Streets of Laredo: A Novel (38 page)

For most of his life, he had paid no attention to weather; weather was just there. He never let it interfere with his work or his movements. In time, the weather would always change, but the work couldn't wait. Now, it seemed, weather was interfering plenty. When the cold struck, his wrist joints became swollen, and the joints of his fingers, even more so. It had happened to a lesser degree the winter before, and a doctor in Amarillo had told him he had arthritis. The only remedy the doctor suggested was that he wear a copper bracelet, advice Call ignored. Now he wished he had tried it. His finger joints were so swollen on the cold mornings that he had an awkward time buttoning his pants, or pulling his saddle straps tight. Knotting the packs onto the mules had ceased to be a simple task, with his joints so swollen. He tried letting Deputy Plunkert pack the mules, but Deputy Plunkert could not tie a knot that would hold.

Just the day before, they had spotted a mule deer --a big doe. They needed meat, too. Call yanked his rifle out of its scabbard and tried to get off a shot, only to find that the knuckle of his trigger finger had swollen so badly he had to force it through the trigger guard. When he finally got his finger on the trigger, the doe was two hundred yards away, and Call missed.

Sitting by the gusting fire with Brookshire and the deputy, Call rubbed the knuckle. It had not become any less swollen. They still needed meat, too. They were living on jerky, and a few tortillas that were stiff as leather. He looked at the knuckle and was shocked by its size. He thought he might possibly have a thorn in it; mesquite thorns could cause swelling in a joint. But he looked closely and could find no sign of a thorn.

It was worrisome. Neither Brookshire nor the deputy was a particularly good shot. He himself was not an exceptional shot, but had usually been able to bring down meat when it was vital. It occurred to him that he might have to take the trigger guard off his rifle. At least he might have to if the intense cold didn't break. He could not remember having been so uncomfortable in cold weather, though he had spent a winter in Montana on the Milk River, where temperatures of forty below zero were not uncommon.

"Well, none of us are as young as we used to be," Brookshire remarked.

Call had never thought much about age. Charlie Goodnight liked to talk about it, but Call found the talk tedious. He was as old as he was, like everyone else; as long as he could still go when he needed to go, age didn't matter much.

He was still able, within reason, to do what he had a mind to do. But he'd had a mind to kill the large doe, and he hadn't. Of course, he wasn't an exceptional shot. He had missed mule deer before, but the fact that he had missed this one just when he had, was troubling. They were just coming into the home country of the young bandit, a boy with a keen eye and a German rifle with a telescope sight.

Getting a knuckle stuck in a trigger guard would not be wise, in a contest with Joey Garza.

"How cold do you have to be to freeze?" Deputy Plunkert asked. Though he hated to open his mouth and let the cold attack the roots of his teeth, he had begun to worry constantly about freezing and wanted to ask. Coming with the Captain was the worst mistake of his life. If he were to freeze to death on the Rio Concho, it would serve him right. But he still didn't want it to happen.

"We won't freeze," Call said. "We can squeeze in with the mules if it gets much worse." Deputy Plunkert had a private agony that he had not shared with his traveling companions. The day before, when they faced the freezing wind, he had put on all the clothes he had brought with him.

He was wearing two pairs of pants, and several shirts. With so much clothing on, and his hands half-frozen anyway, it had proven difficult to get himself fully unbuttoned when a call of nature came in the night. He thought he was free, but when the piss started to flow it turned out that he wasn't--a good measure of piss went between one pair of pants and the other. The cold deepened and the piss froze, making a shield of ice along one thigh. The weak fire barely warmed his hands.

It made no impression on the shield of ice.

Shortly after that calamity, the Yankee, Brookshire, came to his aid by loaning him an extra pair of gloves he had brought along.

Brookshire noticed that the deputy kept dropping his reins, because his hands were so cold he couldn't hold them. He offered the gloves, and the deputy gratefully took them. He knew he would be more grateful too for his wife Doobie's warm body, the next time he got to lie beside it.

"Are you sorry you came with me, Mr.

Brookshire?" Call asked. He knew the Deputy was sorry he had come; his every motion and statement made that clear. But Brookshire was a more complex fellow. He had adapted to hardship far more easily than Call had expected him to. Once out of the heat of Laredo, he had not uttered a word of complaint, and he tried to handle his share of the chores efficiently. Call had come to admire him. It could not be easy to go from the comfortable life of the city to what they were experiencing on the Rio Concho.

Yet it was the deputy--the native--who was feeling worse.

"No, I ain't sorry," Brookshire said.

"Katie's gone now. I'd just as soon be here." He could not think of his wife without tearing up, though he quickly wiped away the tears when they came.

"This way, I feel about as bad outside as I do inside," he said. "It's nice to be shut of the Colonel for a while, too. I imagine he's pretty jumpy by now, wondering what became of us. I hope he ain't fired the whole office." The thought came to Brookshire that if he ever did make it back to Brooklyn, he might take the train down to Princeton College, just to walk among the buildings for an afternoon. He supposed other Princeton men had gone to the West, and come back, though he didn't know any.

He couldn't claim to be a Princeton man anyway; he hadn't had the head for it, and had to quit and take a job in an office. Still, he had a sense that he would like to see the place once more, to look at the gray buildings and the great trees. If he did go, it would be because he had managed to survive a place where no one gave a thought to civilization. Survival was all they had time for, and numbers of them failed even at that.

It would be good to see Princeton again, after the Rio Concho. If he was fortunate enough to find another wife, and marry and have a boy, he thought he might want to send him to Princeton College. If he could marry a smart wife, perhaps he would have a boy with the head for Princeton College. Brookshire began to ruminate about his boy, and what his name might be. He thought he might want to name him Woodrow, after the Captain; that, of course, was a matter that would have to be discussed with his new wife.

The next morning, they came to the Rio Grande. Near its banks was a little village. Call had a distant memory of the place. He and Gus McCrae had once hung some horse thieves not far from it, on the Texas side. The village was called Ojinaga, as he remembered. He and Gus had brought the bodies home. Other Ranger captains considered that foolish, for they thought it invited ambush or revenge. But he and Gus had sometimes done it anyway, on the occasions when the village was close. The men hung were, in most cases, the only ones capable of ambush, and having the bodies made it easier on the womenfolk.

Call had never expected to return to Ojinaga. He remembered the bitterness in the eyes of some of the village women. But that was a common thing, along the border. He saw the bitterness whether he was returning bodies or not.

Now life had brought him back to Ojinaga.

As they rode to the well, in the center of the little plaza, he was surprised to see old Billy Williams standing outside a small adobe house. Billy seemed to be sniffing the air--it was a scout's habit--but what was more surprising was that he held the hands of two children. One was a large boy, and the other a girl of ten or twelve who seemed to be blind. Billy himself didn't appear to be very keen of sight, either. The large boy had a look that suggested he might not be fully right in the head.

Call turned his horse and rode over to the three people. He had never been a great admirer of Billy Williams, but after three hard nights along the cold river, it was comforting to come across an old acquaintance.

"Why, hello, Billy," Call said. "That is you, isn't it?" "Woodrow, where have you been?" Billy asked.

"We've been expecting you for a week." That was unwelcome news.

"Why would you be expecting me?" Call asked.

"Why, everybody knows you're after Joey," Billy Williams said. "It's the talk of the whole West." "I wish the whole West would shut up, then," Call said. "Do you know Joey Garza?" "I know him," Billy said. He saw no point in not admitting it.

"This is his brother and sister," he added. "This is the house he grew up in. His mother, she's gone." "Oh, are these your children?" Call asked, surprised by the news he had just been given. He had heard that Billy had a woman in Mexico.

"They ain't, no," Billy said. "I'm just watching them. Ain't that Deputy Plunkert, from down in Laredo?" "Yes, that's him," Call said.

"What are you dragging him along for, he's worthless," Billy said. "I wouldn't hire him to shovel out shit, if I had a livery stable full of it." "I needed a man," Call replied. "I was hoping he might turn out to be a fighter." "No, he's just a jailer," Billy said.

"I've been arrested in Laredo quite a few times, but always by Sheriff Jekyll. All Plunkert does is ladle out the beans they feed you, when they feed you." "This town looks familiar to me," Call said. "I think I was here before, with Gus. We hung three horse thieves and brought them home." "Yes, to this house," Billy said. "You hung Maria's father and her brother and a brother-in-law.

It's just as well Maria's gone. She ain't forgot." "In that case, I suppose she's gone to warn her son. Or have you warned him already?" "Well, I told Maria you were coming," Billy said. "She thought Joey might be in Crow Town, so she left. The weather turned cold, but she made it to Crow Town, I know that much." "Oh, did a crow tell you?" Call asked.

"No, Famous Shoes told me," Billy said. "He's waiting in Presidio, with your man." "Well, that's good news," Call said.

"Deputy Plunkert can go home now, if he wants to. I'd far rather travel with Pea." While the men were talking, Teresa listened.

Though she herself was not frightened, she could tell that the man frightened people. Billy's voice sounded different, when he was talking to this man. The man's voice wasn't loud, but it was rough. Teresa felt interested--she wished the man would stay with them a little while. She liked the way the man's voice sounded, even if it was rough. From time to time, she felt the man watching her; it was her belief that the air changed, when people watched her.

She wanted to whisper to Rafael, about the man.

She wanted to lead Rafael amid the sheep, to whisper about the strange man who had just come to Ojinaga. Teresa thought the man might be a king, from the way he made the air different when he looked at her. It was very interesting to her. She was glad her mother wasn't home, because her mother always made her go in the house when strangers came.

It pleased her that Billy knew the man.

Perhaps he would visit them again, in the next days, so he could talk to Billy.

"If you care for his brother and sister, then I guess you must be a friend of Joey Garza's," Call said. He wanted what information he could get, but he had traveled the border a long while and knew better than to try and twist loyalties.

He felt the little girl was watching him, but of course, that was wrong thinking; she was blind, she couldn't watch him. But she was an unusually pretty, appealing child. There was something in her quick expression that was unusual. He knew blind children were often very smart, and he suspected that this little girl was one of the smart ones. To be blind must be a sadness for anyone, of course. There would be little hope for the girl, in such a poor village, even though she was clearly going to be a beauty. Some man might marry her for her looks alone, Call supposed.

"I know Joey," Billy admitted. "I knew him when he was a youngster. He was likable then. I have not seen him much since he took up killing and train robbing. I doubt it's improved his disposition." "I expect not," Call said, waiting. Perhaps Billy would let slip something useful; or perhaps not.

"Joey's smart, and he's lived with the Indians," Billy said. "He outran the Apaches, and they couldn't track him, neither. You won't locate Joey easy, unless he decides to come at you and present a challenge." "Famous Shoes can track him, if the railroad can afford his fee," Call said. "I imagine the old man is still expensive." Call sat watching the sprightly girl. He wished he had a bauble to give her, a ribbon, or a locket, or some such trinket. Of course, she wouldn't be able to see it, but she could feel it.

The boy's face was puffy, and he drooled a little. He made a sound, now and then, like the sound a goat would make. It made Call wonder about the mother. What could she be, to produce a beautiful blind girl, an idiot, and a killer? He only dimly remembered the three men he and Gus had hung. The border had an abundance of horse thieves then; probably it still did. He had forgotten many of the ruffians he'd had to deal with.

It seemed an odd turn of the wheel, that he should come back after so many years to the very house where he and Gus had brought the three bodies.

It was still very cold, and Brookshire was anxious to get across the river, to see if there were telegrams from his Colonel. Call could not linger too long, just in the hope that Billy Williams would tell him something useful. It might be that old Billy didn't really know anything useful about the young killer.