Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

by Comanche Moon

  Gawsworth Gibbons smiled his large, kindly smile and followed Maggie into her room before answering.

  "No complaints, Mag," he told her.

  "All that's wrong is just what's apt to be wrong with any feller." To her shock, Maggie saw that he had money in his hand--he was coming to her as a customer, something that had never happened in the years she had known him.

  It took her a moment to adjust to the notion.

  The sheriff, out of consideration, turned his back as he lowered his pants. Even from the back, though, Maggie saw that the skin on his legs was twisted in a strange way. The skin had black specks in it, as if Gaw Gibbons had been peppered.

  Then she recalled that what she had heard about his war wound was that he had been severely burned--a keg of gunpowder had blown up while he stood near it, blowing gunpowder and bits of the barrel into his legs.

  "My wife, she's about give up on me, Mag," the sheriff said. "I expect she just can't tolerate these burned legs no more." "Oh, Gaw," Maggie said.

  The fact that he spoke so sorrowfully when he mentioned his wife made the business at hand a little less hard.

  Inish Scull quickly discovered that Ahumado didn't want him to starve too soon or too easily. Every second day one of the dark men whose duty it was to watch the cages lowered him a small jug of water. Though dizzied at first by the height and the space and the constant swaying of the cage--the lightest wind seemed to move it--Inish Scull gradually persuaded himself that the old man wanted him to live. Why else the water? Perhaps upon consideration the notion of a large ransom became more appealing; though, in view of Ahumado's searing contempt, to think thus was probably to think too optimistically.

  Far from wanting him to live, Ahumado may only have wanted him to starve more slowly--thus the fresh, cool water. The first jug tasted as good as a meal.

  In thinking about his situation--hung off a cliff, a two-hundred-foot drop below him, and an infinite space before him--Scull soon concluded that, whatever the Black Vaquero might want, he wanted to live. He was in good health, had sustained no wounds, was of sound mind.

  Thinking about the matter soberly, he realized that he had often felt more hopeless in his wife's arms than he did in Ahumado's cage. He was of the mental temperament to relish extreme situations --in fact, had spent much of his career seeking them out. Now he had found himself in as extreme a situation as any man could well want. Few of his Harvard brethren had sought the extreme quite so successfully; it would make a good story to tell in the Yard, next time he was there.

  Of course, in order to have the pleasure of telling, he first had to meet the challenge of surviving. In practical terms that meant securing the food most likely to be available, which meant birds. The only possible alternative was worms. His experience as a naturalist taught him that earthworms were to be found almost everywhere--he might be able to scratch a few out of Ahumado's cliff, but probably too few.

  Of birds there was no scarcity. The cage attracted them, not merely eagles and vultures but others. On the first morning he caught a pigeon and two mourning doves. The pants he wore, once Tudwal's, were ragged things.

  Scull unravelled one leg a bit and hung the three birds with threads from the pants leg; in the Scull family game was always hung before it was consumed, the customary period of hanging being three days. There was no reason to abandon the family's standards, that he saw.

  Far below, he could see the people of the village; few of them looked up. They had, no doubt, seen many people hang and die in the cages.

  Every day Ahumado sat on his blanket, and he did look up, not with his naked eye, though.

  Scull saw the glint of sun on glass and realized Ahumado was watching him through binoculars, no doubt taken from some murdered officer or traveller. This knowledge perked him up.

  Contempt or no contempt, at least he had caught the old man's interest. Scull had a spectator now; he meant to give the man on the ground a good show.

  When Scull searched the pockets of Tudwal's filthy garments he found a small tool that he had missed when searching the clothes for bullets. The tool was a file of the sort used to improve the sights on a rifle or cut the head off a nail. It wasn't much, but it was something. Although the cage he swung in had a solid bottom, there were cracks in it. Scull took great care not to drop his file--z long as he had it there were ways he could employ his mind.

  He could keep a calendar by scratching lines on the rock of the cliff, and he immediately began to do so.

  Scull knew a bit of geology. He had heard Mr. Lyell lecture on his first visit to America and had even sat with the great man at a luncheon in Washington. It occurred to him there might be fossils or other geological vestiges in the stony cliff behind him--vestiges he could investigate. To make sure that he didn't drop the file he unthreaded another cord from his pants leg and used it to secure the little tool, tying one end of the thread to the file and the other end to a bar of the cage.

  Fortunately he was small enough to get his legs through the bars of the cage--wiggling them vigorously was the best he could do by way of exercise. It amused him to consider what Ahumado must think, watching him wiggle his legs. He had caught a curious prisoner this time, one a little more resourceful than the miscreant peasants he had been wont to cage.

  If his diet was limited, Scull told himself, at least his view was magnificent. In the morning he could see the mist lift off the distant peak as the red sun rose. The nights, though chilly, produced a fine starlight. Scull had not made much progress in astronomy, but he did know his constellations, and they were there to be viewed, in sharp and peaceful clarity, every night.

  The fourth day was cloudy--it sprinkled in the morning, which was welcome; it allowed Scull to wash himself. But a mist ensued so thick that he could not see the ground, a fact which dampened his spirits considerably. He liked to look down, observe the life of the camp, and watch Ahumado watch him. It was a competition they were in, the Bostonian and the Mayan, as he saw it. He needed to observe his opponent every day. Now and then, through the mist, he would see one of the great vultures sail by. One vulture flew so close that he saw the bird turn its head and look at him--the bird's old eye reminded him in that instance of Ahumado's. The resemblance was so sharp that it spooked Scull, for a moment. It was as if the old Mayan had turned himself into a bird and flown by to taunt him.

  Scull felt sour all day, sour and discouraged. For all his skill at catching birds, his calendar keeping, his feet wiggling, he was still hung in a cage off a cliff, with no way down. The contest wasn't for a day or a week; it was for as long as he could convince himself it was worth it to hang in a cage and eat raw birds, at the whim of an old man who sat on a blanket, far below.

  The next day, though, was one of brilliant sunlight and Scull's spirits improved. He spent much of the morning in close inspection of the cliff above him. They had lowered him some seventy feet, he judged, and the rope that held the cage seemed sound. But the ascent, if he decided to try one, was sheer. He could saw the bindings of the cage with his precious file and break out; but if he chose the climb he knew he had better do it quickly, while he still had his strength. In a week or two poor diet and cramped quarters would weaken him to such an extent that he could never make the climb, or escape the dark men and their machetes if he did.

  For most of the day Scull weighed his chances.

  He studied the cliff face; he looked down at Ahumado. In the afternoon he saw some young women filing out of camp with laundry on their heads, making for a little stream not far from camp. Some vaqueros were there, watering their horses. The young women took the laundry far upstream from the men and the horses. Now and then Scull would hear a rill of laughter as the young women pounded the clothes on the wet rocks. The vaqueros mounted and rode away. As soon as they were gone the women began to sing as they worked. Scull could only faintly catch the melody, but the sight of the young women cheered him, nonetheless. It was a fine joke, that his adventuring had finally got him h
ung off a cliff in Mexico, but it didn't stop the laughter of women, or their flirtations with men.

  As the day waned Scull fingered his file, wondering how long it would take him to file through the bindings of the cage, if he chose to try the climb. While he was looking up and down, considering, he saw a brilliant flash of color coming toward the cage; the brilliancy turned out to be the red-and-green plumage of a large parrot, which flew past his cage and turned its head, for a moment, to look at him. Again, Scull was startled--the parrot's eye reminded him of Ahumado's. The impression was so strong that he dropped his file, but fortunately the string he had attached it to saved it.

  Later, when the sun was down and the canyon lit by strong starlight, Scull decided he must be having altitude visions. He knew from his experiences in the Alps that high air could make a man giddy, and prone to false conclusions. The parrot and the vulture were just birds. No dove and no pigeon had lighted on his cage that day--Scull put it down to his jumpiness, his indecision, his nerves. He knew he had better get his thoughts under control and regain some calm or the fowl of the air would avoid him and he would starve.

  The next morning he fixed his mind on a task, which was to remember his Homer. He took his file and began to scratch a Greek ^w on the surface of the rock behind him. By noon he had completed a hexameter. All day he worked on, scratching Greek into the rock. The giddiness left his head, and the nervousness his limbs.

  "Hard and clear," he told himself. "Hard and clear." The rock was not easy to work. Scull had to press the file hard to give the Greek letters the graceful shape they deserved. His fingers cramped, from gripping the file so hard; now and then he had to stop and flex them.

  Below, old Ahumado was watching him through the binoculars. In the stream the girls were spreading wet clothes again. Scull's nerves no longer put off the birds. In the afternoon he caught two pigeons and a dove.

  "That takes care of the larder," he told himself, but he did not pause long enough to hang the birds or pluck them.

  By evening the great ^ws were there, each letter as distinct as Scull could make it, ^ws hard and clear, to remind him that brave men had battled before:

  OI DE MEGA FRONEONTES EPI PTOLEMOIO GEFURAS EIATO PANNUANDIOI, PURA DE SFISI KAIETO POLLA.

  WS Do OT EN OURANWI ASTRA FAEINWHN AMFI SELWHNWHN FAINET ARIPREPEA, OTE That EPLETO NWHNEMOS AITHWHR EK That EFANEN PASAI SKOPIAI KAI PRWONES AKROI KAI NAPAI OURANOTHEN Do AR UPERRAGWH ASPETOS AITHWHR, PANTA DE EIDETAI ASTRA, GEGWHTHE DE TE FRENA POIMWHN TOSSA MESWHGU NEWN WHDE XANTHOIO ROAWN TRWWN KAIONTWN PURA FAINETO ILIOTHI PRO.

  ANDILI AR EN PEDIWI PURA KAIETO, PAR DE EKASTWI EIATO PENTWHKONTA SELAI PUROS AITHOMENOIO.

  IPPOI DE KRI LEUKON EREPTOMENOI KAI OLURAS, ESTAOTES PAR OANDESFIN, EUTHRONON WHW MIMNON.

  It was Homer enough for one day, Scull felt.

  He had put the ^ws of a Greek on the face of a cliff in Mexico. It was a victory, of sorts, over the high air and the old dark man.

  The ^ws had calmed him--the fowl of the air had come back to perch on his cage. Another night or two, maybe he would file through the rawhide bindings and climb the rope. This night, though, he curled up against the chill and slept, while, far below, the Mexican campfires glittered, bright as the campfires of old Troy.

  Eastward, as the rangers hurried home along the valley of the Brazos, they came upon scene after scene of devastation. Six times they stopped to bury families, some of them so decomposed as to be hardly worth burying. They saw not a single Comanche, though several times a day they crossed the tracks of the retreating war parties. Most of the raiders were driving horses before them--sometimes sizable herds of horses.

  "They must have stolen half the horses in south Texas," Augustus said.

  "Kilt half the people, too," Long Bill said, in a low tone. Convinced by all the corpses that his wife could not possibly have survived, Long Bill had sunk into a state of dull resignation. He scarcely ate and seldom spoke.

  Call grew more and more vexed as the Indian sign multiplied.

  "Our main job is to fight Indians and here we rode off and missed the biggest Indian fight in history." "We didn't ride off. We was sent off, Woodrow--sent by the Governor," Augustus reminded him.

  "He might have tried to recall us, but if he did, the Commanches probably got the messengers," Call said, grimly.

  As they rode into Austin they passed near the cemetery--they could see from the number of crosses that there were many fresh graves. Tears began to stream down Long Bill's face, at the thought of having his conviction about Pearl confirmed. In all there were nearly thirty fresh graves--Long Bill stumbled from cross to cross, but none had "Pearl Coleman" written on them.

  "It may mean they took her," Long Bill said, still anxious.

  Augustus found two crosses with the name "Forsythe" on them--the sight made him tremble; tears came and he sank to his knees.

  "Oh God, I knowed it," he said. "I went away and she's dead." It was Call, looking more closely, who saw that it was her parents, not Clara, who lay buried in the cemetery.

  "No, Gus, she ain't dead--it's her father and mother," Call said.

  "Well, I swear ... I wonder if she knows," Augustus said, bending closer so he could see the two names more clearly. Though he knew it was a terrible blow to Clara--both her parents dead and her a new bride--he felt a relief so powerful that for a time it made him weak. He stayed on his knees in the cemetery, fingering a clod or two of the fresh dirt, while the others tried to make out who was buried in all the fresh graves.

  "They got the blacksmith," Call said.

  "Here's the preacher and his wife--got them both." He walked on, stopping over every grave.

  "Oh Lord, boys," Call said. "Here's Neely and Finch and Teddy--I guess Ikey must be alive." "My God, Neely," Gus said, coming over to look.

  As they rode on into town, past a grove of live oak or two, they saw house after house that showed evidence of burning; and yet most of the houses still stood. Only the church and one saloon seemed to have burned to the ground.

  "They didn't kill Governor Pease--there he stands," Augustus said, as they turned into the main street. "I expect he'll be glad to see us back." "We didn't do what we was sent to do--he may fire us," Call said.

  "I doubt that," Gus said. "He won't have nobody who can fight at all, if he fires us." The Governor stood in shirtsleeves and black suspenders on the steps of what had been the Forsythe store. He was loading a shotgun when they rode up, and he looked grim.

  "Hello, Governor," Call said. "Are the Indians still around?" "No, but the coons are," the Governor said.

  "The coyotes got most of my hens, after the raid. The coons don't bother the hens but they're ruining me in the egg department." He sighed, and cast a quick glance at the little troop.

  "Lose any men?" he asked.

  "No sir, but we didn't find the Captain," Call said. "When we heard about the raid we thought we better just get home." The Governor's buggy stood in the street, but Bingham, who usually drove him, wasn't in it.

  "I just came down to get some shotgun shells," the Governor said. "I need to do something about those coons." Governor Pease was usually clean shaven, but now had a white stubble on his cheeks; he looked tired.

  "Where's Bingham, Governor?" Augustus asked.

  "Dead ... they killed most of our niggers," Governor Pease said. "They stole that yellow girl who worked for Inez Scull--she was down by the springhouse and they took her." Just then Long Bill gave a yell. They all turned and saw why. Pearl, the wife he had given up for dead, was in plain view far up the street, hanging out washing.

  "It's my Pearl, she ain't dead!" Long Bill said. The cares of the last weeks fell away from him in an instant--he wheeled his horse and was off in a run.

  "That's one happy ending, I guess," Augustus said.

  The Governor did not smile. "She's alive but she was outraged," he said, before going to his buggy. He drove off holding his shotgun, his eggs on his mind.

  Call saw that the ho
use where Maggie lived was partially burned but still standing, which was a relief. He thought he glimpsed someone at her window but could not be quite positive. Maggie was ever discreet. She would never lean out her window and look down at him--she didn't feel it was right.

  He quickly crossed the street and saw her coming down the steps behind the house. She looked so glad to see him that he had to dismount and hug her; when he did she cried so hard that she wet the front of his shirt, just as she had when he was leaving.

  "Now hush, I'm back," he said.

  He had never before touched her outside her room. After a moment he got nervous, and Maggie did too.

  "They didn't get you ... that's good ... and they didn't get Pearl, either ... Bill's been about worried to death," he said.

  Maggie's face clouded, for a moment. "They shot four arrows into her, and that ain't all," she said. "But they didn't touch me--I hid where you told me, Woodrow." "I'm glad you hid," Call said. Maggie didn't say more. She still had tears in her eyes.