Larry McMurtry - Streets Of Laredo

But Joey had avenged her father and her brother.

He had crippled their killer, and there was no need for her to do more. She could even help the old man a little, though she knew she was not skillful enough to remove the bullet from his chest. She could probably cut off his arm if the butcher couldn't be persuaded to do it. Or they could send across the river for the doctor in Presidio. He didn't like coming to Mexico--the people were too poor to pay him --but he might come to treat Captain Call.

He was a famous Ranger, not a poor Mexican.

"Do you know Joey Garza?" Lorena asked.

She had seen the woman stiffen a little, when she said the name.

"He is my son," Maria said.

Lorena thought she must have misheard. Surely she hadn't carried Captain Call for three days across the wastes, only to bring him to the house of the boy who had tried to kill him.

"I am Joey's mother, but I am not like him," Maria said. She saw that Lorena was frightened.

"You need to rest," she added. "There is a bed in the other room. You can sleep without worrying.

We will take care of your friend. We are not going to kill him. If I had meant to kill him, I would not have brought him into my house." Lorena was so tired that she wasn't thinking or even hearing very well. She had to sleep soon, no matter what happened to Captain Call.

"Teresa, take her," Maria said.

Lorena followed the little blind girl into the other room.

"I cleaned your bed," the little girl said. "When you wake up, I will tell you a story." "Why, thank you," Lorena said. "I like stories." Then she stretched out on the low bed.

"Do you have any children?" Teresa asked, as Lorena stretched her stiff limbs.

"Five ... I have five," Lorena said. Then, in a blink, she went to sleep.

Teresa sat on the bed beside her for a few minutes. She had ladled up some posole, but she knew the woman hadn't eaten any.

"You didn't eat your posole ... wake up," she said, touching the woman. But the woman didn't wake up.

Teresa sat on the bed listening to the woman breathe. She was thinking about the story she would tell her when she woke up. It would be a story about the big spider that lived by their well. Sometimes she would put her hand on the ground and let the spider crawl over it. The spider never bit her, though a scorpion had bitten her once. She could hardly wait for the woman to wake up so she could tell her the story about the spider.

When he robbed the train outside San Angelo, Joey made a discovery. What he discovered was that it was more interesting to him to frighten people than to kill them. He had made the passengers stand outside for an hour after he robbed them. He told them he would be watching through his spyglass, and he assured them he would kill the first one who moved before the hour was up. The people stood in terror for a long time. He had taken their watches, and he told them to look at the sun and mark the hour by its movements. But the people stood in the cold for almost three hours before any of them dared to move. They were afraid of being shot. In the end, Joey didn't shoot any of them. Through the spyglass he could see that the people were shivering--from fear, not from cold.

Two of the men wet themselves. They were too afraid of his bullets even to move behind a bush.

Watching the passengers tremble was more satisfying than killing them. None of them were people of importance, and there was no distinction to be gained from killing people of no importance. Making people dead was easy, but it was no longer interesting to him.

Wounding Captain Call so badly and so easily was a triumph Joey knew he would never be likely to equal. But he would never need to equal it, so potent was the reputation of the man he had wounded. Even if he never shot another person or robbed another train, his reputation would grow and grow along the border and all through the West. He had ended the career of the most famous manhunter of all. People would still be talking about Joey Garza when he was an old man, even if he never killed or robbed again.

He planned to kill again, though, and quickly.

He wanted to shoot Captain Call's three deputies. They were probably too inept to be a nuisance, but Joey wanted it known that he had wiped out Captain Call's whole party. That would build his reputation even higher.

Joey followed the blond woman all the way to Ojinaga. From time to time, he took out his spyglass and trained it on the horse carrying Captain Call. He expected to see that the old man had died. But every time he looked, he saw movement. Somehow the old man still lived.

When he saw the woman lead the horse upriver toward the village, he let her go and rode off a few miles into Mexico, where he made camp. He meant to travel up the Rio Concho and locate the deputies.

The next morning, a little before midday, he found their camp. They were almost a day's ride inside Mexico, and they seemed simply to be waiting.

They were probably waiting for Captain Call.

They didn't know what had befallen him.

Joey was surprised to see that there were now only two deputies and old Famous Shoes. He saw no reason to kill the old man.

Probably the third deputy had met with an accident of some sort.

Joey studied the camp for a while with his spyglass, trying to decide on a method of attack that would provoke the utmost fear. After giving it some thought, he decided to shoot the horses and the two pack animals first. Maybe he could scare the men out into the desert. If he frightened them badly enough, he might not even have to shoot them. He could simply chase them into the desert, shooting now and then to scare them farther away from the river. When he had them exposed and lost, he could simply go away and leave them to freeze or starve to death.

Joey decided to wait until the next morning. Captain Call would not be coming to their rescue. Unless Famous Shoes happened to be wandering around tracking some animal, no one would know he was there. His shots would come as a complete surprise.

The next morning, Joey's first shot killed a pack mule just as Brookshire was trying to extract some coffee from one of the saddlebags.

The mule fell in Brookshire's direction, knocking him back several feet and causing him to spill the coffee. Before he could scramble to his feet, a second shot killed the other pack mule.

Pea Eye had been frying bacon. A third shot kicked the frying pan into the air, causing sizzling grease to burn his hands and wrists. He got to his feet and began to run to his horse, only to have a fourth shot kill the horse before he could even grasp the bridle reins.

Brookshire's big horse was the only mount left, but before Pea Eye could step over his own horse, which was down but still kicking, Brookshire's mount was knocked to its knees.

It scrambled up and was shot again. Pea Eye was in agony from the pain of the sizzling bacon grease, but he knew he had to run for cover or he would be dead and past worrying about a little thing like burned hands.

"Run!" he yelled to Brookshire, who sat amid the spilled coffee, looking dazed. "Get a gun and run to cover!" As he said it, Pea Eye realized he didn't have a gun himself. He had taken his pistol off because the scabbard was rubbing his hip raw, and his rifle was propped against his saddle. The pistol was closer, so he turned and grabbed it.

Brookshire had picked up the big shotgun and was stuffing shells into his pocket.

"No, get a rifle, we need rifles," Pea Eye yelled.

Brookshire just looked addled. Pea Eye decided to try for his own rifle, so he ran back and grabbed it. Then he turned and headed down into the riverbed. Soon he heard Brookshire stumbling after him. Pea Eye ran for a hundred yards or more, then stopped and waited for Brookshire to catch up. He listened, but he could hear nothing other than Brookshire, as he stumbled on the rocky ground.