When they had ridden south two or three more miles, Call drew rein. "There's another out camp off this way," he said. "His wranglers stay in it. I doubt there's more than one or two of them, but we don't want one to get loose to warn the big house. We best sneak in and catch them. Me and Deets can do it."
"Them vaqueros are probably drunk by now," Augustus said. "Drunk and asleep both."
"We'll split," Call said. "You and Jake and Pea and Dish go get the horses. We'll catch the wranglers."
Only after he said it did he remember the boy. He had forgotten he was along. Of course it would have been safer for the boy to go after the horse herd, but the order had been given and he never liked to change his plan once one was struck.
Augustus dismounted and tightened his cinch a notch. "I hope we don't strike too many gullies," he said. "I dislike jumping gullies in the dark."
Newt's heart gave a little jump when he realized the Captain meant to keep him with him. It must mean the Captain thought he was worth something, after all, though he had no idea how to catch a wrangler, Mexican or otherwise.
Once the group split up, Call slowed his pace. He was inwardly annoyed with himself for not sending the boy with Gus. He and Deets had worked together so long that very little talk was needed between them. Deets just did what needed to be done, silently. But the boy wouldn't know what needed to be done and might blunder into the way.
"You reckon they keep a dog?" Call asked — a dog was likely to bark at anything, and a smart vaquero would heed it and take immediate precautions.
Deets shook his head. "A dog would already be barking," he said. "Maybe the dog got snakebit."
Newt gripped his reins tightly and mashed his hat down on his head every few minutes — he didn't want to lose his hat. Two worries see-sawed in his mind: that he might get killed or that he might make a stupid blunder and displease the Captain. Neither was pleasant to contemplate.
Call stopped and dismounted when it seemed to him they were about a quarter of a mile from the camp. The boy did the same, but Deets, for some reason, still sat his horse. Call looked at him and was about to speak, but Deets lifted his big hand. He apparently heard something they didn't hear.
"What is it?" Call whispered.
Deets got down, still listening. "Don't know," he said. "Sounded like singin'."
"Why would the vaqueros be singing this time of night?" Call asked.
"Nope, white folks singin'," Deets said.
That was even more puzzling. "Maybe you hear Gus," Call said. "Surely he wouldn't be crazy enough to sing now."
"I'm going a little closer," Deets said, handing Newt his reins.
Newt felt awkward, once Deets left. He was afraid to speak, so he simply stood, holding the two horses.
It embarrassed Call that his own hearing had never been as good as it should be. He listened but could hear nothing at all. Then he noticed the boy, who looked tense as a wire.
"Do you hear it?" he asked.
At any other time the question would have struck Newt as simple. Either he heard something or he didn't. But under the press of action and responsibilities, the old certainties dissolved. He did think he heard something, but he couldn't say what. The sound was so distant and indistinct that he couldn't even be sure it was a sound. The harder he strained to hear, the more uncertain he felt about what he heard. He would never have suspected that a simple thing like sound could produce such confusion.
"I might hear it," Newt said, feeling keenly that the remark was inadequate. "It's a real thin sound," he added. "Haven't they got birds down here? It could be a bird."
Call drew his rifle from his saddle scabbard. Newt started to get his, but Call stopped him.
"You won't need it, and you might just drop it," he said. "I dropped one of mine once, and had to go off and leave it."
Deets was suddenly back with them, stepping quietly to the Captain's side.
"They're singing, all right," he said.
"Who?"
"Some white folks," Deets said. "Two of 'em. Got 'em a mule and a donkey."
"That don't make no sense at all," Call said. "What would two white men be doing in one of Pedro Flores' camps?"
"We can go look," Deets said.
They followed Deets in single file over a low ridge, where they stopped. A flickering light was visible some hundred yards away. When they stopped, Deets's judgment was immediately borne out. The singing could be plainly heard. The song even sounded familiar.
"Why, it's 'Mary McCrae,' Newt said. "Lippy plays it."
Call hardly knew what to think. They slipped a little closer, to the corner of what had once been a large rail corral. It was obvious that the camp was no longer much used, because the corral was in poor repair, rails scattered everywhere. The hut that once belonged to the wranglers was roofless — smoke from the singers' fire drifted upward, whiter than the moonlight.
"This camp's been burnt out," Call whispered.
He could hear the singing plainly, which only increased his puzzlement. The voices weren't Mexican, nor were they Texan. They sounded Irish — but why were Irishmen having a singing party in one of Pedro Flores' old cow camps? It was an odd situation to have stumbled onto. He had never heard of an Irish vaquero. The whole business was perplexing, but he couldn't just stand around and wonder about it. The horse herd would soon be on the move.
"I guess we better catch 'em," he said. "We'll just walk in from three sides. If you see one of them make a break for it try to shoot his horse."
"No horses," Deets reminded him. "Just a mule and a donkey."
"Shoot it anyway," Call said.
"What if I hit the man?" Newt said.
"That's his worry," Call said. "Not letting him ride away is your worry."
They secured their horses to a little stunted tree and turned toward the hut. The singing had stopped but the voices could still be heard, raised in argument.
At that point the Captain and Deets walked off, leaving Newt alone with his nervousness and a vast weight of responsibility. It occurred to him that he was closest to their own horses. If the men were well-trained bandits, they might like nothing better than to steal three such horses. The singing might be a trick, a way of throwing the Captain off guard. Perhaps there were more than two men. The others could be hidden in the darkness.
No sooner had it occurred to him that there might be more bandits than he began to wish it hadn't occurred to him. The thought was downright scary. There were lots of low bushes, mostly chaparral, between him and the hut, and there could be a bandit with a Bowie knife behind any one of them. Pea had often explained to him how effective a good bowie knife was in the hands of someone who knew where to stick it — descriptions of stickings came back to his mind as he eased forward. Before he had gone ten steps he had become almost certain that his end was at hand. It was clear to him that he would be an easy victim for a bandit with the least experience. He had never shot anyone, and he couldn't see well at night. His own helplessness was so obvious to him that he quickly came to feel numb — not too numb to dread what might happen, but too dull-feeling to be able to think of a plan of resistance.
He even felt a flash of irritation with the Captain for being so careless as to leave him on the side of the house where their horses were. Captain Call's trust, which he had never really expected to earn, had immediately become excessive, leaving him with responsibilities he didn't feel capable of meeting.
But time was moving forward, and he himself was walking slowly toward the house, his pistol in one hand. The hut had seemed close when the Captain and Deets were standing with him, but once they left it had somehow gotten farther away, leaving him many dangerous shadows to negotiate. The one reassuring aspect was that the men in the shadows were talking loudly and probably wouldn't hear him coming unless he lost control completely and shot off his gun.
When he got within thirty yards of the house he stopped and squatted behind a bush. The hut had never been more than a lean-to
with a few piles of adobe bricks stacked up around it; its walls were so broken and full of holes that it was easy to look in. Newt saw that both the men arguing were short and rather stout. Also, they were unarmed, or appeared to be. Both had on dirty shirts, and the older of the two men was almost bald. The other one looked young, perhaps no older than himself. They had a bottle, but it evidently didn't have much left in it, because the older one wouldn't pass it to the young one.
It was not hard to make out the drift of their conversation either. The subject of the debate was their next meal.
"I say we eat the mule," the younger man said.
"Nothing of the sort," the other said.
"Then give me a drink," the younger said.
"Go away," the older man said. "You don't deserve my liquor and you won't eat my mule. I'm beholden to this mule, and so are you. Didn't it bring you all this way with no complaint?"
"To the desert to die, you mean?" the young one said. "I'm to thank a mule for that?"
Newt could just make out a thin mule and a small donkey, tethered at the entrance of the hut, beyond the fire.
"If it comes to it we'll eat the donkey," the bald man said. "What can you do with a donkey anyway?"
"Train it to sit on its ass and eat sugar cubes," the young one said. Then he giggled at his own wit.
Newt edged a little closer, his fear rapidly diminishing. Men who could engage in such conversation didn't seem very dangerous. Just as he was relaxing a hand suddenly gripped his shoulder and for a second he nearly fainted with fright, thinking the bowie knife would hit him next. Then he realized it was Deets. Motioning for him to follow, Deets walked right up to the hut. He did not appear to be worried in the least. When they were a few feet from the broken adobe wall, Newt saw Captain Call step into the circle of firelight from the other side.
"You men just hold steady," he said, in a calm, almost friendly, voice.
It evidently didn't sound as friendly to the men around the fire.
"Murderers!" the young one yelled. He sprang to his feet and darted past the Captain so fast the Captain didn't even have time to trip him or hit him with his rifle barrel. For a fat man he moved fast, springing on the back of the mule before the other two could even move. Newt expected the Captain to shoot him or at least step over and knock him off the mule, but to his surprise the Captain just stood and watched, his rifle in the crook of his arm. The boy — for he was no older — pounded the mule desperately with his heels and the mule responded with a short leap and then went crashing down, throwing the boy over its head and almost back to the spot he had left. Looking more closely, Newt saw why the Captain had not bothered to stop the escape: the mule was hobbled.
The sight of a man so addled as to try and get away on a hobbled mule was too much for Deets. He slapped his leg with his big hand and laughed a deep laugh, resting his rifle for a moment on the low adobe wall.
"You see, it's a poor mule," the boy said indignantly, springing up. "Its legs won't work."
Deets laughed even louder, but the baldheaded man sighed and looked at the Captain in a rather jolly way.
"He's my brother but he ain't smart," he said quietly. "The Lord gave him a fine baritone voice and I guess he thought that was enough to do for a poor Irish boy."
"I'm smarter than yourself at least," the boy said, kicking dirt at his brother. He seemed quite prepared to take the quarrel farther, but his brother merely smiled.
"You must unhobble the mule if you want his legs to work," he said. "It's details like that you're always forgetting, Sean."
The mule had managed to get to its feet and was standing quietly by the Captain.
"Well, I didn't hobble him," Sean said. "I was riding the donkey."
The baldheaded man hospitably held the bottle out to the Captain.
"It's only a swallow," he said, "but if you're thirsty, you're welcome."
"Much obliged, but I'll pass," the Captain said. "Do you men know where you are?"
"We ain't in Ireland," the boy said. "I know that much."
"You wouldn't have a bag of potatoes about you, sir, would you?" the older said. "We do miss our spuds."
Call motioned for Deets and Newt to join the group. When they did the bald man stood up.
"Since you've not bothered to murder us, I'll introduce myself," he said. "I'm Allen O'Brien and this is young Sean."
"Are those your only animals?" Call asked. "Just a donkey and a mule?"
"We had three mules to start with," Allen said. "I'm afraid our thirst got the better of us. We traded two mules for a donkey and some liquor."
"And some beans," Sean said. "Only the beans were ho good. I broke my tooth trying to eat one."
It was Call's turn to sigh. He had expected vaqueros, and instead had turned up two helpless Irishmen, neither of whom even had an adequate mount. Both the mule and the donkey looked starved.
"How'd you men get here?" he asked.
"That would be a long story," Allen said. "Are we far from Galveston? That was our destination."
"You overshot it by a wide mark," Call said. "This hut you're resting in belongs to a man named Pedro Flores. He ain't a gentle man, and if he finds you tomorrow I expect he'll hang you."
"Oh, he will," Deets agreed. "He'll be mad tomorrow."
"Fine, we'll go with you," Allen said. He courteously offered the bottle to both Deets and Newt, and when they refused drained it with one gulp and flung it into the darkness.
"Now we're packed," he said.
"Get the horses," Call said to Newt, looking at the Irishmen. They were none of his business and he could just ride off and leave them, but the theft he was about to commit would put their lives in considerable danger: Pedro Flores would vent his anger on whatever whites lay to hand.
"I've no time for a long explanation," he said. "We've got some horses to the south of here. I'll send a man back with two of them as soon as I can. Be ready — we won't wait for you."
"You mean leave tonight?" the boy said. "What about sleep?"
"Just be ready," Call said. "We'll want to move fast when we move, and you'll never make it on that mule and that jackass."
Newt felt sorry for the two. They seemed friendly. The younger one was holding the sack of dried beans. Newt didn't feel he could leave without a word about the beans.
"You have to soak them beans," he said. "Soak them a while and it softens them up."
The Captain was already loping away, and Newt didn't dare linger any longer.
"There's no water to soak them in," Sean said. He was very hungry, and inclined to despair at such times.
Deets was the last to leave. Allen O'Brien walked over, as he was mounting.
"I hope you'll not forget us," he said. "I do fear we're lost."
"The Captain said we'll get you, we'll get you," Deets said.
"Maybe they'll bring a wagon," Sean said. "A wagon would suit me best."
"A cradle would suit you best," his brother said.
They listened as the sound of loping horses grew faint and was lost in the desert night.
11
AUGUSTUS SOON FOUND the horse herd in a valley south of the old line camp. Call had predicted its location precisely, but had overestimated its size. A couple of horses whinnied at the sight of riders but didn't seem particularly disturbed.
"Probably all Texas horses anyway," Augustus said. "Probably had enough of Mexico."
"I've had enough of it and I just got here," Jake said, lighting his smoke. "I never liked it down here with these chili-bellies."
"Why, Jake, you should stay and make your home here," Augustus said. "That sheriff can't follow you here. Besides, think of the women."
"I got a woman," Jake said. "That one back in Lonesome Dove will do me for a while."
"She'll do you, all right," Augustus said. "That girl's got more spunk than you have."
"What would you know about it, Gus?" Jake asked. "I don't suppose you've spent time with her, a man your age."
Jake didn't answer. He had forgotten how much Gus liked argument.
"I guess you think all women want you to marry them and build 'em a house and raise five or six brats," Augustus said. "But it's my view that very few women are fools, and only a fool would pick you for a chore like that, Jake. You'll do fine for a barn dance or a cakewalk, or maybe a picnic, but house building and brat raising ain't exactly your line."
Jake kept quiet. He knew that silence was the best defense once Augustus got wound up. It might take him a while to talk himself out, if left alone, but any response would just encourage him.
"This ain't no hundred horses," he said, after a bit. "Maybe we got the wrong herd."
"Nope, it's right," Augustus said. "Pedro just learned not to keep all his remuda in one place. It's almost forty horses here. It won't satisfy Woodrow, but then practically nothing does."
He had no sooner spoken than he heard three horses coming from the north.
"If that ain't them, we're under attack," Jake said.
"It's them," Augustus said. "A scout like you, who's traveled in Montana, ought to recognize his own men."
"Gus, you'd exasperate a preacher," Jake said. "I don't know what your dern horses sound like."
It was an old trick of theirs, trying to make him feel incompetent — as if a man was incompetent because he couldn't see in the dark, or identify a local horse by the sound of its trot.
"'I god, you're techy, Jake," Augustus said, just as Call rode up.
"Is this all there is or did you trot in and run the rest off?" he asked.
"Do them horses look nervous?" Augustus asked.
"Dern," Call said. "Last time we was through here there was two or three hundred horses."
"Maybe Pedro's going broke," Augustus said. "Mexicans can go broke, same as Texans. What'd you do with the vaqueros?"
"We didn't find none. We just found two Irishmen."
"Irishmen?" Augustus asked.
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