Comanche Moon

  "You never have helped me and you never will," she went on, looking him in the eye.

  "Jake wants to help me, at least. I try to give him back what I can. It ain't much, but he's young. He may not know that." "Yes, young and careless," Call said. "It would be a pity if he compromised you." Without hesitating Maggie threw the panful of hot cornmeal at him. Most of it missed but a little of it stuck to the front of his shirt. Woodrow looked as startled as if an Indian with a tomahawk had just popped out of the cupboard; as startled, and more at a loss. An Indian he could have shot, but he couldn't shoot her and had no idea what to say or do. He was so surprised that he didn't even bother to brush the cornmeal off his shirt.

  Maggie didn't say anything. She was determined that he would at least answer her act, if he wouldn't answer her need. She set the pan back on the stove.

  "Well, that was wasteful," Woodrow Call said finally. He recovered sufficiently to begin to brush the cornmeal off his shirt. Maggie didn't seem to be paying much attention to him.

  She dipped a cup into the cornmeal and scooped out enough to replace what had been in the pan.

  Graciela had been dozing on her little stool at the back of the kitchen--she was often there, making tortillas, such good ones that Newt was seldom seen without a half-eaten tortilla in his hand or his pocket. Something had awakened Graciela, Call didn't know what, for Maggie had not raised her voice before she threw the cornmeal.

  Graciela looked shocked, when she saw him with cornmeal on his shirt--she put a hand over her mouth.

  "I see that I have upset you," Call added, perplexed and a good deal shocked himself. One reason he had grown fond of Maggie Tilton, and a big reason he stayed fond, was that she behaved so sensibly. In that respect he considered her far superior to Gus's old love Clara, who never behaved sensibly and was rarely inclined to restrain her emotions. Certainly Clara had been competent at arithmetic--he had never caught her in an error on a bill--but that didn't keep her from being prone to wild rages and fits of weeping. Maggie had always been far more discreet about her feelings; she had mainly managed to keep her sorrows and even her annoyances to herself.

  Now, though, she had done something foolish, and, to make matters worse, had done it in front of Graciela. He knew that Mexican women were prone to gossiping--white women, of course, were hardly immune to such activity--and he was vexed to think that the story of what Maggie had just done, an act most uncharacteristic of her, would soon be talked about all over town.

  But the fact was, she had; the deed was done.

  Call picked up his hat and sat a coffee cup that he had been holding on the counter.

  "I regret that I upset you," he said. "I suppose I had better just go." He waited a minute, to see if Maggie would apologize, or explain her action in any way; but she did neither. She just went on with her task. Except for a spot of red on each cheekbone, no one would suppose that she was feeling anything out of the ordinary. Call had rather expected that she would quickly regret her action and come over and brush the cornmeal off his shirt and trousers; but she showed no inclination to do that, either.

  Newt opened his eyes and saw Captain Woodrow with what looked to be meal on his shirt --but he was so sleepy that he felt that what he was seeing must be part of a dream. He yawned and turned over, hoping that Captain Woodrow would offer him a penny for sassafras candy when his dream ended.

  Call went out and started down the long flight of stairs that angled down the back of Maggie's house to the ground. When he was almost down he got an uncomfortable feeling and turned to look back; Maggie had come outside and stood above him, on the landing. Sunlight flecked the cornmeal on her hands and forearms--a visitor might have thought that her hands and forearms were flecked with gold dust.

  "ally compromised me, Woodrow, not Jakeffwas Maggie said, with a sharpness that he had never heard in her voice before. "ally compromised me and I hope that you'll be thinking about what you did and about how you betrayed our little son for the rest of your life, right up till the day you die. You don't deserve Newt! You don't even deserve me!" Call said nothing. Maggie went back through the door. Later, when Call thought about that moment, he remembered that the sunlight made cornmeal look like gold dust on Maggie's hands and arms.

  After Woodrow left, Maggie went in her bedroom and cried. She was tired--m than tired --of crying about Woodrow Call; but, once again, she couldn't help it. The best she could do was hide in her bedroom and cry, so Newt wouldn't see her in tears, if he woke up. He had seen her sobbing far too often as it was, and it upset him. All too often she cried after his father left, which was worrisome to her. Although Call had brought her sorrow, he .was Newt's father, even though Newt didn't know it. She didn't want Newt associating his father with her tears and her pain. No one could know what might happen in life. Someday Woodrow might unbend, recognize that he had a fine son, and claim him publicly. The two of them might yet find some happiness as father and son. She didn't want to blight that chance.

  Graciela came in while Maggie was attempting to dry her tears. Graciela had been mightily shocked by what she had seen in the kitchen. She didn't know Captain Call very well, but she knew he was a Texas Ranger.

  For a woman to throw cornmeal on a Texas Ranger was a serious thing. They might hang Maggie, for such an offense. At the very least, the man would beat her.

  "That was a bad thing you did," Graciela said.

  She was in the habit of speaking quite frankly to Maggie, who didn't seem to mind.

  "Not very bad," Maggie said. "I could have hit him with the frying pan. All I did was throw a little cornmeal on him." "Now he will beat you," Graciela said. "How will you work in the store if he beats you badly?

  "I need to get my wages--I have my grandbabies to feed," she added.

  "He won't beat me, Graciela," Maggie said. "He has never hit me and he never will. I doubt we'll see any more of him around here." "But you got his shirt dirty," Graciela said. "He will beat you. The last time my husband beat me I could not move for two days. He beat me with an axe handle. I could not have worked in a store, after such a beating." "This cornmeal is getting hot," Maggie said. "Would you put some in a sock and give it to Newt for his earache?" "I do not think his ear is sick," Graciela said.

  "I don't either, but give him the sock anyway," Maggie said. "It won't hurt to humour him." Graciela did as she was told, but she was both annoyed and uneasy. The boy wasn't sick; he had no fever. Why waste good cornmeal, when it was attention he wanted, anyway? She could not always be fixing poultices for a boy who wasn't sick. She was still uneasy about the beating, too. In her opinion Maggie still had a lot to learn about the ways of men. Because Maggie wanted Captain Call, and loved him, she was trying to pretend that he was better than other men--t he was above beating a woman. Graciela had had to marry three times before she could get a husband who knew how to stay alive. All her husbands had beaten her, and all the husbands of her sisters and her friends beat their women. It was a thing men did, if they were provoked a little, or even if they were not provoked at all. The slightest drunkenness could cause a man to beat a woman-- so could the slightest rebuke. Graciela had only married poor men--men who had to struggle and who had many worries--but two of her sisters had married men of wealth, men who did little all day except gamble and drink. The wealthy men had beaten her sisters just as often as the poor men had beaten her.

  Graciela was a little shocked by Maggie's innocence about men and women--it was not wise to take lightly or discount the violence that was in men.

  But, before she could discuss the matter further, Newt woke up.

  "I don't need that hot sock, my ear don't hurt now," he said, just as Graciela finished getting the poultice ready. Such a boy deserved a good thump on the head, but before Graciela could administer the thump, Newt smiled at her so sweetly that she thought better of it and gave him one of her good tortillas instead.

  "I have never been no place this naked, Pea," Jake Spoon confided, staring with some t
repidation into the bleak dusk. They had made a poor camp, waterless, shelterless, and dusty, out on the plain somewhere, a plain so vast that the sun, when it set, seemed to be one hundred miles away.

  Captain Call had gone ahead, with six rangers, including Charlie Goodnight. The force at the waterless camp consisted of Deets, Pea, Jake, Captain McCrae, Major Featherstonhaugh, a fat lieutenant named Dikuss, and six soldiers. The purpose of the little scouting expedition was to seek out the Comanches in their winter strongholds and determine how many were left. The army wanted to know how many bands were still active and how many warriors they could put into the field.

  Jake Spoon had never been able to stifle his tendency to complaint, unless Captain Call was in hearing; Jake said as little as possible around Captain Call. It was obvious to all the rangers that Captain Call didn't like Jake and preferred to avoid his company.

  Pea Eye considered it a puzzling thing. He didn't know why the Captain had such a dislike for Jake, but, at the moment, with no water and just a little food, he had more pressing things to worry about.

  Pea had developed the habit of counting his cartridges every night--he wanted to know exactly how many bullets he could expend in the event of an Indian fight. Every ranger was supposed to travel with one hundred rounds, but Pea Eye had only been given eighty-six rounds, the result of some confusion in the armory the day the bullets had been handed out. It worried Pea considerably that he had started on the trip fourteen bullets shy of a full requisition.

  Fourteen bullets could make all the difference in the world in the event that all his companions were killed, while he survived. If he had to walk all the way back to Austin living on what game he could shoot he would have to be careful.

  His marksmanship was not exceptional; it sometimes took him four or five bullets to bring down a deer, and his record with antelope was even worse. Also, he could shoot at Indians fourteen more times, if he had those bullets. The lack preyed on his mind; his count, every night, was to assure himself that no bullets had slipped away in the course of a day's travel.

  With his bullets to count, and the light poor on the gloomy plain, Pea Eye could not waste time worrying about why Captain Call found it hard to tolerate Jake Spoon. Captain McCrae, who knew practically everything, may have known the reason, but if so he wasn't saying.

  At the moment Captain McCrae was discussing with Major Featherstonhaugh the difficulty of counting Comanehes with any accuracy.

  "Several men I know have got haircuts they didn't want while counting Comanches," he informed the Major, a skinny man with a sour disposition.

  "Of course there's no risk to Dikuss here," Augustus added. "He's a bald man--he's got no hair to take. They'd have to find something else to cut off, if they took Dikuss." Augustus liked the fat lieutenant and teased him when possible. He was less fond of the dour Featherstonhaugh, though he was not especially more dour than the few army men who found themselves stuck in dusty outposts in the remote Southwest while the great war raged to the east. Featherstonhaugh and his men were missing out on the glory, and they knew it; andfor what? To attempt to subdue a few half-starved Comanches, scattered across the Texas plains?

  "It seems a poor exercise, don't it, Major?" Augustus said. "You could be back home fighting with Grant or Lee, according to your beliefs. I expect it would be better employment than counting these poor Comanches." Major Featherstonhaugh received that comment soberly, without change of expression. He did not welcome jocularity while in the field, but Captain McCrae, a skilled and respected ranger, seemed unable to avoid the jocular comment.

  "I am from Vermont, Captain," Major Featherstonhaugh informed him. "I would not be fighting with General Lee, though I admire him. He once fought in these parts himself, I believe, in the war with Mexico." "Well, I didn't notice," Augustus said. "I was in love while that scrap was going on. I was younger then, about Lieutenant Dikuss's age. Are you in love, Lieutenant?" Lieutenant Dikuss was mortified by the question, as he was by almost every question Captain McCrae asked him. In fact he was in love with his Milly, a strong buxom girl of nineteen whose father owned a prosperous dairy in Wisconsin. Jack Dikuss nursed the deepest and tenderest feelings for his Milly, feelings so strong that tears came into his eyes if he even allowed himself to think of her. He had not been meaning to think of her--indeed, had been cleaning his revolver--when Captain McCrae's unexpected and unwanted questions brought her suddenly and vividly to mind.

  Lieutenant Dikuss was only just able to choke back tears; in the process of choking them back his neck swelled and his large face turned beet red, a fact fortunately lost on the rangers and soldiers, who were tending to their mounts, their saddles, or their guns, while Deets made a small campfire and got the coffee going.

  Lieutenant Dikuss made no reply at all to Captain McCrae's question, being well aware that if he attempted to speak he would burst into tears and lose what little authority he had over the rough soldiers under his command, whorers all of them, with scant respect for tender sentiments of the sort he harbored for his Milly.

  Augustus noticed the young man's discomfort and did not press his enquiry. He wished he had a book, some whiskey, or anything to distract him from the fact that he was camped in a cold, dusty place with a bunch of military men, while on an errand that he considered foolish. Lately he had begun to delve into the Bible a little, mainly because Austin was so thick with preachers--there were at least seven of them, by his count--t he couldn't walk down the street without bumping into one or two of them. One, an aggressive Baptist, had the temerity to tax him one day about his whoring; in response Augustus had bought a small Bible and began to leaf through it in idle moments, looking for notable instances of whoring or, at least, of carnal appetite among the more distinguished patriarchs of old. He soon found what he was looking for, too, and meant to use his findings to confound the preachers, if they dared challenge him again.

  The print in his Bible was small, however, and the circumstance of a dim evening on the plains, with only a flicker of campfire, did not encourage biblical studies just then. He wished he had something to do besides tease nice boys such as Lieutenant Dikuss, but offhand he couldn't think what it might be. It was a pity, in his view, that Charlie Goodnight had insisted on going with Call on the advance scout; he could always raise a debate with Charlie Goodnight, a man disposed to think that he knew everything. Of course, one of the things Charlie Goodnight did know was where the principal bands of Comanches hunted; Goodnight was now in the cattle business and needed to keep track of the Comanches in order to keep them from running off his saddle horses.

  It was obvious to Augustus that little in the way of conversation was likely to be coming from Major Featherstonhaugh, the Vermonter who would not be fighting with General Lee. Major Featherstonhaugh had been in Texas only a few months; this expedition was his first into the Texas wilds and, so far, he had yet to lay eyes on a wild Comanche. It annoyed Augustus extremely that the military kept its personnel rolling over and over, like clothes wringers--each commander who came out of the East seemed to be less experienced and less knowledgeable about the geography and the terrain than the one before him. He and Call were constantly vexed by the ignorance of the military, though there had been one intelligent captain, named Marcy, who had conducted an excellent survey of the Red River country; Captain Marcy knew the country and the ways of the native tribes as well as anyone, but at the present time he was elsewhere and they were stuck with Major Featherstonhaugh, a man so ill informed that he seemed surprised when told there might be problems finding water on their trip across the llano.

  "But gentlemen, I was assured there was an abundance of fine springs in Texas," the Major stated, when Call brought up the matter of water, the day before they departed.

  "Oh, there's plenty of healthy springs in Texas," Augustus assured him. "I could find you a hundred easily, if we was in the right part of the state." "Isn't it Texas we're going to be journeying in?" the Major asked.

  "Yes, bu
t it's a big place, Major," Call said. "We're going to be crossing the Staked Plain. There may be springs there, but if there are, nobody but the Comanche know where to find them." That comment was greeted by an expression of polite disbelief on the face of Major Featherstonhaugh, whose only response was to instruct his men to be sure to fill their canteens.

  Neither Augustus nor Call chose to press the matter--they had yet to meet a military man, other than the smart Captain Marcy, who was willing to take advice from Texas Rangers, or, for that matter, from Indian scouts either.

  "It's a waste of energy to argue with a man like that," Call said, as they left Fort Phantom Hill.

  "Agreed," Augustus said. "Let the plains do the arguing." They were only four days out, but already the point had been made--Major Featherstonhaugh had begun to absorb some hard lessons about west Texas aridity. The Major was neat to a fault --he could not abide soiled linen, or dust on his face, and had carelessly drained his own canteen by the end of the second day, wetting his kerchief often in order to swab the dust off his face. Though Augustus didn't comment, he was amused--the Major would no sooner wash his face than a dust devil or small whirlwind would sweep over the troop and get him dusty again. Now, impatient for the coffee to boil, he seemed indisposed to conversation of any kind; Augustus suspected that an offer to play a hand of cards would not be well received.