Lonesome Dove - Streets Of Laredo Part 36

But this morning she built a fire, in order not to freeze. Sleet began to blow, and her clothes were wet. She was so numb in her hands and feet that she thought she might die if she didn't get warm. The air felt cold inside her when she breathed. She broke off small limbs of mesquite and made herself a little fire, while Gra.s.shopper grazed on the cold tufts of gra.s.s.

Suddenly, Gra.s.shopper threw up his head and neighed. Maria was too cold to stop him. She knew there were wild horses in Texas. Perhaps he had only neighed at one of them. She had the revolver Billy had given her in her saddlebags. She got it out, but her fingers were stiff from the cold water. She might not be able to shoot well, if she had to shoot.

Then, to her relief, the old Kickapoo Famous Shoes appeared out of the sleet. He moved, as always, at his own gait, a walk that was almost a trot.

Famous Shoes saw at once that Maria was almost frozen. He thought he had better make coffee. Fortunately, Maria had coffee and an old, bent pot with her. She was trembling from cold. She had made a fire so small that it warmed only part of her.

When Maria saw Famous Shoes making coffee, she felt relieved. The old man was peculiar; he appeared and disappeared at whim.

But he was competent. He had offered to take her deep into the Madre once and hide her from the lawmen, when they were being rough with her. Maria had refused his offer. She would not be driven from her children by any lawmen. If she ever had to go to the Madre, she would take Rafael and Teresa with her.

Then Gra.s.shopper neighed again, looking to the north, where the sleet came from.

Famous Shoes saw Maria's concern, and understood it. There were many bad men in Texas.

He gave her a cup of boiling coffee. Just holding the hot cup would make her hands feel better, and the coffee would warm her insides.

"I am traveling with Pea Eye," Famous Shoes said. "His woman is going to teach me to read. His horse is a little slow. I was looking for a place to cross the river when I found you." "Who is this man? I don't know him," Maria said.

"He is a friend of the Captain--you remember?" Famous Shoes said.

"The Captain who hung my father?" Maria asked.

"That one," Famous Shoes said. "Now he is looking for Joey. Did you know that?" "Why would I be here, freezing, where the Texans could get me, if I didn't know that," Maria said. "I am on my way to warn Joey.

Now you bring me one of the men who is going to kill him. Why didn't you let me freeze?" "Pea Eye doesn't know you," Famous Shoes a.s.sured her. "Joey is in Crow Town, anyway. We didn't go there because if we had, one of the bad men might have killed us." The coffee made Maria feel a lot warmer.

The tin cup was so hot she had to hold it with a part of her skirt or her hands would have burned. When she realized what Famous Shoes was telling her, she grew angry.

"Why are you bringing men to kill my son?" she asked. "I thought you were my friend." "I have been to the Rio Rojo," Famous Shoes said. "I was looking for my grandfather, but his spirit had wandered off. I don't know where it lives. I was coming to Ojinaga to see you. I thought you might have some corn. Then I met Pea Eye, who is my old friend. He doesn't know where he is going. I don't want him to get sick, so I am helping him." "I don't care if he gets sick. I don't want him to kill my son," Maria said.

"How far away is he?" "He is a few miles north," Famous Shoes said. "He wanted to sit by the fire and drink more coffee. I came on to the river to find a crossing." "Here's the crossing--you found it," Maria said.

"Go on across it and go away, and take this killer with you. Don't be bringing killers to murder my son." Famous Shoes felt irritated. He had built up Maria's fire, and made her coffee. Now she was demanding that he leave. While she was talking, telling him to leave, he remembered something that had almost gone out of his mind while he was traveling. Seeing the track of Mox Mox, The-Snake-You-Do-Not-See, had made his mind too busy to work properly.

As he was nearing the Pa.s.s of the North, Famous Shoes had gone to see old Goat Woman. She was a woman who had the power to see ahead to the future. Maria knew her. When her mother had been dying in Agua Prieta, she had gone to see old Goat Woman, to find out how long her mother might live. Goat Woman went to the river and caught frogs and read their guts.

Famous Shoes found it strange, that the guts of frogs could show the future, but he knew it was true. Old Goat Woman had been right too many times. She lived with her goats in a little dwelling of sticks, not far from the river. Famous Shoes always went to see her when he traveled through the Pa.s.s of the North. It was good to stay in contact with people who could see ahead. When she had a great need to see far ahead, not just a day or a week or a month but years, Goat Woman didn't rely on frogs. She killed one of her own goats, and read its guts.

What she had told him on this visit was that Maria's son would kill Maria unless someone killed him soon. Goat Woman had seen this in the guts of a frog and had become so worried that she killed one of her own goats, to check the information. But the guts of the frog and the guts of the goat agreed: Maria's son would kill her.

Goat Woman liked Maria. She had known and liked Maria's mother, too. She did not like the news the guts gave her. Famous Shoes didn't like it, either. He wasn't even sure he believed it, although he knew Goat Woman had strong powers.

"You might be wrong," he suggested. "We are all wrong, sometimes. Maybe the guts are trying to fool you." "Maybe," Goat Woman said.

"Do they ever try to fool you?" Famous Shoes asked.

"No," Goat Woman replied. "But sometimes, I get confused and don't see what is plain." "Can anything change the future?" Famous Shoes asked. He rarely got a chance to talk to Goat Woman, who knew about many things he would like to understand.

"Yes, the stars," Goat Woman said. "The stars can change the future. But I don't think they'll change it for Maria." Now he was actually with Maria, who was wet and cold beside the Pecos. He knew what old Goat Woman knew, and Maria didn't, although it concerned Maria's own death. She didn't want him to take the killers to her son, but if he didn't do it and do it quickly, her son might kill her.

It was a dilemma that made his mind tired.

Usually the sleet freshened him, but this morning he did not seem very fresh. He didn't know what to do.

Maria was warming up, and as she grew warmer, she also grew more and more angry. She had been grateful to the old man for saving her from freezing.

But when she discovered that he was leading Captain Call's deputy, she stopped being grateful.

She wanted the old man to take the deputy far away.

"I want you to go," Maria said. "This deputy might show up any time. If he sees me here alone, he will figure it out and tell the Captain." "The Captain will figure it out anyway," Famous Shoes said. "I can't fool him.

He's the Captain. All he does is kill men." "Maybe, but you don't need to help him," Maria said. "Let him catch Joey himself, if he can." "All right, I will leave," Famous Shoes said, very annoyed.

"Thank you for your help with the coffee. Now go away," Maria said. "I don't want this man to see me. I have to help my son." "If you are in Juarez, you should see Goat Woman," Famous Shoes said. He was outraged. He had kept the woman from freezing, and now she was sending him away, all because of a boy who would kill her someday. She didn't seem to understand that he was old and had to make a living.

Also, he wanted badly to learn about the tracks in books. Pea Eye's woman might teach him, if he stayed with Pea Eye and brought him home.

But he couldn't say much to Maria, without revealing what he had heard from old Goat Woman.

"Next time you cross this river, you need to build a bigger fire," he said.

Then he remembered the tracks, near Agua Prieta.

"The-Snake-You-Do-Not-See is alive," he said. "You need to be careful. Don't let him get you and burn you." "The-Snake-You-Do-Not-See?" Maria asked. She remembered hearing that there was such a man, and that he was evil, but she didn't know much about him.

Famous Shoes turned back up the river to find Pea Eye. It was a nuisance. He had been happy to see Maria, when he found her soaking wet and freezing, but she had been disagreeable and had made him feel confused. If he took Captain Call to Joey Garza, it might save her life. But if he took the Captain to Joey, Maria would hate him, although Joey was a bad son and meant his mother no good.

It was a confusion that he didn't know whether to mention to Pea Eye. He would have to think about it when he found him.

Maria stayed by the fire until she was dry.

She thought at one point that she saw a rider to the north; perhaps it was the man Famous Shoes was with, Pea Eye. She didn't know what to do. She thought she might try to slip away quickly, on Gra.s.shopper. But then she lost sight of the man--if it had been a man. She wasn't quite sure she had seen him. Perhaps it had only been an antelope. The air was still full of sleet, and it was hard to see clearly, very far.

No rider appeared, so Maria wrapped up in her poncho and made her way into the sandhills, toward Crow Town. The sleet rattled on the chaparral bushes, but soon, over the rattling, she heard the sound of crows, and began to see them, sitting on the cold bushes or in the little skinny black mesquite trees. The crows cawed at her as she rode. Gra.s.shopper didn't like it.

He would have liked to go away from the crows, but Maria wouldn't let him. Soon there were crows all around them, in the trees and in the air. As she got closer to the settlement, the wheeling, gliding crows seemed thicker than the sleet.

The settlement, when she came to it, was just a few b.u.mps on the plain. There were several low houses, none of them much higher than the hills of sand. Smoke rose into the air, mixing with the sleet, rising high with the crows.

Joey's house was easy to find, because his black horse grazed behind it, hobbled to a long rope.

There was not much to graze on, just a few little sage bushes and a tuft or two of gra.s.s. The horse lifted its head when it saw Gra.s.shopper. The two horses had met the last time Joey was in Ojinaga. The black horse neighed, and when he did, a chubby young Mexican woman came out the door. When she saw Maria, she quickly retreated. A second later, a white woman came out. The woman was shivering; she wore only a thin housecoat. But she waited politely for Maria to speak.

"Is my son here?" Maria asked. She did not dismount.

"Joey Garza," she said, in case the woman was stupid and could not think who her son might be.