"I doubt I would have caught him myself," July said. "I had horse trouble, up around Dodge."
When Clara got back to the house she was in high color. The way Call had stood there silently, not even asking a question or making an offer, just waiting for her to come down on the price, struck her as arrogant. The more she thought about it, the less hospitable she felt toward the man.
"I can't say that I'm fond of your partner," she said to Augustus. He had talked the girls out of some chicken gizzards and was eating them off a plate.
"He ain't skilled with the ladies," Augustus said, amused that she was angry. As long as she wasn't angry at him, it just made her the better-looking.
"Ma, shall we take buttermilk?" Betsey asked. She and Sally had changed dresses without their mother's permission, and were so excited by the prospect of a picnic that they could hardly keep still.
"Yes, today we feast," Clara said. "I asked Cholo to hitch the little wagon. One of you go change that baby, he's rather fragrant."
"I'll help," Lorena said. It surprised Augustus, but she went off upstairs with the girls. Clara stood listening as their footsteps went up the stairs. Then she turned her deep-gray eyes on Augustus.
"She's hardly older than my daughters," Clara said.
"Don't you be scolding me," he said. "It ain't my fault you went off and got married."
"If I'd married you, you would have left me for somebody younger and stupider long before now, I imagine," Clara said. To his surprise she came over and stood near him for a moment, putting one of her large, strong hands on his shoulder.
"I like your girl," she said. "What I don't like is that you spent all these years with Woodrow Call. I detest that man and it rankles that he got so much of you and I got so little. I think I had the better claim."
Augustus was taken aback. The anger in her was in her eyes again, this time directed at him.
"Where have you been for the last fifteen years?" she asked.
"Lonesome Dove, mostly," he said. "I wrote you three letters."
"I got them," she said. "And what did you accomplish in all that time?"
"Drank a lot of whiskey," Augustus said.
Clara nodded and went back to packing the picnic basket. "If that was all you accomplished you could have done it in Ogallala and been a friend to me," she said. "I lost three boys, Gus. I needed a friend."
"You ought to wrote me that, then," he said. "I didn't know."
Clara's mouth tightened. "I hope I meet a man sometime in my life who can figure such things out," she said. "I wrote you but I tore up the letters. I figured if you didn't come of your own accord you wouldn't be no good to me anyway."
"Well, you was married," he said, not knowing why he bothered to argue.
"I was never so married but what I could have managed a friend," she said. "I want you to look at Bob before you go. The poor man's laid up there for two months, wasting away."
The anger had died out of her eyes. She came and sat down in a chair, looking at him in the intent way she had, as if reading in his face the events of the fifteen years he had spent away from her.
"Where'd you get Miss Wood?" she asked.
"She's been in Lonesome Dove a while," he said.
"Doing what?"
"Doing what she could, but don't you hold it against her," he said.
Clara looked at him coolly. "I don't judge women that harsh," she said. "I might have done the same under some circumstances."
"I doubt it," he said.
"Yes, but you don't know as much about women as you like to think you do," Clara said. "You're overrated in that regard."
"By God, you're sassy," Augustus said.
Clara just smiled, her old beguiling smile. "I'm honest," she said. "To most men, that's sassy."
"Well, it might interest you to know that Lorie started this trip with your old friend Jake Spoon," Augustus said. "He was his usual careless self and let her get kidnapped by a real rough man."
"Oh, so you rescued her?" Clara said. "No wonder she worships you. What happened to Jake?"
"He met a bad end," Augustus said. "We hung him. He was with a gang of murderers."
Clara didn't flinch at the news. She heard the girls coming back down the stairs. Lorena was carrying the baby. Clara stood up so Lorena could sit. The baby's eyes followed her.
"Betsey, go find July and the men and ask them if they want to wash up before we go," she said.
"I doubt you can get Woodrow Call to go to your picnic," Augustus said. "He'll be wanting to get back to work."
But Call went. He had come back to the house, still trying to think of a way to talk Clara down on the horses, only to find the girls loading a small wagon, Lorena holding a baby, and Gus carrying a crock of buttermilk.
"Could you drive for us, Captain?" Clara asked, handing him the reins to the little mule team before he could answer. With such a crowd there watching he couldn't muster a protest, and he drove the little wagon three miles west on the Platte to a place where there were a few small cottonwoods.
"It ain't as nice as our place on the Guadalupe, Gus, but it's the best we can do," Clara said.
"Oh, your orchard, you mean," Augustus said.
Clara looked puzzled for a moment — she had forgotten that that was what they called the picnic spot on the Guadalupe.
The day remained fair, and the picnic was a great success for everyone except Captain Call and July Johnson, both of whom felt awkward and merely waited for it to be over. The girls tried to get July to wade in the Platte, but he resisted solemnly. Newt waded, and then Lorena, rolling up her pants, and Lorena and Betsey walked far downstream, out of sight of the party. The baby dozed in the shade, while Clara and Augustus bantered. The sixteen-year gap in their communications proved no hindrance at all. Then Augustus rolled up his pants and waded with the girls, while Clara and Lorena watched. All the food was consumed, Call drinking about half the buttermilk himself. He had always loved buttermilk and had not had any for a long time.
"You don't plan on returning to Arkansas, Mr. Johnson?" he asked.
"I don't know that I will," July said. In fact, he had given no thought to his future at all.
Augustus ate most of the fried chicken and marveled at how comfortable Lorena seemed to be. She liked the girls, and seeing her with them reminded him that she was not much more than a girl herself, despite her experiences. He knew that she had been advanced too quickly into life, though perhaps not so far to yet enjoy a bit of girlhood.
When it came time to go back to the ranch he helped Lorie into the wagon with the girls, and he and Clara walked behind. Newt, who had enjoyed the picnic mightily, fell into conversation with Sally and rode beside the wagon. Lorena didn't seem concerned — she and Betsey had taken to one another at once, and were chatting happily.
"You should leave that girl here," Clara said, startling Augustus. He had been thinking the same thing.
"I doubt she'd stay," he said.
"If you stay out of it she might," Clara said. "I'll ask her. You have no business taking a girl like that into Montana. She might not survive."
"In some ways she ain't so young," he said.
"I like her," Clara said, ignoring him. "I expect you'll marry her and I'll have to watch you have five or six babies in your old age. I guess I'd be annoyed, but I could live with it. Don't take her up to Montana. She'll either die or get killed, or else she'll age before her time, like I have."
"I can't tell that you've aged much," Augustus said.
"You've just been around me one day," Clara said. "There's certain things I can still do and certain things I'm finished with."
"What things are you finished with?" he asked.
"You'd find out if you stayed around me much," Clara said.
"I notice you've taken a fancy to young Mr. Johnson," Augustus said. "I expect if I did stay around he'd beat me out."
"He's nearly as dull as Woodrow Call, but he's nicer," Clara said. "He'll do what he's t
old, mostly, and I've come to appreciate that quality in a man. I could never count on you to do what you're told."
"So do you aim to marry him?"
"No, that's one of the things I'm through with," Clara said. "Of course I ain't quite — poor Bob ain't dead. But if he passes away, I'm through with it."
Clara smiled. Augustus chuckled. "I hope you ain't contemplating an irregular situation," he said.
Clara smiled. "What's irregular about having a boarder?" she asked. "Lots of widows take boarders. Anyway, he likes my girls better than he likes me. He might be ready to marry again by the time Sally's of age."
At that moment Sally was chattering away to young Newt, who was getting his first taste of conversation with a sprightly young lady.
"Who's his mother?" Clara asked. She liked the boy's looks, and also his manners. "I never knew Call was prone to ladies," she added.
"Oh, Woodrow ain't," Augustus said. "He can barely stand to be within fifty yards of you."
"I know that," Clara said. "He's been stiff all day because I won't bargain away my horses. My price is my price. But that boy's his, and don't you tell me he ain't. They walk alike, they stand alike, and they look alike."
"I expect you're right," Augustus said.
"Yes, I'm right," Clara said. "You ain't answered my question."
"His mother was a woman named Maggie," he said. "She was a whore. She died when Newt was six."
"I like that boy," Clara said. "I'd keep him too, if I got the chance. He's about the age my Jimmy would be, if Jimmy had lived."
"Newt's a fine boy," Augustus said.
"It's a miracle, ain't it, when one grows up nice," Clara said. "He's got a quiet way, that boy. I like that. It's surprising to find gentle behavior when his father is Captain Call."
"Oh, Newt don't know Call's his father," Augustus said. "I expect he's heard hints, but he don't know it."
"And Call don't claim him, when anybody can see it?" Clara said, shocked. "I never had much opinion of Call, and now I have less."
"Call don't like to admit mistakes," Augustus said. "It's his way."
"What mistake?" Clara said. "I wouldn't call it a mistake if I raised a boy that nice. My Jimmy had wildness in him. I couldn't handle him, though he died when he was eight. I expect he'd have ended like Jake. Now where'd it come from? I ain't wild, and Bob ain't wild."
"I don't know," Augustus said.
"Well, I had two sweet ones, though," Clara said. "My last one, Johnny, was the sweetest. I ain't been the same since that child died. It's a wonder the girls aren't worse-behaved than they are. I don't consider that I've ever had the proper feeling for them. It went out of me that winter I lost Jeff and Johnny."
They walked in silence for a while.
"Why don't you tell that boy who his pa is?" Clara said. "I'd do it, if he was around here long. He should know who his pa is. He's got to wonder."
"I always thought Call would work up to it, eventually," Augustus said. "I still think so."
"I don't," Clara said.
A big gray wolf loped up out of the riverbed, looked at them for a moment, and loped on.
Ahead, the baby was fretting, and the girls and Lorena were trying to shush it.
When they got back to the ranch, Call gave in and told Clara he'd pay her price for the horses. He didn't like it, but he couldn't stay around there forever, and her horses were in far better condition than the nags he had looked at in Ogallala.
"Fine, go help him, boys," Clara said. Cholo and July went off to help. Newt was helping the girls carry the remains of the picnic in.
He was sorry they were leaving. Sally had been telling him all she planned to do when she grew up. She was going East to school and then planned to play the piano professionally, she said. That seemed unusual to Newt. The only musician he knew was Lippy, and he couldn't imagine Sally doing what Lippy did. But he enjoyed listening to her talk about her future life.
As he was coming down the steps, Clara stopped him. She put an arm across his shoulder and walked him to his horse. No woman had ever done such a thing with him.
"Newt, we've enjoyed having you," Clara said. "I want you to know that if Montana don't suit you, you can just head back here. I'll give you all the work you can stand."
"I'd like to," Newt said. He meant it. Since meeting the girls and seeing the ranch, he had begun to wonder why they were taking the herd so far. It seemed to him Nebraska had plenty of room.
For most of the trip Newt had supposed that nothing could be better than being allowed to be a cowboy, but now that they had got to Nebraska, his thinking was changing. Between the Buffalo Heifer and the other whores in Ogallala and Clara's spirited daughters, he had begun to see that a world with women in it could be even more interesting. The taste he had of that world seemed all too brief. Though he had been more or less scared of Clara all day, and was still a little scared of her, there was something powerfully appealing about her, too.
"Thank you for the picnic," he said. "I never went on one before."
Something in the boy touched Clara. Boys had always touched her — far more than girls. This one had a lonely look in his eye although he also had a quick smile.
"Come back when you can, we'll go on many more," she said. "I believe Sally's taken a fancy to you."
Newt didn't know what to say to that. He got on his horse. "I expect I better go help, ma'am," he said.
"If you get to choose one of my horses, choose that little sorrel with the star on his forehead," Clara said. "He's the best of that bunch."
"Oh, I imagine Dish will get the first pick," Newt said. "Dish is our top hand."
"Well, I don't want Dish to have him," Clara said. "I want you to have him. Come on."
She started for the lots and made straight for Call.
"Captain," she said, "there's a three-year-old sorrel gelding with a white star on his forehead in this lot you bought. I want to give that horse to Newt, so don't let anyone have him. You can deduct him from the price."
"Give it to him?" Call asked, surprised. Newt, who overheard, was surprised too. The woman who drove such a hard bargain wanted to give him a horse.
"Yes, I'm making him a gift," Clara said. "I'd feel better knowing Newt was well mounted, if you're really going to take him to Montana." With that she went back to the house.
Call looked at the boy. "Why'd she do that?" he asked. Of course it was fine for the boy to have the horse — it saved fifty dollars.
"I don't know," Newt said.
"That's the whole trouble with women," Call said, as if to himself. "They do things that don't make sense. She wouldn't give a nickel on the rest of them horses. Most horse traders would have taken off a dollar just to help the deal."
88
AFTER CALL AND NEWT LEFT with the horses, Clara lit a lantern and took Augustus up to the room where her husband lay. Lorena sat at the kitchen table with the girls, playing draughts. July watched, but could not be persuaded to take part in the game. Even Betsey, his favorite, couldn't persuade him, and Betsey could usually get July to do anything she wanted him to do. Lorena's presence made him shy. He enjoyed sitting and looking at her in the lamplight, though. It seemed to him he had never seen anyone so beautiful. He had only seen her before on that dreadful morning on the plains when he had had to bury Roscoe, Joe and Janey, and had been too stricken to notice her. Then she had been bruised and thin from her treatment by Blue Duck and the Kiowas. Now she was neither bruised nor thin.
Clara and Augustus sat for an hour in the room where Bob lay. Augustus found it difficult to get used to the fact that the man's eyes were open. Clara had ceased to care, or even notice.
"He's been that way two months," she said. "I guess he sees some, but I don't think he hears."
"It reminds me of old Tom Mustard," Augustus said. "He rangered with us when we started the troop. His horse went over a cutbank on the salt fork of the Brazos one night and fell on him. Broke his back. Tom never moved a muscle after
that, but his eyes were open when we found him. We started back to Austin with Tom on a travois, but he died a week later. He never closed his eyes in all that time, that I know of."
"I wish Bob would go," Clara said. "He's no use to himself like this. All Bob liked to do was work, and now he can't."
They walked out on the little upper porch, where it was cooler. "Why'd you come up here, Gus?" she asked. "You ain't a cowboy."
"The truth is, I was hoping to find you a widow," he said. "I didn't miss by much, either."
Clara was amused that her old beau would be so blunt. "You missed by years," she said. "I'm a bony old woman now and you're a deceiving man, anyway. You always were a deceiving man. I think the best thing would be for you to leave me your bride to be and I'll see if I can give her some polish."
"I never meant to get in the position I'm in, to be truthful," Augustus said.
"No, but you like it, now that you're in it," Clara said, taking his hand. "She's got nearly as high an opinion of you as you have of yourself, Gus. I could never match it. I know your character too well. She's younger and prettier, which is always a consideration with you men."
Augustus had forgotten how fond she was of goading him. Even with a dying husband in the next room, she was capable of it. The only chance with Clara was to be as bold as she was. He looked at her, and was thinking of kissing her.
Clara saw the look and was startled by it. Although she kissed her girls every day and lavished kisses on the baby, it had been years since she had been kissed by a man. Bob would occasionally kiss her cheek if he had returned from a trip — otherwise kissing played no part in his view of married love. Looking off the porch, with Augustus standing near her, Clara felt sad. She mainly had snatched kisses from her courtship, with Gus or Jake, twenty years before, to remember.
She looked at Gus again, wondering if he would really be so bold or so foolish. He didn't move to kiss her, but he still stood close and looked into her face.
"The older the violin, the sweeter the music," he said with a smile.