Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

"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.