Part 51 (1/2)

”I guess he took Joe's horse,” July said.

”Yes, and his life,” Augustus said. ”I'm sure he had more interest in the horse.”

”If you're going after him I'd like to try and help,” July said.

”I got nothing to go after him on,” Augustus said. ”He's better mounted than us, and this ain't no place to go chasing a man who's got you out-horsed. He's headed for the Purgatory this time, I bet.”

”The what?” July asked.

”It's a river up in Colorado,” Augustus said. ”He's probably got another gang there. We best let him go this time.”

”I hate to,” July said. He had begun to imagine confronting the man and shooting him down.

”Son, this is a sad thing,” Augustus said. ”Loss of life always is. But the life is lost for good. Don't you go attempting vengeance. You've got more urgent business. If I ever run into Blue Duck I'll kill him. But if I don't, somebody else will. He's big and mean, but sooner or later he'll meet somebody bigger and meaner. Or a snake will bite him or a horse will fall on him, or he'll get hung, or one of his renegades will shoot him in the back. Or he'll just get old and die.”

He went over and tightened the girth on his saddle.

”Don't be trying to give back pain for pain,” he said. ”You can't get even measures in business like this. You best go find your wife.”

July looked across the river at the unending prairie. If I find her she'll hate me worse now, he thought.

Augustus watched him mount, thinking how young he looked. He couldn't be much over twenty. But he was old enough to have found a wife and lost her-not that it took long to lose one, necessarily.

”Where is this Adobe Walls place?” July asked.

”It ain't far down the river,” Augustus said, ”but I'd pa.s.s by it if I were you. Your wife ain't there. If she went up the Arkansas I'd imagine she's up in Kansas, in one of the towns.”

”I would hate to miss her,” July said.

If she's at Adobe Walls, you'd do better to miss her, Augustus thought, but he didn't say it. He shook hands with the young sheriff and watched him mount and ride across the river. Soon he dipped out of sight, in the rough breaks to the north. When he reappeared on the Vast plain, he was only a tiny speck.

Augustus went to Lorena. He had spent most of the night simply holding her in his arms, hoping that body heat would finally help her stop trembling and shaking. She had not said a word so far, but she would look him in the face, which was a good sign. He had seen women captives too broken even to raise their eyes.

”Come on, Lorie,” he said. ”Let's take a little ride.”

She stood up obediently, like a child.

”We'll just ride over east a ways and see if we can find us some shade,” Augustus said. ”Then we'll loll around for a couple of weeks and let Call and the boys catch up with us. They'll be coming with the cattle pretty soon. By then I expect you'll be feeling better.”

Lorena didn't answer, but she mounted without help and rode beside him all day.

59.

CALL EXPECTED GUS to be back in a day or two. Maybe he'd have the girl and maybe he wouldn't, but it was not likely he'd be gone long. Gus was a hard traveler and usually overtook whoever he was after promptly, arrested them or dispatched them, and got back.

For a day or two he didn't give Gus's absence much thought. He was irritated with Jake Spoon for having been so troublesome and undependable, but then, he partly had himself to blame for that. He should have set Jake straight before they left Lonesome Dove-informed him in no uncertain terms that the girl wasn't coming.

When the third day pa.s.sed and Gus wasn't back, Call began to be uneasy. Augustus had survived so much that Call didn't give his safety much thought. Even men accustomed all their lives to sudden death didn't expect it to happen to Gus McCrae. The rest of them might fall by the wayside, their mortality taking gentle or cruel forms, but Gus would just go on talking.

Yet five days pa.s.sed, and then a week, and he didn't return. The herd crossed the Brazos without incident, and then the Trinity, and there was still no Gus.

They camped west of Fort Worth and Call allowed the men to go into town. It would be the last town they would see until they hit Ogallala, and it might be that some of them wouldn't live to hit Ogallala. He let them go carouse, keeping just the boys, to help him hold the herd. Dish Boggett volunteered to stay, too-he still had his thoughts on Lorena and was not about to leave camp while there was a chance that Gus would bring her back.

”Dern, he's behaving like a deacon,” Soupy said. ”I expect to hear him preach a sermon any day.”

Needle Nelson took a more charitable view. ”He's just in love,” he said. ”He don't want to go tras.h.i.+ng around with us.”

”By G.o.d, he'll wish he had before we hit Nebraska,” Jasper Fant said. ”You don't see me waiting. I'd like to drink a couple of more bottles of good whiskey before I have to cross any more of them cold rivers. They got real cold rivers up north, I hear. Some of them even got ice in them, I guess.”

”If I was to see a chunk of ice in a river, I'd rope it and we could use it to water our drinks,” Bert Borum said.

Bert was inordinately proud of his skill with a rope, the men thought. He was indeed quick and accurate, but the men were tired of hearing him brag on himself and were constantly on the lookout for things he could rope that might cause him to miss. Once Bert had silenced them for a whole day by roping a coyote on the first throw, but they were not the sort of men to keep silent long.

”Go rope that dern bull, if you're so good at roping,” Needle Nelson said, referring to the Texas bull. The bull seemed to resent it when the cowboys sat in groups-he would position himself fifty yards away and paw the earth and bellow. Needle was in favor of shooting him but Call wouldn't allow it.

”I can rope the son of a b.i.t.c.h fast enough,” Bert said. ”Getting the rope off would be the problem.”

”Getting you buried would be the problem if you was to rope that bull,” Dish said. The fact that he chose to restrain himself and not get drunk in Fort Worth increased his sense of superiority somewhat, and many of the crew had had about all of Dish's sense of superiority as they could take, particularly since he was restraining himself for love of a young woman who clearly didn't give a hoot about him.

”If you're so in love, why didn't you go bring her back and leave Gus here?” Jasper asked. ”Gus is a d.a.m.n sight more entertaining than you are, Dish.”

At that Dish turned and jumped him but Call soon broke it up. ”If you want to fight, collect your wages first,” he said.

The Rainey boys were feeling grownup and wanted Newt to talk the Captain into letting them go to town. ”I wanta try a wh.o.r.e,” Ben Rainey said.

Newt declined to make the request.

”Just ask him,” Ben said.

”I'll ask him when we get to Nebraska,” Newt said.

”Yeah, and if I drown in the Red River I won't ever get to try no wh.o.r.e,” Ben said.

Call began to be very worried about Gus. It was unusual for him to be gone so long with only one man to chase. Of course, Blue Duck might have had a gang waiting, and Gus might have ridden into an ambush. He had not done any serious fighting in years. Even Pea Eye had begun to worry about him.

”Here we are all the way to Fort Worth and Gus still ain't back,” Pea Eye said.

Po Campo didn't go to Fort Worth either. He sat with his back to one of the wheels of the wagon, whittling one of the little female figures he liked to carve. As he walked along during the day he kept his eye out for promising chunks of wood and, if he saw one, would pitch it in the wagon. Then at night he whittled. He would start with a fairly big chunk, and after a week or so would have it whittled into a little wooden woman about two inches high.

”I hope he comes back,” Po Campo said. ”I enjoy his acquaintance, although he doesn't like my cooking.”

”Well, we wasn't used to eating bugs and such when you first came,” Pea Eye said. ”I expect he'll work up a taste for it when he comes back. It never used to take him so long to catch a bandit.”

”He won't catch Blue Duck,” Po Campo said.