Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

by Comanche Moon

  "We just lost Watson," he said, examining the camp. "Either that, or he's enjoying a mighty heavy nap." Augustus ran over and knelt by Jimmy Watson, a man a year or two older than himself and Call. At first he saw no wound and thought the Captain might be right about the heavy nap, but when he turned Jimmy Watson slightly he saw that a bullet had got him right under his armpit. He must have been lifting his gun and the bullet passed just beneath it and killed him.

  "Nope, Jim's dead," Gus said. "I wish the damn Comanches would stand up, so we could see them." "Wish for Christmas and roast pig, while you're wishing," Call said. "They ain't going to stand up." Then, a moment later, five young warriors appeared horseback, a considerable distance from the camp. They were yelling and whooping, but they weren't attacking. The lead horseman was a tall youth whose hair streamed out behind him as he raced his pony.

  Several of the rangers lifted their rifles, but no one fired a shot. The Comanches had gauged the distance nicely--they were already just out of rifle range.

  Call watched Captain Scull, waiting for him to give the order to mount and pursue--the Captain had taken out his binoculars and was studying the racing horsemen.

  "I was looking for brands on the horses," he said. "I was hoping our Abilene ponies might be there. But no luck--they're just Comanche ponies." All the rangers stood by their horses, waiting for the order to pursue the Comanches, but Captain Scull merely stood watching the five young warriors race away, as casual as if he had been watching a Sunday horse race.

  "Captain, ain't we gonna chase 'em?

  They kilt Jimmy Watson," Augustus asked, puzzled by the Captain's casual attitude.

  "No, we'll not chase them--not on tired horses," the Captain said. "Those are just the pups. The old he-wolf is down there somewhere, waiting. I doubt those youngsters expected to hit anybody, when they shot--they were just trying to lure us down into some box canyon, where the he-wolf can cut us off and tear out our throats." He turned and put his binoculars back in their leather case.

  "I'd prefer to wait for that stew to mature and then take breakfast," he said. "If the old he-wolf wants us bad enough, let him come.

  We'll oblige him with a damn good scrap, and when it's over I'll take his hide back to Austin and nail it to the Governor's door." "Sir, what'll we do with Jimmy?" Long Bill asked. "This ground's froze hard.

  It'll take a good strong pick to hack out a grave in ground like this, and we ain't got a pick." Captain Scull came over and looked at the dead man--he knelt, rolled the man over, and inspected the fatal wound.

  "There's no remedy for bad luck, is there?" he said, addressing the question to no one in particular.

  "If Watson hadn't raised his arm just when he did, the worst he would have gotten out of this episode would have been a broken arm. But he lifted his gun and the bullet had a clear path to his vitals. I'll miss the man. He was someone to talk wives with." "What, sir?" Augustus asked. The remark startled him.

  "Wives, Mr. McCrae," Inish Scull said. "You're a bachelor. I doubt you can appreciate the fascination of the subject--but James Watson appreciated it. He was on his third wife when he had the misfortune to catch his dying. He and I could talk wives for hours." "Well, but what happened to his wives?" Long Bill inquired. "I'm a married man.

  I'd like to know." "One died, one survives him, and the one in the middle ran off with an acrobat," the Captain said. "That's about average for wives, I expect. You'll find that out soon enough, Mr.

  McCrae, if you take it into your head to marry." Augustus was thoroughly sorry that the subject of marriage had come up. It seemed to him that he had been trying to get married for half his life-- he had just happened, unluckily, to fall in love with the one woman who wouldn't have him.

  "Sir, even if one of his wives did run off with an acrobat, we've still got to bury him, someway," Long Bill said. Once Long Bill got his mind on something he rarely allowed it to be deflected until the question at hand was closed. Now the question at hand was how to bury a man when the ground was too frozen to yield them a grave. When Jimmy Watson had been alive he needed wives, apparently, and it was a need Long Bill understood and sympathized with. But now he was dead: what he needed was a grave.

  "Well, I suppose we do need to bury James Watson--t's the Christian way," the Captain said. "It was not the way taken by my cousin Willy, though. Cousin Willy was a biologist. He studied with Professor Agassiz, at Harvard. Willy was particularly fond of beetles--excessively fond, some might say. He fancied tropical beetles, in particular. Professor Agassiz took him to Brazil, where there are some wonderful beetles--m beetles than any place in the world except Madagascar, Willy claimed. They've even got an undertaker beetle, down there in Brazil." "What kind?" Augustus asked. He had vaguely heard of Brazil, but he had never heard of an undertaker beetle.

  "An undertaker beetle, sir," Captain Scull went on. "Willy wanted to go back into the food chain the fastest way possible, and the fastest way was to have himself laid out naked in a tidy spot where these undertaker beetles were plentiful.

  "So that's what they did with W," the Captain continued. "They had no choice--Willy had fixed it all in his will. They laid him out naked in a pretty spot and the beetles immediately got to work. Pretty soon Willy was buried, and by the next day he was part of the food chain again, just as he wished. If we left James Watson to the coyotes and the buzzards, we'd be accomplishing the same thing." Long Bill Coleman was horrified by such talk. He was unfamiliar with Brazil, and the thought of being buried by beetles gave him the shudders. Not only was the Captain forgetting about Jimmy Watson's widow, whose feelings about the burial had to be considered, he was even forgetting about heaven.

  "Now then, that's strange talk," he said.

  "How would a man get up to heaven, with no one to say any scriptures over him, andwith just a dern bunch of beetles for undertakers? Of course, out here in the baldies we can't expect undertakers, but I guess I'll try to bury my pards myself --I wouldn't trust the job to a bunch of dern bugs." "My cousin Willy was of an agnostical bent, Mr. Coleman," the Captain said. "I don't think he believed in heaven, but he did believe in bugs. They're not to be underrated, sir--not according to my cousin Willy. There are more than a million species of insects, Mr.

  Coleman, and they're a sight more adaptable than us. I expect there will be bugs aplenty when we humans are all gone." Young Pea Eye Parker was so hungry, he found it hard to pay attention to the conversation. For one thing, he couldn't figure out what a food chain could be, unless the Captain was talking about link sausage. How a beetle in a country he had never heard of could turn a dead man into link sausage was beyond his ken. Deets's stew pot was bubbling furiously; now and then, a good odor drifted his way. His only opinion was that he himself did not intend to be buried naked. It would be a hard shock to his ma if he came walking into heaven without a stitch.

  Deets, stirring the stew, did not like to be discussing dead folks so boldly--for all they knew, the dead could still hear. Just because the lungs stopped working didn't mean the hearing stopped, too. The dead person could still be in there, listening, and if a dead person was to hear bad things said about him, he might witch you. Deets had no desire to be witched--when it became necessary to make some comment about a dead person, he made sure his comment was respectful.

  Call was vexed. He was prepared to go fight the Comanches who had just killed Jimmy Watson-- if the rangers had pressed the pursuit at once, they might have got close enough to bring down a Comanche or two. He didn't think Buffalo Hump was waiting to ambush them; to him it just looked like a party of five young braves, hoping to count coup on the white men--and they had counted coup.

  How could the Captain stand around talking about beetles when one of their men had been killed?

  Augustus knew what his friend was feeling--he himself felt exactly the same thing. The Comanches had killed a Texas Ranger and got away clean. Behaviour such as that would soon make the rangers the laughingstock of the prairies. And yet Captai
n Scull's reputation as a deadly and determined fighter was well earned. He and Call had often seen the Captain deal out slaughter.

  What was wrong with him this morning?

  Captain Scull suddenly looked at the two young rangers, a trace of a smile on his lips --his look, as was often the case, made both men feel that he could read their minds.

  "Why, do I smell discontent? I believe I catch a whiff of it," the Captain said.

  "What's the matter, Mr. Call? Afraid I've lost my vinegar?" "Why, no sir," Call said, truthfully.

  Despite his pique, he had not supposed that Captain Scull had lost his fight. What he felt was that the Captain, as a commander, was changeable in ways he didn't understand.

  "I would have liked to punish those braves, while we still had a chance to catch them," Call added.

  "That was my thought, too," Augustus said.

  "They killed Jimmy Watson, and he was a mighty fine fellow." "That he was, Mr. McCrae--t he was," Captain Scull said. "Normally I would have given chase myself, but this morning I'm not in the mood for it--not right this minute, at least." Inish Scull went to his saddlebags and took out the huge brown plug of tobacco he cut his chaws from. He had a special little knife with a mother-of-pearl handle, just for cutting his tobacco. He was so fearful of losing his little knife that he kept it attached to his belt by a thin silver chain, such as he might use on a pocket watch.

  The Captain took out his knife, found a place not far from the fire, and began to cut himself a day's worth of chaws, working carefully--he liked to make each chaw as close to square as possible.

  Often, once the Captain had cut off a chaw, he would hold it up for inspection, and trim it a little more, removing a sliver here and a sliver there, to make it a little closer to square.

  "I believe our stew's about ready, Deets," he said, once he had restored the big brownish plug to his saddlebag. "Let's eat. I might recover my chasing mood once I've sampled the grub.

  "Ever work in an office, Mr. Call?" he then inquired, as the men lined up with their tin plates to get their stew. Call was startled. Why would the Captain suppose he had ever worked in an office, when the records plainly showed that he had been employed as a Texas Ranger from the age of nineteen?

  "No sir, I've worked outside my whole life," Call said.

  "Well, I have worked in an office, sir," the Captain said. "It was the Customs House in Brooklyn, and I was sent to work there by my pa, in the hope of breaking me of certain bad habits.

  I worked there for a year and did the same thing, in the same way, every day. I arrived at the same time, left at the same time, took my sip of wine and bite of bread at the same time. I even pissed and shat at the same time--I was a regular automaton while I held that office job, and I was bored, sir--bored!

  Intolerably bored!" Inish Scull's face reddened suddenly, at the memory of his own boredom in the office in Brooklyn. He neatly stacked up his ten squares of cut tobacco and looked at Call.

  "The tragedy of man is not death or epidemic or lust or rage or fitful jealousy," he said loudly--his voice tended to rise while declaiming unpleasant facts.

  "No sir, the tragedy of man is boredom, sir--boredom!" the Captain said. "A man can only do a given thing so many times with freshness and spirit--then, no matter what it is, it becomes like an office task. I enjoy cards and whoring, but even cards and whoring can grow boresome. You tup your wife a thousand times and that becomes an office task, too." Scull paused, to see if the hard truths he was expounding were having any effect on his listeners, and found that they were. All the men were listening, with the exception of an old fellow named Ikey Ripple, who had gulped a little stew and fallen back to sleep.

  "You see?" the Captain said. "Mr. Ike Ripple is bored even now, even though Buffalo Hump could show up any minute and lift his hair.

  "Now ... that's my point, sir!" he said, looking directly at Call. "I will break the resistance of the goddamn red Comanches on these plains, given the time and the resources, but I'll be damned if I'll jump up and chase every Indian brat that fires a gun off at me. Do that and it becomes office work--d you get my point, Mr. Call?" Call thought he got the point, but he wasn't sure he agreed with it. Fighting Indians meant risking your life--how many men in offices had to risk their lives?

  "Why, yes, Captain, I believe I do," Call said mildly. After all, the Captain was older--he had survived more Indian fights than any man on the frontier. Perhaps they had grown boresome to him.

  "Uh, Captain, you never said how your cousin died--t one that got buried by the beetles," Long Bill remarked. The details of the unorthodox burial had been preying on his mind; he was curious as to what sort of death had led up to it.

  "Oh, cousin Willy--why, snakebite," the Captain said. "Willy was bitten by a fer-de-lance, one of the deadliest snakes in the world." He had begun to stuff the square-cut plugs of tobacco into his coat pocket, for use during the day.

  "He was a scientist to the end, our William," he went on. "He timed his own death, you know--timed it with a stopwatch." "Timed it? But why, sir?" Gus asked.

  "If I was dying of snakebite I doubt I'd get out my watch." "Oh--then what would you do, Mr. McCrae?" the Captain asked, in a pleasant tone.

  Augustus thought of Clara Forsythe, so fetching with her curls and her frank smile.

  "I believe I'd just scrawl off a letter to my girl," Gus said. "I'd be wanting to bid her goodbye, I expect." "Why, that's fine--t's the human instinct," Captain Scull said. "You're a romantic fellow, I see. So was our Willy, in his way --only he was romantic about science.

  Professor Agassiz taught him to never waste an experience, and he didn't. The average time of death from the bite of a fer-de-lance is twenty minutes. I expect Willy hoped to improve on the average, but he didn't. He died in seventeen minutes, thirty-four seconds, give or take a second or two." Captain Scull stood up and looked across the gray plain.

  "Willy was alone when he was bitten," the Captain said. "His stopwatch was in his hand when they found him. Seventeen minutes and thirty-four seconds, he lived. Now that's bravery, I'd say." "I'd say so too, Captain," Call said, thinking about it.

  "Do you believe that tale about the beetles and the stopwatch?" Augustus asked. Call sat with his back to a large rock, looking off the edge of the canyon; the wind had died, the sleet had stopped blowing, but it was still bitter cold. In the clear night they could see Comanche campfires, far below them and halfway across the Palo Duro Canyon.

  "There's forty campfires down there," Call commented. "There's enough Indians in this canyon to wipe us out six times." "Well, but maybe they ain't interested--the Captain wasn't," Gus replied. "Why don't you just answer the question I asked you?" "I'm on guard duty, that's why," Call said. "We need to be listening, not talking." Augustus found the remark insulting, but he tried not to get riled. Woodrow was so practical minded that he was often rude without intending rudeness.

  "I'm your oldest friend, I guess I can at least ask you a question," Augustus said. "If I can't, then I've a notion just to roll you off this bluff." "Well, I do believe the Captain's story --why wouldn't I?" Call said.

  "Myself, I think it was just a tale," Gus said. "He wasn't in the mood for an Indian fight, so he told us a tale. You're so gullible you'd believe anything, Woodrow.

  I've never met anybody who behaves like the people the Captain talks about." "You don't know educated people, that's why," Call said. "Besides, his cousin was in Brazil.

  You've never been to Brazil--y don't know how people behave down there." "No, and if they've got snakes that can kill you in seventeen minutes, I ain't never going, either," Augustus said.

  Call watched the wink of campfires in the darkness far below.

  "Oh Lord, I hope the Captain don't drag us off to Mexico," Gus said. "I'd like to see my Clara before the month's out." Call was silent--if he didn't respond, maybe the subject of Clara Forsythe would die away. Usually it didn't die quickly, though.

  For ten years, at guard posts all over
the Texas frontier, he had listened to Augustus talk about Clara Forsythe. It wasn't even that the subject was boresome, particularly--it was just that it was pointless. Clara had set her mind against marrying Gus, and that was that.

  "Buffalo Hump's down there," he remarked, hoping Gus would accept a change of subject.

  Under the circumstances it would be a prudent change. Buffalo Hump might be older now, but he was still the most feared war chief on the southern plains. If he woke up in the mood to do battle, Gus would have more to worry about than Clara's refusal.

  "I miss Clara," Augustus said, ignoring his friend's feint. "It helps to talk about her, Woodrow. Don't be so stingy with me." Of course, Augustus knew that Woodrow Call hated talking about romance, or marriage, or anything having to do with women. He wouldn't even discuss poking, one of Augustus's favorite topics of discussion, as well as being a highly favored activity. Many a night he had sat with Woodrow Call on guard duty and engaged in the same tussle, when it came to conversation. Call always wanted to talk about guns, or saddles, or military matters, and Gus himself would try to steer the conversation onto love or marriage or women or whores--something more interesting than the same old boots-and-saddles stuff.