “I expect you’ve come a fair ways, in that old wagon. I’ll make my bath available. Of course, you’re welcome to go first, ma’am—you and the young lady.”
Lorena had not been paying much attention to the palaver. She was too tired. She ached from her heels to her ears, for the jolting had been continuous for almost two hundred miles. The Colonel’s speech was brusque, but then, most men’s speech was brusque. She had been half asleep when she heard the Colonel offer his bath. Every time the wagon stopped jolting for even five minutes, Lorena was apt to go into a doze. She had never been in a private railroad car before, much less had a bath in one. From the outside the car looked pretty fancy—she wished Tessie could see it. Pea Eye had taken to calling Teresa Tessie, and soon they all were doing it—the Captain, too. At least Teresa could feel the warm water and enjoy the bath, though.
“My name is Lorena Parker, and the young lady’s name is Teresa,” Lorena said. “I can’t think of anything we’d be more grateful for than a bath.”
“Come along, then—it’s just a step,” Colonel Terry said. He reached up a hand, the left one, the one that had been spared. Lorena took it and stepped down. Then she helped Teresa out of the wagon, and the two of them followed the Colonel. His manner had changed, but not his gait. He was soon twenty yards ahead of Lorena and Teresa. The stationmaster walked with the womenfolk, at a more moderate pace.
“You reckon all Yankees walk that fast?” he asked.
11.
BILLY WILLIAMS LOADED the wagon with whiskey and started back for Ojinaga the next day.
“I ain’t been gone but a week, and I already miss Old Mex,” he said.
“I still wish you’d come home with us and try farming,” Pea Eye said.
“Why?” Lorena asked. “You don’t even like farming yourself. If you don’t like it, why would you think other people ought to do it?”
Pea Eye didn’t know what had prompted his invitation. He thought it might have had something to do with the fact that Billy Williams was a bachelor.
“He’s by himself,” he told his wife. “We’d be company for him.”
“You’d be a bachelor yourself, if I wasn’t bold,” Lorena reminded him.
12.
COLONEL TERRY’S GENEROUS mood lasted several days. He insisted that they all ride back to San Antonio as his guests. He arranged a separate passenger car, just for them and the goats and the chickens. The more he saw of Lorena, the more he realized how tired he was of Cora.
Just as they were leaving for San Antonio, the Colonel changed his mind and took them to Laredo instead. He needed to see the governor of Coahuila, and the errand couldn’t wait.
“I think Mexico’s the coming place,” he told Call. “They’ve got minerals. All they need is railroads.”
“Did it take you long to learn to get by without your arm?” Call asked. He didn’t have much patience with Terry, but he did have some curiosity about the lost arm. The Colonel seemed to function briskly without it. Of course, he owned a railroad and kept a servant with him, to help him dress. Still, Call suspected the Colonel was the sort who would function briskly, servant or no servant.
“It took me five years,” Colonel Terry said. “Fortunately, the War was on, and the War took my mind off it. My orderly did most of the work, but I did all the thinking. You can’t worry too much about one arm when there’s a war going on.”
Call said nothing. He didn’t feel brisk, and didn’t expect to. The detour to Laredo didn’t bother him, though it did bother Pea Eye and Lorena. They wanted to get home to their children, but he himself had a little business to attend to, in Laredo. He wanted to find Bolivar, and see if he was well enough to come with them to the Panhandle. He could not simply leave the old man with the Mexican family—they were too poor, and he had promised them he would come back and get Bolivar when he could.
In Laredo he asked Pea Eye to hire a buggy. Pea lifted him into it, and they crossed the river into Mexico. Call had some difficulty remembering just where he had left Bolivar, but by making inquiries they finally found the little house.
The woman he had left Bolivar with could not conceal her shock when she saw how the Captain looked. He was gray, and he seemed so old.
“Oh, Señor Call,” she said. “Bolivar died. He died the day you brought him—the day you left to go up the river.”
“Well, I’ll swear,” Call said.
He had brought some money. He paid the woman well, but he didn’t say a word as Pea Eye drove him back across the Rio Grande. He seemed to sink into himself, so deeply that Pea Eye didn’t even try to make conversation. He concentrated on driving the buggy.
“That’s about the last of them,” Call said in a whisper, as they were driving through Laredo.
“The last, Captain?” Pea Eye asked.
“The last of the Hat Creek boys,” Call said.
“Well, Captain, there’s me. . . .” Pea Eye mumbled.
13.
AS SOON AS Colonel Terry left for Saltillo to pay his business call on the governor of Coahuila, Lorena went directly to the telegraph office and sent two wires—one to Clara Allen in Nebraska, and the other to Charles Goodnight. She asked Clara to send her children home when it was convenient, and she asked Charles Goodnight if he would loan her enough money for rail passage for three adults and two children, from Laredo to Quanah. She wanted to ask Mr. Goodnight if he could possibly send a wagon and a cowhand to get them home from Quanah; but in the end, she didn’t make that request. If they could just get to Quanah, they could scare up a wagon for themselves. Someone would get them home. It was the money for the tickets she needed most. She hadn’t a cent, and neither did Pea Eye. The Captain had given most of his money to a Mexican woman, the one who had kept Bolivar. In any case, Lorena didn’t want to borrow from Call. She was willing to take care of him, but she didn’t want to be dependent on him for money.
She didn’t intend to be in Laredo when Colonel Terry returned from Mexico, either. When the Colonel had offered to let Lorena and Teresa use his big brass bathtub, he had been courteous and had visited a saloon while they took their baths. But on the long trip to Laredo, the Colonel had begun to find reasons to invite Lorena into his private car. He had discovered that she was a teacher, and no doubt liked to read. He had quite a few books in his private car. He had a man in New York who kept him supplied, for occasions when he traveled with lady guests. Now and then, he even liked to leaf through a book himself. He had the latest novels and such, and he felt sure he had some that Lorena might enjoy.
Lorena would have liked a book, but she didn’t want to go back to the Colonel’s private car. The Colonel visited them in their car, several times a day, and he never missed an opportunity to compliment her, to pat her, to lean too close, to breathe on her neck, or to look her hard in the eye. Lorena surrounded herself with children. She sat between Teresa and Rafael, but the Colonel still patted her, leaned over her, looked at her. Lorena put her arm around Teresa when the Colonel was in the car. The one advantage to being blind is that she’ll never see men’s looks, Lorena thought.
Pea Eye found it surprising that the Colonel would be so friendly. From hearing Brookshire talk about him, he would not have supposed that the Colonel would be friendly at all. He even had his servant bring them food, from time to time. Giving them a whole car to themselves was plenty generous, Pea Eye thought. He mentioned it to Lorena, but Lorena didn’t say a word.
/>
Just before they got to Laredo, Lorena was walking back to the dining car. She was on her way to beg a little stale bread for Teresa’s chickens, when Colonel Terry suddenly popped out of a sleeping compartment. He didn’t say a word—he just grabbed Lorena’s arm and tried to pull her into the compartment. Lorena dropped the bread plate, and it broke. The Colonel was strong: if he had two hands, Lorena would have had a hard struggle. The Colonel wasn’t expecting a struggle of any sort, though he supposed Lorena might fuss a little, as Cora sometimes did. But what did that amount to? Women would fuss a little; it was part of the game.
“Now, missy,” he said, but the next moment his hand was pouring blood. Lorena had picked up a piece of the broken plate and had slashed him with it, across the top of his hand. The Colonel let go his hold. Blood was streaming from the wound. She had cut him deep, and from the way she was holding the shard of plate, she would be capable of cutting him again.
“Why, you hellion . . .” he barked. “You cut my hand!”
“You see that one-legged man in the next car?” Lorena asked him. “You see Captain Call? I cut his leg off myself, with a bowie knife. I’ll be glad to do the same for your one hand if you ever try to be familiar with me again, Colonel.”
The Colonel looked scared. Men usually did, if you hurt them a little.
“I’ve got to see the governor of Coahuila tomorrow,” the Colonel said, in a shocked voice. “What am I going to do about this hand? Can’t you bandage me, ma’am? I’m pouring blood all over the floor.”
“You’re lucky it wasn’t your throat,” Lorena said. “One of these days, if I’m not left alone, I’m going to cut a man’s throat, I expect.”
Colonel Terry felt a little faint. Cora might fuss, but she never cut him. When Lorena went past him he drew back, which was wise. If he had touched her again, Lorena felt she might have cut him worse—far worse than she had done already.
The Lonesome Dove Chronicles (1-4) Page 286