Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

by Comanche Moon

  She had begun to want to see him behind the smokehouse--but that was lost. When Jake came back down the stairs, he would be different. He would have the Missus's smell on him. He wouldn't be sweet to her anymore, or help her carry water or feed the chickens.

  As Felice swept she felt old Ben following her, getting closer, hoping for a pinch or a grab. It filled her with fury, suddenly; she wasn't going to have it, not this morning, when her new feeling for Jake had just been crushed.

  "You scat, you old possum!" Felice said, whirling on the butler. The anger in her face startled old Ben so that he turned on his heel and went to polish the doorknobs. It was a hard life, he felt, when a butler wasn't even allowed to touch a saucy yellow girl.

  When Jake approached Madame Scull's bedroom he felt a deep apprehension, a fear so deep that it made his legs shaky. At the same time he felt a high excitement, higher than what he felt when he managed to snatch a kiss from Felice. It was a little like what he felt when he visited one of the whore tents down by the river with Gus McCrae, a treat he had only been allowed twice.

  But this excitement was higher. Madame Scull wasn't a whore, she was a great lady. The Scull mansion was finer by far than the Governor's house. Jake was conscious that his pants were ragged, and his shirt frayed. To his horror he saw, looking down, that he had forgotten to wipe his feet: he had muddied the carpet at the head of the stairs. Now there was mud on Madame Scull's fine carpet.

  Then he noticed Inez Scull, watching him from the bedroom door. She had the same sun-flushed look on her face that she had had when she put her hand in his pants.

  "Ma'am, I'm sorry, I tracked in mud," he said. "I'll get the broom and clean it up for you." "No, hang the mud--don't you be running off from me again," Madame Scull said.

  Then she smiled at him. She had put on a gown of some kind, but it had slipped off one shoulder.

  ""Come to my parlor,"' said the spider to the fly," Inez said, thinking how glad she was that Inish had had to leave to chase red Indians. The Comanche might be an inconvenience to the ragged settlers, but they were a boon to her, the fact being that her husband's embraces had long since grown stale. Austin was a dull, dusty town, with no society and little entertainment, but there was no denying that Texas produced an abundance of fine, sturdy young men. They were hardly refined, these boys of the frontier, but then she wasn't seeking refinement. What she wanted was fine sturdy boys, with curls and stout calves, like the one who stood before her at the moment. She walked over to Jake--he had tracked rather a lot of mud up her stairs--and took up where she had left off, quickly opening his pants, confident that in a week or less she could cure him of embarrassment where fleshly matters were concerned.

  "Let's see that little pricklen again," she said.

  "You scarcely let me touch it the other day." Jake was so shocked he could not find a ^w to say.

  ""Pricklen,"' that's what my good German boy called it," Inez said. "My Jurgen was proud of his pricklen, and yours is nothing to be ashamed of, Jakie." She began to lead Jake down the long hall, looking with interest at what had popped out of his pants. His pants had slipped down around his legs, which meant that he couldn't take very long steps. Madame Scull led him by the hand.

  "I expect I'd have my Jurgen and his pricklen yet if Inish hadn't hanged him," Madame Scull said casually.

  At that point, hoping he hadn't heard right, Jake stopped. All he could see was the hang noose, and himself on the gallows, with the boys standing far below, to watch him swing.

  "Oh dear, I've given you a fright," Inez said, with a quick laugh. "Inish didn't hang my Jurgen for this! He wouldn't hang a fine German boy just because he and I had enjoyed a little sport." "What'd he hang him for, then?" Jake asked, unconvinced.

  "Why, the foolish boy stole a horse," Madame Scull said. "I don't know what he needed with a horse--he .was rather a horse, in some respects. I was quite crushed at the time. It seemed my Jurgen would rather have a horse than me.

  But of course Inish caught him, and took him straight to the nearest tree and hung him." Jake didn't want to hang, but he didn't want to leave Madame Scull, either.

  Anyway, with his pants around his ankles, he could hardly walk, much less run.

  They were near a big hall closet, where coats and boots were kept. Jake noticed that Madame Scull was freckled on her shoulders and her bosom, but he didn't have time to notice much more, because she suddenly yanked him into the closet. Her move was so sudden that he lost his balance and fell, in the deep closet. He was on his back, amid shoes and boots, with the bottoms of coats hanging just above him. Jake thought he must be crazy, to be in such a situation.

  Madame Scull was breathing in loud snorts, like a winded horse. She squatted right over him, but Jake couldn't see her clearly, because her head was amid the hanging coats. There was the smell of mothballs in the closet, and the smell of saddle soap, but, even stronger, there was the smell of Inez Scull, who was not cautious in her behaviour with him--not cautious at all. She flung coats off their hangers and kicked shoes and boots out into the hall, in order to situate herself above him, exactly where she wanted to be.

  To Jake's amazement, Madame Scull began to do exactly what the Captain had told him she would do: make him her horse. She sank down astride him and rode him, hot and hard, rode him until he was lathered, just as the Captain had said she would, though the Captain himself was probably not even halfway to the Brazos River yet. He wondered, as she rode him, what the servants would think if one of them happened to come upstairs and notice all the shoes Madame Scull had kicked out into the hall.

  Kicking Wolf had killed the seventeen geldings in a barren gully. The butchering had been hasty; though the best meat had been taken, much was left. The rocks in the gully were pink with frozen blood. The carcasses all had ice on their hides--Augustus saw one horse who had ice covering its eyes, a sight that made his stomach rise. Guts had been pulled out and chopped up; those left had frozen into icy coils. Buzzards wheeled in the cold sky.

  "I thought I was hungry a minute ago," Augustus said. "But now that I've seen this I couldn't eat for a dollar." Many of the men were dead asleep, slumped wherever they had stopped. Captain Scull sat on a hummock of dirt, staring toward the west. Now and then, he spat tobacco juice on the sleety ground.

  "I can eat," Call said. "It won't cost nobody a dollar, either. I've seen the day when you didn't turn up your nose at horsemeat, I recall." "That was a warmer day," Gus commented. "It's too early to be looking at this many butchered horses." "Be glad it ain't butchered men," Call said.

  Deets, the black cook, seemed to be the only man in the outfit who could muster a cheerful look. He had a stew pot bubbling already, and was slicing potatoes into it when they rode up.

  "If Deets can make that horsemeat tasty, I might sample a little," Augustus said. At the sight of the bubbling pot, he felt his appetite returning.

  Long Bill Coleman had his feet practically in the fire, his favorite posture when camped on a cold patrol. He had fallen asleep and was snoring loudly, oblivious to the fact that the soles of his boots were beginning to smoke.

  "Pull him back, Deets, his feet are about to catch fire," Augustus said. "The fool will sleep with his feet amid the coals." Deets pulled Long Bill a yard or two back from the fire, then offered them coffee, which they took gratefully.

  "Why'd you let all these boys nod off, Deets?" Gus said. "Old Buffalo Hump might come down on us at any minute-- they best be watching their hair." "Let 'em nap--they ridden for two days," Call said. "They'll wake up quick enough if there's fighting." Deets took a big tin cup full of coffee over to Captain Scull, who accepted it without looking around. The Captain's mouth was moving, but whatever he was saying got lost on the wind.

  "Old Nails is talking to himself again," Augustus observed. "Probably cussing that feisty wife of his for spending money. They say she spends twenty-five dollars ever day of the week." Call didn't think the Captain was cussing his wife, not on a bald knob of the pr
airie, icy with sleet. If he was cussing anybody, it was probably Kicking Wolf, who had escaped to the Rio Pecos with three fine stallions.

  "What was he saying, Deets?" he asked, when the black man came back and began to stir the stew.

  Deets did not much like reporting on the Captain. He might get the talk wrong, and cause trouble. But Mr. Call had been good to him, giving him an old ragged quilt, which was all he had to cover with on the cold journey.

  Mr. Call didn't grab food, like some of the others, or cuss him if the biscuits didn't rise quick enough to suit him.

  "He's talking about that one who shot him--down Mexico," Deets said.

  "What? He's talking about Ahumado?" Call asked, surprised.

  "Talking about him some," Deets admitted.

  "I consider that peculiar information," Augustus said. "We're half a way to Canada, chasing Comanches. What's Ahumado got to do with it?" "He don't like it that Ahumado shot his horse," Call said, noting that some of the men around the campfire were so sound asleep they looked as if they were dead. Most of them were sprawled out with their mouths open, oblivous to the wind and the icy ground. They didn't look as if they would be capable of putting up much resistance, but Call knew they would fight hard if attacked.

  The only man he was anxious about on that score was young Pea Eye Parker, a gangly boy who had only been allotted an old musket. Call didn't trust the gun and hoped to see that the boy got a repeating rifle before their next expedition. Pea Eye sat so far back from the campfire that he got little succor from it. He was poorly dressed and shivering, yet he had kept up through the long night, and had not complained.

  "If you pulled in a little closer to the campfire you'd be warmer," Call suggested.

  "It's my first trip--I don't guess I ought to take up too much of the fire," Pea Eye said.

  Then he swivelled his long neck around and surveyed their prospects.

  "I was raised amid trees and brush," he said. "I never expected to be no place where it was this empty." "It ain't empty--there's plenty of Comanches down in that big canyon," Augustus informed him.

  "Buffalo Hump's down there--once we finally whip him, there won't be nothing but a few chigger Indians to fight." "How do you know we'll whip him?" Call said.

  "It's bad luck to talk like that. We've been fighting him for years and we ain't come close to licking him yet." Before Augustus could respond, Captain Scull abruptly left the hummock where he had been sitting and stomped back into camp.

  "Is that stew ready? This is a damn long halt," he said. Then he glanced at Call, and got a surprised look on his face.

  "I thought Famous Shoes was with you, Mr.

  Call," Scull said. "I had no reason to suspect that he wasn't with you, but I'll be damned if I can spot him. It might be the glare off the sleet." "No sir, he's not with me," Call said.

  "Damn it, why not?" Captain Scull asked. "If he's not with you, you'll just have to go fetch him. We'll save you some of the stew." "Sir, I don't know if I can fetch him," Call said. "He went to visit his grandmother. I believe she lives on the Washita, but he didn't say where, exactly." "Of course you can fetch him--why shouldn't you?" Scull asked, with an annoyed look on his face. "You're mounted and he's afoot." "Yes, but he's a swift walker and I'm a poor tracker," Call admitted. "I might be able to track him, but it would be chancy." "What a damned nuisance--the man's gone off just when we need him most," Inish Scull said.

  He tugged at his peppery gray beard in a vexed fashion. When a fit of anger took him he grew red above his whiskers; and, as all of the men knew, he was apt to grow angry if offered the slightest delay.

  Call didn't say it, but he found the Captain's comment peculiar. After all, Famous Shoes had been off, ever since they crossed the Prairie Dog Fork of the Brazos. The scout wandered at will, returning only occasionally to parley a bit with the Captain, as he just had that morning.

  Based on past behaviour, Captain Scull had no reason to expect to hear from Famous Shoes for a day or two more, by which time the scout could have visited his grandmother and returned.

  It was impatient and unreasonable behaviour, in Call's view; but then, that seemed to be the way of captains, at least the ones he had served.

  They were impatient to a fault--if they didn't get a fight one place, they would turn and seek a fight somewhere else, no matter what the men felt about it, or what condition they were in. They had missed Kicking Wolf, so now, if Deets was right, the Captain's thoughts had fixed on Ahumado, a Mexican bandit hundreds of mules to the south, and a marauder every bit as capable as Kicking Wolf or Buffalo Hump.

  Still, Call had never disobeyed an order, or complained about one, either--it was Gus McCrae who grumbled about orders, though usually he was circumspect about who he grumbled to. Call knew that if the Captain really wanted him to go after Famous Shoes, he would at least have to try.

  Call felt lank--he thought he had better quickly gulp down a plate of stew before he went off on a pursuit that might take days.

  Captain Scull, though, did not immediately press the order. He stood with his back to the fire, swishing the remains of his coffee around in his cup. He looked at the sky, he looked at the horses, he looked south. Call held his peace--the muttering about Ahumado might only have been a momentary fancy that the Captain, once he had assessed the situation, would reject.

  The Captain sighed, gulped down the rest of his coffee, held out the cup for Deets to refill, and looked at Call again.

  "I got short shrift from my grandmothers," he remarked. "One of them had ten children and the other accounted for fourteen--they were tired of brats by the time I came along. How long do you think Famous Shoes planned to visit?" "Sir, I have no idea," Call admitted.

  "He wasn't even sure his grandmother still lived on the Washita. If he don't locate her I expect he'll be back tomorrow." "Unless he thinks of somebody else to visit," Augustus said.

  Call hastily got himself a plate of stew.

  He felt he had been a little derelict in hesitating to set off immediately in pursuit of Famous Shoes. After all, the man could scarcely be more than five miles away. With reasonable luck, he ought to be able to overtake him. It was only the featurelessness of the plains that worried him: he might ride within a mile of Famous Shoes and still miss him, because of the dips and slantings of the prairie.

  Now he felt like he ought to be ready to leave, if that was what the Captain wanted.

  "Taters ain't cooked yet," Deets informed him, as he dished up the stew. "That meat mostly raw, too." "I don't care, it'll fill me," Call said. "If you'd like me to go look for him, Captain, I will." Inish Scull didn't respond--indeed, he gave no indication that he had even heard Woodrow Call. Captain Scull was often casual, if not indifferent, in that way, a fact which vexed Augustus McCrae terribly. Here Woodrow, who was as cold and hungry as the rest of them, was offering to go off and run the risk of getting scalped, and the Captain didn't even have the good manners to answer him! It made Gus burn with indignation, though it also annoyed him that Call would be so quick to offer himself for what was clearly a foolish duty. Famous Shoes would turn up in a day or two, whether anybody looked for him or not.

  "I was thinking of Mexico, Mr. Call," Captain Scull said finally. "I see no point in pursuing Kicking Wolf for the sake of three horses. We'll corner the man sooner or later, or if we don't get him the smallpox will." "What? The smallpox?" Augustus said; he had a big nervousness about diseases, the various poxes particularly.

  "Yes, it's travelling this way," Inish Scull said impatiently, his mind being now on Mexico.

  "The theory is that the Forty-niners spread it among the red men, as they were running out to California to look for gold," he added. "Very damn few of them will find any of the precious ore. But they've brought the pox to the prairies, I guess. The Indians along the Santa Fe Trail have it bad, and I hear that those along the Oregon Trail are dying by the hundreds.

  It'll be among the Comanches soon, if it ain't already. Once the pox get
s among them they'll die off so quick we'll probably have to disband the rangers. There'll be no healthy Indians left to fight." Captain Scull finished his speech and lifted his coffee cup, but before he could sip, a peppering of gunfire swept the camp.

  "It's Buffalo Hump, I knowed it!" Augustus said.

  Call had only gulped down a few bites of stew when the shooting started. He ran back to his horse and pulled out his rifle, expecting the Indians to be upon them, but when he turned the prairie looked empty. Most of the rangers had taken cover behind their horses, there being no other cover to take.

  Captain Scull had drawn his big pistol, but had not moved from his spot by the coffeepot. He had his head tilted slightly to one side, watchful and curious.