Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

Call got up and left. He had taken to walking by the river for an hour or more at night, but, on this occasion, had left his rifle in the bunkhouse and strolled back to get it. Since the raid no one ventured out of town, day or night, without a rifle.

"Woodrow's hard to convince, ain't he?" Long Bill said, once Call left.

Augustus didn't reply. Instead he reached in his pocket and took out a letter he had received the day before, from Clara. He had already memorized the letter but could not resist looking at it again:

Dear Gus, I write in haste from St. Louis--tm a boat will take us up the Missouri River. I trust that you are safe. If you are in Austin when you get this letter you will have heard that Ma and Pa were killed in the big raid.

I only got the news two days ago. Of course it's hard, knowing that I will never see Ma and Pa again.

As you are my oldest and best friend I would like you to do this for me: go and see that they are well buried in the cemetery, there by Grandma Forsythe. I would appreciate it if you would hire someone to care for their graves. It is not likely, now that I am a married woman, that I will return that way for many years, but it would be a comfort for me to know that their graves are being cared for. Perhaps a few flowers, bluebonnets maybe, could be planted above them in the spring. My Ma was always taken with bluebonnets.

I hope you will do this for me, Gus, and not be bitter about Bob. Once we are settled in Nebraska I'll send money for the caretaker.

It's hard to write you, Gus--we've always just talked, haven't we? But I mean to practice until I get the hang of it. And you need to write me too, so that I'll know you're safe and well.

Your friend, Clara

She don't know, Augustus thought, as he carefully folded the letter and put it back in its envelope. Merely seeing her writing caused such yearning to swell up in him that he didn't think he could stand it. Despite himself tears welled in his eyes.

"I reckon we can tell about that baby of Maggie's once it's born," Long Bill said. He spoke mainly to cover his friend's embarrassment--merely getting a letter from Clara had brought tears to his eyes.

Gus, though, didn't seem to be listening.

He put the letter back in his pocket, scattered some money on the table, and left.

Long Bill sat alone for a while, drinking, though he knew it was about time he went home to Pearl. No doubt she'd be in bed with her Bible, trying to pray away troubles that just weren't willing to leave. Gus's girl had married someone else, as women would. Maggie Tilton had become pregnant, as women would. But his wife had been shamed by seven Comanche warriors, causing her to lose a baby that had been legally and pleasurably conceived.

Now he wasn't sure that there would be any more such pleasure for himself and Pearl. Her ample flesh, which had once drawn him to her night after night, now repelled him. He didn't mind that Pearl kept her legs squeezed together. Every night now he scooted farther and farther from her, in the bed. Even her sweat smelled different to him now.

He didn't know what to do, but one thing he did not intend to do was resign from the rangers, which was the very thing Pearl wanted most. That very morning, before starting in about it, Pearl had run out in the yard and grabbed up a fat hen that he wasn't even too sure was their hen; she had wrung its neck before he could even raise the question of whose hen it might be, and then started talking about the rangers.

"Pearl, I wish you'd stop talking about me quitting the rangers," he told her bluntly.

He didn't think he could survive his sorrows without the companionship of the boys in the troop; besides that, he had to make a living and had few marketable skills. How did the woman expect him to feed her if he quit the job he was best at? They'd have to poach some neighbor's chicken every day if he did that.

"But Bill, I need you to quit, I can't help it!" Pearl said.

"Don't be complaining at me today, Pearl," he said. "I've got to help Pea Eye shoe the horses, and that's tiring work." He had just come down the stairs in time to see the chicken die.

Pearl was already gutting it--she flung a handful of guts toward the woodpile where several hungry cats soon descended on them.

Pearl knew Long Bill was tired of her trying to get him to quit the rangers, but she couldn't stop herself. Sometimes at the thought of him going away again she felt such distress that she felt her head might burst, or her heart. She and Long Bill had been so happy before the raid; they hardly ever fussed, except over the crease in his pants, which she could never seem to iron well enough to suit him. They had been happy people, but a single hour of horror and torment had changed that.

Pearl didn't know how to get their happiness back but she knew it would never be possible unless Bill moved her to a place where she felt there were no Indians to threaten her. If he wouldn't move to a safer town, then the least he could do was stay home and protect her. The thought of Bill leaving made her so scared that, twice recently, just walking down the street, she had grown so nervous that she wet herself, to her great shame. She had no confidence now, and knew she had none. The Comanches had come once and done as they pleased with her. There was no reason to think they wouldn't come again.

Long Bill paid for his whiskey and walked home under a thin March moon. There had been a spurt of snow the day before, and a little of it lingered in the shaded places near the buildings. It crunched under his feet as he approached the house where he and Pearl lived.

It was late, past midnight. Long Bill had hoped to find his wife asleep, but when he tiptoed in he saw that the lamp by the bed was still lit. There lay Pearl, propped up on a pillow with the lamp lit and a Bible in her lap.

"Pearl, if you've been praying, that's enough of it, let's blow out the lamp and get to sleep," he said.

Pearl didn't want to. For hours, while Bill drank in the saloon to avoid coming home to her--Pearl knew that was what he was doing and knew that the rapes were what had driven him out--she had been praying to the Lord to show her a way to get their happiness back; finally, only a few minutes before Bill stepped in the door, a vision had come to her of what that way was --a vision so bright that it could only have come from the Lord.

"Billy, it's come to me!" she said, jumping out of bed in her excitement.

"Well, what has, Pearl?" Long Bill asked, a little taken aback by his wife's sudden fervor. He had been hoping to slip into bed and sleep off the liquor he had just drunk, but that clearly was not going to be easy.

"I know what you can do once you quit the rangers," Pearl said. "It came to me while I was praying. It's a vision from the Lordffwas "Pearl, I've learnt rangering and I don't know how to do anything else," Long Bill said. "What's your notion? Tell me and let's get to bed." Pearl was a little hurt by her husband's tone, which was brusque. Also, he was swaying on his feet, indicating a level of drunkenness that she could not approve. But she hadn't lost hope for her God-sent vision--not quite.

"Billy, you could preach to the multitudes!" she said. "Our preacher got killed in the raid and his wife too. There's a church open right here in town. I know you'd make a fine preacher, once you got the hang of it." Long Bill was so stunned by Pearl's statement that he dropped, a little too hard, into their one chair, causing a loose rung to pop out, as it often did. In his annoyance he threw the rung out the open window.

"We need a better chair than this," he said.

"I'm tired of that damn rung popping out ever time I sit down." "I know Bill, but the Forsythes are dead and the store ain't open," Pearl said, horribly disappointed in Bill's response to her suggestion. She had convinced herself that he would be delighted to become a preacher, but he clearly wasn't delighted at all. He just looked annoyed, which is how he had looked most of the time since his return.