Lonesome Dove - Streets Of Laredo Part 66

There were only two hours of sunlight left when Famous Shoes returned. Though he rarely seemed to show the effects of travel, this time he did. When he returned he wasn't trotting, he was walking. He had a belt in his hand, which he handed to Pea Eye. It was Deputy Plunkert's belt.

"That horse ran off a bluff," he said.

"If the moon had been shining, he might have seen where he was going, but it was dark." "How about Ted?" Pea Eye asked.

"He is dead," Famous Shoes said. "I buried him. I only had my knife to dig with, or I would have been back sooner." "Good Lord, he fell that far?" Pea Eye said. "It must have been a high bluff." "No, the fall only broke his hip," Famous Shoes said. "Some vaqueros came along and shot him and took his clothes. I found this belt, though. I think they dropped it." Though the fire was blazing, Brookshire felt cold. A man who had been with them for weeks, who had been sitting around this very campfire on the night before, was now dead. He had run off in grief over the cruel death of his wife and now was dead himself, of a circ.u.mstance almost as cruel.

"He had a broken hip, and yet they shot him?" Brookshire said. "Who would shoot a man with a broken hip?" "I think they were just vaqueros," Famous Shoes said, again. "They were probably poor.

Their horses weren't shod. There were four of them, I didn't recognize their tracks. I think they were just vaqueros from the south. They probably wanted his guns and his saddle. I don't know if he was willing to give them up. He shot one time with his rifle--here is the empty cartridge. They killed him and took his clothes. Then they went south." "All his clothes?" Brookshire asked.

Both Famous Shoes and Pea Eye looked at him as if he had asked a very foolish question.

"We ought to get a ways along tonight," Pea Eye said. "Those vaqueros might decide they want some more horses and guns. They might come back." Famous Shoes was annoyed by his friend's ignorance. Hadn't he just said that the vaqueros had gone south? He had tracked them for two miles to make sure.

"We can camp anywhere," he said. "Those vaqueros are gone." Brookshire didn't mention the deputy's clothes again, but he had his own view--and his view was that he preferred to imagine the deputy's dead body fully clothed. The man had come on a trip for nothing, lost his wife in cruel circ.u.mstances, and then had been murdered himself in circ.u.mstances just as cruel. Deputy Plunkert had been a skinny fellow, and it was cold. Of course a dead man would not feel the cold, but Brookshire still didn't like to think of that skinny white body laying naked in the cold night. In his mind, he dressed Deputy Plunkert in the clothes he had been wearing when he rode sobbing out of the camp. Pea Eye and Famous Shoes were men of the West, and no doubt they were used to such harsh sights.

But Brookshire, an accountant from Brooklyn, was not.

Joey was surprised and a little disappointed at how easily Captain Call had let himself be shot. He was still testing the range of the German rifle, and he had thought the Captain might be a man he should try to kill from the limits of the rifle's range.

He had followed Call from the day he left old Bean's. Within an hour of hanging the judge, Joey was on Call's trail and never lost it. He didn't come too close to the man, though. He held about ten miles back; even so, it was soon apparent that Call knew he was being followed. From tracks, Joey saw that he doubled back several times, both day and night, hoping to surprise him or at least pick up his tracks. If Call had doubled back a few miles farther, he would have picked up Joey's tracks, of course--no one could travel and leave no tracks at all.

The Captain only doubled back some five or six miles. He was after Mox Mox and his seven men, and evidently felt that he had no more time to spare for the one man who was following him, if it was one man.

Joey thought it impressive that the old man sensed he was being followed. Call had tried four times to pick up signs of his pursuer. It showed that he wasn't a fool. Joey was hanging far back on the day Call attacked Mox Mox.

Joey heard the shooting, but from very far away and faint; it could have been hunters shooting.

But he followed, and then inspected the little battle site. It was evident that Captain Call was not an especially good shot. On the other hand, he had attacked eight men and killed six of them. Also, he had wounded at least one of the men who had escaped. He was not a particularly good shot, but he was willing to fight and he fought successfully.

When he left the scene of the fight, Joey decided to follow Mox Mox rather than Call.

It was evident that Call was going to Fort Stockton. His trail could be picked up a little later.

But Joey only had to track Mox Mox about three hours before he came upon his corpse, laying in a gully not far from a dead horse.

Probably old Call didn't even know he had killed the manburner, but he had killed him. Mox Mox would not be burning Rafael and Teresa. Joey would have to find another way to dispose of his brother and sister. If he couldn't find a rich man who would buy them for slaves--a rich man might consider them too damaged to make good slaves--he could take them to the mountains near his cave and leave them for the bears or the big gray lobo wolves. Or he could simply push them off a cliff. He meant to kill them, one way or another. Then his mother would know what he thought of her whoring. She would have to give him all her attention. She would wash his clothes and make them soft, and cook him tasty meals when he was in Ojinaga.

First, though, Captain Call had to be killed. He was old, but he could fight. He was to be respected, as John Wesley Hardin was to be respected. The Captain and the gunman were both men who didn't hesitate to kill. Before Joey hung old Bean, he had run into a vaquero from Chihuahua who told him that Call had beaten the hard sheriff, Doniphan, almost to death with a rifle. All the vaqueros on both sides of the river had lived in fear of the hard sheriff. He had been severe with everyone he ever caught.

Yet Call had easily beaten Doniphan.

Call was a man to be approached with attention and skill.

Joey lingered outside Fort Stockton for three days, waiting for the Captain to leave. He was afraid Call might take the train and escape. He didn't know whether he should risk robbing a train with Captain Call on it. He would not be able to keep the man in sight, but to lose sight of him would mean taking a large risk. With most lawmen, Joey thought, he could rob the train anyway and depend upon his own quickness. But with Captain Call, quickness might not be the most important thing.

Then Captain Call had left town with the woman. It surprised Joey greatly that old Call would need a woman. When people talked about Captain Call, women were never mentioned. Joey had supposed Call was a man like himself, one who didn't need women and who didn't like wh.o.r.es.

That the woman was a wh.o.r.e like his mother, Joey had no doubt. He would have liked it better if Captain Call had continued to travel alone.

Then he would have felt that he was stalking an equal. But no man who went with wh.o.r.es could be his equal.

Then the cowboys with the herd of horses appeared, and Joey changed his plans. He had been thinking of shooting the Captain from a very long range, but he thought the horses might help him get a little closer. He stole two horses from the cowboys in the night, and hobbled one of them near the Captain's camp. The Apache had often fired from beneath horses. He had heard that there were Comanche so skillful in approach, they could even fire from beneath the bellies of antelope or deer.

He didn't believe that anyone, even a Comanche, could get close enough to an antelope to fire from beneath its belly. Even if an Apache wore the skin of an antelope and imitated its movements, the antelope would smell the man beneath the skin and run off. Some deer, though, were stupid.

With deer it might be possible.

Joey had expected much more caution from Captain Call than the old man had exercised. He had been willing to risk a long shot. He was afraid if he waited too long, one of the cowboys might come back looking for the missing horses and muddle his plan.

But the Captain merely rode out carelessly, not noticing that one of the horses didn't move. A man who had hunted men all his life should know the difference between a hobbled horse and one that was loose. But the Captain had loped out within easy range. Perhaps his eyesight was failing him. It had been annoying that the lawman's horse was high-stepping and trying to pitch. Joey thought that his first shot was a little off because of the jumpy horse. It was not off much, though; probably it would be mortal. Then he shot Call in the leg and in the arm, and killed his horse. The big bullets would ruin the arm and the leg. Even if the chest shot didn't kill the old man outright, he would bleed to death or starve.

Joey had no interest in the woman. He watched with the spygla.s.s as she crawled into the chaparral carrying the pistol and the rifle.

Probably she thought he would come and try to wh.o.r.e with her. Or she may have thought that the Captain had been shot by a gang of men, in which case she had good reason to be cautious.

Joey didn't think much about the woman. She could stay in the chaparral until she starved for all he cared. His only concern was Call. He moved around with his spygla.s.s until he could see the body, and he saw at once that the Ranger wasn't quite dead. His foot moved from time to time.

Once he raised his good arm. Joey saw he had a pistol in his good hand, and that made Joey feel good. The old man was still wanting to kill him. He hoped Joey would come to rob his body, so he could shoot at close range. But Joey had no intention of coming any closer than he was. The Captain looked poor, and there was little likelihood that he owned anything worth taking to the cave.

Joey could easily have come in closer and shot at him again. He would not have needed to come into pistol range or even close to pistol range to end the Captain's life. But he didn't want to shoot again. He wanted the man to die from the first bullet. Almost all his kills had been made with one shot.

Still, if the old man somehow managed to live, it might be better. It might only enhance Joey's reputation. After all, the Captain had hunted him for more than a month and had never even seen him. If Call survived, he would be a cripple. His leg would probably have to be cut off, and his arm too. Everyone who saw him would know what it meant: Joey Garza had beaten the most famous manhunter in the West, beaten him and left him a cripple. It would be obvious to all who saw the old man that it was Joey's choice that Call lived. A man so injured would be easily killed. Better to let him live as a warning to other men who might be tempted to hunt him for bounty. He had destroyed Call as easily as Call had destroyed Sheriff Doniphan.

Four shots, one for the horse--and the old king of the border had been cut down and made a cripple.

Captain Call would no longer be a threat to even the most ignorant, careless outlaw. He would never again be thought capable of challenging anyone as able as Joey Garza.

Joey decided to wait through the night to see if Call lived until morning. He saw the woman come out of the chaparral and go to the place where Call lay. He watched her move camp; he watched her gather firewood. She was blond.

Her hair came loose as she was bending to gather firewood, and she let it stay loose. Joey watched her closely through the spygla.s.s. At one point she squatted, to relieve herself. Joey felt a disgust and stopped looking. She was just like his mother--she was only a beast, a wh.o.r.e.

The next morning, he watched the woman lift the Captain onto the black horse. She was a strong woman. When she came to catch the hobbled horse, Joey was only a hundred yards away. But the woman didn't sense him.

He followed them all day, expecting Call to die at any moment. But when afternoon came and the woman made camp, the old man was still alive.

In the morning, Joey watched the woman cut off Call's leg. He was surprised that a woman would attempt such a b.l.o.o.d.y task with only a big bowie knife. Of course, his mother had always butchered the sheep and the goats they ate, and she even butchered pigs when they had pigs.

She didn't mind being b.l.o.o.d.y, and neither did the blond woman who was cutting off Call's leg.

Joey watched it all through his spygla.s.s. Old Call was tough. He lost blood and then more blood, and yet he didn't die. When Joey had hacked off Benito's arms and legs, he had been unprepared for the spurting blood. He had turned his face away and struck with the heavy machete. Later he had thrown away all his clothes and snuck naked into his house. He didn't want to wear clothes that had blood on them. He couldn't let his mother wash the clothes.

She might understand, then, that the blood had come from her husband.

Joey didn't think the blond woman was going to be able to take Call's leg off. She was tiring, and he could see her chest heaving. She stopped at times to rest, but she always returned to the task. Finally, when Joey had concluded that she wasn't going to succeed, she got through the bone and the leg came off. Then the woman walked away from the camp and sat on a rock to rest. For a second, Joey was tempted to shoot her--it would be a test for Captain Call, to see if he could survive with only one leg and no one to help him.

But Joey didn't shoot her. He watched her mount the buckskin horse and saw her ride away, leading the horse that Captain Call was slumped on.