Part 71 (1/2)
How do you stop? Newt wondered. It wasn't a thing he could forget, Pea Eye mentioned it as he would mention the weather, something natural that just happened and was over. Only for Newt it wasn't over. Every day it would rise in his mind and stay there until something distracted him.
Newt didn't know it, but Call, too, lived almost constantly with the thought of Jake Spoon. He felt half sick from thinking about it. He couldn't concentrate on the work at hand, and often if spoken to he wouldn't respond. He wanted somehow to move time backwards to a point where Jake could have been saved. Many times, in his thoughts, he managed to save Jake, usually by having made him stay with the herd. As the herd approached the Republican, Call's thoughts were back on the Brazos, where Jake had been allowed to go astray.
At night, alone, he grew bitter at himself for indulging in such pointless thoughts. It was like the business with Maggie that Gus harped on so. His mind tried to change it, have it different, but those too were pointless thoughts. Things thought and things said didn't make much difference and with Gus spending all his time with the woman there was very little said anyway. Sometimes Gus would come over and ride with him for a few miles, but they didn't discuss Jake Spoon. As such things went, it had been simple. He could remember hangings that had been harder: once they had to hang a boy for something his father had made him do.
When they sighted the Republican River Gus was with him. From a distance it didn't seem like much of a river. ”That's the one that got the Pumphrey boy, ain't it?” Augustus said. ”Hope it don't get none of us, we're a skinny outfit as it is.”
”We wouldn't be if you did any work,” Call said. ”Are you going to leave her in Ogallala or what?”
”Are you talking about Lorie or this mare I'm riding?” Augustus asked. ”If it's Lorie, it wouldn't kill you to use her name.”
”I don't see that it matters,” Call said, though even as he said it he remembered that it had seemed to matter to Maggie-she had wanted to hear him say her name.
”You've got a name,” Augustus said. ”Don't it matter to you, whether people use it?”
”Not much,” Call said.
”No, I guess it wouldn't,” Augustus said. ”You're so sure you're right it doesn't matter to you whether people talk to you at all. I'm glad I've been wrong enough to keep in practice.”
”Why would you want to keep in practice being wrong?” Call asked. ”I'd think it would be something you'd try to avoid.”
”You can't avoid it, you've got to learn to handle it,” Augustus said. ”If you only come face to face with your own mistakes once or twice in your life it's bound to be extra painful. I face mine every day-that way they ain't usually much worse than a dry shave.”
”Anyway, I hope you leave her,” Call said. ”We might get in the Indians before we get to Montana.”
”I'll have to see,” Augustus said. ”We've grown attached. I won't leave her unless I'm sure she's in good hands.”
”Are you aiming to marry?”
”I could do worse,” Augustus said. ”I've done worse twice, in fact. However, matrimony's a big step and we ain't discussed it.”
”Of course, you ain't seen the other one yet,” Call said.
”That one's got a name too-Clara,” Augustus pointed out. ”You are determined not to use names for females. I'm surprised you even named your mare.”
”Pea Eye named her,” Call said. It was true. Pea Eye had done it the first time she bit him.
That afternoon they swam the Republican without losing an animal. At supper afterward, Jasper Fant's spirits were high-he had built up an unreasoning fear of the Republican River and felt that once he crossed it he could count on living practically forever. He felt so good he even danced an impromptu jig.
”You've missed your calling, Jasper,” Augustus said, highly amused by this display. ”You ought to try dancing in wh.o.r.ehouses-you might pick up a favor or two that you otherwise couldn't afford.”
”Reckon the Captain will let us go to town once we get to Nebraska?” Needle asked. ”It seems like a long time since there's been a town.”
”If he don't, I think I'll marry a heifer,” Bert said.
Po Campo sat with his back against a wagon wheel, jingling his tambourine.
”It's going to get dry,” he said.
”Fine,” Soupy replied. ”I got wet enough down about the Red to last me forever.”
”It's better to be wet than dry,” Po Campo said. Usually cheerful, he had fallen into a somber mood.
”It ain't if you drown,” Pea Eye observed.
”There won't be much to cook when it gets dry,” Po said.
Newt and the Rainey boys had begun to talk of wh.o.r.es. Surely the Captain would let them go to town with the rest of the crew when they hit Ogallala. The puzzling thing was how much a wh.o.r.e might cost. The talk around the wagon was never very specific on that score. The Rainey boys were constantly tallying up their wages and trying to calculate whether they would be sufficient. What made it complicated was that they had played cards for credit the whole way north. The older hands had done the same, and the debts were complicated. As the arrival in Ogallala began to dominate their thoughts almost entirely, the question of cash was constantly discussed, and many debts discounted on the promise of actual money.
”What if they don't pay us here?” the pessimistic Needle asked one night. ”We signed on for Montana, we might not get no wages in Nebraska.”
”Oh, the Captain will pay us,” Dish said. Despite his attachment to Lorena he was becoming as excited as the rest about going to town.
”Why would he?” Lippy asked. ”He don't care whether you have a wh.o.r.e or not, Dish.”
That sentiment struck everyone as almost undoubtedly true, and established a general worry. By the time they crossed the Stinking Water the worry had become so oppressive that many hands could think of nothing else. Finally a delegation, headed by Jasper, approached Augustus on the subject. They surrounded him one morning when he came for breakfast and expressed their fear.
Augustus had a big laugh when he figured out what was bothering them. ”Why, you girls,” he said. ”All you want is orgies.”
”No, it's wh.o.r.es we want,” Jasper said, a little irritated. ”It's fine for you to laugh, you got Lorie.”
”Yes, but what's good for me ain't necessarily good for the weak-minded,” Augustus said.
However, the next day he pa.s.sed the word that everyone would be paid half wages in Ogallala. Call was not enthusiastic but the men had worked well and he couldn't oppose giving them a day in town.
As soon as they heard the ruling, spirits improved, all except Po Campo's. He continued to insist that it would be dry.
80.
WHEN ELMIRA'S FEVER finally broke she was so weak she could barely turn her head on the pillow. The first thing she saw was Zwey, looking in the window of the doctor's little house. It was raining, but Zwey stood there in his buffalo coat, looking in at her.
The next day he was still there, and the next. She wanted to call out to him to see if he had news of Dee, but she was too weak. Her voice was just a whisper. The doctor who tended her, a short man with a red beard, seemed not much healthier than she was. He coughed so hard that sometimes he would have to set her medicine down to keep from spilling it. His name was Patrick Arandel, and his hands shook after each coughing fit. But he had taken her in and tended her almost constantly for the first week, expecting all the time that she would die.
”He's as loyal as any dog,” he whispered to her, when she was well enough to understand conversation. For a while she had just stared back at him without comprehension when he spoke to her. He meant Zwey, of course.
”I couldn't even get the man to go away and eat,” the doctor told her. ”I live on tea, myself, but he's a big man. Tea won't keep him going. I guess he asked me a thousand times if you were going to live.”
The doctor sat in a little thin frame chair by her bed and gave her medicine by the spoonful. ”It's to build you up,” he said. ”You didn't hardly have no blood in you when you got here.”
Elmira wished there was a window shade so she couldn't see Zwey staring at her. He stared for hours. She could feel his eyes on her, but she was too weak to turn her head away. Luke seemed to be gone-at least he never showed up.
”Where's Dee?” she whispered, when her voice came back a little. The doctor didn't hear her, she said it so faint, but he happened to notice her lips move. She had to say it again.
”Dee Boot?” she whispered.
”Oh, did you follow that story?” the doctor said. ”Hung him right on schedule about a week after they brought you in. Buried him in Boot Hill. It's a good joke on him, since his name was Boot. He killed a nine-year-old boy, he won't be missed around here.”