Streets of Laredo: A Novel (59 page)

The morning after Deputy Plunkert ran away in his grief Famous Shoes, who had been squatting by the fire napping a little, heard the approach of a stumbling horse. Olin Roy had risen early and departed. Olin had never been one to stay in camp very long.

Brookshire was already awake. Even though he was very tired, the cold was so intense that he generally huddled by the fire in the hours before dawn. Sitting up was more re/l than laying on the cold ground.

"Pea Eye is a good sleeper," Famous Shoes observed. "I don't think he would hear a bear if one came along." "Why, there ain't bears here, are there?" Brookshire asked. "The Captain didn't mention bears when we came through here before." "In the Madre, where I live, there are many bears," Famous Shoes said. "There are not too many bears left along the river, but there are still enough that a bear could come along." "If one came along, it would eat Pea Eye before he woke up," he added.

Brookshire was glad he had several guns with him. If a bear came into camp, he supposed he could hit it. The range would not be a problem.

"I think that horse I hear has something wrong with it," Famous Shoes said. "It's just stumbling along." He got up and disappeared into the darkness.

Brookshire had heard one or two faint sounds, but he couldn't identify them. If the old Indian thought they were made by a stumbling horse, he was probably right.

Famous Shoes was back almost immediately, leading Deputy Plunkert's horse, which was indeed crippled and without its saddle and bridle. Its right shoulder seemed to be broken, and a rear leg was injured as well. When Famous Shoes tried to inspect its rear leg, the horse squealed in pain.

The squeal woke up Pea Eye, who had been dreaming that it was Saturday afternoon at home.

Lorena had been giving the boys their haircuts.

All the boys hated having their hair cut; they considered it unfair that they should have to have their hair cut so often, since Clarie, their big sister, could let her hair grow as long as she liked.

Nonetheless, Lorena insisted on cutting the boys' hair every other Saturday afternoon. She had ordered special hair clippers from a catalogue and had a special pair of scissors that she used to give haircuts with. The boys all complained that the clippers pinched them cruelly, but Lorena ignored their complaints.

After she finished with the boys, Lorena would cut his hair. Although the clippers did occasionally pinch a little, Pea Eye didn't mind Lorena's haircuts at all. He liked the touch of his wife's cool hands as she smoothed his hair and brushed it. He had a tendency to cowlicks.

Lorena could never correct them, but she would often take several minutes at the end of each haircut, smoothing the remains of the cowlicks with her cool hands, trying to make him look presentable or at least acceptable, in case they felt like making the fifteen-mile trip to church on Sunday morning. Pea Eye would go into a happy reverie while Lorena cut his hair.

He knew he was very lucky to have such a considerate and affectionate wife, one who would take time from her many chores to cut his hair and try to make it look good. He knew he didn't really look very good--he never had--it was all that much more a miracle that Lorena chose to give him such loving attention. He didn't know why she did, and he never allowed himself to expect it to continue; yet through the years, as the children grew, it seemed that it did continue.

It was so nice to see Lorena and the boys, even in a dream, that Pea Eye was reluctant to wake up and face the day. It was very pleasant to be with his family in his dream of Saturday afternoon. He could even see the clippings of brown hair--the boys had brown hair--all over the kitchen floor. Lorena would sweep up the hair cuttings as soon as she finished the haircuts. If she saw a particularly fetching lock from one of her sons, though, she might keep it and put it in her album of family memories.

"Why, it ain't too different from taking scalps," Pea Eye had observed once, when he noticed Lorie saving a lock of Georgie's hair.

"It is too different!" Lorena said. Then to his horror, she burst into tears.

"I just want a few curls of hair from my menfolks," she said, in a shaking voice. "I'd have it to remember you all by, in case something happened to any of you." She cried hard, and Pea Eye felt miserable. Then she stopped crying. At least that was over, he thought. He regretted his careless remark about the scalps.

"Things happen to people, don't you understand that?" Lorena said, and began crying again, harder than ever.

Still, despite that painful memory, one of the many that had been caused by his slips of the tongue, it was hard to leave the peaceful dream of home and haircutting to come back to the cold world of Mexico. Deputy Plunkert's horse was back in camp, badly crippled. But where was Deputy Plunkert?

"I think his horse fell," Famous Shoes said. "It has blood on its head. I think it fell and hit a rock." Sure enough, the horse had a cut place on its head.

"Could you backtrack this horse?" Pea Eye asked. "Ted Plunkert might be hurt." "I think you should kill this horse--it can't walk any further," Famous Shoes said. "We can eat him." Then he left. He was gone several hours.

His absence made Brookshire nervous. Morning became noon, and then midafternoon. They were just sitting and waiting, and Brookshire hated waiting. At least when they were moving, he could convince himself that they were following a plan. It was the Captain's plan. On a day-to-day and hour-to hour basis it might seem pointless, but there was always at least the hope that the Captain might know what he was doing. He might yet catch Joey Garza, or kill him, thus ending the threat. After all, Brookshire had seen with his own eyes how quickly Captain Call had ended the threat of Sheriff Joe Doniphan. It had only taken him a few seconds once he got to it.

The few seconds that it would take him to end the career of Joey Garza might arrive just as unexpectedly. The hands of the clock would keep turning, and one day the Captain and Joey Garza would finally be in the same place. Then when that moment arrived, Joey Garza would be dead or captured, and Colonel Terry could get a good night's sleep, or at least start worrying about something else. Brookshire had never witnessed anything as violent as what Captain Call had done to the sheriff. He had seen the results of such violence during the War, but he had not actually seen the violence happen.

"I wish Famous Shoes would get back," Pea Eye said. He had already shot the crippled horse, but he didn't butcher it. They still had bacon, and a little venison from a small buck he had shot. He didn't feel he had to be reduced to eating horsemeat, not yet.

There were only two hours of sunlight left when Famous Shoes returned. Though he rarely seemed to show the effects of travel, this time he did. When he returned he wasn't trotting, he was walking. He had a belt in his hand, which he handed to Pea Eye. It was Deputy Plunkert's belt.

"That horse ran off a bluff," he said.

"If the moon had been shining, he might have seen where he was going, but it was dark." "How about Ted?" Pea Eye asked.

"He is dead," Famous Shoes said. "I buried him. I only had my knife to dig with, or I would have been back sooner." "Good Lord, he fell that far?" Pea Eye said. "It must have been a high bluff." "No, the fall only broke his hip," Famous Shoes said. "Some vaqueros came along and shot him and took his clothes. I found this belt, though. I think they dropped it." Though the fire was blazing, Brookshire felt cold. A man who had been with them for weeks, who had been sitting around this very campfire on the night before, was now dead. He had run off in grief over the cruel death of his wife and now was dead himself, of a circumstance almost as cruel.

"He had a broken hip, and yet they shot him?" Brookshire said. "Who would shoot a man with a broken hip?" "I think they were just vaqueros," Famous Shoes said, again. "They were probably poor.

Their horses weren't shod. There were four of them, I didn't recognize their tracks. I think they were just vaqueros from the south. They probably wanted his guns and his saddle. I don't know if he was willing to give them up. He shot one time with his rifle--here is the empty cartridge. They killed him and took his clothes. Then they went south." "All his clothes?" Brookshire asked.

Both Famous Shoes and Pea Eye looked at him as if he had asked a very foolish question.

"We ought to get a ways along tonight," Pea Eye said. "Those vaqueros might decide they want some more horses and guns. They might come back." Famous Shoes was annoyed by his friend's ignorance. Hadn't he just said that the vaqueros had gone south? He had tracked them for two miles to make sure.

"We can camp anywhere," he said. "Those vaqueros are gone." Brookshire didn't mention the deputy's clothes again, but he had his own view--and his view was that he preferred to imagine the deputy's dead body fully clothed. The man had come on a trip for nothing, lost his wife in cruel circumstances, and then had been murdered himself in circumstances just as cruel. Deputy Plunkert had been a skinny fellow, and it was cold. Of course a dead man would not feel the cold, but Brookshire still didn't like to think of that skinny white body laying naked in the cold night. In his mind, he dressed Deputy Plunkert in the clothes he had been wearing when he rode sobbing out of the camp. Pea Eye and Famous Shoes were men of the West, and no doubt they were used to such harsh sights.

But Brookshire, an accountant from Brooklyn, was not.

Joey was surprised and a little disappointed at how easily Captain Call had let himself be shot. He was still testing the range of the German rifle, and he had thought the Captain might be a man he should try to kill from the limits of the rifle's range.

He had followed Call from the day he left old Bean's. Within an hour of hanging the judge, Joey was on Call's trail and never lost it. He didn't come too close to the man, though. He held about ten miles back; even so, it was soon apparent that Call knew he was being followed. From tracks, Joey saw that he doubled back several times, both day and night, hoping to surprise him or at least pick up his tracks. If Call had doubled back a few miles farther, he would have picked up Joey's tracks, of course--no one could travel and leave no tracks at all.

The Captain only doubled back some five or six miles. He was after Mox Mox and his seven men, and evidently felt that he had no more time to spare for the one man who was following him, if it was one man.

Joey thought it impressive that the old man sensed he was being followed. Call had tried four times to pick up signs of his pursuer. It showed that he wasn't a fool. Joey was hanging far back on the day Call attacked Mox Mox.

Joey heard the shooting, but from very far away and faint; it could have been hunters shooting.

But he followed, and then inspected the little battle site. It was evident that Captain Call was not an especially good shot. On the other hand, he had attacked eight men and killed six of them. Also, he had wounded at least one of the men who had escaped. He was not a particularly good shot, but he was willing to fight and he fought successfully.

When he left the scene of the fight, Joey decided to follow Mox Mox rather than Call.

It was evident that Call was going to Fort Stockton. His trail could be picked up a little later.

But Joey only had to track Mox Mox about three hours before he came upon his corpse, laying in a gully not far from a dead horse.

Probably old Call didn't even know he had killed the manburner, but he had killed him. Mox Mox would not be burning Rafael and Teresa. Joey would have to find another way to dispose of his brother and sister. If he couldn't find a rich man who would buy them for slaves--a rich man might consider them too damaged to make good slaves--he could take them to the mountains near his cave and leave them for the bears or the big gray lobo wolves. Or he could simply push them off a cliff. He meant to kill them, one way or another. Then his mother would know what he thought of her whoring. She would have to give him all her attention. She would wash his clothes and make them soft, and cook him tasty meals when he was in Ojinaga.

First, though, Captain Call had to be killed. He was old, but he could fight. He was to be respected, as John Wesley Hardin was to be respected. The Captain and the gunman were both men who didn't hesitate to kill. Before Joey hung old Bean, he had run into a vaquero from Chihuahua who told him that Call had beaten the hard sheriff, Doniphan, almost to death with a rifle. All the vaqueros on both sides of the river had lived in fear of the hard sheriff. He had been severe with everyone he ever caught.

Yet Call had easily beaten Doniphan.

Call was a man to be approached with attention and skill.

Joey lingered outside Fort Stockton for three days, waiting for the Captain to leave. He was afraid Call might take the train and escape. He didn't know whether he should risk robbing a train with Captain Call on it. He would not be able to keep the man in sight, but to lose sight of him would mean taking a large risk. With most lawmen, Joey thought, he could rob the train anyway and depend upon his own quickness. But with Captain Call, quickness might not be the most important thing.

Then Captain Call had left town with the woman. It surprised Joey greatly that old Call would need a woman. When people talked about Captain Call, women were never mentioned. Joey had supposed Call was a man like himself, one who didn't need women and who didn't like whores.

That the woman was a whore like his mother, Joey had no doubt. He would have liked it better if Captain Call had continued to travel alone.