Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

"This is pointless travelling," Gus said.

"How are we going to deliver a thousand cattle to that old bandit if we have to shoot ever damn cow we see?" Call accepted the point. It was obvious they had been presented with a difficult mission.

"There must be tamer cattle down here somewhere," he said. "There's ranches down this way--big ranches. They ship cattle to New Orleans regular, I hear. The boats come to Matagorda Bay. They don't shoot ever cow. There's got to be cowboys down here who know how to handle this stock." The rangers listened in silence, but his ^ws made little impression compared to their fresh memories of the mad, frothing cows.

"Livestock ain't supposed to be this hostile," Stove Jones commented.

"We're Indian fighters, Woodrow," Augustus pointed out. "Indian fighters and bandit chasers. We ain't vaqueros. If I tried to go into one of them thickets after a cow I'd be lucky not to get scratched to death. We'd just as well try to deliver a thousand deer. At least deer don't come charging at you.

"That damn governor's betrayed us again," he added in disgust.

Call couldn't really disagree. Governor Pease had given them a flowery letter to show to the ranchers in south Texas. The letter bound the state of Texas to compensate the ranchers for cattle sufficient to make a herd of one thousand head.

There was no mention, however, of a price per head.

When Call pointed this out to Governor Pease, the Governor had merely shrugged.

"Our south Texans are patriotic men," he said. "They'll be glad to let you take a few head of stock if it will get our hero back.

"Speak to Captain King," he added--two harried clerks were following him around at the time, hoping to get his attention. "Captain Richard King. He'll help you. I expect that goddamn old black bandit has stolen at least that many cattle from him already." "Where do we find Captain King?" Augustus asked. "I've never met the man." "Why, just ask, Captain McCrae--j ask," Governor Pease said. "Captain King is well known along the coast." The Governor's office was bustling that day-- besides the clerks and an army man or two, there were three benches packed with legislators, all of them evidently hoping for an audience with the Governor. As a lot they looked dusty and drunken.

"Look at them ramshackly senators," Augustus said, as they left the office.

"Maybe we ought to change jobs, Woodrow.

We could make laws instead of enforcing them." "I can barely read," Call reminded him.

"I'd be a poor hand at making laws." "Why, you wouldn't need to read," Gus said.

"We could hire a clerk to do the scribbling. All it takes to make laws is good sense. I could probably make better laws than that whole bunch sitting in there half drunk." "Maybe," Call said. "Maybe not." Governor Pease handed them the letter and sent them away. As they left, several of the legislators were attempting to crowd in his door.

Now, faced with the fact that they were barely out of sight of the Alamo and had already had to shoot three cows, Call remembered the Governor's advice.

"I expect we better try and find Captain King," Call said. "Maybe he'll want to lend the state of Texas some vaqueros for a week or two." "I don't know, Woodrow," Gus said.

"When I'm given a job that's downright impossible, my practice is to find a whorehouse and stay in it until my funds run out." "We don't need to find a whorehouse, we need to find a ranch house," Call said. "This is Captain Scull we're trying to rescue.

Captain Scull led us for quite a few years and got us out of plenty of hard spots. Now he's in a hard spot and we've got to do the best we can to bring him back." "Well, the fool would walk off to Mexico," Augustus said. He reloaded his rifle and kept a wary eye on the thickets, as they passed them.

The next day they did find a ranch house, but there was no one there except three womenfolk, some babies and small children, and two old Mexican men who had been left to do the chores.

A lanky woman with a baby at her breast and two toddlers clinging to her skirts just looked unhappy when asked where the menfolk were.

"They're off branding cattle," she said. "I expect they're south. They've been gone three weeks--I've been looking for them back but they ain't here." "South's a big place," Augustus remarked.

The woman just smiled a tired smile. "It's a brushy place too--y'll find that out once you leave here," she said. "I got goat and I got frijoles--y won't get much except goat and frijoles, not in this part of the country." The men ate outside, at a long table shaded by a great mesquite tree whose limbs seemed to spread over an acre. The woman who greeted them was named Hannah Fogg--she had a pretty younger sister who helped with the serving. Though the younger sister was shy as a deer, Gus did get her to reveal that her name was Peggy. Gus stole several glances at her during the meal and lingered over his coffee so he could steal several more.

As the men ate, Augustus began to notice children, peering out shy as mice, one under the porch, another behind a bush, two more who had managed to climb the big tree. Two, at least, were under the wagon.

"Why, there's a passel of children here," he said to Peggy--it was an excuse to speak to her. "Are all these little tykes Mrs. Fogg's?" But Peggy ducked her head and wouldn't say.

Hannah Fogg was not lying about the difficulties of the country south of her ranch house. For a day and a half more the rangers zigged and zagged in a southerly direction, proceeding from little clearing to little clearing. They were seldom long out of sight of cattle, but no more cows charged--^the cattle fled like deer the moment they saw the riders.

In the afternoon of the second day they heard the sound of men working and came upon the rancher Denton Fogg and his branding crew, which numbered more than twenty vaqueros. The cattle were held in a large clearing. Ropers slid into the herd and soon came out, dragging the animal to be branded.

Denton Fogg himself, drenched in sweat and lugubrious in appearance, applied the iron himself; he was not happy to be interrupted in his hot work by a party of Texas Rangers with a letter from the Governor asking for a donation of cattle to be driven into Mexico in return for Inish Scull.

He did read the letter, though, holding it carefully so his sweat wouldn't drip on it.

"This is a piece of worthless foolery, sir," he declared, handing the letter back to Call.

"The Mexicans steal half our cattle anyway and Ed Pease does nothing about it. Now he wants us to give them a thousand more? No thank you, sir--not my cattle." Call didn't like the man's tone.

"He's not asking you to give anything," he pointed out. "The state will pay you for your cattle." "If the state intended to pay for the cattle it should have provided you with cash money," the rancher said. "Have you got cash money, sir?" Augustus didn't care for the man's tone either.

"We're in a hurry to rescue our captain," he said. "We couldn't wait for a bunch of money to be gathered up. Don't you even trust the state of Texas?" "Nope, not the state and not Ed Pease, either," Denton Fogg replied. "I wouldn't give either one of them a cow. But I will sell cattle for cash on the barrelhead. Come back with the money and I can have a thousand head ready for delivery within the week." With that he walked off and picked a hot iron out of the branding fire.

"The fool, I feel like shooting him," Augustus said.

"We can't shoot a man just because he doesn't want to give away his cattle," Call said-- he was not without skepticism about the state's willingness to pay for the cattle.

"Well, he's out here branding ever cow he can catch," Augustus pointed out, "Who said he could take these cattle?" "I guess that's just how you build up a ranch," Call said. "The cattle belong to the man who gets to them first." "Hell, we could be ranchers ourselves then," Gus said. "We could hire a few ropers and buy some branding irons and get to work. Pretty soon we'd be big livestock men too." "Where'd we put the cattle once we branded them?" Call asked. "We don't own any land.