Streets of Laredo: A Novel (44 page)

"Now those dogs are going east," Famous Shoes said. "I think they must be chasing a mule deer." "No, they would have run it down by now if it was a mule deer," Call said. "That many dogs will run a mule deer to death pretty quick." Famous Shoes ignored the correction, which he thought invalid. It could well be a large, well-fed mule deer who was not ready to die just because Ben Lily had come along with his dogs. The mule deer might have had a long start, too. But Famous Shoes saw no point in arguing with the Captain. Call did not accept argument, from his men or from anyone.

"They could be after those two wolves whose tracks I saw this morning," he replied. "The dogs might be running those wolves." Famous Shoes had just stopped speaking when they heard the sound of gunshots, coming from the direction where they had last heard the dogs. There were many gunshots. In the Indian days, Call had been competent at counting gunshots, for it was a way of estimating the enemy's strength. But he was out of practice. He would have guessed that about forty shots were fired. In a lull, they heard the yelping of one of the dogs. It had been wounded in the gunfight, probably.

There were four or five more gunshots, scattered, and then silence.

"Somebody shot those dogs, that's what I think," Famous Shoes said. He was a little agitated. The flurry of shots had been an unwelcome surprise. It took several men to shoot that many dogs so rapidly. But what kind of men would shoot dogs in the middle of the night?

"Listen a minute," Call said. "They could have been shooting at whatever the dogs were chasing. If that's it, they weren't Ben Lily's dogs. Ben Lily travels alone and shoots a rifle.

What we heard were mainly pistol shots." They listened for fifteen minutes.

There were no more gunshots, and no dogs howled.

"They probably shot the dogs. I'd like to know why," Call said. "Let's go to camp." When Call got back to camp, all three men were sound asleep. Probably that was because the weather had warmed up. For the first time, they weren't so freezing cold.

Call expected no better of Brookshire or Deputy Plunkert, but he was irritated with Pea Eye. It was a small lapse, but a lapse nonetheless. As long as he and Pea Eye had been camping together, they had consulted about night duties--who would sleep first, who would sleep second. Never before, no matter how tired he might be, had Pea Eye just gone to sleep without discussing these arrangements. Of course, Call had lapsed himself, by leaving the camp without assigning a watch. But he had done that often, through the years, and when he did it, Pea Eye always stayed awake until he returned.

It wasn't like Pea Eye, going to sleep in dangerous country. It made Call wonder if urging Pea Eye to leave his family and join him had really been wise. He had done it from habit. Pea Eye was the last of his men, and one of the few people Call trusted. It had seemed natural to call on him, and it had disturbed him when Pea Eye refused to come.

Now he found that having him along disturbed him almost as much. Pea Eye wasn't behaving like himself. It might be because he was no longer the Ranger that Call had known and counted on for so long. He was a farmer and a husband, with the habits of a farmer and a husband, rather than the habits of a fighting man. Probably Pea Eye had been right, in deciding to stay with his family. Loyalty had made him change his mind, but foolishly, and too late. If he wasn't going to be able to be the competent Ranger he had been, then staying home was the better choice.

Pea Eye woke up the minute Captain Call reentered the camp, and immediately realized that he had been derelict.

"Oh, dern, I dropped off," he said. "I intended to stand watch." "Well, Famous Shoes was up, and so was I," Call said. "Somebody just shot Ben Lily's dog pack, if them dogs we've been hearing really belonged to Ben Lily. If they weren't, I'd like to know who would be running in these parts, with eight or ten dogs." Pea Eye felt such embarrassment at having gone to sleep that he scarcely attended to what the Captain was saying. He had no intention of going to sleep, when the Captain left the camp. The Captain always left the camp, for an hour or two in the evening. When he returned, the two of them would work out watch duties, for what remained of the night. Pea Eye usually stood the first watch.

But this evening, he had simply gone to sleep.

The Captain didn't mention it. He had even been polite enough to change the subject, but Pea Eye knew he would remember it. The very fact that he hadn't been reprimanded made Pea Eye feel at a loss. In fact, he had been feeling at a loss from the moment the Captain led them out of Presidio. Pea Eye should have been feeling fine. With Famous Shoes' help, he had been able to connect with the Captain with only a minimum of travel. The Garza boy was probably east of them now. The whole job might be over soon, and he could go right home, back to Lorie and the children.

But Pea Eye didn't feel fine. He felt awkward; maybe he had irritated the Captain too much, by refusing to go with him initially. Maybe the Captain, as he got older, was becoming even harder to please. At no time had he been easy to please.

But whatever it was, there was a difference in the way he and the Captain were, and it made Pea Eye all the more homesick. He felt he had been foolish, after all, to leave home. The Captain had promptly recruited another deputy, and he had the Yankee, Brookshire, as well. The Yankee seemed to be fairly competent. He had made the campfires, both nights, and had done it well. The other deputy was no good at packing horses or mules, but was handy enough at unpacking them. There was not much for Pea Eye to do. Standing watch was one area where his experience would have been useful, but he had gone right off to sleep and hadn't even heard the shots that killed Ben Lily's dogs, if they were Ben Lily's dogs.

All this made Pea Eye feel gloomy.

He felt that he had stopped knowing how to be useful. He often felt that way at home, too. Lorie was as good at what she did as the Captain was at what he did. Pea Eye wasn't as good as either one of them, at anything. It made him wonder why the Captain had wanted him along in the first place.

Call was sufficiently alarmed by the sound of so much gunfire that he woke Brookshire and Deputy Plunkert. He also put out the fire.

In the brilliant darkness, on the long plain, even a speck of fire as small as theirs could be spotted by an experienced eye from many miles away; as many miles, at least, as an experienced ear could hear a dog bark.

Call could sometimes distinguish calibers of weapons, if the firing was slow, but the men who shot the dogs hadn't been firing slow. The forty shots had been fired in a minute or two. Call thought he heard six or seven guns, but that was a guess. There could have been ten or more, or there could have been only three or four.

Famous Shoes had not returned to camp. The man seldom waited for instructions, and he was apt to rove all night, when he was on a scout.

"Where's our Indian?" Brookshire asked.

He had taken a liking to the old man, although he wasn't exactly businesslike. When he noticed that Brookshire had a book or two in his baggage, Famous Shoes had started pestering him to teach him to read. The old man seemed to think it was something he could start doing immediately, if only he were given the right clues. Famous Shoes had even insisted that Brookshire dismount, so he could show the Yankee a number of animal tracks and identify them. He seemed to think that Brookshire ought to be able to instruct him in reading just as quickly. When Brookshire attempted to explain that the two things weren't the same, Famous Shoes became irritated. Then Brookshire made the mistake of mentioning sentences. Famous Shoes immediately started asking him to explain what sentences were. Brookshire felt sure that he knew what a sentence was, but he found it damnably difficult to explain the sentence to the old Indian.

He liked the old man, though. It astonished him that a man Famous Shoes' age could travel faster on foot than the rest of them traveled horseback. He stayed ahead of them all day, moving at his strange little trot.

The four of them watched the rest of the night, but there was no more shooting. About dawn, Call thought he heard something, a kind of cry or keening. But he couldn't figure out what might be making it.

"Could it be an eagle?" he asked Pea Eye. "They say eagles scream, but I've never heard one." Pea Eye heard the sound only faintly.

He had no idea what it was.

Before it was fully light, Call had them headed toward the east.

"What about Famous Shoes?" Brookshire asked. "Shouldn't we wait for him?" "He's a tracker, we don't have to wait for him," Call said. "He'll find us." Famous Shoes did find them, about an hour later. He was down in a little ravine, and he had Ben Lily with him. The old hunter was shaggy, filthy, and mad.

"It was the manburner," Famous Shoes said, as he trotted up out of the ravine. "He has seven men with him." "He burnt my best dog," Ben Lily said. "Kilt all nine of them, and burnt one alive." "That's what we heard, I guess," Call said. "That's the sound a dog makes when it's being burned alive." "He wanted to burn me," Ben Lily said.

"I hid in a snake den. His men shot my dogs. They roped old Flop and burnt him." "Not to eat, though," Famous Shoes said. "You can see--the dog is a little ways ahead." Ben Lily sat on a rock, unkempt and bewildered. Call offered to let him ride one of the pack horses, if he wanted to come with them, but the old man didn't even answer. He sat on the rock, shaking his head and mumbling.

"I think he's gone loco," Famous Shoes said quietly, to Call.

"He's always been loco," Call said. "Now he's old, and he's lost his dogs. If I were him I'd quit, but I ain't him." Call went over to the old hunter, who seemed stunned by the calamity that had befallen him in the night. He held an old Winchester; apart from two cartridge belts, he seemed to have no equipment. Ben Lily was reputed to be an exceptional shot, exceptional enough to have killed more than two thousand bears and an unreckoned number of mountain lions. Call remembered him as having keen, mean eyes. This morning, his eyes seemed vague.

"He burnt old Flop," Ben Lily said.

"Old Flop was my best dog." "You're lucky he didn't burn you, Mr.

Lily," Call said. "You'd better follow along with us for a day or two, until we know where he is and where he's going. Next time, you might not make it to the snake den." The old man shook his head. He wore a ragged cap, which looked as if it had been made from a wolf skin. He kept putting it on, and then taking it back off.

"I'm going to Santa Fe," he said. "I got to get some new dogs." "You won't need them, if Mox Mox catches you," Call said. "You better come with us until we stop him." "I got to get some dogs," Ben Lily repeated. "I can't run no bears or tree no lions without some dogs." "I can't take you against your will, Mr. Lily, but you'd be wiser to come with us," Call said. "This man's not your ordinary killer. He's the manburner." Ben Lily paid no attention; he was looking to the southwest, toward the distant mountains. His eyes seemed blurred and tired, but Call supposed they might clear quickly enough if he had a lion, or better yet, a bear in his sights.

"Them mountains are full of lions, but there ain't no bear," he said. "I be going on to Wyoming, I guess. There's bear up there in Wyoming." He stood up and looked around, as if surprised to see that he was among people and not dogs.

"That killer kilt my dogs," he repeated.

"I best go to Santa Fe." His eyes turned to the northwest; he stared at the distances.

"You could go with us to Roy Bean's," Call suggested. "He usually has a few dogs." "No, I don't like Bean," Ben Lily said. "His dogs are just hounds. One mean lion could run them all off. I won't hunt with dogs that run from lions." "Be careful, then," Call said, but the old man either didn't hear him, or didn't care to respond. He put his Winchester on his shoulder and climbed out of the ravine, heading north.

Though he seemed stiff in his movements, he kept moving north and was soon out of sight.

Brookshire couldn't get used to the way people behaved in the West. The old man had no blanket, or kit of any kind. No doubt he had matches somewhere about his person, but otherwise he was setting out to walk hundreds of miles, in the wintertime, with nothing but a gun and two cartridge belts, and in country where there were at least two deadly killers on the loose.

"He just hunts?" Brookshire asked.

"Yes, all his life," Call said. "I never heard of him doing anything else." "If he was born today, he'd have to do something else," Deputy Plunkert said. "There wouldn't be enough varmints to satisfy him. I've never even seen a wild bear. The circus come once and it had a little bear, but it was tame." "You're right," Call said. "Mr. Lily's worked himself out of a job, where bears are concerned, unless he heads for Alaska." Call felt some sadness as he watched Ben Lily disappear into the sage and the distance, his rifle on his shoulder. It was unlikely that he would ever see the old man again. Call had never liked him, really. The two of them had probably not exchanged a hundred words in all their various brief meetings over the years. Ben Lily would talk of nothing except what he was hunting at the time, and Call hunted only for practical purposes and had nothing to say about it.

But Ben Lily was one of the old ones of the West. Ben Lily and Goodnight and Roy Bean and a few others. None of them were particularly likable, although Charles Goodnight had become friendlier than Call had ever expected him to be. But all of them, and those like them who had fallen--Gus McCrae and old Kit Carson, the Bent brothers, Shanghai Pierce and Captain Marcy--had been part of the adventure. Gus McCrae had declared the adventure over before the Hat Creek outfit had ever crossed the Yellowstone. A few days after he said it, he had gone off adventuring and been killed. Gus had been both right and wrong. The exploring part of the adventure had ended, but not the settling part, and settling, in the time of the Comanche and the Cheyenne and the Apache, had plenty of adventure in it.