Streets of Laredo

by Larry McMurtry

  Maybe it was another woman with a stray husband, who Bob Jekyll had forced.

  "Why, no," Olin said. "I don't recall hearing her name. The poor thing took rat poison and died. They're trying the sheriff for murder, but I doubt he'll hang, myself." "Oh, Lord!" Ted Plunkert said. Something gripped him more powerful than the cold: the fear that it had been Doobie. He had been Bob Jekyll's deputy until he'd quit and gone off with Captain Call. Who but the deputy's wife would be going to the jail to inquire?

  "She died?" he asked, in a weaker tone.

  To everyone's amazement, Deputy Plunkert suddenly sprang up and went stumbling over to the horses. He looked like a crazy man.

  "It was my wife. ... I fear it was her ..." he said, and then he mounted and went racing off in the darkness, to the south.

  "Now, that's bad luck," Brookshire said.

  "I believe I saw his wife as we were leaving Laredo. She was a pert young thing." "Ted oughtn't to run his horse at night, not in this rough country," Pea Eye said. "There's bluffs down the river that a horse could go right off." "I always despised that sheriff," Olin said.

  They heard the clatter of the deputy's horse, receding to the south. Olin felt embarrassed.

  Inadvertently, he had informed a man that his wife was dead. He more and more regretted letting Famous Shoes talk him into joining the camp. Now he had been the bearer of tragic news. If he had just gone on and made his own camp, the poor deputy would still be in ignorance of the fact that he no longer had a wife. Boy, he wished he had made his own camp, and built his own fire! He did not like to cause trouble, and yet he just did.

  "Why, that's the devil," Brookshire said.

  They could scarcely hear the deputy's horse.

  What did the man think he was going to do, run the horse all the way to Laredo? It was hundreds of miles to Laredo. And what could he do when he got there? The poor young woman was no doubt long since buried.

  Then Brookshire remembered that Katie, his own wife, was dead. Of course, her death had been normal; she had taken sick and died. There had been no abuse, and no rat poison. But still, his own wife was gone, and like Deputy Plunkert he would be returning to nothing, if he returned. The cold wind was blowing. It was always blowing.

  Brookshire began to get a worse feeling even than the blowing-away feeling. It struck him that the expedition was cursed. He had lost his wife while on the trip, and now the same thing had happened to the young deputy, who should never have been hired in the first place. All Deputy Plunkert had done was ride pointlessly around Texas and Mexico, while his young wife was despairing and dying.

  The search for Joey Garza was being pressed at a high price, and they hadn't come anywhere near the bandit yet. Now they were in Mexico, and Captain Call was in Texas. All that was being accomplished was that the wives were dying. He knew Pea Eye had a wife, too--when would the messenger appear to tell him that .his wife was dead? Pea Eye's wife was a schoolteacher, he recalled. What if the manburner eluded Captain Call, as Joey Garza had, and burned up Pea Eye's wife along with some of the schoolchildren?

  Brookshire remembered all his happy years with Katie, and began to sob. Ordinarily, he didn't cry in front of people, but this time, as when he first received the news about Katie, he couldn't help it. Sobs shook his shoulders. It embarrassed Pea Eye and Olin, but Brookshire didn't care. He couldn't stop.

  He was freezing, his wife was dead, and now the deputy's wife was dead. He was in a cold place, in a strange, forbidding country, hunting a bandit. How could it all have happened? He was an accountant in Brooklyn. Somehow a chain of events had got started, and now the events were less and less sensible, less and less like events that should be occurring in his life. For a week or two, he had enjoyed the adventure; he had even flourished. He mastered new skills, such as building fires. But the pleasure had all ended once he got the telegram informing him of Katie's death. Now it was all cold, fatigue, and pain. Where would it lead?

  Brookshire remembered his first impression of Captain Call. He had felt that the man was too old for the mission he was charged with. He had looked too old that first morning in Amarillo.

  Brookshire had quickly gained confidence in the Captain, but now it was beginning to seem that his confidence had been misplaced, and that his first impression had been accurate. The Captain had pursued no clear plan. He had let himself be distracted by another killer. They had ridden through Mexico and then through Texas, without coming even within a hundred miles of Joey Garza, as far as he knew. It didn't add up, and Colonel Terry would be quick to point out how erratically things had been managed.

  But there was more at work than just cold and inconvenience and tactical mistakes. At home, behind them, the wives were dying.

  "How far is it back?" he asked. He felt that he was in the grip of a sickness of some kind. He was in a place where nothing was rational and civilized, as it had been in Princeton College, or as it was in Brooklyn. He was in a place where people killed regularly, where killing was a day-to-day part of life. Of course, there were killings in Brooklyn, but very few. In Texas and Mexico, killing seemed to be almost constant. Brookshire had the feeling that he might go crazy if he didn't get back to a place and a form of life that were more familiar.

  "Back where?" Pea Eye asked. He saw that the man was upset. Deputy Plunkert's departure had startled them all. It was terribly bad luck that Deputy Plunkert had to receive such news when he was hundreds of miles from home.

  The fact that it was rat poison that had killed his wife, not to mention what had happened with the sheriff, were facts that Pea knew must be hard to bear. If anything like that happened to Lorena, he himself would start racing off in the night, ready to shoot the first man he saw.

  But he was not in a position to take Mr.

  Brookshire back to anywhere. They had to go on to Presidio, where the Captain expected them to be. That was a clear order.

  "I expect we'll get to Presidio in about three days, if we don't have trouble," he said.

  Brookshire didn't answer. He scooted closer to the fire and sat with his hands held over the flames. He was shivering and crying.

  Famous Shoes didn't enter into the white men's talk. He was beginning to tire of white men, something that had happened often in his life. They pursued their business in strange ways, and got upset about things he didn't grasp. He had begun to doubt that he would stay with Pea Eye long enough to find his wife. He would like to learn about the tracks in books, but he was old, and the white men's habits were boring. Now one of the men had run off into the night, like a crazy thing. There were only two white men left; if he tracked Joey Garza for these two men, Joey would immediately kill them both. Famous Shoes thought he might tell his friend Pea Eye that his wife could teach him about the little tracks in the spring, when he went traveling on the Rio Rojo.

  Famous Shoes didn't think Joey was in Mexico, and he was getting bored. He thought he might leave in a day or two and go back to the Madre. Eagles were more interesting than white men. It would be more interesting to go home and watch the eagles for a while.

  Goodnight was coming across the sand through the sandhills when he saw a solitary rider coming from the south.

  Crow Town was fifteen miles to the west; he could see a speckling of crows in the sky when he looked toward the winter sunset.

  Coming across this particular stretch of country awakened quite a few memories. Until he noticed the rider Goodnight had been lost in revery, for he was crossing his own trail, the trail he and his old partner, Oliver Loving, had laid out many years before. In fact, he was on the exact spot where they had rested the cattle on the second afternoon of their ninety-mile waterless drive. A horse had died inexplicably, while they were resting. He had cut into the horse in an effort to determine what had killed it, but his work was to no avail. The horse had just died.

  Goodnight had not expected to be crossing the trail so many years after Oliver Loving's death, and at dusk on a cold winter night to boot.

&
nbsp; But so it was.

  If the rider he glimpsed was headed for Crow Town, he was likely to be the sort of man it would behoove a person to avoid. On the other hand, once you started avoiding people, you were apt to lose a lot of time. Even in the remote stretches along the Pecos River, a surprising number of people were apt to turn up.

  Decisions as to whether or not to go around a particular traveler needed to be made almost constantly.

  Going around people had never been Goodnight's practice, and he decided he was too old to change. It was nearly dark, and the weather bleak; he was almost upon the man before he could make out much about him. When the rider was only thirty yards away, Goodnight saw that it was John Wesley Hardin. A second later, Hardin hailed him.

  "Why, Charlie, dammit, you're out late," Hardin said.

  "Out late, and far from home," Goodnight admitted. He himself had never had any difficulty with Wesley Hardin, but Hardin was a nervous man who was known to kill from whim. It wouldn't do to get too jocular with him. If you didn't manage the jocularity to suit John Wesley, he might flare up and yank out a gun.

  "Are you still in the cattle business?" Hardin asked.

  "Yep," Goodnight said. "Still in it. Why?" "Thought you might want to switch to the crow business," Hardin said, in a whinny of a laugh.

  "There's a lot of fine crows around here, and they're going cheap. The best crow in Crow Town wouldn't sell for more than a penny." "In fact, I'm looking for Woodrow Call," Goodnight said. "Any news of him?" "Yes, and I'm the only man that's got it," Hardin said. "I ought to charge you for it, Charlie, since I've got a monopoly, but being as it's you, it's free. Woodrow Call done for Mox Mox." "Now that's news, all right," Goodnight said. "Are you sure?" "Sure as daylight," Hardin said. "I went down to Piedras Negras to whore, because the Garza boy's mother took the women out of Crow Town.

  I'm coming from Mexico, and I'm heading for Denver. I believe I can do better in Colorado than I'm doing in Texas." "Where is Mox Mox?" Goodnight asked.

  "I want to see his body." "I'm surprised you'd doubt my word, Charlie," Hardin said, with a touch of irritation.

  "I don't doubt it, John," Goodnight said. "But I am determined to see the man's body. He burnt four of my cowboys, on the Purgatory River, and I want to be sure it's him, so I can stop chasing him in my head." "Well, the sonofabitch froze to death in a gully about a hundred miles south of here," Hardin said. "Call killed all but one of his men about twenty miles farther on. All of them were laying there dead, except that quick Cherokee boy.

  Him and Mox Mox made a run for it, but Mox Mox was shot in the lights. He played out and froze. I expect the Cherokee is still running." "Let him run," Goodnight said. "Call done a good day's work." "No, he done a sloppy day's work," John Wesley said. "He's lucky he got the six men down, shooting as bad as he was.

  He knocked them over, but they were still kicking, and if any one of them'd had any fight they'd have got him. He had to finish them off with his pistol, which is a disgrace if you're in good range and have a decent rifle to shoot." "The fact that he gave Mox Mox a mortal wound makes it a good day's work, in my opinion," Goodnight said.

  "Mox Mox was just a mean bandit, Charlie," Hardin said. "I wouldn't call him a man of talent. The sonofabitch should have been a cook, since he liked fires so much. I could have killed him in a blink, and all his men, too.

  "I wonder where that Cherokee boy has run to?" he added. "That Cherokee boy is quick, and he ain't wasteful. He didn't leave Mox Mox even so much as a match." "I'd appreciate it if you'd direct me to that gully," Goodnight said. "I'd like to see the body before some varmint drags it off." "Backtrack me for two days, and you'll run right into it, Charlie," Hardin replied. "It ain't more than twenty-five miles south of the railroad." Goodnight was anxious to get going. He had been thinking about his old partner, Oliver Loving, a man he had cared for greatly, and with whom he had camped on the very spot where he was conversing with John Wesley Hardin. Oliver Loving, a fine cattleman, had been dead for many years; John Wesley Hardin, a pure killer and a man who respected no one, was still alive and still brash. It was not justice, it was just life.

  "Well, I'll be going," Goodnight said.

  "Much obliged for the news. Once I've seen what's left of the manburner, I guess I'll go home. Captain Call done the job I ought to have done ten years ago." "He done it, but he was lucky," Hardin said.

  "If you see him, tell him that for me." "It might have been luck, and it might have been preparation," Goodnight said. "Call was always known for his careful preparation." Hardin laughed his whinny of a laugh, again.

  "He can prepare till doomsday. What he needs to do is shoot a little better," Hardin said.

  "He was just fighting louts. If he thinks he can saunter up to the Garza boy and be that lucky, then he ought to retire. The Garza boy will pick him off before Call even knows he's there." "Have you met this boy?" Goodnight asked.

  He didn't necessarily believe what Hardin was saying; on the other hand, what he was saying couldn't be lightly disregarded. Wesley Hardin had been in several penitentiaries, and undoubtedly knew something about killers.

  "Why, yes, he showed up in Crow Town," Hardin said. "That was before the whores left. I found him rather standoffish. I started to kill him, but then I decided it was the wrong day for hostilities." "Why?" Goodnight asked.

  "Well, it just was," Hardin replied.

  "I've got to the age where I don't tempt fate. At least, I don't if I'm drunk, and I was drunk." He cackled, lit a cheap cigar, and left.

  Goodnight looked around; Hardin was the kind of fellow who prompted you to watch your back. But all he saw was a quick arc of red. Hardin had thrown the cheap cigar away.

  Two days later, Goodnight found the gully and inspected the remains, which were a little scattered by that time. The buzzards had helped him locate the correct gully, in a country where there were many.

  Hardin had been right. The manburner was dead.

  There was also a dead horse a few hundred yards from where Mox Mox lay; run to death, Goodnight felt sure. Mox Mox wore a noticeable belt--the belt buckle had a red stone of some kind set in it. Goodnight took the belt and put it in his saddlebags. When he next ran into Call, he planned to give him the belt. If Mox Mox had run far enough to ride a horse to death, Call might not even know that he had killed him. The belt ought to convince him.

  Then, since he had ridden that far to see one body, he rode another twenty miles to the camp where the battle had taken place. He didn't have to search, either. He could see buzzards the whole way.

  Goodnight had surveyed many battle sites. He could usually figure out what had gone on and what mistakes had been made, from looking at the scattered cartridges, the lost hats, and the dead bodies. In this case, he dismounted and inspected the area carefully. He was forced to conclude that John Wesley Hardin had been correct in his assessment: Woodrow Call had been lucky. Probably only his willingness to keep pumping in bullets while his opponents were confused, had saved him. There was cover within a few steps of the campsite. If one or two of the men had had any presence of mind, they could have quickly dug in and made a fight of it.

  They had horses, too; a couple of them could have flanked Call and cut him off.

  They hadn't, though, and that was that. Looking around, Goodnight found something surprising--a small rag doll, such as a little girl might have. Mox Mox must have had captives and was probably going to indulge in his favorite pastime. But Call had killed him in time, and had probably taken the children to safety.

  Goodnight debated going to look for Captain Call. What John Wesley Hardin had to say about the abilities of the Garza boy weighed on his mind. But after a time, he decided to let it be. Mox Mox, not Joey Garza, had burned his cowhands. He himself was not a manhunter, and he had a ranch to run. Woodrow Call was the manhunter. He had accepted the job; let him do it. If he couldn't, some posse would, eventually.

  Besides, Goodnight had been brooding during the whole ride abou
t the insolence of Muley, his ranch cook. He had decided to go home and fire the man, even if it did mean a trip to Amarillo and an irksome search.

  Goodnight didn't like leaving men unburied.

  That had never been his practice, unless the fight was so hot that he couldn't afford to stop and attend to the civilities. He buried the scraps of Mox Mox. The meanness was gone now, and just bones and flesh remained. Goodnight unstrapped his little shovel and did the same for the six dead men.

  Then he turned back north, toward the Quitaque. It was time to hang up the rifle.

  The manburner was dead.

  In the fight with Mox Mox, Call had somehow wrenched his neck. It began to pain him badly as he rode south with Lorena. At times it was as if his nerves were on fire, and he had to grit his teeth against the pain as they rode. He could hardly turn his head to the right at all, and he had to be cautious about turning it to the left, or a streak of fire shot up from his shoulder blade almost to his ear.

  "It's just a nuisance," Call said, when Lorena asked whether he was well. She could see the strain in his face.

  "We should have bought some liniment, when we had the chance," Lorena said. "Pea Eye's always getting sore in his back. He can't lift hay like he once could." Call could not rid himself of the conviction that they were being followed. He had no evidence, but he could not relax. Every time he turned his head to scan the horizon behind them, the pain shot up his neck.

  On the evening of the third day, they met a small horse herd being driven north by two cowboys. One of the cowboys, a tall fellow named Roy Malone, had a drooping mustache that reminded Call of Dish Boggett, the excellent Hat Creek cowboy who was now selling hardware in Lincoln, New Mexico.

  By coincidence, the horse herd was bound for the Chisum Ranch, not far from Lincoln.

  "You're welcome to stop the night with us," Call told Roy Malone, but the cowboy shook his head.

  "You don't stop for the whole night, if you work for Mr. Chisum," Roy said. "He likes things to happen prompt, if not a little sooner." Call would have been relieved to have some help.