Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

by Comanche Moon

  "How long have you owed this debt?" he asked.

  "About fifteen years," Augustus said.

  "If you were going toward the Pecos I'd accompany you until your mind gets a little more active," Goodnight offered.

  "I ain't, though," Gus said. He did not want company, particularly not company as prickly as Charles Goodnight.

  "I'm bound for the good old Rio Grande," he said, although he wasn't.

  "All right, goodbye," Goodnight said. "If I plan to find a way to get my cattle to Colorado, I better start looking." "Charlie, if you do see Matty, tell her she's got a friend in Texas," Augustus said-- he was still choked up.

  "Done, if I get there in time," Goodnight said.

  When five days passed with no ^w from Augustus McCrae or the two men who had been sent to find him, Governor Clark waxed so indignant that he was hot to the touch. Call, impatient himself, thought the Governor's indignation unwarranted. The rangers had no urgent mission at the moment, in light of which Augustus's absence did not seem exceptional. Governor Clark himself was a hunter, often gone from Austin for a week at a time killing deer, antelope, or wild pig. Call began to find the Governor's complaints irksome, and said so to Maggie one evening over a beefsteak which she had been kind enough to cook him. The boy, Newt, had scampered downstairs on his arrival and was blowing his whistle at some chickens who belonged to the lady next door.

  "I expect Gus is just grieving," Maggie said. "If I ever had a husband and he died, I'd want to go off someplace to do my grieving.

  It wouldn't be fair to Newt to do too much moping at home." "Being a ranger's getting to be like being a policeman," Call said. "Nowadays they want you on call all the time." He noticed that Maggie's arms were freckled to the elbows. Probably she had spent a little too much time in the sun, working the little garden plot she had planted with Jake Spoon's help. In the warm months Maggie was never without vegetables.

  It was a fine thing, in Call's view, that Maggie had gained respectable employment at last. He had been in the store one day while Maggie was writing up an inventory and was surprised to see that her penmanship was excellent.

  "Why, you write a hand as fine as Jake's," he said. "They'll be asking you to teach school next. I doubt there's a teacher in town who writes that pretty." "Oh, it just takes practice," Maggie said. "Jake lent me his penmanship book and showed me how to do some of the curls." As Call was finishing his beefsteak he noticed Jake's penmanship book on a table by Maggie's bed; then he noticed a bandanna that he thought was Jake's hanging over the bedpost at the foot of Maggie's bed.

  He had known, of course, that Jake and Maggie had a friendship; the two of them were often seen working in the garden. Jake's skills as a gardener were such that a number of local women pestered him for his secrets or showed up to watch when he was working in the garden. Jake basked in the attention of all the local ladies--Call had no doubt that many of them would have envied Maggie her penmanship lessons.

  "Why, Jake's left his bandanna on the bedpost," Call said, as Maggie was taking his plate to the wash bucket.

  "Yes, he left it," Maggie said. At that point young Newt burst in, crying and holding up an injured hand; in his pursuit of the chickens he had wandered too close to old Dan, the turkey, and had been soundly pecked.

  "That ain't the first time Dan's pecked you--why won't you avoid that turkey?" Maggie said.

  "Go down to the mud puddle and daub a little mud on that peck--it'll soothe it." When Newt went down Maggie excused herself for a moment and went with him--she wanted to run the old turkey off before it did damage to her garden.

  While Maggie was gone Call looked around the room. A pair of Jake's spurs were on the floor by the little sofa and his shaving brush and razor were by the wash basin.

  Call knew it was none of his business where Jake kept his razor, or his spurs, or his bandanna, and yet the sight of so many of Jake's things in Maggie's room disturbed him in a way he had not expected. When she came back he thanked her for the beefsteak, gave Newt a penny for some sassafras candy--newt was a well-bbhaved little boy who deserved an occasional treat--and left.

  Call got his rifle and started to take a short walk down by the river. He had been twice to the Governor that day and had spent the afternoon going over the company accounts with Jake, a task that always tired him. He didn't intend to walk long.

  As he came out of the bunkhouse he saw Jake Spoon leave a saloon across the street and angle off toward Maggie's rooms.

  Ordinarily he would have thought nothing of it, but that night he did think of it. He didn't wait to see if Jake went up the stairs to the room he himself had just left; he felt that would be unseemly. Instead, he walked out of town, disquieted without quite knowing why. He realized he had no right to boss Maggie Tilton at all. She had her employment and could do as she pleased.

  The thought that disturbed him--right or no right--was that Jake and Maggie were now living together. That notion startled him greatly. Maggie was a respectable woman now, with a child who was well liked. She needed to be thinking of her work and her child and not risk her respectability for any reason --certainly not for the irresponsible Jake Spoon.

  Call walked out of Austin on the wagon road that led to San Antonio. He wished Gus were back, not because the Governor wanted him back but so he could ask his opinion about the matter of Maggie and Jake. Of course, he knew nothing definite--all he knew was that what he was feeling left him too agitated for sleep.

  In what seemed like a matter of minutes Call was surprised to see, at a curve in the wagon road, a big live oak tree that had been split by lightning some years before. The reason for his surprise was that the live oak was ten miles from town. In his confusion he had walked much farther than he had meant to--usually he only strolled two or three miles and went to bed. But he had walked ten miles without noticing, and would have to walk another ten to get back to the bunkhouse.

  The walk back went slower--it was almost dawn when he got back to the bunkhouse. Across the way, Maggie's window was dark. Was Jake sleeping there? And what if he was? He had long since put the whole question of Maggie and men out of his mind. Now, suddenly, it was very much in his mind, and yet he had no one to discuss the matter withand was far from knowing even what he felt himself.

  Old Ikey Ripple, retired now except for ceremonial appearances, was sitting on a nail keg rubbing his white hair when Call walked up, in the first light.

  "Hello, you're up early," Call said, to the old man. Ikey, of course, was always up early.

  "Yep, I don't like to miss none of the day," Ikey said.

  Ikey was a snuff dipper; he had already worked his lip over a good wad of snuff.

  "Where have you been, Captain?" he asked.

  "It's too early for patrol." "Just looking around," Call said. "Someone saw three Indians west of town yesterday. I don't want them slipping in and running off any stock." "Will you be going off to the war, Captain?" Ikey asked.

  Call shook his head, which seemed to reassure the old man.

  "If you was to go off to that war I expect the Indians would slip in and get all the stock," Ikey said.

  Ikey looked around and saw only the morning mist. The mention of Indians to the west was unwelcome. Those same Indians could be hidden by the mist--they might be lurking anywhere in which case he was more than glad to have Captain Call with him.

  "I've been skeert of Indians all my life," Ikey said, feeling the sudden need to unburden himself in the matter. "I expect I've woke up a thousand times, expecting to see an Indian standing over me ready to yank off my scalp. But here I am eighty and they ain't got me yet, so I expect it was wasted worry." "I imagine you'll be safe, if you just stay in town," Call told him. "You need to be careful, though, if you're off fishing." "Oh, I don't fish no more--give it up," Ikey said.

  "Why, Ikey?" Call asked. "Fishing is a harmless pursuit." "It's because of the bones," Ikey said.

  "Remember Jacob Low? He was that tailor who choked on a fish bone. Go
t it stuck in his gullet and was dead before anybody knew what to do.

  Here I've survived the Comanches near eighty years--I'm damned if I want to take the risk of choking on a bone from one of them bony little perch." "I don't recall that you've been married, since I've known you," Call said.

  But he left the remark hanging--j a remark, not quite a question. He felt absurd suddenly.

  Maggie Tilton had wanted, for years, to marry him, but he had declined, preferring bachelorhood--why was he talking about marriage to an eighty-year-old bachelor who had little to do but gossip? Though fond of Maggie, he had never wanted to marry and didn't know why he was so disturbed to discover that she was keeping closer company with Jake than he had supposed.

  "Illinois," Ikey Ripple said. "I sparked a girl once--it was in Illinois." Though Captain Call didn't question him further, Ikey thought back, across sixty years, to the girl he had sparked in Illinois, whose name was Sally. They had danced once in a hoedown; she had blue eyes. But Sally had fallen out of a boat on a foggy morning, while crossing the Mississippi River on a trip to Still.

  Louis with her father. Her body, so far as he could recall, had never been found. Had her name been Sally? Or had it been Mary? Had her eyes been blue? Or had they been brown? He had danced with her once at a hoedown. Was it her father she had been with on the boat trip? Or was it her mother?

  Captain Call, who had seemed interested, for a moment, in Ikey's past with women, walked off to seek breakfast, leaving Ikey to sit alone, on his nail keg. As the morning sun burned away the mist in the streets of Austin, the mist in Ikey's memory deepened, as he tried to think about that girl--was it Mary or Sally, were her eyes blue or brown, was it her mother or her father she was in the boat with?--he had danced with at a hoedown long ago.

  By the tenth day of travel Pea Eye had given himself up for lost. There was so little vegetation that he had let his horse go at night, in hopes that he would find enough grazing to survive. Often, when he awoke in the gray dawn, neither the horse nor Famous Shoes would be anywhere in sight.

  All he would see, as the sun rose, was an empty, arid plain, almost desert. There was seldom a cloud, just a great ring of horizon, with nothing moving within it. The freezing plains to the north had been just as empty, but he had only ventured onto the llano with a troop of men; now, for most of the day, he was alone. He had long since stopped believing that they would find Gus McCrae--why would Gus leave the cozy saloons of Austin to come to such a place?

  After the first week, Pea Eye's days were spent struggling against his own sense of desperation.

  Sometimes he would not see Famous Shoes until the evening. He rode west, west, west, feeling hopeless. It was true that Famous Shoes always returned, as promised, when the evening star shone; but, every day, Pea Eye became more anxious that the man would abandon him. When Famous Shoes did appear, Pea Eye's relief was intense but short lived; soon it would be morning again, and Famous Shoes nowhere to be seen.

  Sometimes it took Pea Eye an hour just to locate his horse--the animal would be nibbling leaves or small plants in some little dip or gully. Then, all day, he would plod to the west, seeing no one. All day he longed for company, any company.

  On the tenth evening, when Famous Shoes rejoined him, Pea Eye could not hold back his doubts.

  "Gus ain't out here, is he?" he asked.

  "How would he get this far? Why would he want to cross so much of this poor country?" Famous Shoes knew the young ranger was scared.

  Nothing was easier to detect in a man than fear.

  It showed even in the way he fumbled with his cup while drinking coffee; and it was normal that he would be afraid. He didn't know where he was, and it must puzzle him that Captain McCrae would choose to go so far into the desert. The young ranger was not old enough to understand the things men might do when they were uncertain and unhappy.

  "He is ahead of us, just one day," Famous Shoes said. "I have not lost his track, and I won't lose it." "By why would he come so far?" Pea Eye asked. "There's nothing here." Famous Shoes had been wondering about the same thing. The journeys that people took had always interested him; his own life was a constant journeying, though not quite so constant as it had been before he had his wives and children. Usually he only agreed to scout for the Texans if they were going in a direction he wanted to go himself, in order to see a particular hill or stream, to visit a relative or friend, or just to search for a bird or animal he wanted to observe.

  Also, he often went back to places he had been at earlier times in his life, just to see if the places would seem the same. In most cases, because he himself had changed, the places did not seem exactly as he remembered them, but there were exceptions. The simplest places, where there was only rock and sky, or water and rock, changed the least. When he felt disturbances in his life, as all men would, Famous Shoes tried to go back to one of the simple places, the places of rock and sky, to steady himself and grow calm again.

  Though he had not talked with Captain McCrae about his journey, Famous Shoes had the feeling that such a thing might be happening within him because of the loss of his wife. Captain McCrae might be going back to someplace that he had been before, hoping he would find that it was the same and that it was simple. Every day Famous Shoes followed his track and noted that the Captain was not wandering aimlessly, like a man too distracted to notice where he was going. Captain McCrae knew where he was going--t much Famous Shoes did not doubt.

  "I think he is going back to a place he has been before," Famous Shoes said, in answer to Pea Eye's question. "He is pointed toward the Rio Grande now. If he stops when he comes to the river we will find him tomorrow." Famous Shoes suspected that the young ranger did not believe what he had just said--he was not old enough to understand the need to go back to a place where things were simple. He had no happiness in his face, the young ranger; perhaps he had never had a place where things were simple, a place he could think about when he needed to remember happiness.

  Perhaps the young ranger had been unlucky--he might have no good place or good time to remember.

  Famous Shoes himself had begun to feel the need to live in a simpler place. The plains were filled with white travellers now, all heading west. The Comanches were more irritable than ever, because their best hunting grounds were always being disturbed. The buffalo had moved north, where there were fewer people.

  The old life of the plains, the life he had known as a boy, was not there to be lived anymore. The great spaces were still there, of course, but they were not empty spaces, as they had once been; the plains did not encourage his dreams, as they once had.

  Lately he had been thinking of moving his family even farther south, to a simpler, emptier place, such as could be found along the Rio Grande, in the place of the canyons. There was not much to eat along the river there; his wives would have to keep busy gathering food, and they would also have to learn to eat things that people of the desert ate: rats, mesquite beans, corn, roots of various kinds. But his wives were young and energetic--he was sure they could find enough food if he beat them a little, just enough to convince them that the lazy years were over --p who lived in the desert had to work. The food was not going to come to them.

  One of the reasons he had agreed to track Captain McCrae was because once the job was finished he could go on and investigate the river country a little--he wanted a place where he would not be bothered by irritable Comanches or the continual movement of the whites. He was hoping to find a place with a high mountain nearby. He thought it might be good to sit high up once in a while.

  If he was high enough there would be nothing to see but the sky and, now and then, a few of the great eagles.

  He thought living in a place where there were eagles to watch might encourage some pretty good dreams.

  Augustus had always enjoyed calendars and almanacs--he rarely journeyed out of Austin without an almanac in his saddlebag. If he did any reading at night around the campfire it was usually just a page or two of
the current almanac. Often he would discover that, on the very day he was living, the signs of the zodiac were in disorder, causing dire things to be predicted.

  If the predictions were especially dire-- hurricanes, earthquakes, floods--Gus would amuse himself by reading aloud about the catastrophes that were due to start happening at any moment. If he saw a heavy cloud building up he would inform the men that it was probably the harbinger of a forty-day flood that would probably drown them all. Many of the rangers were unable to sleep, after one of Gus's readings; those who knew a few letters would borrow the almanac and peer at the prophetic passages, only to discover that Augustus had not misread. The terrible predictions were there, and, inasmuch as they were printed, must be true.

  When nothing happened, no flood, no earthquake, no sulphurous fire, Augustus suavely explained that they had been spared due to a sudden shifting in the stars.