Comanche Moon (47 page)

"I can't stop thinking about him, Woodrow," Gus said. "I figure it was just a mistake Billy made, hanging himself. If he'd thought it over a few more minutes he might have stayed alive and gone on rangering with us." "He's gone, though, Gus--he's gone," Call reminded him, without reproach. He realized he had many of the feelings Augustus was trying to express. All through the bush country he had been nagged by a sense that something was missing, the troop incomplete. He knew it was Long Bill Coleman he missed, and Augustus missed him too. It was, in a way, as if Long Bill were following them at an uncomfortable distance; as if he were out somewhere, in the thin scrub, hoping to be taken back into life.

"I hate a thing like death," Augustus said.

"Well, everybody hates it, I expect," Call said.

"One reason I hate it is because it don't leave you no time to finish conversations," Gus said.

"Oh," Call said. "Was you having a conversation with Billy that night before ... it happened?" Augustus remembered well what he and Billy Coleman had been talking about the night before the suicide. Bill had heard from somebody that Matilda Jane Roberts, their old travelling companion, had opened a bordello in Denver. Matty, as they called her, had ever been a generous whore. Once, on the Rio Grande, bathing not far from camp, she had plucked a big snapping turtle out of the water and walked into camp carrying it by its tail. He and Long Bill always talked about the snapping turtle when Matilda's name came up.

"We was talking about Matty, I believe she's in Denver now," Gus said.

"I guess she never made it to California, then," Call said. "She was planning to go to California, when we knew her." "People don't always do what they intend, Woodrow," Gus said. "Billy Coleman had it in mind to turn carpenter, only he couldn't drive a nail." "He was only a fair shot," Call remembered. "I guess it's a wonder he survived as a ranger as long as he did." "You survive, and you're just a fair shot yourself," Augustus pointed out.

"He married," Call said. He remembered how anguished Long Bill had been after he learned that Pearl had been outraged by the Comanches. That discovery changed him more than all their scrapes and adventures on the prairies.

"He's out there now, Woodrow--I feel him," Gus said. "He's wanting to come back in the worst way." "He's in your memory, that's where he is," Call said. "He's in mine too." He did not believe Long Bill's ghost was out in the sage and the thin chaparral; it was in their memories that Long Bill was a haunt.

"Rangers oughtn't to marry," he said. "They have to leave their womenfolk for too long a spell.

Things like that raid can happen." Augustus didn't answer for a while.

"Things like that happen, married or not," he said finally. "You could be a barber and still get killed." "I just said what I believe," Call said.

"Rangering means ranging, like Captain Scull said. It ain't a settled life. I expect Bill would be alive, if he hadn't married." "I guess it's bad news for Maggie, if you feel that way, Woodrow," Gus said.

"She's needing to retire." "She can retire, if she wants to," Call said.

"Yes, retire and starve," Gus said.

"What would a retired whore do, in Austin, to earn a living? The only thing retired whores can do is what Matty just did, open a whorehouse, and I doubt Maggie's got the capital. I imagine she could borrow it if you went on her note." Call said nothing. He was being as polite as he could. They would need to be at their best, if they were to rescue Captain Scull.

They ought not to be quarrelling over things they couldn't change. He believed what he had just said: rangers ought not to marry. The business about going on Maggie's note was frivolous--Maggie Tilton had no desire to open a whorehouse.

"I doubt Captain Scull is even alive," Gus said. "That old bandit probably killed him long ago." "Maybe, but we still have to look," Call said.

"Yes, but what's our chances?" Gus asked.

"We'll be looking for one man's bones--they could be anywhere in Mexico." "We still have to look," Call said, wishing Augustus would just quiet down and go to sleep.

On the third day the rangers came into terrain that looked familiar--they had crossed the same country before, when Inish Scull had first pursued Ahumado into the Sierra Perdida.

"We've got to be alert now," Call said.

"We're in his country." In the afternoon they both had the feeling that they were being watched--and yet, as far as they could see, the country was entirely empty of human beings. The mountains were now a faint line, far to the west.

Augustus kept looking behind him, and Call did too, but neither of them saw anyone. Once Gus noticed a puff of dust, far behind them. They hid and waited, but no one came. Gus saw the puff of dust again.

"It's them," he said. "They're laying back." Too nervous to leave the problem uninvestigated, they crept back, only to see that the dust had been kicked up by a big mule deer. Gus wanted to shoot the deer, but Call advised against it.

"The sound of a gun would travel too far," he said.

"The sound of my belly rumbling will too, pretty soon, if we don't raise some more grub," Gus said.

"Throw your knife at him--I don't object to that," Call said. "I think it's time we started travelling at night." "Aw, Woodrow, I hate travelling at night in a foreign country," Augustus said.

"I get to thinking about Billy being a ghost. I'd see a spook behind every rock." "That's better than having Ahumado catch you," Call told him. "We're not as important as Captain Scull. They won't send no expeditions after us." "Woodrow, he ain't important either," Augustus said. "None of these ranchers let us have a single cow--I guess they figure the Captain's rich enough to pay his own way out." They rode all night and, the next day, hid under some overhanging rocks. Gus thought to amuse himself by playing solitaire, only to discover that his deck of cards was incomplete.

"No aces," he informed his companion. "That damn Lee Hitch stole every one of them. What good is a deck of cards that don't have no aces?" "You're just playing against yourself," Call pointed out. "Why do you need aces?" "You ain't a card-playing man and you wouldn't understand," Gus said. "I always knew Lee Hitch was a card cheat. I mean to give him a good licking once we get back to town." "I'd suggest hitting him with a post, if you want to whip him," Call said. "Lee Hitch is stout." As dusk approached they started to edge into the foothills and immediately began to see tracks. People had been on the move, some on horseback, some on foot, and all the tracks led out of the Sierra. Gus, who considered himself a tracker of high skill, jumped down to study the tracks but was frustrated by poor light.

"I could read these tracks if we'd got here a little earlier," he said.

"Let's keep going," Call said. "These tracks were probably just made by some poor people looking for a better place to settle." As they passed from the foothills into the first narrow canyon, the darkness deepened. Above them, soon, was a trough of stars, but their light didn't do much to illuminate the canyon. The terrain was so rocky that they dismounted and began to lead their horses. They had but one mount apiece and could not risk laming them. They entered an area where there were large boulders, some of them the size of small houses.

"There could be several pistoleros behind every one of those big rocks," Augustus pointed out.

"We might be surrounded and not know it." "I doubt it," Call said. "I don't think there's anybody here." When they had ridden into the Yellow Canyon before, there had been no army of pistoleros, just three or four riflemen, shooting from caves in the rock. Only their Apache scout had seen Ahumado lean out briefly and shoot Hector and the Captain. No one else saw him.

Ahumado was not like Buffalo Hump--he didn't prance around in front of his enemies, taunting them. He hid and shot; he was only seen by his enemies once he had made them his prisoner.

As they walked their horses deeper and deeper into the Sierra Perdida, Call became more and more convinced that they were alone. From years of rangering in dangerous territory he had gained some confidence: he believed he could sense the presence of hostiles before he saw them. There would be a sense of threat that could not be traced to any one element of the situation: the horses might be nervous, the birds might be more noisy; or the threat might be detectable by the absence of normal sounds. Even if there was nothing specific to point to, he would tense a little, grow nervous, and rarely was his sense of alarm without basis. If he felt there was about to be a fight, usually there would be a fight.

Now, in the canyon that led to the cliff of caves, he felt no special apprehension.

Few landscapes were more threatening, physically-- Gus was right about the boulders being a good place for pistoleros to hide--but he didn't believe there were any pistoleros. The place felt empty, and he said so.

"He's gone," he said. "We've come too late, or else we've come to the wrong place." "It's the place we came to before, Woodrow," Augustus said. "I remember that sharp peak to the south. This is the same place." "I know that," Call agreed, "but I don't think anybody's here." "Why would they leave?" Gus asked. "They'd be pretty hard to attack, in these rocks." Call didn't answer--he felt perplexed.

They were only a few miles from the place where they expected to find the Captain, but they had heard nothing and seen nothing to indicate that anyone was there.

"Maybe we came all this way for nothing," he said.

"Maybe," Gus said. "We've had a lot of practice, going on expeditions for nothing.

That's how it's mostly turned out. You ride awhile in one direction and then you turn around and ride back." In the rocky terrain they had several times heard rattlesnakes sing, so many that Augustus had become reluctant to put his foot on the ground.

"We'll just get snakebit if we keep tramping on in the dark like this," he said. "Let's stop, Woodrow." "We might as well," Call agreed. "We can't be more than a mile or two from the place where the camp was. In the morning we can ride in and see what we see." "I hope I see a whore and a jug of tequila," Gus said. "Two whores wouldn't hurt, either. I'm so randy I might wear one of them down." Now that he didn't have to march through rattlesnakes, Augustus felt a little more relaxed. He immediately took off his boots and shook them out.

"What was in your boots?" Call inquired.

"Just my feet, but I like to shake my boots out regular," Gus said.

"Why?" "Scorpions," Gus replied. "They crawl around everywhere, down here in Mexico. One could sneak off a rock and go right in my boot.

They say if a Mexican scorpion bites you on your foot it will rot all your toes off." They hobbled the horses and kept them close by. There was no question of a fire, but they had a few scraps of cold venison in their saddlebags and ate that.

"Why would he ask for a thousand cattle if he was planning to leave?" Call asked.

"Maybe he didn't," Gus suggested. "That vaquero who showed up in Austin might have been lying, hoping to get a thousand free cattle for himself. I expect he just wanted to start a ranch." "If so, he was a bold vaquero," Call said. "He came right into Austin. We could have hung him." "The more scared I get, the more I feel like poking a whore," Augustus said.

"How scared are you?" Call asked.

"Not very, but I could still use a poke," Augustus said.

When he thought about the matter he realized that he had almost no apprehension, even though they were close to the Black Vaquero's camp.

"I know why I ain't scared, Woodrow," he said. "Long Bill ain't haunting us no more.

He was following along for a while but he's not here now." "Well, he never liked Mexico," Call observed. "Maybe that's why." "Either that or he just decided it was too far to travel," Augustus said.

It was after the old crippled woman began to bring him food that Scull's mind slipped.

At first the food she brought him was only corn-- ears of young corn which she pitched down into the pit.

The kernels were only just forming on the corn, it was so young; but Scull ate it greedily, ripping off the husks and biting and sucking the young kernels for their milky juice. The cobs he threw in a pile. He had been so hungry he was about to eat the dead snakes; the corn and the cool water revived him; it was then, though, with his strength returning and his ankle not so sore, that he began to speak in Greek. He looked up at the old woman to thank her, to say "gracias," and instead reeled off a paragraph of Demosthenes that he had learned at the knee of his tutor, forty years ago. It was only later, in the night, when the pit was dark, that he realized what he had done.

At first his lapse amused him. It was a curious thing; he would have to discuss it with someone at Harvard, if he survived. He believed it was probably the eyelids. The sun, unobstructed, burned through forty years of memory and revealed, again, a boy sitting in a chilly room in Boston, a Greek grammar in his lap, while a tutor who looked not unlike Hickling Prescott put him through his verbs.

The next morning it happened again. He woke to the smell of tortillas cooking--then the old woman rolled up a handful and lowered them to him in the jug that she used to bring him water. Scull hopped up and began to quote Greek--one of Achilles' wild imprecations from the Iliad, he couldn't recall which book. The old woman did not seem startled or frightened by the strange ^ws coming from the filthy, almost naked man in the pit. She looked down at him calmly, as if it were a normal thing for a white man in a pit in the Mexican mountains to be spouting Greek hexameters.

The old woman didn't seem to care what language he spoke, English and Greek being equally unintelligible to her; but Scull cared.

It wasn't merely damage done by the sun that was causing him to slip suddenly into Greek; it was the Scull dementia, damage from the broken seed. His father, Evanswood Scull, intermittently mad but a brilliant linguist, used to stomp into the nursery, thundering out passages in Latin, Greek, Icelandic, and Old Law French, a language which it was said that he was the only man in America to have a thorough mastery of.