Larry McMurtry - Streets Of Laredo

"Rarely," Call said.

"You see, I've got mine trained," he added, looking over at the man from Brooklyn.

"You're new to these parts--it takes you a while to get yours trained just right." "I doubt mine will ever be trained--I'll probably have to chase it all over Texas," Brookshire said.

Then, relaxing, he fell asleep. When he awoke and looked out the window, there was nothing to see but grass. Captain Call seemed not to have moved. He was still smoking. The stock of a rifle protruded from his duffle roll. Brookshire felt glad Call was there. It was a long way to San Antonio--if he had no one to share the ride with, he might get the blowing-away feeling again. Probably, after all, his superiors had been right in their choice of bandit killers. Most likely Captain Call could do the job.

"How long have you been a lawman, Captain?" he inquired, to be polite.

Call didn't turn his head.

"I ain't a lawman," he said. "I work for myself." After that, a silence grew.

Brookshire felt rather as he felt when he went to a dance. Somehow he had stepped off on the wrong foot.

"Well, you picked an exciting line of work, I'd have to say," he said.

Captain Call didn't answer.

Brookshire felt at a loss. He began to regret having made the remark--he began to regret having spoken at all. He sighed.

The Captain still said nothing. Brookshire realized he didn't know much about Texans.

Perhaps they just weren't inclined to conversation.

Certainly Captain Call didn't appear to be much inclined to it. He didn't appear to be excited about his line of work, either.

Brookshire began to miss Katie, his wife. Katie wasn't lavish with her conversation, either. A month might pass with the two of them scarcely exchanging more than three or four words.

But the plains outside the window were vast and empty. The wind was still blowing, rippling and sometimes flattening the top of the grass.

Brookshire began to wish, very much, that he could go home to Brooklyn. If only he were in Brooklyn and not in Texas, he might not feel so low. If he were in Brooklyn, he felt sure he would be sitting with Katie, in their cozy kitchen. Katie might not say much, but in their cozy kitchen, the wind never blew.

Lorena woke to the sound of the baby coughing.

Pea Eye was up walking her, trying to get her quiet. For a minute or two, Lorena let him: she felt too sad to move--sad, or mad, or a mixture; even without a sick child she was apt to feel that way on nights before Pea Eye had to leave.

"I guess she's croupy," Pea Eye said.

"Give her to me," Lorena said. Wearily, she propped up a little, took the baby, and gave her the breast.

"It's not the croup, it's that dry cough--you ought to recognize the difference by now," Lorena said.

"The boys all had the same cough--Clarie didn't have it." As she said it she heard Clarie go past their bedroom, on her way to milk. Clarie was the oldest; at fifteen she already had more energy than most grown men, and she didn't have to be told to do the chores. Even Pea Eye admitted that there were days when his Clarie could outwork him, and Pea Eye was neither lazy nor weak.

"I guess I'm just the worrying kind," Pea Eye said, relieved that the baby had stopped coughing, if only in order to nurse.

"There's other diseases children can have besides croup," Lorena reminded him.

"Seems like every time I have to leave, someone around here is sick," Pea Eye said. "I'll be dreary company for the Captain, worrying about you and the children." He would worry about them, Lorena felt sure, but right at the moment what he wanted was sympathy, and right at the moment, sympathy was the last thing she was in the mood to give him.

"You're the one going off to get shot at," she reminded him--there was anger in her voice; she couldn't suppress it.

"Clarie and I can take care of things here," she said. "If we have trouble the neighbors will help us--I'm their only schoolteacher. They'll fetch me a doctor if Laurie gets worse." When the little girl finished nursing, Lorena held her out to Pea Eye. He took her with him to the kitchen--he needed to get the coffee started.

It was a four-hour trot to the railroad where he was supposed to meet the Captain. He needed to be on his way soon. But when he tried to saucer his coffee--he had long ago formed the habit of drinking his coffee from a saucer-- Laurie wiggled, causing him to pour too hard.

Most of the coffee splashed out. When Lorena came into the kitchen Pea Eye was looking for a rag. He needed to wipe up his spill.

"I wish you'd learn to drink coffee out of a cup, like the rest of us," Lorena said.

"It's just a habit I got into when I was rangering," Pea Eye said. "I didn't have no babies to hold in those days. I could concentrate better. I was just a bachelor most of my life --same as the Captain is." "You were never the same as the Captain is," Lorena informed him. She took the baby and scooted a chair well back from the table, so coffee wouldn't drip on her gown.

"I hadn't learned to be married yet, in those days," Pea Eye said, mildly.

Lorie seemed slightly out of temper--he thought it best to take a mild line at such times.

"No, you hadn't learned to be married--I had to teach you, and I'm still at it," Lorena said.

"We're both lucky. Clara got me started on my education and I got you started being a husband." "Both lucky, but I'm luckier," Pea Eye said. "I'd rather be married than do them fractions, or whatever they are that you teach the brats.

"At least I would if it's you that I'm married to," he said, reflecting.

"I don't like it that he keeps taking you away from us," Lorena said. She felt it was better to say it than to choke on it, and she had choked on it a good many times.

"Why can't he take someone younger, if he needs help with a bandit?" she asked. "Besides that, he don't even ask! He just sends those telegrams and orders you to come, as if he owned you." Though Pea Eye had not yet admitted it out loud to Lorie, he himself had begun to dread the arrival of the telegrams. The Captain dispatched them to the little office in Quitaque; they were delivered, within a week or two, by a cowboy or a mule skinner, any traveler who happened to be coming their way. They were short telegrams; even so, Lorena had to read them to him. She had learned to read years ago, and he hadn't. It was a little embarrassing, being the husband of a schoolteacher, while being unable to read. Clarie, of course, could read like a whiz--she had won the local spelling bee every year since she turned six. Pea Eye had always meant to learn, and he still meant to learn, but meanwhile, he had the farm to farm, and farming it generally kept him busy from sunup until sundown. In the harvesting season, it kept him busy from well before sunup until well after dark.

Usually the Captain's telegrams would consist of a single sentence informing him of a date, a time, and a place where the Captain wanted him to appear.

Short as they were, though, Lorena never failed to flush with anger while reading them to him. A deep flush would spread up her cheeks, nearly to her eyes; the vein on her forehead would stand out, and the little scar on her upper lip would seem whiter in contrast to her darkening face. She rarely said anything in words. Her blood said it for her.

Now, down on one knee in the kitchen, trying to wipe up the spilled coffee with a dishrag, Pea Eye felt such a heavy sadness descend on him that for a moment he would have liked just to lie down beneath it and let it crush him. Little Laurie was only three months old. Lorena had school to teach and the baby and the three boys to look after, and yet here he was, about to go away and leave them again, just because some railroad man wanted the Captain to run down a bandit.