Not only had no one talked at the hanging, no one had talked since, either. Captain Call kept well to himself, riding far from the herd all day and sleeping apart at night. Mr. Gus stayed back with Lorena, only showing up at mealtimes. Deets was very quiet when he was around, and he wasn't around much — he spent his days scouting far ahead of the herd, which was traveling easily. The Texas bull had assumed the lead position, passing Old Dog almost every day and only giving up the lead to go snort around the tails of whatever cows interested him. He had lost none of his belligerence. Dish, who rode the point, had come to hate him even more than Needle Nelson did.
"I don't know why we don't cut him," Dish said. "It's only a matter of time before he kills one of us."
"If he kills me he'll die with me," Needle said grimly.
Of course, all the hands were curious about Jake. They asked endless questions. The fact that the farmers had been burned puzzled them. "Do you think they was trying to make people think Indians did it?" Jasper asked.
"No, Dan Suggs just did it because he felt like it," Pea Eye said. "What's more, he hung 'em after they were already dead. Shot 'em, hung 'em, and then burned 'em."
"He must have been a hard case, that Dan," Jasper said. "I seen him once. He had them little squint eyes."
"I'm glad he never squinted them at me, if that's the way he behaves to white men," Needle said. "What was Jake doing with an outfit like that?"
"If you ask my opinion, that whore that Gus has got was Jake's downfall," Bert Borum volunteered.
"You can keep your damn opinion to yourself, if that's what you think," Dish said. He was as touchy as ever where Lorena was concerned.
"Just because you're in love with a whore don't mean I can't express my opinion," Bert countered.
"You can express it and I can knock your dern teeth down your throat for you," Dish said. "Lorie didn't make Jake Spoon into no criminal."
Bert had always considered that Dish had been awarded the top-hand position unfairly, and he was not about to put up with such insolence from him. He took his gun belt off, and Dish did the same. They squared off, but didn't immediately proceed to fisticuffs. Each walked cautiously around the other, watching for an opening — their cautiousness provoked much jocularity in the onlookers.
"Look at them priss around," Needle Nelson said. "I used to have a rooster I'd match against either one of them."
"It'll be winter before they hit the first lick at this rate," Jasper said.
Dish finally leaped at Bert, but instead of boxing, the two men grappled and were soon rolling on the ground, neither gaining much of an advantage. Call had seen the men square off, and he loped over. When he got there they were rolling on the ground, both red in the face but doing one another no harm. He rode the Hell Bitch right up to them, and when they saw him they both stopped. He had it in his mind to dress them down, but the fact that the other hands were laughing at their ineffectual combat was probably all that was needed. Anyway, the men were natural rivals in ability and could be expected to puff up at some point. He turned and rode back out of camp without saying a word to them.
When he saw him go, Newt's heart sank. The Captain said less and less to him, or to anyone. Newt felt more and more of a need for somebody to talk about Jake. He had been the Captain's friend, and Mr. Gus's. It didn't seem right that he could be killed and buried, and no more said.
It was Deets, finally, who understood and helped. Deets was good at mending things, and one night as he was mending Newt's bridle Newt said what was on his mind. "I wish we could at least have taken him to jail," Newt said.
"They'd hang him too," Deets said. "I 'spect he'd rather us did it."
"I wish we hadn't even come," Newt said. "It's just too many people dying. I didn't think we'd ever kill Jake. It wasn't like an accident.
"If he didn't kill anybody, then it wasn't fair," he added.
"Well, there was the horses, too," Deets said.
"He only liked pacers," Newt said. "He wouldn't be bothered to steal horses as long as he had one to ride. Just being along didn't make him a horsethief."
"It do to the Captain," Deets said. "It do to Mr. Gus."
"They didn't even talk to him," Newt said bitterly. "They just hung him. They didn't even act like they were sorry."
"They sorry," Deets said. "Saying won't change it. He's gone, don't worry about him. He's gone to the peaceful place."
He put his hand for a moment on Newt's shoulder. "You need to rest your mind," he said. "Don't worry about the sleepers."
How do you stop? Newt wondered. It wasn't a thing he could forget, Pea Eye mentioned it as he would mention the weather, something natural that just happened and was over. Only for Newt it wasn't over. Every day it would rise in his mind and stay there until something distracted him.
Newt didn't know it, but Call, too, lived almost constantly with the thought of Jake Spoon. He felt half sick from thinking about it. He couldn't concentrate on the work at hand, and often if spoken to he wouldn't respond. He wanted somehow to move time backwards to a point where Jake could have been saved. Many times, in his thoughts, he managed to save Jake, usually by having made him stay with the herd. As the herd approached the Republican, Call's thoughts were back on the Brazos, where Jake had been allowed to go astray.
At night, alone, he grew bitter at himself for indulging in such pointless thoughts. It was like the business with Maggie that Gus harped on so. His mind tried to change it, have it different, but those too were pointless thoughts. Things thought and things said didn't make much difference and with Gus spending all his time with the woman there was very little said anyway. Sometimes Gus would come over and ride with him for a few miles, but they didn't discuss Jake Spoon. As such things went, it had been simple. He could remember hangings that had been harder: once they had to hang a boy for something his father had made him do.
When they sighted the Republican River Gus was with him. From a distance it didn't seem like much of a river. "That's the one that got the Pumphrey boy, ain't it?" Augustus said. "Hope it don't get none of us, we're a skinny outfit as it is."
"We wouldn't be if you did any work," Call said. "Are you going to leave her in Ogallala or what?"
"Are you talking about Lorie or this mare I'm riding?" Augustus asked. "If it's Lorie, it wouldn't kill you to use her name."
"I don't see that it matters," Call said, though even as he said it he remembered that it had seemed to matter to Maggie — she had wanted to hear him say her name.
"You've got a name," Augustus said. "Don't it matter to you, whether people use it?"
"Not much," Call said.
"No, I guess it wouldn't," Augustus said. "You're so sure you're right it doesn't matter to you whether people talk to you at all. I'm glad I've been wrong enough to keep in practice."
"Why would you want to keep in practice being wrong?" Call asked. "I'd think it would be something you'd try to avoid."
"You can't avoid it, you've got to learn to handle it," Augustus said. "If you only come face to face with your own mistakes once or twice in your life it's bound to be extra painful. I face mine every day — that way they ain't usually much worse than a dry shave."
"Anyway, I hope you leave her," Call said. "We might get in the Indians before we get to Montana."
"I'll have to see," Augustus said. "We've grown attached. I won't leave her unless I'm sure she's in good hands."
"Are you aiming to marry?"
"I could do worse," Augustus said. "I've done worse twice, in fact. However, matrimony's a big step and we ain't discussed it."
"Of course, you ain't seen the other one yet," Call said.
"That one's got a name too — Clara," Augustus pointed out. "You are determined not to use names for females. I'm surprised you even named your mare."
"Pea Eye named her," Call said. It was true. Pea Eye had done it the first time she bit him.
That afternoon they swam the Republican without losing an animal. At suppe
r afterward, Jasper Fant's spirits were high — he had built up an unreasoning fear of the Republican River and felt that once he crossed it he could count on living practically forever. He felt so good he even danced an impromptu jig.
"You've missed your calling, Jasper," Augustus said, highly amused by this display. "You ought to try dancing in whorehouses — you might pick up a favor or two that you otherwise couldn't afford."
"Reckon the Captain will let us go to town once we get to Nebraska?" Needle asked. "It seems like a long time since there's been a town."
"If he don't, I think I'll marry a heifer," Bert said.
Po Campo sat with his back against a wagon wheel, jingling his tambourine.
"It's going to get dry," he said.
"Fine," Soupy replied. "I got wet enough down about the Red to last me forever."
"It's better to be wet than dry," Po Campo said. Usually cheerful, he had fallen into a somber mood.
"It ain't if you drown," Pea Eye observed.
"There won't be much to cook when it gets dry," Po said.
Newt and the Rainey boys had begun to talk of whores. Surely the Captain would let them go to town with the rest of the crew when they hit Ogallala. The puzzling thing was how much a whore might cost. The talk around the wagon was never very specific on that score. The Rainey boys were constantly tallying up their wages and trying to calculate whether they would be sufficient. What made it complicated was that they had played cards for credit the whole way north. The older hands had done the same, and the debts were complicated. As the arrival in Ogallala began to dominate their thoughts almost entirely, the question of cash was constantly discussed, and many debts discounted on the promise of actual money.
"What if they don't pay us here?" the pessimistic Needle asked one night. "We signed on for Montana, we might not get no wages in Nebraska."
"Oh, the Captain will pay us," Dish said. Despite his attachment to Lorena he was becoming as excited as the rest about going to town.
"Why would he?" Lippy asked. "He don't care whether you have a whore or not, Dish."
That sentiment struck everyone as almost undoubtedly true, and established a general worry. By the time they crossed the Stinking Water the worry had become so oppressive that many hands could think of nothing else. Finally a delegation, headed by Jasper, approached Augustus on the subject. They surrounded him one morning when he came for breakfast and expressed their fear.
Augustus had a big laugh when he figured out what was bothering them. "Why, you girls," he said. "All you want is orgies."
"No, it's whores we want," Jasper said, a little irritated. "It's fine for you to laugh, you got Lorie."
"Yes, but what's good for me ain't necessarily good for the weak-minded," Augustus said.
However, the next day he passed the word that everyone would be paid half wages in Ogallala. Call was not enthusiastic but the men had worked well and he couldn't oppose giving them a day in town.
As soon as they heard the ruling, spirits improved, all except Po Campo's. He continued to insist that it would be dry.
80
WHEN ELMIRA'S FEVER finally broke she was so weak she could barely turn her head on the pillow. The first thing she saw was Zwey, looking in the window of the doctor's little house. It was raining, but Zwey stood there in his buffalo coat, looking in at her.
The next day he was still there, and the next. She wanted to call out to him to see if he had news of Dee, but she was too weak. Her voice was just a whisper. The doctor who tended her, a short man with a red beard, seemed not much healthier than she was. He coughed so hard that sometimes he would have to set her medicine down to keep from spilling it. His name was Patrick Arandel, and his hands shook after each coughing fit. But he had taken her in and tended her almost constantly for the first week, expecting all the time that she would die.
"He's as loyal as any dog," he whispered to her, when she was well enough to understand conversation. For a while she had just stared back at him without comprehension when he spoke to her. He meant Zwey, of course.
"I couldn't even get the man to go away and eat," the doctor told her. "I live on tea, myself, but he's a big man. Tea won't keep him going. I guess he asked me a thousand times if you were going to live."
The doctor sat in a little thin frame chair by her bed and gave her medicine by the spoonful. "It's to build you up," he said. "You didn't hardly have no blood in you when you got here."
Elmira wished there was a window shade so she couldn't see Zwey staring at her. He stared for hours. She could feel his eyes on her, but she was too weak to turn her head away. Luke seemed to be gone — at least he never showed up.
"Where's Dee?" she whispered, when her voice came back a little. The doctor didn't hear her, she said it so faint, but he happened to notice her lips move. She had to say it again.
"Dee Boot?" she whispered.
"Oh, did you follow that story?" the doctor said. "Hung him right on schedule about a week after they brought you in. Buried him in Boot Hill. It's a good joke on him, since his name was Boot. He killed a nine-year-old boy, he won't be missed around here."
Elmira shut her eyes, hoping she could be dead. From then on she spat out her medicine, letting it dribble onto the gown the doctor had given her. He didn't understand at first.
"Sick to your stomach?" he said. "That's natural. We'll try soup."
He tried soup and she spat that out too for a day, but she was too weak to fight the doctor, who was almost as patient as Zwey. They kept her jailed with their patience, when all she wanted to do was die. Dee was gone, after she had come such a way and found him. She hated Zwey and Luke for bringing her to the doctor — surely she would have died right on the street if they hadn't. The last thing she wanted to do was get well and have to live — but days passed, and the doctor sat in the little chair, feeding her soup, and Zwey stared in the window, even though she wouldn't look.
Even not looking, she could smell Zwey. It was hot summer, and the doctor left the window open all day. She could hear horses going by on the street and smell Zwey standing there only a few feet from her. Flies bothered her — the doctor asked if she wanted Zwey to come in, for he would be only too happy to sit and shoo the flies, but Elmira didn't answer. If Dee was dead, she was through with talk.
It occurred to her one night that she could ask Zwey to shoot her. He would give her a gun, of course, but she didn't think she had the strength to pull the trigger. Better to ask him to shoot her. That would solve it, and they wouldn't do much to Zwey if he told them he killed her at her own request.
Just thinking of such a simple solution seemed to ease her mind a bit — she could have Zwey shoot her. And yet, days passed and she got so she could sit up in bed, and she didn't do it. Her mind kept going back to the spot of sunlight where Dee's face had vanished. His face had just faded into the sunlight. She couldn't stop thinking of it — in dreams she would see it so clearly that she would wake up, to the sound of Zwey's snoring. He slept outside her window, with his back to the wall of the house — his snores were so loud a person might have thought a bull was sleeping there.
"What went with Luke?" she asked him one day.
"Went to Santa Fe," Zwey said. It had been a month since she had spoken to him. He thought probably she never would again.
"Hired on with some traders," he said. "Come all this way and then headed back."
"I guess your child didn't live," the doctor said one day. "I wouldn't have expected it to, out on the prairie, with you having such a close call."
Elmira didn't answer. She remembered her breasts hurting, that was all. She had forgotten the child, the woman with the two daughters, the big house. Maybe the baby was dead. Then she remembered July, and Arkansas, and a lot that she had forgotten. It was just as well forgotten: none of it mattered compared to Dee. It was all past, well past. Some day she would have Zwey shoot her and she wouldn't have to think about things anymore.
But she put it off, and i
n time got well enough to walk. She didn't go far, just to the door, to get a chamber pot or put one out of the room — the heat made the smells worse. Even Zwey had finally taken off his buffalo coat — he stood at the window in an old shirt, with holes worn in it so that the thick hairs of his chest poked through.
The doctor never asked her about money. Though she had gotten better, he hadn't. She could hear him coughing through the wall, and sometimes saw him spit into a handkerchief. His hands trembled badly, and he always smelled of whiskey. It troubled her that he didn't ask her for money. She had always been one to pay her way. Finally she mentioned it. She knew Zwey would go to work and get money for her if she asked him to.
"You'll have to let me know what I owe," she said, but Patrick Arandel just shook his head.
"I came here to get away from money," he said. "Did it, too. I got away from it, and it ain't easy to get away from money."
Elmira didn't mention it again. If he wanted to be paid, he could mention it — she had tried.
Then one day, with no warning from anyone, the door to her room opened and July walked in. Zwey was standing at the window when it happened. July's face seemed thinner.
"I found you, Ellie," he said, and there were tears in his eyes. Zwey was watching, but because of the shadows she didn't know if he could see that July was crying.
Elmira looked away. She didn't know what to do. Mainly she regretted that she had not had Zwey shoot her. Now July had found her. He had not come all the way in the room, but he was standing there, with the door half open, waiting for her to ask him in.