Lonesome Dove - Streets Of Laredo Part 50

"The manburner has a big man with him," Famous Shoes said. He had found a track that was as deep as any track he had ever seen.

"His horse is tired, from carrying him." "That's good. Big men make easy targets," Call said. "Once we shoot the big one, we'll only have seven to worry about.

We won't be so badly outnumbered." Brooks.h.i.+re felt that the clock of his life had run backward, to the time of the War. The sight of the burned dog did it. In the War, the sight of dead horses, some of them scorched, some with their stomachs burst open or their innards spilled, upset him more than seeing the bodies of men. He didn't know why they upset him more; they just did.

In the time he had traveled with the Captain, Brooks.h.i.+re had thought often about their quarry, Joey Garza. Joey had killed, and in fact, he killed often, but he killed with a bullet. It scared him to think of Joey crouched behind a rock somewhere, looking at him through a telescope sight, ready to end his life with a bullet. Still, it was a bullet; Katie dying of her sickness probably suffered more than he would suffer if Joey Garza did kill him.

But the man who had burned the dog, this Mox Mox, was different. Joey was a killer; Mox Mox must be a maniac. Brooks.h.i.+re had observed Captain Call over a fair stretch of time, and had much confidence in his abilities. The man was a little stiff in the morning, but he kept going. He had no tendency to recklessness, that Brooks.h.i.+re could detect. He consulted Brooks.h.i.+re fully when there were decisions to be made. Brooks.h.i.+re had confidence in the Captain's ability to locate and subdue Joey Garza. He thought Call could do it, and do it handily.

But Mox Mox was a maniac, and he had seven men with him. He wasn't interested in killing with bullets, either. What he was doing went beyond stopped trains, pa.s.sengers who lost their valuables, and Colonel Terry's profits. The thought of Joey Garza left Brooks.h.i.+re scared, but the thought of Mox Mox left him terrified.

Call knew he had a ticklish decision to make. He could keep the men with him, try to catch up with Mox Mox, and hit him in force, such as the force was. Or, he could go alone, and hope to ambush Mox Mox and the men himself. The fact that he would be one against eight didn't disturb him much. Very few men could fight effectively, and of the eight there might be only one who was formidable. Blue Duck had been formidable, but from what Call could remember of the Goodnight trouble, Mox Mox had merely been mean. No one seemed to think much of his abilities as a killer. He had led Goodnight a merry chase, and had eluded him, but in that instance, he had a week's start. The main problem in attacking Mox Mox and his men alone was to determine which one had the ability. That was the man to kill first.

His only source of information, at the moment, was Famous Shoes. The old tracker had walked off to the east and was squatting on his heels, smoking. Call loped out to where he rested. It was time to decide.

"He's got a giant with him, you said," Call remarked. "Who else has he got?" "Three Mexicans who spur their horses too much," Famous Shoes said. "Their horses jump when they spur them. The manburner himself is small. He makes little tracks when he is burning something." "That's three Mexicans, the giant, and the manburner," Call said. "That's five. What about the other three?" "There's a Cherokee," Famous Shoes said.

"He has the best horse, and his horse is not tired." "What makes you think he's Cherokee?" Call asked.

"Because I know him," Famous Shoes said. "I tracked him once before. He stole a woman that Quanah Parker wanted to marry. His name is Jimmy c.u.msa. He is very quick. I tracked him two years ago, and he is still riding the same horse. He takes good care of his horse. I think he is a better killer than the manburner." "If you tracked him, why didn't Quanah get him?" Call asked.

"I don't know," Famous Shoes said. "I tracked him to Taos Pueblo. But Quanah had to go somewhere on a train, for many days. I think he went to see the President. When he came back, he was too busy to go get Jimmy c.u.msa." "That leaves two," Call said.

"I don't know where the last two come from," Famous Shoes admitted. "One rides a pacing horse--he is not a good rider and his horse is not strong. The other man is small. He rides a little ways apart. Maybe the manburner doesn't like him too much." The other men came and joined them. Brooks.h.i.+re looked sick. Deputy Plunkert looked scared. Pea Eye was calm enough, but it was clear to Call that the man's heart wasn't in what he was doing.

Call decided not to leave the men. When the time came to strike Mox Mox, he would leave them, but he wanted them to be in a more protected place before he left. If he sent them alone to Roy Bean's, with Famous Shoes to guide them, they might make it and they might not. Even if they traveled by night, they would be vulnerable. Ben Lily had been traveling by night, and he had still lost his dogs, and nearly his life.

"We'll go to Bean's," Call said.

"We'll find out what he knows. Then I may separate from you for a few days and see what I can do about these killers." They started at once, but all morning, Call felt torn. He felt he should break off and go, while he was so close to the killers, but he feared for the men. They were all grown men, and he should let them fend for themselves; he'd often had to leave men in dangerous situations. This time, though, he didn't feel he should leave them. He didn't want to come back and find them burnt, like Ben Lily's dog.

Brooks.h.i.+re was relieved, when the Captain said he would stay with them. Looking around him, he could see nothing but an endless distance. It seemed that the West just kept opening around him, into greater and ever greater distances. When he thought the horizons could get no farther away, he awoke to horizons that were yet farther. Brooks.h.i.+re had a compa.s.s, but he didn't use it. Captain Call was his compa.s.s. Without him, Brooks.h.i.+re doubted that he could find the will to keep himself going across the empty country, toward the dim horizon. He would simply stop, at some point. He would just stop and sit down and wait to be dead.

Also, he had seen the burnt dog. If the Captain left them, it wouldn't be simply a matter of keeping going, of pursuing the long horizons until they yielded up a town, a place where there might be a hotel and a train. It was no longer just the emptiness, and the blowing-away feeling, that Brooks.h.i.+re had to fear--not anymore.

The manburner was there. Probably he was within the vast rim of horizon that encircled them at that very moment. Brooks.h.i.+re felt deeply grateful to the Captain, for staying with them. He had come to feel that he might not mind dying so much, if dying just meant a bullet.

But Brooks.h.i.+re had seen Ben Lily's dog. He did not want to die as the dog had died. He did not want to be burnt.

"That Indian owes me a nickel--if he's on your payroll, fork it over," Roy Bean said, before Call and his party had even dismounted. He was sitting in the weak winter sunlight, outside his saloon, wrapped in a buffalo robe. He had a c.o.c.ked pistol in one hand, and a rifle across his lap; the rifle barrel stuck out from under the robe.

A shotgun was propped against the wall of the saloon, within easy reach. "What sort of drink would only cost a nickel?" Call inquired.

"He don't owe me for a drink, he owes me for some lotion," the judge said. "He come up lame one time, and I let him rub some lotion on his foot and forgot to charge him for it. It was a fine lotion. It cures all ills except a weak p.e.c.k.e.r." Call gave Roy Bean the nickel.

Until he was paid his full bill, whatever it might be, there would be little chance that he would dispense much information.

"I stepped on a little cactus with thorns like the snake's tooth," Famous Shoes said. "He gave me some of his lotion, and I am still walking.

I will pay the nickel, although I don't have it with me right now." "Brooks.h.i.+re's boss will pay the nickel," Call said, not surprised that the first thing they received at the Jersey Lily Saloon was a bill of several years' standing.

"Put it in your ledger, Brooks.h.i.+re," Call said. "I'm sure your Colonel will be glad to contribute a nickel to the man who kept our tracker healthy." Brooks.h.i.+re had lost interest in the ledger, and had not kept it current, although they had made substantial purchases in Presidio. He had, on one or two occasions, even torn pages out of it and used them to help get the campfires started. Somewhere along the Rio Concho, he had stopped feeling that he lived in a world where ledgers mattered. Colonel Terry still belonged to that world, and would always belong to it. The Colonel, like the old judge, would be quick to demand his nickel, even his penny.

But Brooks.h.i.+re had pa.s.sed beyond the world of ledgers, into a world of s.p.a.ce and wind, of icy nights and brilliant stars, of men who killed with bullets and men who burned dogs. In order to keep his accounts at night, Brooks.h.i.+re would usually have had to thaw out the ink, and then thaw out his fingers sufficiently to be able to write. It was hard to see the lines on a ledger by the light of a small campfire, and it was hard to be correct in one's penmans.h.i.+p when one's fingers were frozen.

The Colonel was a stickler for good penmans.h.i.+p, too. He didn't like to squint or puzzle over entries when he was examining a ledger, and he had said so many times.

Now, looking back into Mexico from the front of Judge Bean's saloon, the Colonel's strictures no longer seemed to matter.

Brooks.h.i.+re had other disciplines to concern himself with, such as making campfires that would last the night without wasting wood. Captain Call was as strict about campfires as the Colonel was about penmans.h.i.+p.

"Are you expecting a war party?" Call asked the judge. "You seem to be thoroughly armed." "I expect perdition, always have," the judge replied. "I keep this building at my back, and several guns handy, in case perdition arrives in a form that's susceptible to bullets. I expect it will come in the disease form, though. I'm susceptible to diseases, and you can't shoot a G.o.dd.a.m.n disease." "If this is still a saloon, we'd like whiskey," Call said. "We've had a cool ride." They had scarcely left the canyon before another norther had sung in behind them. The cold cut them badly, although they rode with their backs to the wind.

The judge reluctantly took them inside the saloon. Once settled warmly into his buffalo robe, he hated to be disturbed. Most conversations, even in the coldest weather, were conducted outside, with him speaking from inside his robe.

The saloon had only one table, and it was so tilted on its crooked legs that a drink placed on the uphill side would quickly slide to the downhill side and off onto the floor, unless the drinker kept a grip on his gla.s.s.

Call bought whiskey for everyone; only Pea Eye refrained. Lorena was very severe with him, in the matter of drink. In his lonely cowboy days in Montana, he had taken to drinking for an hour or two every evening. Once married, he continued the practice for a while, from nervousness, but Lorena soon put her foot down. Since the day she had put her foot down, Pea Eye had very few drinks, norther or no norther. He did take a beer, though. Fortunately, Judge Bean had a few. Famous Shoes requested tequila--the judge also had plenty of that substance--and drank almost a pint, as if he were drinking water.

Deputy Plunkert fell asleep just as the judge was refilling his whiskey gla.s.s. It promptly slid toward the edge of the table, but the judge himself caught it at the last minute.

"I'll pour this back in the bottle until your man wakes up," Roy Bean said.

The judge had quick, crafty eyes. Rumor had always placed him on the wrong side of the law.

Call had not been the only one surprised when Roy Bean a.s.sumed his judges.h.i.+p. To be fair, though, no one seemed to quite know what laws the new judge had broken. Some thought he smuggled gold for powerful Mexicans; others thought he stole gold from the same Mexicans.

Call thought the gold rumors were probably exaggerations. For one thing, Roy Bean lived a long way from anyplace where gold could be used or deposited, and gold was heavy. To Call, Roy Bean had more the manner of a skillful gambler.

Becoming a judge, in a region where few people had much fondness for the law, was in itself a gamble.

"I hope you catch the Garza boy next week," Roy Bean said. "This week wouldn't be too soon, neither." "I'll catch him, but I doubt it will be this week," Call said. "The last train he robbed was near San Angelo, and I imagine he kept traveling. We'll have to see if Famous Shoes can pick up his track." "There are very few competent marksmen in this part of the country," Roy Bean said. "This boy is a competent marksman and he's affecting my profits.

"The truth is, my profits are way down," he added, glumly.

"Oh, how's that?" Call asked.

"The Garza boy shoots people who might come here and drink," the judge replied. "There's other problems, too. I used to be able to sit outside and concentrate on business matters, without having to worry that somebody a mile away on a hill might plug me while I'm concentrating." "There's no hill within a mile of you, and half a mile would be a more likely distance for a rifle shot, anyway," Call said. "No rifle I've ever seen will shoot accurately much farther than half a mile." "Yes, but you ain't a competent marksman yourself, and you don't know everything!" Roy Bean said sharply. "Charlie Goodnight has always thought he knew everything, and so did your d.a.m.n partner, and so do you." "Well, I've known a few fine shots," Call replied, mildly. "I've never known you to worry about killers, before. There are safer places to live than along this border if you're the sort to let killers disturb your naps." "I have weathered a number of killers, but I resent Mexican boys with rifles that can shoot that far," Roy Bean said. "If you catch him for me, I'll hang him in a wink." "That boy ain't the only reason you ought to start napping indoors, with your door locked," Call said. "Have you heard of Mox Mox?" "Yes, Wes Hardin said he was around," Roy Bean said. "Who's he singed now?" "Ben Lily's best dog," Call replied.

"Not Flop," Roy Bean said, visibly startled. "Why would the sonofab.i.t.c.h burn a dog?" "Why would he burn a person?" Call asked. "Because he likes to, that's why." "Did he get Ben?" the judge asked.

"No, but they killed every dog he had," Call said. "I'm thinking of going after him first, before he causes any more harm." "Go get him," Roy Bean said. "Leave these men here. They look like they need to thaw out. I'll cut the whiskey to half price while they're visiting with me." Guarding you, you mean, Call thought, but he didn't say it.

"Mox Mox has seven men with him," Call remarked.

"Hardin says the Cherokee boy is the only one with any fight," Roy Bean said. "Take a slow aim and eliminate him first. That would be my advice." "Quick Jimmy," Famous Shoes said.

"Yes, Hardin said he had a rapid way about him," Roy Bean said.