Lonesome Dove Part 79

"h.e.l.lo, Miss Wood," Clara said. To Lorena's surprise she seemed quite friendly-far more so than most women were to her.

"I don't know whether to envy you or pity you, Miss Wood," Clara said. "Riding all that way with Mr. McCrae, I mean. I know he's entertaining, but that much entertainment could break a person for life."

Then Clara laughed, a happy laugh-she was amused that Augustus had seen fit to arrive with a woman, that she had stunned her girls by kissing him, and that Woodrow Call, a man she had always disliked and considered scarcely more interesting than a stump, had been able to think of nothing better to say to her after sixteen years than "How do you do?" It added up to a lively time, in her book, and she felt she had been in Nebraska long enough to deserve a little liveliness.

She saw that the young woman was very frightened of her. She had dismounted but kept her eyes cast down. July and Cholo walked up just at that time, July with a look of surprise on his face.

"Why, Sheriff Johnson," Augustus said. "I guess, as they say, it's a small world."

"Just to you, Gus, you've met everybody in it now, I'm sure," Clara said. She glanced at July, who so far hadn't spoken. He was watching her and it struck her that it might be because she was still holding Gus's arm. It made Clara want to laugh again. In minutes, the arrival of Gus McCrae had mixed up everyone, just as it usually had in the past. It had always been a peculiarity of her friendship with Augustus. n.o.body had ever been able to figure out whether she was in love with him or not. Her parents had puzzled over the question for years-it had replaced Bible arguments as their staple of conversation. Even when she had accepted Bob, Gus's presence in her life confused most people, for she had soon demonstrated that she had no intention of giving him up just because she was planning to marry. The situation had been made the more amusing by the fact that Bob himself worshipped Gus, and would probably have thought it odd that she had chosen him over Gus if he had been sharp enough to figure out that she could have had Gus if she'd wanted him.

It had been one-sided adoration, though, for Gus considered Bob one of the dullest men alive, and often said so. "Why are you marrying that dullard?" he asked her often.

"He suits me," she said. "Two racehorses like us would never get along. I'd want to be in the lead, and so would you."

"I never thought you'd marry a man with nothing to say," he said.

"Talk ain't everything," she said-words she had often remembered with rue during years when Bob scarcely seemed to utter two words a month.

Now Gus was back, and had instantly captured her girls-that was clear. Betsey and Sally were fascinated, if embarra.s.sed, that this white-haired man had ridden up and kissed their mother.

"Where's Robert?" Augustus asked, to be polite.

"Upstairs, sick," Clara said. "A horse kicked him in the head. It's a bad wound."

For a second, remembering the silent man upstairs, she thought how unfair life was. Bob was slipping away, and yet that knowledge couldn't quell her happiness at the sight of Gus and his friends. It was a lovely summer day, too-a fine day for a social occasion.

"You girls go catch three pullets," she said. "I imagine Miss Wood is tired of eating beefsteak. It's such a fair day, we might want to picnic a little later."

"Oh, Ma, let's do," Sally said. She loved picnics.

Clara would have liked a few words with Augustus alone, but that would have to wait until things settled down a little, she saw. Miss Wood mostly kept her eyes down and said nothing, but when she raised them it was always to look at Gus. Clara took them into the kitchen and left them a moment, for she heard the baby.

"Now, see, all your worrying was for nothing," Augustus whispered to Lorena. "She's got a young child."

Lorena held her peace. The woman seemed kind-she had even offered her a bath-but she still felt frightened. What she wanted was to be on the trail again with Gus. Her mind kept looking ahead to when the visit would be over and she would have Gus alone again. Then she would feel less frightened.

Clara soon came down, a baby in her arms.

"It's July's son," she said, handing the baby to Gus as if it were a package.

"Well, what do I want with it?" Augustus asked. He had seldom held a baby in his arms and was somewhat discommoded.

"Just hold him or give him to Miss Wood," Clara said. "I can't hold him and cook too."

Call, July and Cholo had walked off to the lots, for Call wanted to buy a few horses and anyway didn't care to sit in a kitchen and try to make conversation.

It amused Lorena that Gus had got stuck with the baby. Somehow it made things more relaxed that the woman would just hand him to Gus that way. She stopped feeling quite so nervous, and she watched the baby chew on his fat little fist.

"If this is Sheriff Johnson's child, whereabouts is his wife?' Augustus asked.

"Dead," Clara said. "She stopped here with two buffalo hunters, had the child and left. July showed up two weeks later, half dead from worry."

"So you adopted them both," Augustus said. "You war always one to grab."

"Listen to him," Clara said. "Hasn't seen me in sixteen years, and he feels free to criticize.

"It's mainly Martin that I wanted," she continued. "As life goes on I got less and less use for grown men."

Lorena smiled in spite of herself. There was something amusing about the sa.s.sy way Clara talked. It was no wonder Gus admired her, for he liked to talk a lot himself.

"Let me hold him," she said, reaching for the baby. Augustus was glad to hand the baby over. He had been watching Clara and didn't enjoy having to divert his attention to a wiggly baby. It was the same old Clara, so far as spirit went, though her body had changed. She was fuller in the bosom, thinner in the face. The real change was in her hands. As a girl she had had delicate hands, with long fingers and tiny wrists. Now it was her hands that drew his eyes: the work she had done had swollen and strengthened them; they seemed as large at the joints as a man's. She was peeling potatoes with them and handled a knife as deftly as a trapper. Her hands were no longer as beautiful, but they were arresting: the hands of a formidable woman, perhaps too formidable.

Though he had only glanced at her hands, Clara picked up the glance, displaying her old habit of being able to read his mind.

"That's right, Gus," she said. "I've coa.r.s.ened a little, but this country will take your bloom."

"It didn't take your bloom," he said, wanting her to know how glad he was that she was in so many ways her old self, the self he remembered with such pleasure.

Clara smiled and paused a minute to tickle the baby. She smiled, too, at Newt, who blushed, not used to ladies' smiles. The girls kept looking at him.

"You'll have to pardon us, Miss Wood," she said. "Gus and I were old sweethearts. It's a miracle both of us are still alive, considering the lives we've led. We've got to make up for a lot of lost time, if you'll excuse us."

Lorena found she didn't mind, not nearly so much as she had thought she would even a few minutes earlier. It was pleasant to sit in the kitchen and hold the baby. Even hearing Clara josh with Gus was pleasant.

"So what happened to Mr. Johnson's wife, once she left?" Augustus asked.

"She was looking for an old boyfriend," Clara said. "He was a killer who got hung while she was recovering from having the baby. July went and saw her but she wouldn't have anything to do with him. She and one of the buffalo hunters traveled on, and the Sioux killed her. You watch close, or they'll get you too," she added.

"I guess no Indian would dare bother you," Augustus said. "They know they wouldn't stand a chance."

"We kept some of them alive the last few winters, once the buffalo were gone," Clara said. "Bob gives them old horses. Horse meat's better than nothing."

She put a little milk in the baby's bottle and showed Lorena how to feed him. The baby stared up solemnly at Lorena as he drank.

"He's taken with you, Miss Wood," Clara said. "He's never seen a blonde, I guess."

The baby took a sneezing fit and Lorena was afraid she had done something wrong, but Clara merely laughed at her anxiety and the child soon settled down.

A little later, while Clara was frying the chicken, Call came up from the lots. He wanted to buy some horses and had found some to his liking, but neither Cholo nor July would make the deal. They had shown him the horses readily enough, but informed him that Clara made all the deals. It seemed irregular to him: two grown men right there, and yet he was forced to do business with a woman.

"I was told you're the horse trader," he said.

"Yes," Clara said. "I'm the horse trader. You girls finish this chicken and I'll see what Captain Call has picked out."

She looked again at the boy who had blushed when she smiled at him. He was saying something to Sally and didn't notice her look. To her eye he was the spitting image of Captain Call, built the same way, and with the same movements. So why is your name Dobbs? she wondered.

On their way to the lots Call tried to think of something to say, but he was at a loss. "You have a pretty ranch," he said finally. "I hope we do as well in Montana."

"I just hope you get there alive," Clara said. "You ought to settle around here and wait five years. I imagine Montana will be safer by then. It ain't safe now."

"We're set on being the first there," Call said. "It can't be no rougher than Texas used to be."

Clara set such a stiff price for her horses that Call was tempted to balk. He felt sure he would have done better with her husband, if he had been up and about. There was something uncompromising in Clara's look when she named the prices. It was as if she dared him to bargain. He had bargained over many a horse in his day, but never with a woman. He felt shy. Worse, he felt she didn't like him, though so far as he could remember he had never given her any reason to take offense. He studied the situation in silence for several minutes-so long that Clara grew impatient.

Newt had followed them, thinking the Captain might need him to help with the horses if he bought some. He could see that the Captain was mighty put out with the woman. It surprised him that she didn't seem to care. When the Captain was put out with the men, they cared, but the woman just stood there, her brown hair blowing, not caring in the least and not giving an inch. It was shocking: he had never expected to see anyone stand up to the Captain, except maybe Mr. Gus.

"I'm neglecting my guests," Clara said. "There's no telling when I'll get to see Gus McCrae again. You take all the time you want to think it over."

Newt was even more shocked. The Captain didn't say a word. It was almost as if the woman had issued him an order.

The woman turned, and as she did, she looked at Newt. Before he could drop his eyes she had caught him looking at her in turn. He felt greatly embarra.s.sed, but to his surprise Clara smiled again, a friendly smile that vanished when she turned back to the Captain.

"Well, it's a stiff price, but they're good horses," Call said, wondering how the men could bring themselves to work for such a testy woman.

Then he remembered that the younger man had been the sheriff chasing Jake. "You come from Arkansas, don't you?" he asked.

"Fort Smith," July said.

"We hung your man for you," Call said. "He fell in with a bad bunch. We caught them up in Kansas."

For a second, July didn't remember what he was talking about. It seemed a life ago that he had left Fort Smith in pursuit of Jake Spoon. He had long since ceased to give the man any thought. The news that he was dead did not affect him.

"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 b.u.t.termilk?" 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 circ.u.mstances."

"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 G.o.d, you're sa.s.sy," Augustus said.

Clara just smiled, her old beguiling smile. "I'm honest," she said. "To most men, that's sa.s.sy."

"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 b.u.t.termilk.