began to bray, just at that moment, and a rooster that had managed to get in General Lloyd’s wagon was crowing loudly, too.
The mud was thick?the cart was barely inching forward anyway, so Gus decided to just flop out of it. In his eagerness to get to Clara he forgot about his sore ankle, though only until the foot attached to it hit the ground. The pain that surged through him was so intense that he tried to flop forward, back into the cart, but the cart lurched ahead just as he did it, and he went facedown into the slick mud. The patch of mud was deep, too?Gus was up to his elbows in it, trying to struggle up onto his one good foot, when he thought he heard a peal of girlish laughter somewhere above him.
“Look, Pa, it’s Mr. McCrae?come to propose to me, I expect,” Clara said.
Gus looked up to see a white figure, standing at a window above the street. Although he knew he was muddy, his heart lifted at the thought that at least he had not missed Clara. It was her. She was laughing at him, but what did that matter? He looked up, wishing the sun would come out so he could see her better. But he knew it was her, from the sound of her voice and the fact that she was at a window above the store. The thought of her father seeing him in such a state was embarrassing?but in fact, there was no sign of the old man. Perhaps she was just joshing him?she did seem to love to josh.
“Ain’t you coming down?” he asked. “I’ve still got this sore foot.”
“Shucks, what kind of a Romeo would fall off a bluff and hurt his foot just when it’s time to propose to Juliet?” Clara asked. “You’re supposed to sing me a song or two and then climb up here and beg me to marry you.”
“What?” Gus asked. He had no idea what the woman was talking about. Why would he try to climb up the side of the general store when all she would have to do was come down the stairs? He had seen the stairs himself, when he was in the store helping her unpack.
“What, you ain’t read Shakespeare?what was wrong with your schooling?” Clara asked.
Gus’s head had cleared a little. He had been so drunk that his vision swam when he got to his feet?or foot. He still held his sore ankle just above the mud. Now that he was upright he remembered that his sisters had been great admirers of the writer Shakespeare, though exactly what had occurred between Romeo and Juliet he could not remember.
“I can’t climb?won’t you come down?” he said. Why would Clara think a man standing on one foot in a mud puddle could climb a wall, and why was she going on about Shakespeare when he was about to leave on a long expedition? He felt very nearly exasperated?besides that, he couldn’t stand on one foot forever.
“Well, I guess I might come down, though it is early,” Clara said. “We generally don’t welcome customers this early.”
“I ain’t a customer?I want to marry you, but I’ve got to leave,” he said. “Won’t you come? Johnny won’t wait much longer.”
In fact, Johnny was having a hard time waiting at all. The expedition was flowing in full force through the streets of Austin; there was the creak of harness, and the swish of wagon wheels. Johnny had tried to edge to the side, but there wasn’t much space?a fat mule skinner cursed him for the delay he had caused already.
“Won’t you come??I have to go,” Gus said. “We’re hurrying to meet Colonel Cobb?he don’t like to wait.”
Clara didn’t answer, but she disappeared from the window, and a moment later, opened the door of the general store. She had wrapped a robe around her and came right down the steps of the store, barefoot, into the muck of the street.
“Goodness, you’ll get muddy,” Gus said?he had not supposed she would be so reckless as to walk barefoot into the mud.
Clara ignored the remark?young Mr. McCrae was muddy to the elbows and to the knees. She could tell that he was drunk?but he had not forgotten to call on her. Men were not perfect, she knew; even her father, kindly as he was, flew into a temper at least once a month, usually while doing the accounts.
“I don’t see Corporal Call?what’s become of him?” she asked.
“Oh now … you would ask, “Gus complained. “He’s off chasing Indians. He ain’t no corporal, either?I’ve told you that.”
“Well, in my fancy he is,” Clara retorted. “Don’t you be brash with me.”
“I don’t want him anywhere in your damn fancy!” Gus said. “For all we know he’s dead and scalped, by now.”
Then he realized that he didn’t want that, either. Annoying as Call was, he was still a Ranger and a friend. Clara’s quick tongue had provoked him?she would mention Call, even in the street at dawn, with the expedition leaving.
“Now, don’t be uncharitable to your friend,” Clara chided. “As I told you before, he would never do for me?too solemn! You ain’t solemn, at least?you might do, once you’ve acquired a little polish and can remember who Romeo is and what he’s supposed to do.”
“I ain’t got the time?will you marry me once I get back?” he asked.
“Why, I don’t know,” Clara said. “How should I know who’ll walk into my store, while you’re out wandering on the plains? I might meet a gentleman who could recite Shakespeare to me for hours? or even Milton.”
“That ain’t the point?I love you,” Gus said. “I won’t be happy a minute, unless I know you’ll marry me once I get back.”
“I m afraid I can’t say for sure, not right this minute,” Clara said. “But I will kiss you?would that help?”
Gus was so startled he couldn’t answer. Before he could move she came closer, put her hands on his muddy arms, reached up her face, and kissed him. He wanted to hug her tight, but didn’t?he felt he was all mud. But Gus kissed back, for all he was worth. It was only for a second. Then Clara, smiling, scampered back to the porch of the general store, her feet and ankles black with mud.
“Good-bye, Mr. McCrae, don’t get scalped if you can help it,” she said. “I’ll struggle on with my unpacking as best I can, while you travel the prairies.”
Gus was too choked with feeling to answer. He merely looked at her. Johnny Carthage was yelling at him, threatening to leave him. Gus began to hobble toward the cart, still looking at Clara. The sun had peeked through the clouds. Clara waved, smiling. In waving back, Gus almost slipped. He would have gone down again in the mud, had not a strong hand caught his arm. Matilda Jane Roberts, the Great Western, plodding by on Tom, her large grey, saw his plight just in time and caught his arm.
“Here, hold the saddle strings?just hold them and hop, I’ll get you to Johnny,” she said.
Gus did as he was told. He looked back, anxiously, wondering what the young woman who had just kissed him would think, seeing a whore help him out, so soon after their kiss.
But the porch of the general store was empty?Clara Forsythe had gone inside.
WHEN THE TROOP OF Rangers reached the Brazos River, the wide brown stream was in flood. The churning water came streaming down from the north, through the cut in the low hills where the Rangers struck the river.
The hills across the river were thick with post oak and elm. Call remembered how completely the Comanches had managed to hide themselves on the open plain. Finding them in thickets such as those across the river would be impossible.
Long Bill looked apprehensive, when he saw that the Brazos was in flood.
“If half of us don’t get drowned going over, we’ll get drowned coming back,” he observed. “I can’t swim no long distance. About ten yards is my limit.”
“Hang on to your horse, then,” Bigfoot advised. “Slide off and grab his tail. Don’t lose your holt of it, either. A horse will paw you down if he can see you in the water.”
Call’s little bay was trembling at the sight of the water. Shadrach had ridden straight into the river and was already halfway across. He clung to his saddle strings with one hand, and kept the long rifle above the flood with the other. Bigfoot took the water next; his big bay swam easily. The rest of the Rangers lingered, apprehension in their eyes.
“This is a mighty wide river,” Blackie Slidell said. “Damn the Comanches! They would beat us across.”
Call thumped the little grey’s sides with his rifle, trying to get him to jump in. It was time to go?he wanted to go. The horse made a great leap into the water and went under briefly, Call with him. But once in, the little horse swam strongly. Call managed to catch his tail?holding the rifle up was tiring. When, now and then, he caught a glimpse of the far shore, it seemed so far away that he didn’t know if a horse could swim that far. Curls of reddish water kept breaking over his head. In only a minute or two, he lost sight of all the other Rangers. He might have
