Streets of Laredo

by Larry McMurtry

Pea had never been meant for military life.

  He had turned out of it eagerly, happily, into a life with her. He loved best the days in the summer, when she didn't have school to teach, when they could work together at some of the lighter tasks around the farm. He had driven a wagon all the way to Amarillo to get lilac bushes for her to plant, and had helped her cover the little plants against the biting northers and the freezes of February and March.

  She ought to win, Lorena knew. She held him in her arms, put her legs over his. She wanted him to know that there was more life with her; more children, if he wanted them; and more of her love.

  But Pea Eye was staring past her, even as he held her tight.

  "It's like I dread something," he said. "I dread something, Lorie." He whispered it. Pea was always nervous about waking the children. His voice, when he whispered, was exactly like Georgie's voice, when Georgie whispered his little secrets into his mother's ear.

  Lorena felt some dread herself. She was only one woman, and she could only do so much. She knew she came first in Pea Eye's affections.

  It wasn't that he loved the Captain and not her.

  She had thought much about this subject--it had dominated their marriage, in a way--and the fact she couldn't change was that the Captain had been there longer, in Pea Eye's life. He was there first, and not by a week or two, either, but by almost three decades. That was the fact she couldn't eliminate. She could change her husband's habits, and she had, but she couldn't change his history, and it was in his history that the problem lay.

  "I ought to go find him," Pea Eye whispered.

  "He's an old man. I ain't." "You aren't," Lorena corrected. But then, what was the point of correcting his grammar if he was going to Call? Good grammar wouldn't save him, and saving him was what mattered most, now.

  The dread that Pea Eye felt crossed into Lorena. They were both gripped by it, husband and wife. Lorena had watched him go away several times, always with irritation, but never with such trepidation. She hated to see him leave, but always before, she had assumed he would return. She didn't know why this trip should be so different, and neither did Pea Eye. Yet they lay together, equally troubled, equally frightened.

  "At least I get paid in cash," Pea Eye said.

  "I don't care if you get paid in cash," Lorena said. "Cash can't hug me. It can't make me a baby. It can't be a father to Augie and Georgie and Ben and the girls." "Well, it won't have to," Pea said.

  "I'll come back." "I don't believe you, this time," Lorena said. "If you go you won't come back. We'll never lie in the bed like this, again. I'll get old and I won't have you, and neither will the children." Pea Eye said nothing. He had begun to have wild thoughts, one being that the Captain was already dead. That would mean that he didn't have to go. But of course, if the Captain had been killed, he would have heard about it, and he hadn't.

  Lorena didn't say a thing, either; her thoughts were disordered, too. If Pea got killed, she would probably have to turn Dish Boggett down again. He kept a store in New Mexico and was still single, unless he had recently married. If Pea got killed, Dish would soon hear of it and ride over to court her. He wasn't a bad man; in fact, he was a good man. But she didn't want him, never had, and all the tea in China wouldn't change that.

  I wish this would stop, she thought. I wish it would stop. It's going to drive me crazy, if it don't stop.

  In the morning, they were both as drained as if they had done three days' work. Clarie had to deal with everything, including the chores and the younger children, too.

  "What's wrong, Mama?" she asked, disturbed. "What's wrong, Pa?" Neither parent would say. When Clarie went out to milk, Lorena made one last try.

  "What makes you think you can find him?" she asked. "He's been gone nearly a month. He could be in the middle of Mexico by now. He could be as far away as the Pacific Ocean." "I expect I can find the Captain," Pea Eye said. "People notice, when he's around. Roy Bean or somebody will know where he is." "Go on, then, today," Lorena said. "Go now.

  I can't stand another night like last night. Go right now, before I leave for school." Pea Eye got his slicker and his rifle and walked down to get his horse.

  "You're going to ride?" Lorena asked, when he came back. "You could take the train. He took the train." "No, I'll ride. I might not find a trustworthy horse down on the border," Pea said. Patches, his big bay with white spots, was a trustworthy horse.

  Pea Eye kissed each of his children goodbye.

  All of them cried, Clarie the most. She was a big, strong girl. The boys cried themselves out, and Laurie cried because everybody else was crying.

  Lorena went in and got ready for school. She dressed slowly, very slowly. Slowly, very slowly, she put her lesson books in order.

  Usually, she just threw them in her bag and sorted them out once she got to school. But this morning, she put them in order, carefully and slowly, as if her sanity or even her life depended upon keeping her schoolbooks in the correct order.

  It was all she could do, once she got outside, even to raise her eyes to her husband.

  But she did, just briefly. His eyes, though troubled, were the same honest eyes that had won through her reluctance, long ago, in Wyoming. She kissed him briefly, gave him a long, tight hug, and then, moving stiffly, like a woman whose back has been injured, helped her children into the buggy and drove away to school. The children all looked back at their father, but Lorena didn't.

  She kept her eyes fixed on the plains ahead.

  Pea Eye put a little salt and pepper in a sack, stuck a small skillet in his saddlebags, and stood at his back door a minute, wondering when he would see them all again, his loved ones, already almost out of sight to the north.

  Then he mounted Patches, made sure his rifle and scabbard were tight, and turned himself south, toward Mexico, to go to the assistance of Captain Woodrow Call.

  On his way into Mexico, Call stopped to say goodbye to Bolivar. The old man had been with him a long time. Seeing him brought back memories, good and bad, of the Ranger troop and the Hat Creek outfit: memories of Gus and Deets, Pea Eye and Newt, Call's son. Only after the boy's death, in Montana, had Call been able to admit that Newt had been his son. Now, with the boy several years dead, it made Call sad to think of him. He had fathered a son, but had not been a father to him, although Newt had lived with the Hat Creek outfit most of his short life. He had lived with the outfit, but as an employee, not a son. Now it was too late to change any of that. The memory of it was a sore that throbbed every time his mind touched it. Bolivar, who had not many more years to live, was so woven into Call's memories of earlier days that Call had begun to hate leaving him behind, although Bolivar was an old, frail man who could not travel hard and perhaps ought not to travel at all.

  But leaving him behind had become, to Call, like leaving his own life behind.

  "Capit@an, the bell! I can still ring the bell!" Bolivar said. He had a desperate look in his eye and a quaver in his voice. He saw that the capit@an was about to leave without him.

  The two gringos with him were mounted, and there was a pack mule, well laden. It meant the capit@an was going, perhaps never to come back.

  The bell he referred to was the dinner bell, near the livery stable in Lonesome Dove, a business that Call and his partner, Gus McCrae, had once owned. Bolivar had summoned them all to his never very appetizing meals by whacking the dinner bell with a broken crowbar. As he grew older and less in control of his mind, he sometimes rang the bell whether he had made a meal or not. He often rang it when there was no one in hearing to come and eat the meal he had made. Beating the bell with the broken crowbar took his mind off the disappointments of life. The bell rang so loudly that it almost deafened him, but he continued to beat it fiercely, nonetheless. His life had contained many disappointments, and he needed something to make him forget them, even if he was deafened in the process.

  Call, and Bolivar, too, regretted that the Hat Creek outfit was gone. What they had in common now was t
heir regret. But the outfit was gone. Some of its members were dead, and those still living were scattered up the rivers and across the plains. Newt and Deets and Gus were no longer alive, and Call had the feeling that Bolivar might not be alive, either, when he returned to Laredo.

  "That old man needs a haircut," Deputy Plunkert said, as they were leaving Nuevo Laredo.

  The old man's white hair hung almost to his shoulders.

  "He tried to stab the barber with the scissors, the last time anyone tried to cut his hair," Call explained.

  "I'd rather see him with hair down to his ankles than to trust him with anything he might hurt somebody with," Brookshire said. He remembered, with rue, that Bolivar had grabbed a shotgun out of his hand and killed the best mule with it. He was glad Bolivar was being left behind; he had been a little worried that Call might relent and let him come with them, something that would not have pleased Colonel Terry.

  The fact that Captain Call immediately left Texas and crossed into Mexico startled Deputy Plunkert a bit. His personal preference would have been that they continue to travel on the Texas side of the river. He himself was not comfortable being south of the border, particularly if he was in the vicinity of Laredo itself. As a deputy, with his own badge, Ted Plunkert had participated in the hanging of several Mexicans.

  He had to shoot two Mexicans personally, and had to whack various Mexicans around a good bit.

  After all, it was his job, and the community expected it of him. He knew that, as a result of his very diligence, he had made himself not merely unpopular but hated, south of the border. Deputy Plunkert knew, too, that Mexican families were often vengeful, going to much trouble to avenge friends who had been wounded or killed. The deputy was prepared to make it clear to anyone who asked that he would be more comfortable on the Texas side of the river.

  "There's a fair road up to Del Rio," he said, only to be immediately slapped down by the Captain.

  "We're not going to Del Rio," Call said, bluntly. "I prefer to avoid settlements, when I can. There's too much gossip, in settlements. We don't want the Garza boy to know we're coming, if we can help it." Deputy Plunkert didn't answer, but he found the Captain's position discouraging. Before going five miles from his home, he had begun to entertain some powerful second thoughts.

  He had never supposed that the Captain would just jump right into Mexico. Of course, he knew they might have to cross into it sometime, but he had assumed that they would be several hundred miles up the river before that happened. His own bad reputation was mainly local. Five or six hundred miles upriver, they would be less likely to run into Mexicans who might be carrying a grudge.

  Now, though, they were right in the thick of the Mexicans who carried the hottest grudges.

  It was going to affect his peace of mind.

  Also, he'd had a few hours in which to get a better look at his traveling companions. In Laredo, he had been so in awe of Captain Call that he had scarcely been able to look at him at all. In fact, except for a glance at the beginning, he hadn't looked at him. The man's aura was such that merely hearing his name blinded most people, as it had blinded him.

  Now, though, riding across the empty, dusty country, the hero's aura had dimmed somewhat. The deputy saw that he was traveling with an old, stiff man, a man who had a hard time lifting his leg high enough to catch his stirrup. Captain Call had a gray, weary look about him, the look of a man who wasn't young, and wasn't healthy.

  The Yankee traveling with them was just a raw dude, of course. He looked silly in his new boots and hat and pants, loaded down with guns.

  The fact that Captain Call would set out to catch a killer with such a man in tow made Deputy Plunkert wonder about the old man's judgment.

  The deputy had a sudden, powerful urge to change his mind. He wanted to declare a mistake, go home, snuggle up to his wife, Doobie, and kiss her until she wiggled with desire. Now he had set out on a long journey, with an uncertain outcome. When would he get to enjoy Doobie's wiggling again? Why had he thought he wanted to leave? It had all been because the old Captain enjoyed such a blinding reputation. Doubting him was like doubting the sun.

  Now that they were riding together, Call didn't seem infallible, or even very active. He just rode along, saying as little as possible. The deputy began to toy with various acceptable ways of saying that he had changed his mind. But none of the lines of talk he toyed with sounded as if they would be acceptable, either to Call or to the general community. And there was no denying, the general community posed a problem. Backing out of a chance to ride with Woodrow Call could ruin a man's reputation forever, with lawmen and citizens alike, along the border. But his reputation might survive. He just had to come up with some honorable reason for needing to go home. A lame horse would do it, but to his irritation, the horse he was riding showed no trace of lameness.

  As Deputy Plunkert was happily contemplating returning to his eager wife, Captain Call suddenly turned in his saddle and looked hard at him.

  "Do you want to quit, Deputy?" he asked.

  It seemed to him that the deputy had developed a faltering manner, and developed it quickly. If the man was going to quit, he wanted him to quit now.

  It wasn't admirable, but it wasn't a crime, either. Like Pea Eye, the deputy had a wife.

  They were going in pursuit of a youth who might kill them all. The man had not hesitated in making his decision. Now, he probably had second thoughts.

  "Quit?" Deputy Plunkert said, stunned.

  The old man had suddenly read his thoughts.

  "Yes, that's what I asked," Call said.

  "Do you want to go back to your wife?" "Doobie? Why, she'll get along fine without me, I expect," the deputy replied.

  "Then you don't want to quit? You're sure?" Call asked.

  "Why, Captain, no. I signed on and I'm staying on," Ted Plunkert said. It amazed him that he couldn't seem to help lying.

  What he heard himself say to the Captain was exactly the opposite of what he had just been feeling, the opposite of what he had planned to say. But he couldn't help himself. Saying the truth wasn't possible, not when Captain Call was looking at you, hard.

  "What do you think, Brookshire?" Call asked. Though skeptical of Brookshire at first, he had come to respect the man's judgment in some areas. He might be a fool about hats, but he wasn't such a fool about people.

  One of Brookshire's boots was rubbing his heel so badly that he wasn't capable of giving much thought to anything else. He was wondering whether he'd have a heel left, when they got to camp that night. Also, he was suffering from a touch of his blowing-away feeling again. He had supposed that he had that feeling well under control, for it hadn't afflicted him since they reached the brushy country around San Antonio. But they were not in San Antonio now. They were not in the brushy country, either. To his eye, Mexico looked even emptier than Texas, emptier, and more forbidding.

  The night before, he had slipped over to Nuevo Laredo and purchased a few minutes with a Mexican girl, and the experience had been a disappointment. The girl had been inexpensive, but she had also been skinny and had a sad look in her eye during their brief commerce. The poverty in Nuevo Laredo had been a surprise to him too. He had read about Juarez, and Emperor Maximilian, and had expected at least a little splendor. Even in Canada, a country he disliked, there would occasionally be some splendor, at least in Montreal. But there seemed to be none, in Mexico. There were just sad women and children, and old men who gave him unfrly looks.

  "You're buying their daughters, or it might be their wives," Call had said, when Brookshire mentioned the unfrly looks.

  Now the Captain was soliciting his opinion about Deputy Plunkert, and the fact was, Brookshire really didn't have one. The man had been a hasty choice, in his view, but that didn't necessarily mean he had been a bad one.

  "It's your expedition, or your Colonel's," Call reminded him. "Do you think we ought to keep this man, or send him back?" "Captain, I can't go home!" Ted Plunkert said. He was near
ing panic. It was as if his deepest thoughts were suddenly being held open to public discussion, a fact that appalled him.

  Once the Captain had fixed him with the hard look, Ted Plunkert remembered who he was: a deputy sheriff, well respected in Laredo, Texas. Now that he remembered himself, he had begun to feel irritated at Doobie, his wife. It seemed to him that it was mainly her fault, that he had wavered that morning. She had cried so, at the thought of his going, that it weakened him and made him less resolute than he normally was. If Doobie had any serious consideration for him, she should comport herself a little better when he had serious business to attend to. And there couldn't be business more serious than attending to whatever Captain Call might require of him.

  Doobie had nearly caused him to make a mistake of the sort that could ruin him forever as a lawman, and he meant to speak to her sharply about it, when he got home. He himself might consider that Captain Call looked old and stiff, but that wasn't the general opinion, along the border.

  Most people, of course, never saw the real Captain Call, the very one he was riding with into Mexico.

  Most people only knew the man by reputation, as the Ranger who had protected the border south of Laredo for so long.

  Captain Call had protected the border from bad Mexicans, bad Indians, and bad white men, too. Life was changing, along the border.

  It was becoming more or less settled. For many years, though, the thought of Captain Call had enabled many people to sleep better at night. They would not soon forget him, and most of them would never know that he was a man who had trouble lifting his leg high enough to catch his stirrup.

  Now that he had strongly reiterated his desire to go, Ted Plunkert couldn't imagine how he could ever have contemplated quitting, although, in fact, he had contemplated exactly that very thing, not ten minutes earlier. He had never quit anything in his life, unless you counted cotton farming, and that was not a job he had chosen. He just happened to be born on a cotton farm.

  "I came to ride the river with you, Captain," he said. "It's something I had always hoped to do.