The Lonesome Dove Chronicles (1-4)

by Larry McMurtry

  Pea Eye went back and dug in Brookshire’s pockets. He found the other two eight-gauge shells. He trusted the big gun a lot more than he trusted his rifle or his pistol. He knew he had hit the Garza boy with both barrels. It might not have been at a killing range, but it had probably damaged the young killer severely. Pellet wounds worked slow, but they worked, and all the boy’s wounds were on his backside. Joey would not be able to dig the pellets out himself.

  Pea Eye sat down to rest a moment. He was not far from Brookshire’s corpse. As he rested, Famous Shoes approached and handed him back his boots.

  “Take these boots,” he said. “You hit Joey pretty good. I don’t think he’ll need them.”

  Pea Eye was experiencing a kind of disbelief in the course of events that he had just passed through. He was alive; moreover, he had hit the Garza boy twice with blasts of eight-gauge pellets, and the boy had run. He had driven off a prominent killer. The boy had shot at him six times with a revolver and hadn’t killed him. He might yet see his wife’s face and hold his children on his lap.

  “Why, he was supposed to be a dead shot,” Pea Eye said. “He missed me three times, and one shot hit my dern toes.”

  “I don’t need this knife,” Famous Shoes said, handing Pea Eye back his pocketknife. “Joey left his knife by his blanket, and his is better.”

  Pea Eye stuck his finger into the wound at his hip. It was the deepest of his wounds. It might be that his hip was broken, but the wound wasn’t going to be fatal. The wound in his shoulder wasn’t serious. Pea Eye looked at his foot and noticed that he had lost two toes.

  Pea Eye looked at the body of Ned Brookshire. He remembered that the sister he was supposed to send his love to was named Matilda Morris; she lived in a town called Avon, but he had forgotten the name of the state. It was one of the Yankee states, he felt sure. Lorena would help him look it up. She would have to write the letter too, of course; he didn’t imagine she’d object.

  Mr. Brookshire had been the wrong man for the job he had been sent to do, but he had been a very decent man, Yankee or not. It seemed sad to Pea Eye that Mr. Brookshire would not get to know that Joey Garza was wounded and on the run. The long job might soon be finished. His Colonel would get to know, but not Brookshire himself. He should have stayed in camp. But if he had stayed, Pea Eye would not have been the one using the big shotgun.

  “I reckon I owe my life to Brookshire, mainly,” Pea Eye said, holding his finger in the deep wound in his hip. “After all, he bought the shotgun.”

  “I may take Joey’s blanket too,” Famous Shoes said.

  10.

  THE DOCTOR FROM Presidio did not want to cross the river and operate on someone in a Mexican woman’s house. If word got out that he was treating Mexicans, he was sure to lose business. But when Billy Williams told him that Woodrow Call was the patient, he finally agreed to make the trip.

  Call was in a fever of delirium when Billy and the doctor arrived. He had been in and out of the delirium for two days. In his dream the little blind girl, Teresa, was leading his horse down into the Palo Duro Canyon. The drop was almost sheer, but the little blind girl picked her way down the cliff, and the horse didn’t stumble.

  “Well, the Captain smashed Joe Doniphan, but now he’s smashed himself,” the doctor said, when he looked at Call. “I’ll take the arm first. Then if he lives, well go after the bullet under his heart.”

  The doctor looked at Maria sternly. “It’s too dark in this kitchen,” he said. “Go borrow some lanterns.”

  Maria said nothing. She knew the doctor scorned her. When she went to borrow a lamp from Gordo the butcher, the butcher looked at her with similar scorn.

  “Why don’t you just kill the old gringo?” the butcher asked. “Remember what he was.”

  “I remember what he was,” Maria said. “Joey ended that. I can’t kill a sick man in my home.”

  “You should never have brought him into your house,” the butcher said. He was a large man, and he had always coveted Maria. He had fathered twelve children, but his wife had died recently. The butcher kept looking at Maria, but he gave her the lamp. Maria decided that she would ask Billy Williams to return it. The butcher and two of his friends had tried to catch her by the river when she was younger. She had seen them coming and escaped on her horse. She did not intend to let him catch her now.

  While the arm was coming off, Lorena began to feel faint. She was helping hold Call down, and she was afraid for a few minutes that she would have to leave the room. But she was needed. Maria and Billy together were not strong enough for the task.

  In the bedroom, Teresa heard the old man moan. He moaned like the cows moaned, when they were being slaughtered. Teresa hoped the old man wouldn’t die. He had told her that her name was pretty, and that she was pretty, too. His moans woke Rafael, who began to moan, too, from fear. Strange sounds frightened Rafael, but not Teresa. She knew that Lorena was helping her mother and Billy hold the old man. She had told Lorena her story about the spider, and Lorena, in turn, had told her a story about a rabbit. Teresa wanted Lorena to stay with them so they could exchange more stories. She heard her mother’s hard breathing and Lorena’s and Billy’s. Once she heard the old man cry out, “Let me up!” But the hard breathing continued. They did not let him up.

  When the doctor finished, Call was unconscious and scarcely breathing. The doctor decided not to try for the bullet near the heart. He knew that if he cut any more, the old man would probably die.

  “He’s lived this long, I reckon he’ll keep on living,” the doctor said. “If he does die, at least he killed the manburner first.”

  “What’s that?” Lorena said. “Captain Call killed Mox Mox?”

  “Yep, old Charlie Goodnight seen the corpse himself,” the doctor said. “Didn’t you know?”

  “No,” Lorena said. “I don’t think the Captain knows, either. He told me he hit him, but I don’t think he knows that the man died.”

  “Oh, he died as dead as anybody. Old Charlie seen the corpse,” the doctor said.

  “You keep the bandages fresh, and see that they’re clean,” he told Maria sternly, before he left.

  The doctor’s unexpected news made Lorena feel such relief that she had to go to a chair and sit. Her legs felt weak. In her most terrible nightmares, Mox Mox had one of her boys and was piling brush on him. That danger had passed, for her and for all the parents in the West. Her husband might be in danger still, but he wouldn’t be burned. She was glad she had worked so hard to save the Captain. He had not caught Maria’s son, but he had stopped the manburner.

  “We don’t hear enough news over here,” Billy Williams said. “We’ll have to tell the Captain when he comes to.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Lorena said. “He’ll want to know—it might help him get better.”

  “I wonder why a man would want to burn up people like that?” Billy Williams said.

  Lorena remembered Mox Mox. She had seen the excitement in his eyes when he quirted someone, or prepared for a burning. She knew why he liked to burn people. But she didn’t tell that to Billy Williams.

  Lorena was sitting in the kitchen with Maria, watching Teresa play with a white chick, when an old Indian man she had met a time or two before came to Maria’s door.

  “That man will be hungry,” Maria said, when she saw Famous Shoes at her door. “Whenever he comes to my house, he is hungry. I have to make him some food this time. He built me a fire when I was freezing on the Pecos.”

  “Do you have any menudo?” Famous Shoes asked, as soon as he came to where the women sat.

  “There is none today. The doctor has just been here,” Maria said. “I will catch a chicken and cook it for you, if you want to wait.”

  Maria saw that Famous Shoes carried a blanket Joey had used on his horse the last time he was in Ojinaga.

  “That looks like Joey’s blanket,” Maria said. “Have you seen him?”

  “Yes, Pea Eye shot him,” Famous Shoes said. “He shot him w
ith the big shotgun. Joey ran off. I don’t know if he will live. He was shot pretty good.”

  “Pea Eye shot him? Where’s my husband?” Lorena asked, jumping up. It was a day of two miracles: Captain Call had killed Mox Mox, and Pea Eye had wounded Joey Garza.

  Then it struck her that maybe there was only one miracle. Maybe Joey had killed Pea Eye before escaping.

  “Your husband is wounded,” Famous Shoes told Lorena. “On a horse it will take you a day to go to him. I don’t think he is wounded too bad, but he was shot in the hip. He can’t walk good. He has the big shotgun, though. I don’t think Joey will go back and bother him.”

  “I’m going now. I’ll take him a horse,” Lorena said. “I’ll take the buckskin, and I’ll lead Blackie. Pea Eye can ride Blackie back here.”

  “Wait for daylight. I’ll send Billy with you,” Maria told Lorena. “He’ll find your husband.”

  Lorena felt awkward—it was her own husband who had wounded and maybe even killed Maria’s son. But before Lorena could even thank her for offering help, Maria had gone out the door to catch the chicken she had promised Famous Shoes.

  Maria stood in the darkness for a while, feeling a mixture of fear, sorrow, and shame. She wondered where her son was and what condition he might be in. She had come to like Lorena, in large part because of the kind interest she had shown Teresa and Rafael. She had asked Lorena to wait and had offered Billy as a guide, because she knew Joey was out there somewhere. Shotgun wounds rarely killed, and if Joey was not mortally wounded, he would just be angry. He would make short work of Lorena. Even with Billy along, it would not be a very safe trip.

  Only three mornings earlier, Maria had discovered from Teresa that Joey had been to their village. He had caught Teresa near the field and told her that he would return soon and take her and Rafael away. He told her he would take them to a high cliff in the mountains and throw them off.

  Teresa had no fear of the world, nor of her brother. She thought Joey was telling her a scary story, merely to tease her. Maria knew that what Joey had told Teresa was not just a story. She had gone in and told Billy Williams not to let the children wander to the field again. She told him not to drink whiskey, and to keep his weapons handy. She also told him why she was so concerned, for she knew her son meant what he had said. Joey had always been jealous of his brother and sister; once he had put spiders in Teresa’s bed, and had also put a small rattlesnake in Rafael’s blankets. But the spiders had not bitten Teresa, and the little snake had crawled away without biting anyone.

  If Joey said he would throw Rafael and Teresa off a cliff, then he would try to do it. Joey was clever, as evil people sometimes were. Maria knew she would have to be very watchful to forestall her son. She didn’t want to kill him; she could not bear the sorrow that would fill her if she had to kill her own child. But she meant to frighten him. Joey had seen her call up her rage, and he knew her rage was no small thing. But she would have to be very watchful, always. Joey was sly. Only Teresa had known, when he was near the village. He had come and gone, undetected, and had only revealed his presence to his blind sister. But the message he had given to Teresa was for his mother, not his sister. He wanted Maria to know that he meant to harm his brother and sister.

  When Maria heard that Joey had been wounded, she wondered why she could not wish him dead. Some lawman would kill him, sooner or later. Why not let it end? Why was the bond so strong that it was a kind of torture? Joey hated her, though she did not know why. She had done nothing to deserve her own child’s hatred. Maria had given up trying to understand the hatreds Joey felt. His hate was just there, as fire is there, as blood is there, or desire, or sorrow, or sadness, or death. For her, the fact that Joey hated her was one more painful sorrow, like Teresa’s blindness, or like Rafael’s poor sheep’s mind.

  But what if Joey was mortally wounded? If he brought his wounds to her, she would try to heal them, even though the lawman who had been hired to kill him, and the woman whose husband had wounded him, were both in her house. Joey was still her child.

  In the morning, watching Lorena ride off with Billy Williams ahead of her, Maria wondered what the two travelers would find. Famous Shoes said Joey had shot the deputy three times. Lorena might ride up the harsh river, only to find that the husband she had come so far to save was already dead. At times, Maria wondered if life would be so full of sadness had she been born in some other place. Too much of the sadness of the world seemed to pass through Ojinaga, which, after all, was only a very small village. In cities there must be more sadness, because there were so many more people. She wondered how the people in cities could bear the weight of all the pain around them.

  “I want to give him some frijoles. He needs to eat,” Teresa said.

  “Who?” Maria asked. “Your goat?”

  “No!” Teresa replied, annoyed. “I don’t feed my goat frijoles. I mean the old man. I want to feed him.”

  “He’s very sick, I don’t think he will eat,” Maria said. Call had awakened only once since the operation. He was very weak and had shown no interest in food.

  But Maria was surprised, a little later, to see her blind daughter sitting by Captain Call’s bed, feeding him tiny bites of frijoles with a spoon.

  11.

  “I WISH YOUR husband had kilt Joey on the spot,” Billy Williams said, as he guided Lorena up the Rio Concho. He had led a safe life for the past few years, and he had forgotten the feel of danger. But he felt it that morning, as they rode through the gray country leading two extra horses: one for Pea Eye, and one for Mr. Brookshire’s corpse.

  Call had awakened as they were getting ready to leave. Lorena told him that he had killed Mox Mox, but the Captain didn’t seem to be able to take in the information.

  “Who was it?” he asked; most of the names in his head were vague. He knew he ought to be clearer, but he could not make his head sort out the names. His brain was a jumble of memories, and he could not sort them out, although once in a while one name would come clear.

  Brookshire was one name that came clear. When Lorena told him that Brookshire was dead, Call felt such sadness that tears rolled out of his eyes. In his years as a Ranger, he had rarely cried at death, though he saw much of it. But he could not stop himself from weeping about Mr. Brookshire, and he whispered a request about the body. He wanted it brought back so Brookshire could be buried decently. Brookshire had died for the railroad, and the railroad ought to pay to bring him home to Brooklyn, the place he ought not to have left.

  “It was my mistakes that led to it,” Call whispered, weakly. “I let him come, but I didn’t protect him, and Pea Eye couldn’t, I guess.”

  That Pea Eye and not himself had been the one to wound Joey Garza was another thing that churned in his brain and would not settle itself clearly. Pea Eye had always been a corporal; now he was a hero, though he might not be alive to know it. He himself had failed, but Pea Eye had succeeded, or nearly; he had paid a price, but he had succeeded. It was strange knowledge. At moments he was proud of Pea, for he had gone a long way toward finishing the job that Call had started. Pea hadn’t wanted to undertake it, and had been sent into danger with inadequate instructions and very little support; yet he had prevailed. Call tried to imagine the fight, but his brain wasn’t working well enough. Three or four times as Lorena and Billy Williams were getting ready to leave, Call forgot about Pea Eye entirely and asked them where they were going. Then he remembered Brookshire, and he cried again. Lorena knelt by the bed where Call lay and tried patiently to explain about Mox Mox, but the Captain couldn’t grasp it. She mentioned Charles Goodnight, and Call remembered him, but he could not get his mind around Mox Mox.

  “The Indian said Joey was badly wounded. Maybe he died,” Lorena said to Billy Williams.

  “No, Joey ain’t dead, or I wouldn’t be this jumpy,” Billy Williams said. “I don’t get jumpy for nothing. Joey’s here somewhere, and he’s got his rifle. We better use what cover we can find.”

  Lorena wasn
’t frightened. She wanted only to find her husband. No killer was going to stop her now. Pea Eye wasn’t far away. By the next day, she would have him back in Ojinaga, safe. Famous Shoes had assured her several times that Pea Eye’s wounds weren’t mortal. Still, she wanted to hurry. She didn’t want to arrive and find that the wounds had been more serious than the old Indian thought. She wanted to hurry, and she grew impatient with Billy Williams, who zigzagged from ridge to ridge and bush to bush. Billy spent too much time looking around, when what they needed to do was hurry.

  Billy knew Lorena was impatient, and he couldn’t blame her. But Maria had put her in his care, and when Maria entrusted him with something or someone, he tried to do his best to carry the task through responsibly. Maria was not a woman who trusted lightly; Billy knew she had not had reason to trust, in view of the course her life had taken. Whenever she did repose trust in him, whether it involved watching her children or looking out for livestock on days when she was washing, he tried to do his best. He meant to bring Lorena back alive, and her husband, too. That meant watching as best he could for Joey Garza.

  Worse than his apprehensions for Lorena and himself was the fear that Joey would slip around them and strike at Maria in their absence. He would probably strike at her by taking one of her children, as he had threatened to do; one of the children, or both of them. He might even attack his mother. Joey had always been devilish, but he had not always been what he had now become.

  “I don’t know why Joey went so bad,” Billy said to Lorena, as they rode. “I guess he just went bad, and then got worse.”

  When Billy Williams talked to her about Joey Garza, Lorena’s only thoughts were of Maria, the mother, and how terrible the knowledge must be that her child had turned out a killer. Lorena could muster no interest in the young outlaw. He had almost killed the Captain and had wounded her husband. The world was full of mean people; trying to explain why they were mean was a waste of time. Better to accept it and guard against it. In her years as a whore, it had been brought home to her over and over again, in varied and painful ways, just how mean some men were. Some were only mean enough to hit, but plenty were mean enough to do worse things. It was not a long road from a beating to a killing, in her view. She had known several men who had taken that road. The sooner all of them were dead, the better place the world would be. But it wasn’t her husband’s job to bring them to justice, not anymore.