At the post office July debated several more minutes and finally took his letter in, purchased a stamp and mailed it. The postal clerk was an old man wearing eyeglasses. He scrutinized the address on the letter and then looked at July.
"Arkansas, is that where you're from?" he asked.
"Why, yes," July said.
"Johnson your name?" the man asked.
"Why, yes," July said again. "I'm surprised you know."
"Oh, just guessing," the man said. "I think I got a letter for you here somewhere."
July remembered they had told Peach and Charlie they might stop in Fort Worth and try to get wind of Jake and, of course, Elmira. He had only mentioned it — it had never occurred to him that anyone might want to write him. At the thought that the letter might be from Elmira, his heart beat faster. If it was, he intended to ask for his own letter back so he could write her a proper answer.
The old clerk took his time looking for the letter — so much time that July grew nervous. He had not been expecting mail, but now that the prospect had arisen he could hardly wait to know who his letter was from and what it said.
But he was forced to wait, as the old man scratched around in piles of dusty papers and looked in fifteen or twenty pigeonholes. "Dern," the old man said. "I remember you having a letter. I hope some fool ain't thrown it away by mistake."
Three cowboys came in, all with letters they had written to their sisters or sweethearts, and all of them had to stand there waiting while the old man continued his search. July's heart began to sink. Probably the old man had a poor memory, and if there was a letter it was for somebody else.
One of the cowboys, a fiery fellow with a red mustache, finally could not contain his impatience. "Are you looking for your galoshes, or what?" he asked the old man.
The old man ignored him, or else couldn't hear him. He was humming as he looked.
"It ought to be a hanging crime for the post office to work so slow," the impatient fellow said. "I could have carried this letter by hand in less time than this."
Just as he said it, the old man found July's letter under a mail bag. "Some fool set a mailbag on it," he said, handing it to July.
"I guess men grow old and die standing here waiting to buy a dern stamp," the fiery fellow said.
"If you're planning to cuss I'll ask you to do it outside," the clerk said, unperturbed.
"I guess it's a free country," the cowboy said. "Anyway, I ain't cussing."
"I hope you can afford a stamp," the old man said. "We don't give credit around here."
July didn't wait to hear the end of the argument. He could tell by the handwriting on the envelope that the letter was from Peach, not Elmira. The realization knocked his spirits down several pegs. He knew he had no reason to expect a letter from Elmira in the first place, but he was longing to see her, and the thought that she might have written had been comforting.
Joe was sitting on the board sidewalk outside the post office, watching the steady stream of buggies, wagons and horseback riders go by.
July had looked perked up when he went in, but not when he came out. "It's from Peach," he said. He opened the letter and leaned against a hitch rail to try and make out Peach's handwriting, which was rather hen-scratchy:
Dear July—
Ellie took off just after you did. My opinion is she won't be back, and Charlie thinks the same.
Roscoe's a poor deputy, you ought to dock his wages over this. He didn't even notice she was gone but I called it to his attention.
Roscoe has started after you, to give you the news, but it is not likely he'll find you — he is a man of weak abilities. I think the town is a sight better off without him.
We think Ellie left on a whiskey boat, I guess she took leave of her senses. If that's the case it would be a waste of time to go looking for her, Charlie thinks the same. You had better just go on and catch Jake Spoon, he deserves to pay the price.
Your sister-in-law,
Mary Johnson
July had forgotten that Peach had a normal name like Mary before his brother gave her the nickname. Ben had found Peach in Little Rock and had even lived there two months in order to court her.
"What'd it say?" Little Joe asked.
July didn't want to think about what it said. It was pleasanter to try and keep his mind off the facts — the main fact being the one his mind was most reluctant to approach. Ellie had left. She didn't want to be married to him. Then why had she married him? He couldn't understand that, or why she had left.
He looked at Joe, angry with the boy for a moment though he knew it was wrong to be. If Joe had stayed in Fort Smith, Ellie couldn't have left so easily. Then he remembered that it was Ellie who had insisted that the boy come along. None of it was Joe's fault.
"It's bad news," July said.
"Did Ma leave?" Joe asked.
July nodded, surprised. If the boy could figure it out so easily, it must mean that he was the fool for having missed something so obvious that even a boy could see it.
"How could you guess?" he asked.
"She don't like to stay in one place too long," Joe said. "That's her way."
July sighed and looked at the letter again. He decided he didn't believe the part about the whiskey boat. Even if Ellie had taken leave of her senses she wouldn't travel on a whiskey boat. He had left her money. She could have taken a stage.
"What are we gonna do now?" Joe asked.
July shook his head. "I ain't got it thought through," he said. "Roscoe's coming."
Joe's face brightened. "Roscoe?" he said. "Why'd he want to come?"
"Don't imagine he wanted to," July said. "I imagine Peach made him."
"When'll he show up?" Joe asked.
"No telling," July said. "No telling when, and no telling where, either. He don't have no sense of direction. He could be going east, for all we know."
That possibility alone made his quandary more difficult. His wife had left for parts unknown, his deputy was wandering in other parts unknown, and the man he was supposed to catch was in yet other parts unknown.
In fact, July felt he had reached a point in his life where virtually nothing was known. He and Joe were on a street in Fort Worth, and that was basically the sum of his knowledge.
"I guess we better go find your mother," he said, though even as he said it he knew it meant letting Jake Spoon get away. It also meant letting Roscoe Brown stay lost, wherever he was lost.
"Ellie might be in trouble," he said, talking mainly to himself.
"Maybe Roscoe's found out where she is," Joe suggested.
"I doubt it," July said. "I doubt Roscoe even knows where he is."
"Ma probably just went to look for Dee," Joe said.
"Who?" July asked, startled.
"Dee," Joe said. "Dee Boot."
"But he's dead," July said, looking very disturbed. "Ellie told me he died of smallpox."
From the look on July's face, Joe knew he had made a mistake in mentioning Dee. Of course, it was his mother's fault. She had never told him that Dee had died — if he had. Joe didn't believe he was dead either. It was probably just something his mother had told July for reasons of her own.
"Ain't he your pa?" July asked.
"Yep," Joe said proudly.
"She said he died of smallpox," July said. "She said it happened in Dodge."
Joe didn't know how to correct his blunder. July looked as if the news had made him sick.
"I don't think she'd lie to me," July said out loud, but again talking to himself. He didn't mean it and couldn't think why he had said it. Probably she had lied to him right along, about wanting to be married and everything. Probably Dee Boot was alive, in which case Elmira must be married to two men. It seemed hard to believe, since she didn't seem to enjoy being married much.
"Let's go," July said. "I can't think in all this bustle."
"Ain't you gonna look for Jake in the saloons?" Joe asked. After all, that was what they had come to Fort Worth to do
.
But July mounted and rode off so fast that Joe was afraid for a second he would lose him amid the wagons. He had to jump on his horse and lope, just to catch up.
They rode east, back in the direction they had come from. Joe didn't ask any questions, nor did July give him the chance. It was almost evening when they started, and they rode until two hours after dark before they camped.
"We better find Roscoe," July said that night, when they were camped. "He might know more than Peach thinks he does."
Suddenly he had a terrible longing to see Roscoe, a man who had irritated him daily for years. Roscoe might know something about Ellie — she might have explained herself to him, and Roscoe might have had his reasons for concealing the information from Peach. It was quite possible he knew exactly where Ellie was, and why she left.
By the time he lay down to sleep he was more than half convinced that Roscoe knew the truth and would put his mind at ease. Even so, as it was, his mind was far from at ease. He was tense with anger at Peach for being so open with her opinions, particularly the one about Ellie being gone for good.
Joe was sleeping with his mouth open, snoring softly. July wondered that he could sleep so soundly with his mother missing.
The stars were out and July lay awake all night, looking at them and wondering what to do. It occurred to him that Ellie was probably camped under the same stars, the same sky. He began to have strange thoughts. The stars looked so close together. As a boy he had enjoyed good balance and could cross creeks by stepping on stones and rocks. If only he could be in the sky and use the stars like stepping-stones. In no time he could find Ellie. If she went toward Kansas, then she was only a few stars to the north, and yet, on the earth, it would take him days to get to her.
The plains were still and silent, so silent that July felt that if he spoke Ellie ought to be able to hear him. If she was watching the stars, as he was, why wouldn't she know that he was thinking of her?
The longer he lay awake, the stranger he felt. He felt he was probably going crazy from all the strain. Of course the stars couldn't help. They were stars, not mirrors. They couldn't show Ellie what he was feeling. He dozed for a little while and had a dream that she had come back. They were sitting in the loft of their little cabin and she was smiling at him.
When he awoke and realized the dream wasn't true, he felt so disappointed that he cried. It had seemed so real, and Ellie had even touched him, smiling. He tried to go back to sleep so the dream would return, but he couldn't. The rest of the night he lay awake, remembering the sweetness of the dream.
51
IN THE MORNING, when July was making coffee, they began to hear the sounds of cattle. They were camped near a little creek and the flats were misty, so he couldn't see much, but over the mists he could hear cattle bawling and cowboys hollering at them. Probably a herd had been bedded nearby and the boys were trying to get them moving.
Joe was yawning and trying to get awake. The hardest part of traveling was trying to start early. Just when he was sleeping best, July would get up and start saddling his horse.
By the time the sun was beginning to thin out the mists, they had had their coffee and a bite of bacon and were horseback. The herd was in sight, spread out over the plain for three or four miles, thousands of cattle in it. Neither July nor Joe had ever seen a herd so large, and they paused for a moment to look at it. The morning plains were still dewy.
"How many is it?" Joe asked. He had never dreamed there could be so many cattle in one place.
"I don't know. Thousands," July said. "I've heard south Texas is nothing but cattle."
Though the herd was in progress, the camp crew wasn't. The cook was packing his pots and skillets into a wagon.
"I guess we ought to ask them if they've seen Roscoe," July said. "He could be south of us. Or they might have news of Jake."
They loped over to the wagon just as the wrangler turned loose the horse herd. The horses, fifty or sixty of them, were jumping and frisking, kicking up their heels and nickering at one another, glad to be moving. July and Joe waited until the wrangler had them headed north before trotting on toward the wagon. The cook wore an old black hat, and had a long, dirty beard.
"You're too late, boys," he said. "The hands just et me out of breakfast."
"Well, we've et," July said, noticing for the first time a man sitting on a tarp by the ashes of the campfire. The unusual thing about the man was that he was reading a book. His horse, a fine-looking black, was saddled and grazing a few yards away.
"Where would I find the boss?" July asked, addressing himself to the old cook.
"I'm the boss, that's why I've got time to read," the reading man said. "My name's Wilbarger." He wore iron-rimmed spectacles.
"I like to snatch a minute for Mr. Milton, and the morning's my only hope," Wilbarger added. "At night I'm apt to be in a stampede, and you can't read Mr. Milton during a stampede — not and take his sense. My days are mostly taken up with lunkheads and weather and sick horses, but I sometimes get a moment of peace after breakfast."
The man looked at them sternly through his glasses. Joe, who had hated what little schooling he'd had, was at a loss to know why a grown man would sit around and read on a pretty day.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you," July said.
"Are you a lawman?" Wilbarger asked in his impatient way.
"I am," July said.
"Then you're going to have to listen to some complaints about the law in this state," Wilbarger said. "I've never seen a place with less law. The farther south you go, the worse the horsethieves get. Along that border they're thicker than ticks."
"Well, I ain't from Texas, I'm from Arkansas," July said.
"It's a weak excuse," Wilbarger said, marking his place with a grass blade and standing up. "I didn't notice much law in Arkansas either. There's law of sorts in New Orleans, but out here it's every man for himself."
"Well, there's Texas Rangers but I guess they mostly fight the Indians," July said, wondering where the conversation would end.
"Yes, I met a couple," Wilbarger said. "They were excellent horsethieves themselves. They stole my remuda back from some sly Mexicans. Are you looking for a killer or what?"
"Yes, a man named Jake Spoon," July said. "He killed a dentist in Fort Smith."
Wilbarger tucked his book carefully into his bedroll and tossed the bedroll in the back of the wagon.
"You've overshot Mr. Spoon," he said. "He was recently seen in the town of Lonesome Dove, where he won twenty dollars from a hand of mine. However, he's headed this way. He partnered up with the gentlemen who got my horses back. If I were you I'd camp here and put this boy in school. They'll be along in two or three weeks."
"I thank you for the information," July said. "I don't suppose you've run across a man named Roscoe Brown along the trail."
"Nope, who'd he kill?" Wilbarger asked.
"Nobody," July said. "He's my deputy. It may be that he's lost."
"The name Roscoe don't inspire confidence," Wilbarger said. "People named Roscoe ought to stick to clerking. However, it's summertime. At least your man won't freeze to death. Any more people you're looking for?"
"No, just them two," July said, refraining from mentioning Elmira.
Wilbarger mounted. "I hope you hang Spoon promptly," he said. "I expect he's a card cheat, and card cheats undermine society faster than anything. If you find your deputy, see if you can't steer him into clerking."
With that he trotted over to the cook. "Are you coming with us, Bob?" he asked.
"No," the cook said. "I'm planning to marry and settle down here in north Texas."
"I hope you marry somebody who can cook," Wilbarger said. "If you do, let me know. When she gets ready to leave you, I'll hire her."
He looked around at Joe. "Need a job, son?" he asked. "We need a boy that don't ask questions and is handy with an ax. I don't know about your chopping skills, but you ain't asked a question yet."
Wilbarger seemed
serious, and July was tempted to let Joe do it. Going north with a herd would be good experience for him. The main advantage, though, was that he himself could then travel alone, with just his thoughts. Without Joe to look after, he could better accomplish the main task ahead, which was to find Elmira.
Joe was startled. He had never expected to be offered a job with a cow outfit, and hearing the words was a thrill. But of course he couldn't take it — he had been assigned to July.
"Much obliged," he said. "I reckon I can't."
"Well, the job's open," Wilbarger said. "We may meet again. I've got to lope up to the Red River to see if I think the water's fresh enough for my stock."
"What'll you do if it ain't?" Joe asked. He had never known anyone who just said one unusual thing after another, as Wilbarger did. How could the water in a river not be fresh enough for cows?
"Well, I could piss in it to show it what I thought of it," Wilbarger said.
"Could you use any company?" July asked. "We're going up that way."
"Oh, I can always use good conversation, when I can get it," Wilbarger said. "I was brought up to expect good conversation, but then I run off to the wilderness and it's been spotty ever since. Why are you going north when the man you want is to the south?"
"I've got other business as well," July said. He didn't want to describe it though. He hadn't meant to ask Wilbarger if they could ride along. He wouldn't ordinarily have done it, but then his life was no longer ordinary. His wife was lost, and his deputy also. He felt more confused than he ever had in his life, whereas Wilbarger was a man who seemed far less confused than most. He seemed to know his mind immediately, whatever the question put to him.
Wilbarger started at once and loped several miles without speaking. Joe loped with him. The country was open, lightly spotted with elm and post oak. They came to a fair-sized stream and Wilbarger stopped to water his horse.
"Have you been to Colorado?" July asked.