Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

"Rather than arguing, we need to be paying attention to the trail," Call said. With Augustus in such an uncertain temper he wanted to cool things before the argument became a fistfight.

"What trail?" Gus said. "There's no trail. We're just following our noses and our noses are pointed west." "That's what it looks like to me," Long Bill said. "Captain Scull's got clean away.

When do we go back?" "I guess we'll go back when we've gone far enough," Call said, aware that it was no answer.

"Well, but what's far enough?" Jake Spoon asked, thrusting himself into the conversation--and not for the first time, either. Pea Eye Parker would never have intruded when his elders were talking. Pea Eye offered an opinion only when asked for one, which was seldom. He tried to determine correct procedure by watching his elders. Jake Spoon didn't think in terms of elders or superiors.

It never occurred to him that there were times when the two captains might not want to be bothered with a youngster.

Jake just barged in and asked his question.

"We're not to the Pecos yet," Call said.

"If we don't strike his trail between here and the Pecos, I expect we ought to go back." "I think we ought to look in Mexico, myself," Augustus said.

"Why?" Call said. "We had no orders to look in Mexico." "No, but there's whores and tequila in Mexico," Gus said. "Bill and me, we could drown our sorrows." "I ain't going all the way to Mexico just so you two can drown your sorrows," Call said.

"Woodrow always changes the subject when the talk turns to women," Augustus said.

"I didn't know the talk was even about women," Call said. "I thought we were talking about when to give up on the Captain and go back home." Long Bill Coleman, to his own surprise and Call's, suddenly burst out with an opinion that he had been holding in for months.

"A man ought to marry, Captain," Long Bill said. "It's a lonely life not having no woman to hold on to when you bunk down at night." Call was so startled by the remark that he hardly knew what to say.

"I'm usually working at night, Bill--I don't spend much time in a bunk," he replied, finally.

Long Bill's Adam's apple was quivering and his face was red. Call had seen him fight several fierce engagements with the Comanches and exhibit less emotion.

"I don't know that little Maggie Tilton too well, but I do know she wasn't meant to be no whore," Long Bill said. "She was meant to be a wife and she'd make a fine one." Then, embarrassed by what he had said, he abruptly shut up and rode away.

"Amen," Gus said. "Now you see, Woodrow --the sooner you marry Maggie, the happier the rest of us will be." Call was amazed--here they were in the middle of the wilderness, on a dangerous assignment, and Long Bill Coleman, the solidest man in the troop, had seen fit to deliver a public lecture, urging him to get married! Surely the decision to marry was a private matter that need only be discussed between the couple who were thinking of marrying.

Worrying about it while patrolling the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos struck him as highly inappropriate. It would only distract them from the business at hand, which was rangering. While on patrol he liked to give his full attention to the landscape, the men, the horses, tracks, sign, the behaviour of the birds and animals they spotted, anything that might help keep a troop of men alive in a country where a Comanche raiding party could swoop down on them at any moment. It was no time to be clouding the mind with issues of marriage or lustful thoughts--andthe mention of slim Maggie Tilton did lead to lustful thoughts. Many a night, on guard, he had been distracted by the thought of Maggie. It was just good luck that he hadn't come under sudden attack at such a moment.

Long Bill, embarrassed by his own impertinence, avoided Call for the rest of the day.

Augustus, as surprised by Long Bill's statement as Call had been, thought it best to avoid the subject of marriage for the rest of the day.

That evening, as soon as he'd had coffee and his bite, Call walked away from the campfire and sat by himself all night.

"I doubt he'll marry her, Gus," Long Bill whispered to Gus McCrae.

"I doubt it too," Gus said. "He ought to, though. You're right about that, Bill."

In the middle of the next afternoon they heard the crack of gunshots from some low, rocky hills to the north. Then a dog bayed, a hound of some kind. They had just watered their horses at a thin trickle of creek, with a few wild plum bushes scattered along it. While the horses were taking in water and the men relieving themselves of it, Deets hurried up and down the little creek, looking at the plum bushes. Of course it was too early in the year for plums yet, but he liked to make note of such things in case they passed that way in June, when the sweet plums would be mature.

When the shots rang out, Deets came hurrying back. There were two shots and then silence, except for the hound.

Since the party was so small, Call and Augustus decided they had best stay together. They could not afford to send one man to scout--he might be surrounded and cut down.

"That ain't a real hound," Augustus ventured. "It's a damn Comanche, imitating a hound. They can imitate anything, you know-- Indians can." All during his years as a ranger, Augustus had been prone to anxiety because of the Indians' well-known ability to perfectly mimic birdsongs and animal sounds. He had never actually caught an Indian imitating a bird, but he knew they could.

Long Bill Coleman shared this particular anxiety.

"That's Indians for sure, Captain," he said. "They're trying to make us think there's a hound over in those rocks." Call didn't share the anxiety. Deets himself could mimic several animals and most birds --he could perfectly imitate the snuff an armadillo makes when startled, and Deets wasn't an Indian. Besides, there was an abundance of wildlife, birds and animals, that did an excellent job of making their own sounds.

The ridge of shaley rock where the shots had come from looked uninviting, though. The ridge wrinkled the prairie for miles and could easily shelter an ambushing war party.

"They're there, Woodrow," Augustus said.

"They're just waiting till we get closer.

Look to your weapons, boys." Young Jake Spoon was so terrified that he felt frozen. He put his hand on his pistol but was too scared to pull it out. If an Indian did come running at him Jake felt the fright alone would kill him. He realized he had been wrong not to stay in town. He felt as good as dead and just hoped the termination would be as quick and painless as possible.

"Well, if that's a Comanche, he not only sounds like a dog, he looks like a dog," Call said--a large gray hound had just appeared, trotting back and forth amid the rocks.

Long Bill felt immediate relief.

"Why, I know that dog," he said. "That's old Howler, Ben Lily's dog. Ben probably shot a bear. That's all he does, shoot bears." "I doubt there's many bears out in this country," Gus said.

"There's one less now--Ben Lily, he's deadly on bears." The sight of the large gray dog dispelled the general apprehension. As they drew closer to the rocky ridge the hound started howling again, a dismal sound, Pea Eye thought. He had never been overly fond of the canine breeds.

Sure enough, when they clattered over the rocks that covered the ridge, they came upon a large, stooped man in buckskin clothes, skinning a young brown bear. The man's thick hair and long beard were evidently strangers to the comb or the brush. He favored them with a quick glance and then went on with his work.

"Howdy, Mr. Lily," Long Bill said.

"What are you doing out here on the baldies?" He had intended the remark to be jocular, but Ben Lily took it literally.

"Skinning a bear," he said.