The Lonesome Dove Chronicles (1-4)

by Larry McMurtry

  Call always felt angry when he anticipated Pea Eye’s desertion—and, in his eyes, it was desertion—but, there by the train tracks, on the windy plain just north of Quanah, he swallowed the anger down, shook Pea Eye’s hand, and got back on the train. The woman had won. In the end, it seemed they always did.

  Brookshire was startled when he saw the Captain come back alone. The man looked testy. Then the train pulled away, leaving the tall man and the grazing horse behind, on the prairie.

  “What’s wrong with your man?” Brookshire asked. “Was he sick?”

  “No, he’s not sick, he’s married,” Call said. “Running down bandits don’t tempt him no more.”

  “But I thought it was arranged,” Brookshire said, more than a little alarmed. His instructions from Colonel Terry had been to let Call bring his man. Pea Eye himself was a legend, in a small way—Brookshire had been looking forward to meeting him. It was said that he had escaped from the Cheyenne Indians and had walked over one hundred miles, naked, to bring help to the other famous ranger, Augustus McCrae. Not many men could have walked one hundred miles naked, in Cheyenne country, and survived. Brookshire doubted that he could walk one hundred miles naked across New Jersey, and yet New Jersey was settled country, and his home state to boot.

  He had hoped to meet the man and hear about his adventures. So far, he was certainly not hearing about many of Captain Call’s. It would have been entertaining to hear about the hundred-mile walk, but evidently, it was not to be.

  “I apologize—he’s always been a reliable man,” Call said. “He served with me more than thirty years—he’s the last man I would have thought likely to marry. He never sought women, when he rode with me.”

  “Oh well, I married myself,” Brookshire said, thinking of Katie’s fat legs. Those legs had once had great appeal to him, but their appeal had diminished over the years. There were times when he missed Katie, and times when he didn’t. When he wasn’t missing her, he sometimes considered that he had been a fool, to tie himself down. Indeed, he was hoping that one bonus from his long train trip might be a Mexican girl. The popular view in Brooklyn was that Mexican girls were pretty, lively, and cheap.

  “Who’ll we get to replace him?” he asked, remembering that Colonel Terry expected results—and not next year, either. Joey Garza had struck seven times, stopping trains in remote areas of the Southwest, where trains were rarely bothered. He had killed eleven men so far, seemingly selecting his victims at random. Seven of the dead had been passengers; the rest, crew. Four of the seven trains had been carrying military payrolls, and one of the seven had Leland Stanford aboard. At that time, Leland Stanford was thought to be the richest man in California. The boy had taken his rings, his watch, and the fine silk sheets off the bed in his private car. He also took his diamond cufflinks. Leland Stanford was not a man who took kindly to having his sheets removed by a young Mexican not yet out of his teens. It was Stanford who stoked the fire under Colonel Terry, prompting him to hire expensive help such as Captain Woodrow Call.

  It disturbed Brookshire that their plan had already gone awry, though they were still hundreds of miles from the border, and no doubt, many more hundreds of miles from where Joey Garza was to be found, if he was found.

  One thing could be said with certainty about Colonel Terry: he did not like for plans to go awry. If some did go awry anyway, someone invariably got blamed, and most of the time that someone was Brookshire.

  “I’ll be lucky not to get fired,” Brookshire said—he was mainly just thinking out loud.

  “Why? Pea Eye was never your responsibility,” Call said. “You never even met the man, and can’t be blamed for the fact that he married and settled down.”

  “I can be blamed for anything,” Brookshire assured him. “I’m one of those people everybody blames, when there’s a misfortune.”

  For several minutes he sat with his head down, feeling sorry for himself. It seemed to him that life was nothing but one misfortune after another, and he got blamed for them all. He had been the eighth boy in a family of eight boys. His mother blamed him for not being the little girl she had hoped for; his father blamed him for not being able to go out in the world and get rich. His brothers blamed him for being a runt; and in the Army, he was blamed for being a coward.

  That one was fair, he had to admit. He was a coward, more or less. Fisticuffs appalled him, and gunfire alarmed him violently. He didn’t like storms or lightning, and preferred to live on the first floor of apartment buildings, so escape would be easier in case of fire. He had been afraid that Katie wouldn’t marry him, and once she did, he began to fear she would leave him, or else die.

  But of all the things he had managed to be frightened of in his life, Colonel Terry’s anger was unquestionably the most powerful. Brookshire feared the Terry temper so much that he would rather bite his tongue off than give the Colonel even the smallest particle of bad news.

  Call didn’t doubt what Brookshire said. A man who couldn’t even control his hat was likely to attract a lot of blame. In that respect, Call reflected, Brookshire was not unlike Pea Eye himself. Pea had a strange tendency to assume that any bad turn of fortune was probably his fault. On the long cattle drive to Montana, various things happened that could not easily have been prevented. One morning the little Texas bull that all the cowboys feared got into a fight with a grizzly. The grizzly definitely didn’t fear the bull; the fight was more or less a draw, though the bull got much of his hide ripped off, in the process of holding his own.

  For reasons that no one could fathom, Pea Eye decided the encounter was his fault. He felt he should either have roped the bull, or shot the bear, though neither, in Call’s view, would have been sensible procedure. If he had roped the bull, it might well have jerked Pea’s horse down, in which case the bear would have got them both. If Pea had tried to kill the grizzly with a sidearm, the bear might have turned on the cowboys, instead of on the bull.

  Five years and more later, Pea Eye was still worrying about his role in the encounter. What it showed was that people weren’t sensible, when it came to assigning or assuming blame.

  People were rarely sensible about anything, in Call’s opinion. He had taken, he thought, a sensible approach to Pea Eye’s desertion while he was actually in the man’s presence—but now that he wasn’t actually faced with his old corporal, Call found that his anger was rising. He had taken Pea Eye into his troop of Rangers when the latter was no more than a boy, too young to be an official member of any military organization. But, because the boy looked honest, Call had bent the rules, which were more bendable then than they would become.

  Now, it seemed, Pea Eye had deserted him in favor of matrimony, and the desertion left a bitter taste in his mouth. Call had supposed that if he could count on any of his old troop, he could count on Pea. Yet it turned out to be Lorena, once a whore, now a schoolteacher, who could count on Pea.

  Call had no doubt that Clara Allen had been behind the match, and though fifteen years had passed, he still resented her interference. It was one thing to educate Lorena; whores had as much right to improve themselves as anybody else. But it was another thing to arrange matters so that the girl could take his most trusted helper.

  Dish Boggett, the best of the Hat Creek cowboys and far better on horseback than Pea had ever been, had mooned over Lorena for years. Why couldn’t Clara have nudged the girl into accepting Dish? Up to that time Pea had shown no great inclination to domesticity, though he briefly courted, or was courted by, a rather bossy widow in the village of Lonesome Dove. The trail drive had ended that, if there’d been anything to end.

  Because of Clara’s meddling, or Lorena’s boldness, or a combination of the two, Call was riding south with only a Yankee office worker, to go after the most enterprising young bandit to show up on the border in a decade or more.

  It galled Call—when he next encountered Pea Eye, he intended to make that clear.

  “I regret now that I didn’t force him,” Call sai
d to Brookshire. “It leaves us shorthanded. It’s just that I never expected to have to force Pea Eye. He’s always followed me, before.”

  Brookshire noticed that the Captain looked a little tight around the mouth.

  “How long has your friend been married?” he asked.

  “Fifteen years, I suppose. He had a number of children, though I have not met them,” Call said.

  “You have not married yourself, I take it?” Brookshire asked, cautiously. He did not want to annoy the man, as he clearly had earlier in the day by asking him how long he had been a lawman.

  “Oh no,” Call said. “It’s one thing I never tried. But you’re married, and you’re here. Your wife hasn’t stopped you from doing your duty.”

  “Why, Katie wouldn’t care if I went to China,” Brookshire said. “She’s got her sewing, and then there’s the cat. She’s very fond of the cat.”

  Call said nothing. He knew women were sometimes fond of cats, though the reason for the attraction escaped him.

  “So what will we do for a second man, now that your deputy has declined?” Brookshire asked. “Know any good gun hands in San Antonio?”

  “Nobody reliable,” Call said. “I don’t know what a gun hand is, but if I ever happened to meet one I doubt I’d want to hire him.”

  “No offense,” Brookshire said. “That’s just what we call them in New York.”

  “I would rather do the job alone than to take someone unreliable, particularly if we have to go into Mexico,” Call said.

  “We might, I guess,” Brookshire said. “He did rob that train with the governor of Coahuila on it. That was his worst act, after robbing Mr. Stanford.”

  “I doubt he knew the governor was on the train,” Call said. “That was just luck. I doubt he ever heard of Mr. Stanford, either. I hadn’t myself, until you mentioned him.”

  “Maybe I ought to wire the Colonel,” Brookshire suggested. “The Colonel could raise an army, if he wanted to. I’m sure he can find us one man.”

  “No,” Call said. “I’ll do my own looking. Your Colonel might find the wrong fellow.”

  “I leave it to you, Captain,” Brookshire said.

  Call didn’t answer. The question of Pea Eye’s replacement was not one he was ready to consider. He was still brooding about Pea Eye, the man who hadn’t come. His temper kept rising, too. It rose so high that it took all his self-restraint to keep from stopping the train and going after Pea Eye. Part of his anger was directed at himself for having been so mild and meek in the face of plain desertion. Of course, in strict terms, it wasn’t desertion; no war was on, he himself wasn’t even a Ranger anymore, and neither was Pea. The man wasn’t really in his employ, and they were just going to eliminate a bandit, no very glorious cause or glorious work, either.

  But then, none of their work had been glorious. It had all been bloody, hard, and tiring, from their first foray against the Kiowa until now. There were no bugles, no parades, and very few certainties, in the life they led as Rangers. Call had killed several men, Indian, white, and Mexican, whose courage he admired; in some cases he had even admired their ideals. Many times, going into battle, a portion of his sympathies had been with the enemy. The Mexicans along the border had been robbed, by treaty, of country and cattle that had been their grandparents’; the Comanche and the Kiowa had to watch the settlement of hunting grounds that had been theirs for many generations.

  Call didn’t blame the Mexicans for fighting. He didn’t blame the Comanche or the Kiowa, either. Had he been them, he would have fought just as hard. He was pledged to arrest them or remove them, not to judge them.

  But he did blame Pea Eye for not coming with him on the trip. Of course, the reasons Pea gave were not empty excuses: he did have a wife to care for, children to raise, and a farm to work.

  In Call’s view, there was an obligation stronger than those, and that obligation was loyalty. It seemed to him the highest principle, loyalty. He preferred it to honor. He had never been exactly sure what men meant when they spoke of their honor, though it had been a popular word during the time of the War. He was sure, though, what he meant when he spoke of loyalty. A man didn’t desert his comrades, his troop, his leader. If he did he was, in Call’s book, worthless.

  Jake Spoon, a friend he had ended up having to hang—there was an example of a man without loyalty. Jake had rangered with Gus and Call. He was as pleasant and engaging a man as Call had ever known. But he had no loyalty, as he had proven in Kansas, when he ran off with a gang of thieving killers. When they caught him, Jake could scarcely believe that his old compañeros would hang him—but they hung him.

  Pea Eye’s case was far less extreme, of course. He hadn’t thrown in with killers and thieves; he had merely married. Pea was not a man who could be said to be without loyalty. But he had changed loyalties, and what did that say? The whole point of loyalty was not to change: stick with those who stuck with you. Pea Eye had proven his loyalty countless times, on the old trails. But then he had chosen a new trail.

  Thinking about the matter caused Call to alternate between anger and sorrow. One minute he wanted to ride over to the Quitaque and order Pea Eye to get his rifle and saddle and come; but the next moment, he felt he ought to respect Pea Eye’s choice and leave him in peace with his wife, his children, and his farm. He himself would have enjoyed the trip south a great deal more if Pea had been along, but then, he was not in the business for enjoyment, he guessed. He was in the business to make a living. Once, there had been more to it than that, or at least, he had convinced himself that there was more to it. The politicians said that the killing he had done was necessary. Call was no longer so sure it had been necessary. But even if it had always been, in the main, a way to make a living, loyalty to one’s own was still the first duty, and he felt a painful pressure in his breast when he thought of Pea Eye’s defection.

  Brookshire looked at the long plain outside the train window and sighed. The train seemed to creep. There was nothing but the horizon to measure its progress by, and the horizon was just an endless line. He remembered that he had some books in his valise—dime novels he had provided himself with in Kansas City, in case he came down with the doldrums during his travels.

  There was also a pack of cards in his valise. On the whole, he preferred card playing to reading. Card playing didn’t wear the mind down so.

  “Captain, are you a card-playing man?” he asked, hopefully. A good game of cards would go a long way toward relieving the tedium of train travel.

  “No,” Call said.

  “Well, I didn’t really think you were,” Brookshire said. He sighed, and rummaged in his valise until he found the dime novels. He pulled them out, glanced at them, and put them back where he found them. After a little more rummaging, he located the pack of cards.

  “I reckon it’ll be solitaire, then,” he said, with another hopeful glance at the Captain.

  Captain Woodrow Call didn’t say a word.

  4.

  ON HIS WAY home, Pea Eye made a detour in order to ride by the schoolhouse. The little building was perched on a low bluff overlooking the Red River. He could see it, in spots, from fifteen miles away.

  Pea rarely went to the school. On the few occasions when he did show up there, Lorena made it plain that he should state his business and then go on about it. The school was her place. On an active day, she had as many as thirty children to manage, and she needed to pay attention. Clarie was so good with spelling, and also with arithmetic, that Lorena sometimes let her daughter help her with the little kids. But she was the schoolmistress, and most of what had to be done, she did.

  Still, Pea Eye felt an urgent need to see his wife, even though he knew she would not be at her most welcoming. At first, when Captain Call politely shook his hand and got back on the train, Pea felt relieved. The Captain didn’t seem quite himself, but at least he hadn’t been angry, and he had not attempted to insist that Pea Eye go with him.

  But Pea Eye’s relief scarcely lasted un
til he was out of sight of the train. He felt good for a few minutes, but then he began to feel strange. It was as if he were leaking—emptying out, like a bucket that had bullet holes in it. He began to feel sad—the same sadness he had felt in bed the night before. He had lain beside Lorena then, warmed by her body, wishing he didn’t have to go anywhere. Now, it was clear that he wouldn’t have to go. He could be with his wife and children, and get on with his many chores. The spring winds had blown a corner off the roof of the barn. All summer and fall he had meant to get it mended, but he hadn’t. Now, he could attend to it, and to other much needed repairs as well. He could do whatever he wanted to, around the place.

  Yet he felt so sad he could hardly keep from crying. His memories were getting mixed up with his feelings. Thinking of the barn with the leaky roof reminded him of the barn that had belonged to the Hat Creek outfit, way south in Lonesome Dove. That barn had no roof at all, for years. Of course, it seldom rained in Lonesome Dove, so the stock didn’t suffer much, as it would have if that barn had been in the Panhandle. But the stock wasn’t really what was on Pea Eye’s mind, or in his memory. What was on his mind was the old Hat Creek outfit itself—his old compañeros, the men he had ridden with for years. Captain Call, of course, and Gus McCrae and Deets and Newt and Dish Boggett, old Bol the cook, and Jake Spoon; Soupy and Jasper Fant and all the rest. Now they were scattered, not merely all over the cattle country, but between life and death as well. Gus had died in Miles City, Montana, of gangrene in his leg. Deets was killed by an Indian boy in Wyoming; Jake, they had to hang in Kansas. Then the boy Newt, a good boy whom Pea had always liked and respected, had the life crushed out of him by the Hell Bitch, way up on the Milk River.

  Pea loved his wife and children, and he couldn’t imagine life without them. He hadn’t wanted to go with the Captain, and he still didn’t. But, despite that, he missed his old partners of the trail. The boys would never ride out together again; they would never be an outfit again. It was sad, but it was life.