Streets of Laredo

by Larry McMurtry

  "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 that 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.

  "I ain't been carried since my ma carried me, I guess," he whispered.

  Lorena got his good foot in the stirrup.

  Call pulled up with her help, but when he swung his bad leg over the saddle, he yelled out; then he vomited and fainted.

  At least he was on the horse, Lorena thought.

  He was unconscious. She cut his lariat into sections with the big bowie knife he kept in his saddlebags, and then she tied him on.

  The buckskin stray was jumpy when she first mounted, but she walked him until he settled down. Captain Call was alive, but only just.

  She didn't want any jumpy horses causing his death. She led Blackie, and led him slowly.

  She hoped Call would come to from time to time, to direct her if she strayed off course.

  Call did awaken several times during the day, but he was too weak to speak. The pain in his leg was so intense that he could not hang on to consciousness for more than a few minutes. Lorena checked on him frequently. She was hoping for directions, but Call's whispers were incoherent. He muttered a name, but she didn't catch it.

  Lorena stopped well before dark. She wanted plenty of time to gather firewood. They stopped by a little creek with a trickle of water in it. She wanted to heat water and try again to wash the Captain's wounds. He had wet himself during the long day horseback. She knew she could never manage to change his pants with the shattered knee, but she could at least put him by the fire and dry him. The wound in his chest was still leaking blood. She cleaned that and then cleaned off the saddle; it was a bloody, smelly mess.

  Lorena gathered an abundance of firewood and drank several cups of strong coffee. She gave the Captain some and he came awake enough to drink it gratefully. All they had was bacon.

  Lorena fried some, but the Captain only ate two bites.

  "Dillard," he whispered. It was the name he had been muttering all day. But it meant nothing to Lorena.

  "Dillard Brawley," Call said. "He was the barber in Lonesome Dove." "Well, I never used a barber in Lonesome Dove," Lorena said. "I guess I never met him.

  "A centipede got in his pants and ruined his leg," Call whispered. "Gus and me tied him to a table and cut his leg off. We had to--he would have died of blood poisoning, if we hadn't.

  You have to do the same, you have to cut my leg off." "No," Lorena said. "That town can't be more than two more days. There'll be a doctor there to tend to your leg." In his haze during the ride, Call remembered Gus McCrae's wounded legs and how they looked before he died. Both Gus's legs had turned black, and Gus's wound had been nowhere near as bad as his. During the day, a great clot of blood had formed on Call's splintered knee. The bullet had hit just below the knee, but had gone upward and wrecked the kneecap. Lorena had tried to wash the clot, but it looked so bad that she had concentrated on doing the other wounds first. The bone fragments were like needles.

  Then she remembered the one-legged man in Lonesome Dove; he had come in the bar sometimes.

  He had a hoarse voice.

  "Was Dillard the man with the hoarse voice?" she asked.

  Call nodded. "He ruined his voice, screaming, when we took the leg off," Call whispered. "We thought he'd faint, but he never fainted. He just screamed his voice away." Lorena concentrated on washing the wounded arm; she hoped the Captain would forget about the leg, though she knew the pain must be too great to allow for forgetfulness. She was not squeamish. Clara had sometimes been in demand as a midwife, and Lorena had gone with her to help. She had also helped castrate horses when the ranch was shorthanded, and she had helped birth foals, as well a
s babies. She had felt the pains of childbirth five times herself, and she didn't faint at the sight of blood, even a lot of blood. She had seen injuries, some of them horrible. She had once bandaged the arm of a farmer who had been mangled in a haying machine, and she had several times cut fish hooks out of her own children.

  But she didn't want to have to be the one to remove Captain Call's leg. Better to travel night and day until they reached a settlement where there was a qualified doctor. The knee looked so bad that she was even indecisive about cleaning it. Still, there was Gus and his death to remember. The clot on the Captain's knee was black.

  Lorena thought about it until her mind went numb. She tipped over by the hot fire and slept a little.

  In the morning when she awoke, the Captain was looking at her out of feverish eyes. Lorena looked at the leg and then looked away.

  "You might bleed to death," she said.

  "I didn't yet," Call whispered. "I ain't handsome, like Gus. I've got no women to lose. If I have to be one-legged, I will. I want to live to kill that boy." Lorena felt a flush of disgust. The man was all but dead and might be dead before a day passed, or even an hour. He could barely whisper and his arm was ruined; he had a bullet in his chest that made his breath sound like a snore. Yet he still wanted to kill. The sympathy Lorena had felt for him in his pain, went away. Not all of it, but much of it.

  "You ought to think of a better reason to live than killing a boy," Lorena said. "If killing is the only reason you can think of to live, then you might as well die." Call was surprised by the anger in Lorena's voice.

  Lorena was surprised by it herself. It came from memories and from times long past, from things she had felt about Gus, and things she had felt about Jake Spoon. The very man before her, Captain Call, the man with the ruined arm and leg and the deep chest wound, had himself hung Jake Spoon, his friend. If Gus McCrae hadn't killed to save her, she would have died alone at the hands of cruel men, long years before. She would have had no husband, no children, no pupils. Killing was part of the life they had all lived on the frontier.