Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

Jake would be nice until he had what he wanted, and then, if she denied him a favor, he would pull her hair or slap her again. There was no changing men--not much, anyway; mainly men stayed the way they were, no matter what women did. Woodrow Call was not all she wanted him to be, but he had never raised a hand to her and would not think of pulling her hair. Jake could offer to carry her groceries if he wanted but she would not forget what he did.

Call noticed her smile, when he mentioned Gus's fatigue.

"What's that grin for? What do you know?" he asked.

"It's just a smile, Woodrow--I'm happy because you're here," Maggie said.

"No, it was something else--something about Gus," he said. "If you've a notion of why he stayed at Madame Scull's so long I'd like to know it." Maggie knew she was treading on dangerous ground. Woodrow had strict notions of what was right and what was wrong. But she was a little riled, too: riled because he was going away so soon, riled because he wouldn't talk about the baby, riled because she had to keep swallowing down the way she felt and the things she needed to say. If he wouldn't think about her baby, at least she could get his goat a little about their friend.

"I know why he's tired, that's all," she said, pounding the beefsteak.

"Why, then, tell me," Call asked.

"Because Madame Scull took his pants down --if you'd gone she would have tried to take yours down too," Maggie said.

Call flinched as if he had been slapped, or jabbed with a pin.

"Now, that's wrong!" he said loudly, but without much confidence in his own conclusion. "How could you know that?" "Because that's what she does with any man who goes home with her, when the Captain's away," Maggie said. "It's the talk of all the barrooms and not just the barrooms--she don't care who knows." "Well, she ought to care," Call said. "I expect the Captain would take the hide off her if he knew she was stirring up talk like that." "Woodrow, it's not just talk," Maggie said.

"I seen her kissing a boy myself, over behind some horses. One of the horses moved and I saw it." "What boy?" Call said. "Maybe they were cousins." "No, it was Jurgen, that German boy the Captain hung for stealing horses," Maggie insisted. "He couldn't even speak English." "They could still have been cousins," Call said--but then he gave up arguing. No wonder Gus had come down the hill looking as he sometimes looked when he had spent a day in a whorehouse.

"If it's true I just hope the Captain don't find out," Call said.

"Don't you think he knows?" Maggie asked.

Sometimes Woodrow seemed so young to her, not young outside but young inside, that it made her fearful for him; it made her even more determined to marry him and take care of him. If she didn't, some woman like Mrs. Scull would figure out how young he was and do him bad harm.

"How could he know if she only does it when he's gone?" Call asked.

"You don't have to be with somebody every minute to know things about them," Maggie told him. "I'm not with you every minute, but I know you're a good man. If you was a bad man I wouldn't have to be with you every minute to know that, either." Her voice quavered a little, when she said she knew he was a good man. It made Call feel a touch of guilt. He was always leaving Maggie just when she had her hopes up that he'd stay. Of course he left because it was his duty, but he recognized that that didn't really make things any easier for Maggie.

"Now you're risking your life because she wants somebody to go look for her husband, and she ain't even true to him," Maggie said bitterly.

When she thought of Madame Scull's dreadful behaviour--kissing and fondling young men right in the street--she got incensed. No decent whore would behave as badly as Madame Scull, and yet she enjoyed high position and went to all the fanciest balls. More than that, she could send men into danger at her whim as she was doing with Woodrow and the boys.

"I guess if it's true and Clara finds out about it, it'll be the end of her and Gus," Call said. "I expect she'll take an axe handle to him and run him out of town." Maggie was silent. She knew something else that Woodrow didn't know--she had happened to be in the Forsythe store one day when Clara was trying on some of her wedding clothes, just the gloves and the shoes. But Clara had made no attempt to conceal the fact that she was marrying the tall man from Nebraska. The wedding was going to be in the church at the end of the street. Now that Augustus was back, surely Clara had told him; but evidently he hadn't got around to informing Woodrow. Perhaps Gus wasn't able. Perhaps talking about it made him too sad.

Maggie knew it wasn't her business to tell Woodrow this, and yet concealing things from him made her deeply uncomfortable. She knew he trusted her to tell him everything that might be important to the rangers, and the fact that Gus had lost Clara seemed pretty important to her.

"Woodrow, Gus ain't none of Clara's business anymore," she said nervously.

"Why isn't he?" Call asked, surprised. "He's been her business as long as I've knowed him, and that's years." "She's marrying that horse trader," Maggie said. "The wedding's on Sunday." Woodrow Call was stunned. The news about Madame Scull's faithless behaviour was shocking and repulsive, but the news about Clara Forsythe hit him so hard that he almost lost his appetite for the juicy beefsteak Maggie had cooked him. He knew now why Augustus wanted to leave town so quickly: he wanted to be out of town when the wedding took place.

"I never expected her to marry anybody but Gus," he said. "This is a bad surprise.

I doubt Gus expected her to marry anybody but him, either. I think he hoped his promotion would win her over." To Maggie, his stunned comment was just more evidence that Woodrow was young inside. He wouldn't realize that Clara Forsythe wouldn't care a fig for Gus's promotion; nor did he realize that it didn't take a woman ten years to say yes to a man she meant to marry. She herself would have said yes to Woodrow in a matter of days, had he asked her. The fact that Clara had kept Gus waiting so long just meant that she didn't trust him.

To Maggie it seemed that simple, and she knew that Clara was right. Gus McCrae could be plenty of fun, but trusting him would be the wrong thing to do.

Instead of saying those things to Woodrow she fed him some apple tarts she had saved up to buy from the bakery. They were such delicious apple tarts that he ate four of them, and, after a time, went to sleep. Maggie held him in her arms a long time. She knew there was much she could say to him, and perhaps should say to him, about the ways of women; but she only had one night and decided she had just rather hold him in her arms.

The troop did not make an auspicious appearance when they gathered in the lots at dawn and began to saddle their horses and tie on their gear.

Call had decided to take the two boys, Pea Eye and Jake Spoon, plus Deets to do the cooking, Long Bill in case there was a desperate fight, andof course himself and Augustus --the latter had not appeared.

Long Bill was there, at least, dark circles under his eyes and a haggard look on his face.

"Didn't you sleep, Bill?" Call asked.

"No, Pearl cried all night--she ain't up to being consoled," Long Bill said.

"Women will just cry when the menfolk leave," Call said. His own shirt was wet from Maggie's tears.

"Did you hear about Clara? It's got me upset," Long Bill said. "I was looking forward to eating her cooking, once Gus married her, but I guess that prospect's gone." "Have you seen him?" Call asked.

"No, but I heard he fought two Germans in a whorehouse last," Long Bill said.

"I don't know what the fight was about." The two youngsters, Pea Eye and Jake, were nervous, Call saw. They kept walking around and around their horses, checking and rechecking their gear.