Comanche Moon

by Larry McMurtry

  "You stay in camp," Buffalo Hump said.

  "I will go drive him away." He found the whole business vexing. The fact that Blue Duck was still prowling around the horse herd was annoying, so annoying that Buffalo Hump caught his own horse, took his lance, and immediately rode out to the horse herd. Blue Duck's delay was merely one more example of his disobedience. Buffalo Hump thought it might be wiser just to kill the boy--talking to him that morning, his arm had tensed twice, as it did when he was ready to throw his lance. But he had held off-- exile should be enough--but now the boy had angered him by not leaving.

  When he reached the horse herd the only person who was there was Last Horse--one of his mares had just foaled and he was watching for a bit, to see that no coyote slipped in and killed the foal.

  "I thought Blue Duck was here," Buffalo Hump said.

  Last Horse merely pointed upward to the rim of the canyon. A rider with five horses in front of him had climbed out of the canyon and was following the horses along the rim.

  Buffalo Hump could barely see the rider through the blowing sand, but he knew it was Blue Duck, leaving.

  "Whoa, now ... stop, boys!" Augustus said.

  Far down the river, in the shallows, he saw something he didn't like; something blue. The creature was a good distance away, but it was rolling in the shallow water; Gus judged it to be an aquatic beast of some sort. Few land animals worried him, but he had long been afflicted with an unreasoning fear of aquatic beasts--and now one had appeared in the muddy Rio Grande, where, up to then, they had seen nothing more threatening than the occasional snapping turtle.

  The rangers immediately stopped and yanked out their rifles. Thanks to the hostility, as well as the volatility, of the south Texas cattle, they had become well accustomed to yanking out their rifles several times a day. Gus McCrae was known to have exceptional eyesight; if he saw something worth calling a halt for, then it was best to look to their weapons.

  "What is it?" Call asked. All he saw ahead of them was the brown Rio Grande. An old Mexican with three goats whom they came upon half an hour earlier assured them that they were nearly to the town of Lonesome Dove--Call was anxious to hurry on, in hopes that Captain King would be there. But Augustus apparently saw something that made him nervous, something Call could not yet see.

  "It's blue and it's in the edge of the water, Woodrow," Gus said. "I expect it might be a shark." "Oh Lord, a shark," Stove Jones said, wishing suddenly that he had never left the cozy cantinas of Austin.

  "It was a shark that swallowed Jonah, wasn't it?" Lee Hitch inquired.

  "Shut up, you fool--t was a whale, and this river's too small for a whale to be in." Augustus kept his eyes on the blue object thrashing in the shallow water. It was an aquatic beast of some kind, that was for sure--now and then he thought he glimpsed the limb of a body; it might be that the shark was eating somebody, right before their eyes, or before .his eyes at least. None of the other rangers could see anything, other than the river, but they had grown accustomed to accepting Gus's judgment when it came to the analysis of distant events.

  "If it's a shark, why are we stopped?" Call said. "It's in the water and we ain't.

  Sharks don't walk on land, that I recall." "It might jump, though," Augustus said.

  "If it jumped out of the water then it would die," Call pointed out. "Let's go." Call was about to ride past him when they suddenly heard brush popping from the Mexican bank of the river. In a moment two men and a bull emerged from the brush and plunged into the river. In a minute the bull, a large brown animal wearing a bell that clanged with every step, came out of the river and trotted straight into a thicket of brush, popping their limbs liberally as he went.

  One of the riders was an American, a short man riding a fine bay gelding; the other was an old vaquero on a buckskin mare.

  The short man pulled up in surprise when he saw the rangers but the old vaquero went right on into the brush, behind the bull. The rangers, who had been stopped by the brush a number of times in the last week, were as amazed by the vaquero's ability to penetrate the thicket as they were by the size of the bull that had just swum out of Mexico.

  The American had bushy sideburns and a short, stiff beard. He surveyed the rangers carefully if quickly before he trotted up to where they were stopped.

  "You're Call and McCrae, aren't you? And these are your wild ranger boys, I expect," the man said. "I'm Captain King. So you want a thousand cattle, do you?" Though Call had already suspected the short man's identity--several of the ranchers had described him, mentioning that he was partial to fine horses--he was surprised that Captain King not only knew who they were but what they wanted of him.

  "Yes, but not as a gift," Call said. "The state will pay you for them." "I doubt that, but let's see the letter," Captain King said.

  He observed that Gus McCrae seemed to be considerably less interested in the matter of the thousand cattle than was Captain Call. Gus McCrae was looking downriver, in the direction of Lonesome Dove.

  Call produced the letter, which he had wrapped in oilcloth--two or three violent rainstorms had doused them lately. Inasmuch as the letter was their only hope of getting the cattle they needed, he wanted to make sure it didn't get wet.

  "That was my bull Solomon you just saw--y'll not see his equal in America," Captain King said, taking the letter from Call. "He strayed off last night--tempted by a Mexican heifer, I suppose." He started to read the letter but then looked again at Gus.

  "McCrae, you seem jumpy as a tick," he said. "What do you see that's upset you so?" "It's down the river and it's blue, Captain," Gus said. "I expect it's a shark." Captain King glanced at what Gus pointed at and immediately burst out laughing--j as he did a gust of wind took the Governor's letter out of his hand and blew it into the river. Before anyone could move it sank.

  Call jumped off his horse and ran into the river--he was not a little vexed at Captain King, who sat astride his horse enjoying a fit of laughing. Call was able to pull the letter from the water, but not before it had become a sodden mess.

  Call felt like giving Captain King a good dressing down, for being so careless with an important document, but it was hard to dress down a man who was laughing; and, anyway, Captain King was the one man who might help them succeed in their mission.

  "I wish you'd read it before you let it blow in the river," Call said. He spread the letter on a good-sized rock; thinking it might dry if given time.

  "I beg your pardon, Captain," Captain King said, attempting to control his amusement. "I don't usually throw letters into the river, particularly not if they're letters from a high potentate like Ed Pease. But I must say this is the best laugh yet. Captain McCrae here has mistook our blue sow for a shark." "Sow ... what sow?" Gus asked, annoyed by the man's jocular tone.

  "Why, that sow," Captain King said, with a wave of his hand. "She probably caught a snake--a moccasin, perhaps. There's not much to Lonesome Dove but at least it's mainly clean of snakes. The sow eats them all--she's thorough, when it comes to snakes." "But Captain," Gus said, appalled by his mistake. "Whoever heard of a blue pig? I ain't." Captain King evidently didn't welcome challenges to his point of view--he looked at Augustus sharply.

  "That's a French pig, sir," he said.

  "She's silvery in the main, though I suppose she does look bluish in certain lights. She comes from the region of the Dordogne, I believe. In France they use pigs to root up truffles, but you'll find very few damn truffles in this part of the world--s mainly she roots up snakes. Madame Wanz brought her over, and a fine boar too. I expect the boar is off girling, like my bull Solomon. When you get a closer look you'll find she's unusually long legged, that sow. She ain't low slung, like these runty little Texas pigs. The long legs are for climbing hills, to seek out the truffles, which don't flourish in low altitudes." Call was listening carefully, impressed by Captain King's quick manner. Gus had had the rangers half spooked, with his talk of sharks, when it was only a pig in the water, downriver.

>   He didn't know what a truffle was, or why one would need to be rooted up.

  "What is a truffle, Captain?" he asked, putting up the rifle he had pulled during the alarm.

  "Truffles are edible delicacies, Captain," Richard King said. "I have not had the pleasure of digesting one myself, but Th@er@ese Wanz swears by them, and she's as French as they come." "If she's French, why is she here? This ain't France," Gus said. He was a good deal embarrassed by the matter of the shark that was only a sow; he felt sure he would be ribbed about it endlessly by the other rangers, once they got to town --if there really was a town.

  "She should have stayed in France, and her pig too!" he said, in a burst of annoyance.

  "They've got no call to be disturbing the local stock!" Captain King had been about to turn his fine bay horse and ride down the river, but he paused and looked at Gus sharply again.

  "As to that, sir, you've got no call to be coming down here asking me for cattle when I'm hellish busy selecting worthy wives for my bull Solomon," Captain King said. "When was the last time you had a drink of whiskey, Captain?" "More than a week's passed--I last touched liquor before we struck this dern brush," Gus said.

  "No wonder you're surly, then," Captain King said. He pulled a flask out of his saddlebag and offered it to Gus. Gus was startled --he politely wiped the top of the flask on his sleeve before taking a good swig and handing the flask back to Captain King. Lee Hitch and Stove Jones looked on enviously.

  "Thank you, Captain," Augustus said.

  "A man needs his grog," Captain King said. "I'm goddamn surly myself, when deprived of my grog." Call was annoyed with Gus. Why would he say a woman he had never met should have stayed in France? It was rude behaviour, though Captain King was mainly right about the grog. Gus McCrae was scarcely able to be good company now unless he had had his tipple. He was anxious, though, that the rude behaviour not obscure the fact that they needed Captain King's help if they were to secure the thousand cattle.

  "Captain, what about the cattle?" he asked --but Richard King was too quick for him. He had already turned his horse and was loping down the river toward where the blue pig lay.

  When the rangers finally rode into Lonesome Dove, the town they had been seeking, thicket by thicket, for several days, the wet blue sow, who was indeed large and long legged, followed them at a trot, dragging a sizable bull snake she had just killed.

  "I wouldn't call this a town," Augustus McCrae said, looking around disappointed. There were four adobe buildings, all abandoned--despite what Captain King had just said about the sow's efficiency as a snake killer, the buildings all looked snaky to him.

  "No, but it's a nice-sized clearing," Call said. "You could put a town in it, I guess." On the west side of the clearing a large white tent had been erected--near it, construction was under way on what was evidently meant to be a saloon. A floor had been laid, and a long bar built, but the saloon, as yet, had no roof. One table sat on the floor of the barroom-to-be; a small man dressed in a black coat sat at it. There was a tablecloth on the table, as well as a bottle of whiskey and a glass, although the small man did not seem to be drinking.

  Outside the tent a small plump woman whose hair hung almost to the backs of her knees was talking volubly to Captain King.

  "Do you reckon that bar's open, Gus?" Ikey Ripple asked.

  Augustus didn't immediately comment. He was watching the blue sow suspiciously--on the whole he didn't trust pigs--but Stove Jones spoke up.

  "Of course it's open, Ike," he said.

  "How could you close a saloon that don't have no roof?" Before the matter could be debated further, Captain King came back.

  "That tent belonged to Napoleon once," he said. "At least that's Th@er@ese's line. That's Xavier, her husband, sitting there at his table.

  I guess the carpenters ran off last night.

  It's put Th@er@ese in a temper." "Run off?" Gus said. "Where could a person run off to, from here?" "Anywhere out of earshot of Th@er@ese would do, I expect," Captain King said. "The carpenters in these parts ain't used to the French temperament, or French hair, either. They think Th@er@ese is a witch." Call looked with interest at the tent. He had not made much progress in the book Captain Scull had given him about Napoleon, but he meant to get back to it once his reading improved.

  He would have liked to have a look inside the tent, but didn't suppose that would be possible, not with a talky Frenchwoman in it.

  "It's a nuisance," Captain King admitted. "Now I'll have to go try to corral the carpenters--I expect it could take half a day." Just then a flock of white-winged doves flew over the clearing, a hundred or more at least.

  Mourning doves were abundant too--the one thing that wouldn't need to be lonesome in such a remote place were the doves, Augustus concluded.

  "Even if there was a town here I don't see why it would be called Lonesome Dove," he said.

  "There's dove everywhere you look." Captain King chuckled. "I can tell you the origin of that misnomer," he said. "There used to be a travelling preacher who wandered through this border country. I knew the man well. His name was Windthorst--Herman Windthorst. He stopped in this clearing and preached a sermon to a bunch of vaqueros once, but while he was preaching a dove lit on a limb above him. I guess Herman took it as a holy omen, because he decided to stop wandering and start up a town." Captain King gestured toward the four fallen-in adobe huts.

  "Herman was holier than he was smart," he said. "He lived here a year or two, preaching to whatever vaqueros would stop and listen." "Where is he now?" Gus asked.

  "Why, in heaven I expect, sir," Captain King said. "Herman preached his last sermon about five years ago. He thought he had a nice crowd of vaqueros but in fact it was Ahumado and some of his men who stopped to listen.

  As soon as Herman said "Amen"' they shot him dead and took everything he had." Captain King fell silent for a moment, and so did the rangers. Mention of the Black Vaquero reminded them of their dangerous mission.

  "But they still call it Lonesome Dove--the name stuck," Call said.

  "Yes sir, that's true," Captain King said. "The preacher's gone, but the name stuck. It's curious, ain't it, what sticks and what don't?

  "I better get after those carpenters," he went on. "I need to get a roof on this saloon.

  There's a fine crossing of the river, there--I can do some business in this town, once it gets built.

  We need that roof--otherwise it will shower one of these days, and if Xavier ain't quick it will get his tablecloth wet." Augustus looked at the small man in the black coat, sitting stiffly with the bottle of whiskey, at the one table.

  "What's he need a tablecloth for?" he asked. "Why worry about a tablecloth if you ain't even got walls or a roof?" "He's French, sir," Captain King said.

  "They order things differently in France." Without further explanation he turned his horse and rode off.

  "I wish he could have waited until we talked to him about the cattle," Call said, disappointed.

  "I don't," Augustus said.

  "Why not?" Call asked. "We've been at this two weeks and we don't have a single cow.

  We need to get some and go." "ally need to, Woodrow," Gus said. "I don't. All I need is to see if that fellow with the tablecloth will sell this thirsty bunch some whiskey." Call was annoyed with Captain King for leaving before they could discuss the business at hand, and annoyed, as well, with Gus McCrae, for being so quick to seize every opportunity to loaf.

  All the rangers dismounted and the older men headed for the roofless bar.

  On impulse, Call loped after Captain King, thinking perhaps they could negotiate for the cattle while looking for the carpenters--it might speed things up a little.

  Lee Hitch and Stove Jones began to feel anxious when they saw Call leaving.

  "Now Woodrow's leaving ... what'll we do, Gus?" Lee asked.

  "I'd like to get drunk, myself ... I suppose you can do as you like, Lee," Gus said.

  It occurred to Lee that there weren'
t many of them.

  What if the pistoleros who finished the preacher came back and went for them? With Call gone and Gus drunk, they might all be massacred.

  "Yes, but then what?" he asked.

  "Why, then, nothing, Lee," Gus said. "I guess we can all sit around and watch that French pig eat snakes."

  "Inish Scull's just a Yankee adventurer," Richard King said directly, when Call overtook him. "He went up against Ahumado once with a strong force and he lost.

  What the hell made him go back alone?" "I can't say, Captain," Call admitted. "We were on our way home and he just peeled off, with the tracker--the next thing we heard he was captured." "Speaking of peeling, what do you think of Madame Inez?" Captain King asked. "I hear she peels the pants off the lads quicker than I could core an apple." Call had managed to depart Austin without having accepted Madame Scull's invitation to tea.