what makes you think we can take it?”
“Why, of course we can take it!” Gus said. “Why are you so damn doubtful?”
Call shrugged, and picked up the horse’s hoof again.
“It’s a Mexican town?it’s just defended by Mexicans,” Gus insisted. “Of course we’ll take it, and take it quick. Caleb Cobb wouldn’t let a bunch of Mexicans whip him, I don’t guess!”
“I might go if I thought there would be somebody with us who could find the place,” Call said. “Is Bigfoot going?”
“I expect he is?of course he’ll go,” Gus said, though someone had told him that Bigfoot Wallace was off bear hunting.
“I don’t think you know anything,” Call informed him. “You just heard some talk and now you want to go fight. Santa Fe could be two thousand miles away, for all you know. I ain’t even got a horse that could travel that far.”
“Oh, they’ll furnish the mounts,” Gus said. “They say there’s silver and gold piled everywhere in Santa Fe. I expect we can pick up enough just walking around to buy ourselves fifty horses.”
“You’d believe anything,” Call said. “What about Buffalo Hump? If Santa Fe’s in his direction, he’ll find us and kill us all.”
“I don’t expect he’d care if we took Santa Fe,” Gus said, though he knew it was a weak comment. The thought of Buffalo Hump cast a chill on his enthusiasm. Capturing Santa Fe and picking up gold and silver off the ground were fine prospects, but if it involved crossing the Comancheria, as probably it did, then the whole matter had a side to it that was a good deal less pleasant. Since returning with the troop, he and Call had not been more than a few miles out of town?once or twice they had gone a little distance into the hills to hunt pigs or turkeys, but they did not camp out. The week scarcely passed without the Indians picking off some traveler, often almost in the outskirts of town. When they went out to hunt, they went in a group and took care to be heavily armed. Gus wore two pistols now, unless he was just engaged in light work such as painting saloons. He had not forgotten what happened west of the Pecos ?time and time again, in his dreams, he had seen Buffalo Hump. He remembered that Zeke Moody had dropped his pistol and been scalped alive, as a result. He carried two so that if he got nervous and dropped one, he would still have a spare.
One of his friend Woodrow’s most annoying traits was that he kept producing information you didn’t want.
“I’ve heard that some of the army’s coming on this expedition,” he said. “I doubt the Indians would want to interfere with us if we’ve got the army along.”
“Buffalo Hump has an army, too,” Call reminded his excitable friend. “If he can find ten warriors to ride with him, then he’s got an army.
“Besides, he lives there,” he added. “He’s got his whole people. I expect he’ll interfere with us plenty, if we try to cross his country.”
“Damn it, ain’t you coming?” Gus asked, exasperated by his friend’s contrariness. “Wouldn’t you rather be riding out on an expedition than staying around here shoeing mules?”
“I might go if we have enough of a troop,” Call said. “I’d like to know more about this man you named?what was he called?”
“Caleb Cobb?he’s the man who captured Santa Anna,” Gus said. He didn’t know that Caleb Cobb had done anything of the sort, but he wanted to pile on as many heroics as he could. Maybe it would get Woodrow Call in the mood to travel.
“They say there’s enough gold lying around in Santa Fe to fill two churches,” Gus said, piling it on a little more.
“Why would the Mexicans just give us two churches full of gold? It don’t sound like any Mexicans I’ve met,” Call said.
Though not unwilling to consider an adventure?shoeing mules was a long way from being his favorite occupation; it was mainly something he did to help old Jesus, who had been kind to him when he first came to San Antonio?the one Gus McCrae was describing seemed pretty unlikely. He would be trying to reach a town he had never heard of, led by a man he had never heard of, either. Who would command the Rangers, if the Rangers went as a troop, he didn’t know, but it wouldn’t be Major Randall Chevallie, because Major Chevallie had died of a fever not three weeks after returning from the failed expedition to El Paso. They had got into some wet weather on their return?also, they had traveled hard. Major Chevallie took to his bed for a day or two, got worse, died, and was buried before anyone had time to think much about it.
“You’re too damn contrary,” Gus said. “I’ve never known a person more apt to take the opposite view than you?you’re too damn gripy.”
“I expect I’ve spent too much time with mules,” Call said. “When would we be to leave, if we go?”
“What’s wrong with now?” Gus asked. “The expedition’s leaving any day?I sure don’t want to get left. We’d be rich for life if we could pick up a little of that gold and silver.”
“I hope we can whip the Mexicans, if we get there,” Call said.
“Why wouldn’t we, you fool?” Gus asked.
“We didn’t whip ‘em at the Alamo,” Call reminded him. “We might get out there on the plains somewhere and starve?that’s another thing to think about. We could barely find grub for twelve men when we were out on the Pecos. How will we feed an army?
“There ain’t much water out that way, neither,” Call added, before Gus could break in with a few more lies about the gold to be picked up in Santa Fe.
“Why, we’ll be going across the plains?it’s plenty wet up that way,” Gus said.
“You could shoe one of these mules if you don’t have anything else to do,” Call suggested. “Once we get these mules shoed I might be more interested in capturing Santa Fe.”
Gus at once rejected the suggestion that he help shoe the mules. He saw that Call was weakening in his opposition to the trip, and his own spirits began to rise at the thought of the great adventure that lay ahead of them.
“I say leave the mules?I want to get started for Austin,” Gus said. “Redmond Dale can find someone else to paint his saloon. Of course we might have time for a visit to the whorehouse, if you ever get tired of working.”
“I can’t afford the whorehouse?I’m saving up for a better gun,” Call said. “If we’re going out there into the Indian country, I need to have a better gun.”
He had visited the whorehouse, though, with Gus, several times ?he didn’t scorn it as a pastime. Matilda Roberts was employed there while waiting for passage to the west. She had taken a liking to young Call. Gus too had his likeable side, but he was overpersistent, and also a blabber. There were times when Matilda could put up with persistence easier than she could with blab.
Young Call, though, seldom said two words. He just handed over the coins. Matilda saw something sad in the boy’s eyes?it touched her. She saw after a few visits that her great bulk frightened him, and put him with a young Mexican girl named Rosa, who soon came to like him.
Call often though of Rosa?she taught him many Spanish words: how to count, words for food. She was a slim girl who seldom smiled, though once in awhile she smiled at him. Call thought of her most afternoons when he was working in the hot lots behind the blacksmith’s shop. He also thought of her at night when he was sleeping on his blanket, near the stable. He would have liked to see Rosa oftener-Gus had not been wrong to recommend whores, but Gus was reckless with his money and Call wasn’t. Gus would borrow, or cheat at cards, or make promises he couldn’t keep, just to have money for whores.
Call, though, could not bring himself to be so spendthrift. He knew that he wanted to be a Ranger once the troop went out again, which meant that sooner or later he would be fighting Indians. This time, when the fight came, he wanted to be as well equipped as his resources would permit. Neither of the cheap guns he owned was reliable. If he ever had to face the Comanche with the great hump again, he wanted a weapon that wouldn’t fail him. Much as he was apt to think of Rosa, he knew that if he wanted to survive as a professional Ranger, he had to put guns first.
Once he felt assured that his friend was going to come with him on the new expedition, Gus relaxed, located a spot of shade under a wagon, stretched out full length, put his hat over his face, and took a long serene nap while Call labored on with the mules. The last little mule was a biter?Call cuffed him several times, but the mule bared his teeth and demonstrated that he had every intention of using them on Call’s flesh if he could. Call was finally forced
