Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

Long Bill Coleman had his feet practically in the fire, his favorite posture when camped on a cold patrol. He had fallen asleep and was snoring loudly, oblivious to the fact that the soles of his boots were beginning to smoke.

"Pull him back, Deets, his feet are about to catch fire," Augustus said. "The fool will sleep with his feet amid the coals." Deets pulled Long Bill a yard or two back from the fire, then offered them coffee, which they took gratefully.

"Why'd you let all these boys nod off, Deets?" Gus said. "Old Buffalo Hump might come down on us at any minute-- they best be watching their hair." "Let 'em nap--they ridden for two days," Call said. "They'll wake up quick enough if there's fighting." Deets took a big tin cup full of coffee over to Captain Scull, who accepted it without looking around. The Captain's mouth was moving, but whatever he was saying got lost on the wind.

"Old Nails is talking to himself again," Augustus observed. "Probably cussing that feisty wife of his for spending money. They say she spends twenty-five dollars ever day of the week." Call didn't think the Captain was cussing his wife, not on a bald knob of the prairie, icy with sleet. If he was cussing anybody, it was probably Kicking Wolf, who had escaped to the Rio Pecos with three fine stallions.

"What was he saying, Deets?" he asked, when the black man came back and began to stir the stew.

Deets did not much like reporting on the Captain. He might get the talk wrong, and cause trouble. But Mr. Call had been good to him, giving him an old ragged quilt, which was all he had to cover with on the cold journey.

Mr. Call didn't grab food, like some of the others, or cuss him if the biscuits didn't rise quick enough to suit him.

"He's talking about that one who shot him--down Mexico," Deets said.

"What? He's talking about Ahumado?" Call asked, surprised.

"Talking about him some," Deets admitted.

"I consider that peculiar information," Augustus said. "We're half a way to Canada, chasing Comanches. What's Ahumado got to do with it?" "He don't like it that Ahumado shot his horse," Call said, noting that some of the men around the campfire were so sound asleep they looked as if they were dead. Most of them were sprawled out with their mouths open, oblivous to the wind and the icy ground. They didn't look as if they would be capable of putting up much resistance, but Call knew they would fight hard if attacked.

The only man he was anxious about on that score was young Pea Eye Parker, a gangly boy who had only been allotted an old musket. Call didn't trust the gun and hoped to see that the boy got a repeating rifle before their next expedition. Pea Eye sat so far back from the campfire that he got little succor from it. He was poorly dressed and shivering, yet he had kept up through the long night, and had not complained.

"If you pulled in a little closer to the campfire you'd be warmer," Call suggested.

"It's my first trip--I don't guess I ought to take up too much of the fire," Pea Eye said.

Then he swivelled his long neck around and surveyed their prospects.

"I was raised amid trees and brush," he said. "I never expected to be no place where it was this empty." "It ain't empty--there's plenty of Comanches down in that big canyon," Augustus informed him.

"Buffalo Hump's down there--once we finally whip him, there won't be nothing but a few chigger Indians to fight." "How do you know we'll whip him?" Call said.

"It's bad luck to talk like that. We've been fighting him for years and we ain't come close to licking him yet." Before Augustus could respond, Captain Scull abruptly left the hummock where he had been sitting and stomped back into camp.

"Is that stew ready? This is a damn long halt," he said. Then he glanced at Call, and got a surprised look on his face.

"I thought Famous Shoes was with you, Mr.

Call," Scull said. "I had no reason to suspect that he wasn't with you, but I'll be damned if I can spot him. It might be the glare off the sleet." "No sir, he's not with me," Call said.

"Damn it, why not?" Captain Scull asked. "If he's not with you, you'll just have to go fetch him. We'll save you some of the stew." "Sir, I don't know if I can fetch him," Call said. "He went to visit his grandmother. I believe she lives on the Washita, but he didn't say where, exactly." "Of course you can fetch him--why shouldn't you?" Scull asked, with an annoyed look on his face. "You're mounted and he's afoot." "Yes, but he's a swift walker and I'm a poor tracker," Call admitted. "I might be able to track him, but it would be chancy." "What a damned nuisance--the man's gone off just when we need him most," Inish Scull said.

He tugged at his peppery gray beard in a vexed fashion. When a fit of anger took him he grew red above his whiskers; and, as all of the men knew, he was apt to grow angry if offered the slightest delay.

Call didn't say it, but he found the Captain's comment peculiar. After all, Famous Shoes had been off, ever since they crossed the Prairie Dog Fork of the Brazos. The scout wandered at will, returning only occasionally to parley a bit with the Captain, as he just had that morning.

Based on past behaviour, Captain Scull had no reason to expect to hear from Famous Shoes for a day or two more, by which time the scout could have visited his grandmother and returned.

It was impatient and unreasonable behaviour, in Call's view; but then, that seemed to be the way of captains, at least the ones he had served.

They were impatient to a fault--if they didn't get a fight one place, they would turn and seek a fight somewhere else, no matter what the men felt about it, or what condition they were in. They had missed Kicking Wolf, so now, if Deets was right, the Captain's thoughts had fixed on Ahumado, a Mexican bandit hundreds of mules to the south, and a marauder every bit as capable as Kicking Wolf or Buffalo Hump.

Still, Call had never disobeyed an order, or complained about one, either--it was Gus McCrae who grumbled about orders, though usually he was circumspect about who he grumbled to. Call knew that if the Captain really wanted him to go after Famous Shoes, he would at least have to try.

Call felt lank--he thought he had better quickly gulp down a plate of stew before he went off on a pursuit that might take days.

Captain Scull, though, did not immediately press the order. He stood with his back to the fire, swishing the remains of his coffee around in his cup. He looked at the sky, he looked at the horses, he looked south. Call held his peace--the muttering about Ahumado might only have been a momentary fancy that the Captain, once he had assessed the situation, would reject.

The Captain sighed, gulped down the rest of his coffee, held out the cup for Deets to refill, and looked at Call again.

"I got short shrift from my grandmothers," he remarked. "One of them had ten children and the other accounted for fourteen--they were tired of brats by the time I came along. How long do you think Famous Shoes planned to visit?" "Sir, I have no idea," Call admitted.

"He wasn't even sure his grandmother still lived on the Washita. If he don't locate her I expect he'll be back tomorrow." "Unless he thinks of somebody else to visit," Augustus said.

Call hastily got himself a plate of stew.

He felt he had been a little derelict in hesitating to set off immediately in pursuit of Famous Shoes. After all, the man could scarcely be more than five miles away. With reasonable luck, he ought to be able to overtake him. It was only the featurelessness of the plains that worried him: he might ride within a mile of Famous Shoes and still miss him, because of the dips and slantings of the prairie.

Now he felt like he ought to be ready to leave, if that was what the Captain wanted.

"Taters ain't cooked yet," Deets informed him, as he dished up the stew. "That meat mostly raw, too." "I don't care, it'll fill me," Call said. "If you'd like me to go look for him, Captain, I will." Inish Scull didn't respond--indeed, he gave no indication that he had even heard Woodrow Call. Captain Scull was often casual, if not indifferent, in that way, a fact which vexed Augustus McCrae terribly. Here Woodrow, who was as cold and hungry as the rest of them, was offering to go off and run the risk of getting scalped, and the Captain didn't even have the good manners to answer him! It made Gus burn with indignation, though it also annoyed him that Call would be so quick to offer himself for what was clearly a foolish duty. Famous Shoes would turn up in a day or two, whether anybody looked for him or not.