Dead Man's Walk (15 page)

"Hello, are you a Roman too, sir?" Clara asked, with a smile.
Call was stumped--he didn't understand the question.
The young woman's look was so direct that it startled him. What did it mean, to be a Roman, and why had she asked?
"No, this is Woodrow Call, he's a plain Texan," Gus said. "I don't know how that fellow knew I was from Tennessee." In fact, Brognoli's comment had irked him --what right had a quartermaster to be speculating with Miss Forsythe about where he was from?
"Why, Mr. Brognoli's a traveled man," Clara said. "He's been telling me about Europe. I mean to go there someday, and see the sights." "If it's farther off than Santa Fe I doubt I'll have time to go," Call said. He found that he didn't feel awkward talking to the shop girl--she was so friendly that talking was easy, even though he had no idea where Europe was or what sights might be there for a young lady to see.
Call was impatient, though--they had to outfit themselves for a great expedition, and they only had a day to do it. He glanced around the big store and saw that it contained goods of every description, many of which would probably be useful on their expedition--but their chits only covered guns and horses. It was pointless to waste time looking around a big store, when they had no money to spend at all. Yet Gus seemed reluctant to move.
"I'll be along, Woodrow--I'll be along," Gus said. "Just grab me a musket as you leave." "Why, I believe I've smitten Mr.
McCrae," Clara said, with a laugh. "I doubt I could smite you, though, Mr. Call--not unless I had a club." With no more said, she turned and began to unpack a large box of dry goods.
Call turned and left, a little puzzled by the shop girl's remark. Why would she want to smite him with a club? She seemed a friendly girl, though the meaning of her remark was hard to puzzle out.
Clara whistled a tune as she unpacked the big box of dry goods. She glanced up after a bit and saw that Augustus McCrae, the young Tennessean, was still standing exactly where he had been when she last addressed him.
"Hey you, go along," she said. "Your friend Mr. Call is waiting." "No, he ain't waiting," Gus said. "He left with the boys." "Are you really a Texas Ranger?" Clara asked. "I've not met too many Texas Rangers. My father says they're rascals, mostly. Are you a rascal, Mr. McCrae?" Gus hardly knew how to respond to such a barrage of questions.
"I may have done a rascally thing or two," Gus said. Since Clara was so frank, he decided honesty might be the best policy. She was smiling when she looked at him, which was puzzling.
"Here, since you're still around, put this cotton over on that bench," she said. "It's got mussed up, somewhere along the way. I expect we'll have to wash it before we can sell it. Folks around here won't pay money for cotton goods that look mussed." Gus took the swatch of cotton cloth and put it where she had told him to. An old man in a brown coat came in while he was doing it.
The old man had on a grey hat and had a patch over one eye. He looked a little surprised to see a stranger carrying his dry goods around.
"Hi, Pa, this is Mr. Augustus McCrae of Tennessee," Clara said merrily.
"He's a Texas Ranger but he seems to have time to spare, so I put him right to work." "I see," Mr. Forsythe said. He shook Gus's hand and looked at Clara, his daughter, with great fondness.
"She's brash, ain't she?" he said to Gus.
"You don't need to wait for an opinion, if Clara's around. She'll get you an opinion before you can catch your breath." Clara was still unpacking goods, whistling as she worked. She had her sleeves rolled up, exposing her pretty wrists.
"Well, I must go look at them horses," Gus said. "Many thanks for the visit." "Was it a visit?" Clara said, giving him one of her direct glances.
"Seemed like one," Gus said. He felt the remark was inadequate, but couldn't think of another.
"That door ain't locked. You can come back and pitch in with the unpacking, Mr. McCrae, if you have time," Clara said.
Old man Forsythe chuckled.
"If he doesn't have it, he'll make it," he said, putting his arm around his daughter's shoulder for a moment.
Gus tipped his hat to both of them and walked out the front door, the scraps of wrapping paper still in his hand. Once out of Clara's sight he carefully folded the brown paper and put it in his breast pocket.
Although he had left the general store and was back amid the throng of peddlers and merchants, all hoping to profit from the coming expedition, in his mind Gus still stood by the big box of dry goods, waiting for Clara Forsythe to hand him another swatch of cloth. Call, who was standing with Long Bill and Blackie Slidell not twenty yards away, had to yell at him three times to get his attention.
"Here, I hope you're pleased with this musket," Call said, when Gus finally strolled over. "It's new and it's got a good heft. I don't know what we'll do about pistols. Mr.
Brognoli says they're costly." "I don't want to go," Gus said flatly.
"I wonder if that girl's pa would hire me to work in that store?" "What?" Call said, shocked. "You don't want to go on the expedition?" "No, I'd rather marry that girl," Gus said.
Long Bill and Blackie Slidell thought it was the funniest joke of the year. They laughed so hard that the dentist, who was about to pull another tooth out of another customer, stopped his work for a moment in amazement.
Call, however, was embarrassed for his friend. The expedition to Santa Fe was a serious matter.
They were Rangers--they had to defend the Republic. Yet Gus had just walked into a store to select a musket, spotted a girl with a frank manner, and now wanted to quit rangering.
"Marry her--you ain't got a cent," Call said. "Anyway, why would she have you? You ain't known her ten minutes." "Ten minutes is enough," Gus said. "I want to marry her, and I aim to." "He's a cutter, ain't he?" Long Bill commented. "Meets a girl and the next thing you know, he's off to hunt a preacher." "Well, you heard me," Gus said. "I aim to marry her, and that's that." "No, now you can't, that's desertion," Blackie pointed out. "You signed your mark this morning, right in front of Caleb Cobb. I expect he'd hang you on the spot if you tried to quit." The remark had a sobering effect. Gus had totally forgotten signing his mark and putting himself under military command. He had forgotten most of his life prior to meeting Clara. The fact that he could be executed for changing his mind had never occurred to him.
"Why, that marking don't amount to much," Gus said. He didn't want to be hanged, but he also didn't want to leave Austin, now that he had found the woman he intended to marry.
"You need to visit the whorehouse, it will clear your head," Long Bill said. "My head's cloudy, too. I say we all go, once we've picked our horses." "I don't want no whore," Call said--but in fact, once they picked their horses and bought a slicker apiece, they all went down by the river, where several whores were working out of a shanty.
There were six stalls, with blankets hung between them. Gus chose a Mexican girl, and did his business quickly--once he was done, even as he was buckling his pants, he still thought of Clara Forsythe and her pretty wrists.
Call chose a young white woman named Maggie, who took his coins and accepted him in silence. She had grey eyes--she seemed to be sad. The look in her eye, as he was pulling his pants up, made him a little uneasy--it was a sorrowful look. He felt he ought to say something, perhaps try to talk to the girl a little, but he didn't know how to talk to her, or even why he felt he should.
"Thank you, good-bye," he said, finally.
Maggie didn't smile. She stood at the back of the stall, by the quilt she slept on and worked on, waiting for the next Ranger to come in.
Johnny Carthage was waiting when Call came out. He had a policy of not buying Mexican women, the reason being that a Mexican whore had stabbed out his eye while trying to rob him.
"Well, what's your opinion? Is she lively?" Johnny asked, as Call came out.
"I have no opinion," Call said, still troubled by the sorrow in Maggie's eyes.
Gus McCrae moped all afternoon, and would do no work. Call, who had become an expert farrier, took it upon himself to shoe the Rangers' new horses. He didn't want one of them coming up lame, not on such a long, risky trip.
Shadrach showed up while he was working--he was dusty and grizzled. When asked where he had been, Shadrach said he had been west, hunting cougars.
"Dern, when I hunt I want something that's better eating than a cougar," Bigfoot informed him.
"I just take the liver," Shadrach said.
"Cougar liver?" Bigfoot asked in amazement. "I've heard the Comanches eat the liver out of cougars, but Comanches eat polecats, too. I ain't yet et a polecat, and I hope I never have to eat the liver out of a mountain cat." "It's medicine," Shadrach said. "Good medicine. I'm likely to see some cougars, going across the plains." "Oh--I guess you've started thinking like an Indian, Shad," Bigfoot said.
"The better to fight 'em," Shadrach said.
He went over and dipped his head in a big water trough to get some of the dust out of his long, shaggy hair.
Gus finally agreed to help a little with the horseshoeing, but his mind wasn't on his work. If Call asked for a rasp, Gus would likely hand him an awl, or even a nail. Twice he wandered off to visit the general store, but Clara was off on errands. Mr. Forsythe was pleasant to him, but vague about when his daughter might return.