Lonesome Dove - Streets Of Laredo Part 19

They could do any and all of those things, and worse, for all she knew.

All the same, though she didn't like the rules, Doobie really wanted Ted to come back. That night, without him to hold her tight, she had many dreams, and tossed and turned, but the best dream she had was that the bandit they were after, Joey Garza, came riding into Laredo to surrender, so that Ted and the Ranger and the Yankee didn't have to go at all.

Doobie's dream was so vivid that she could even smell her husband, Ted Plunkert. He smelled of saddle soap. Only that morning he had taken it into his head to saddle-soap his old saddle. It gave off a good smell, saddle soap. Smelling it in her dream made Doobie remember what a good man Ted was, and how kind he had always been to her.

The best part of the dream, though, was that Ted not only smelled of saddle soap; Ted was there.

He snuck into the bedroom, as he always did when he came in late; he took off his boots, took off his pants, took off his s.h.i.+rt, and climbed into bed to hold her tight, as she always hoped he would, not just for one night but throughout her whole life. Doobie tried to stay in her dream, to hide in it, but she grew more and more restless; she began to have moments of wakefulness, began to suspect that her dream was just a dream.

She tried to fight off waking up, to burrow deeper into the dream, but it didn't work.

Despite herself, she woke, opened her eyes, and knew the worst, immediately. Ted Plunkert wasn't there.

He wasn't there, just wasn't there. One day, when she had no reason to expect trouble, or even to be the tiniest bit worried, her life with Ted Plunkert had ended.

"No it ain't, honey. He's just gone on a job," her friend Susanna, told her a little later that morning. Doobie had been so upset that she had run down the street, barefoot and sobbing, and flung herself into Susanna's arms.

"He'll never come back. He'll never come back, I know it," Doobie kept saying, between fits of racking sobs.

"He'll come back," Susanna said.

"He'll come back, Doobie." In fact, she wasn't so sure. She couldn't really say it with much conviction, because only the year before, her husband, John Slack, by consent one of the best cowboys to be found anywhere near the Rio Grande, had ridden out one morning to brand a few calves--work he had done hundreds of times in the twelve years of their marriage--and had never come back, not alive, that is. A calf he had just roped turned directly under his horse while the horse was in a dead run. The horse's front legs buckled, and he fell in such a way that it drove John Slack's head straight into the ground, breaking his neck. He died instantly, and since then, Susanna had been a widow.

At least you've got his child, Susanna thought wi/lly, as she held her sobbing friend. She and John had hoped for a child, hoped year after year; but no child came, and now she had nothing of John Slack except a few notes he had written her while they were courting, and of course, her memories, memories of being married to the best cowboy in the Rio Grande Valley. They had once hoped to have a ranch, as well as a child, but now John was dead, and Susanna had neither. She had been forced to move to town and take a job clerking in the general store, to support herself.

Doobie would not be comforted. Remembering her own loss made Susanna a poor comforter, anyway. Soon, she was crying, too.

"He won't come back, he'll never come back," Doobie said, again and again. She had never been so convinced of anything as she was that her husband, Ted Plunkert, was gone for good. Little Eddie would never know his father. She would never again have a husband, to hold her tight in the night.

"I was going to give him a new saddle," Doobie said, hopelessly, to Susanna.

Indeed, she had been skimping and saving for just that purpose. She had paid down the immense sum of eight dollars to old Jesus, the local saddlemaker. She had discussed Ted's new saddle with Jesus in great detail. Doobie had even begun to take in sewing, to pay for the saddle. Old Jesus had promised it to her by the spring.

Doobie's dream was that someday Sheriff Jekyll would move away and Ted would be sheriff of Laredo. She thought Ted would be a wonderful sheriff; maybe little Eddie could be his deputy, when he grew up. She wanted Ted to have a saddle worthy of the sheriff of Laredo.

Now that little dream was lost, too. Jesus had already started on the saddle. Maybe the best thing she could do would be to let him finish it. It could be little Eddie's saddle, one day.

"I hate that old man Call," Doobie said. She felt weak from crying so much and so hard, but not too weak to hate what she hated. She had only seen the old man from a distance; the Yankee, too; but she hated them both. They had ridden in and taken her Ted. She hoped they were both killed, and that the buzzards ate their guts.

"Who does he think he is anyway, just to come here and take people, like that?" she asked Susanna.

Susanna was ten years older than Doobie.

She had heard many stories about Captain Call, for the cowboys were always talking about him. But it had mainly just been men talking. She had not paid much attention. Doobie coming in so upset had upset her, too, and now it was almost time for her to go to work.

"I think he was an Indian fighter," Susanna said.

"I wish the Indians had killed him, then," Doobie said bitterly.

"Don't think about it," Susanna advised.

She soon had to leave for her job in the store.

Doobie walked back home barefoot, not caring how she looked, not caring about anything. She wished an Indian would ride into town and kill her. It would be easier than suffering. But then, she remembered that she had to stay alive so that little Eddie could be born. It seemed hard, but she would have to do it. She would have to do it without Ted, too. Yesterday, he had been there; today he was gone, and he would not be back. Ted was not very tough. Doobie knew that. He would not be very hard to kill. Somebody would kill him--this Joey Garza, or someone else. She knew it in her bones.

Doobie walked on home and hid in her bed all day, wondering who would be the one to bring her the news, and how long it would be before it came.

As a girl of ten, Maria had been given a crippled pony--not a true pony, but a small, spotted horse that had injured itself badly on some barbed wire strung by the men who owned the big ranch across the river. The men had been careless with their wire, and the little horse had become entangled in a coil and had cut one foot so badly that everyone thought it would lose its hoof. The villagers in Ojinaga were hoping that old Ramon, who owned the horse, would kill it and make horsemeat jerky.

That was what the people of Ojinaga wanted, but that was not what Ramon wanted. Ramon, though already an old man, wanted Maria, who was only ten.

Ramon had a wife named Carmila, a quarrelsome woman liked by no one, but liked least by Ramon, who'd endured her angry eyes and acid tongue for thirty years. Now Carmila was sick; it was thought she had a tumor in her womb.

As the tumor grew, Carmila became even more angry and spiteful, and refused to be with Ramon. She told him she thought he had put the tumor in her womb out of spite because she would bear him no more children. She had already borne him thirteen.

Denied relations with his wife, Ramon's thoughts turned more and more to Maria, whose b.r.e.a.s.t.s were already budding. One day, noticing that Maria came every day to pet the crippled horse, the horse he had been thinking of making into jerky, Ramon impulsively gave it to Maria. He was not just being generous; he was preparing the way for a serious courts.h.i.+p. As soon as Carmila died, he meant to go to Tomas, Maria's father, and ask for her hand.

That plan failed, because Tomas and his oldest son and son-in-law got caught in Texas with twenty stolen horses. A Ranger troop led by Captain Call and Captain McCrae caught the men, and they were hung within an hour of their capture. Ramon considered, and decided not to take back the horse, which could walk fairly well, and even trot, although it had only three good legs.

When the news came that her father and brother were dead, Maria took her horse, whom she called Three Legs, and walked far down the river, farther than she had ever gone before. She never rode Three Legs, but she loved him more than anything else in her life. Every day, she made a poultice for his wounded hoof, hoping it would heal.

But a tendon had been severed when Three Legs got caught in the wire; with the tendon cut, the leg could not heal.

During her time on the river, mourning for her father, Maria ate mesquite beans, and nibbled carefully at p.r.i.c.kly pear apples. Once or twice she was able to scoop a little fish out of the water. The fish she ate raw. Once she caught a small turtle, meaning to eat it, but instead, she kept it for a few days and let it go.

During the day, she walked with Three Legs, as he foraged. During the worst of the heat, she found shade. Often she looked across the river, at the hated place called Texas, where men killed other men over a few horses. She wanted to kill all the men who had hung her father and brother. She did not suppose it would ever be in her power to kill them, but she vowed to do it if she could.

At night, she looked at the bright stars, sleeping little, listening to the river. She did not understand rivers. Where did so much water come from?

She wondered if the river began in the sky, where the rain lived. On some days she didn't eat at all, though always, she drank the cold water of the river.

Ramon was furious with Maria, for going away with the horse he had given her. He wanted to find her and beat her, but in the end, he was too lazy to go look for her. It didn't bother Ramon that Tomas and his boy had been hung. They were sloppy thieves, and it was no surprise to him that the Rangers had caught them and hung them. They had known the danger before they crossed the border.

Horse thieves had to hang. That was the law on either side of the river.

It angered Ramon that a girl of ten would take it upon herself to leave, without asking anyone, andwitha horse he had given her. Carmila, his wife, was dying--she might go any day now. Her stomach was blue and swollen. She could not keep food down. All Ramon could think about, during Maria's absence, were her little budding b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He wanted to touch fresh young b.r.e.a.s.t.s, not the tired sacks that Carmila had.

Finally, Maria walked back to the village.

The mesquite beans were gone, and she was hungry.

Two days after Maria's return, Ramon caught her in the cornfield. She was feeding Three Legs corn from her hand. Maria greeted Ramon with a friendly smile, but one look at his face told her that Ramon was not in a friendly mood. She knew little about men and women. She was shocked when Ramon simply shoved her down in the cornfield and began to pull at her clothes.

She screamed, and Ramon hit her; she screamed again and he hit her again. Maria thought he had gone berserk when he tried to pry her legs apart. No one in the village came. Maria was weak from her fast, and Ramon was strong. Also, Maria was so shocked at the change in Ramon, who had been her neighbor all her life, that she did not know what to do. She thought his wife's illness must have driven him insane. He was acting like a crazy man. His face was twisted, he bared his teeth, and he was ready to hit her again if she tried to scream.

Maria gave up. Her life had become nothing but pain. She was surprised by Ramon's pleasure, which soon dripped out of her, along with her own blood. While he still held her down, Ramon told Maria that he wanted her to live with him now. Carmila would soon be dead. As soon as she died, he would marry Maria. Even as he crushed her into the dirt, Ramon was eager to let Maria know that his intentions were good.

Maria was almost more shocked by what Ramon told her than by what he had done to her. She did not want to marry Ramon, or anyone. What had happened in the cornfield frightened her and hurt her, but it also taught her something. It taught her what men really wanted of women.