few minutes at a time. It was so cold that he doubted any killer would be vigorous enough to take advantage of them. But he couldn't be sure, and he didn't want to get too warm himself. When he hunkered by the fire, fatigue began to suck at him, a deep fatigue. He was accustomed to sleeping in snatches; squatting, leaning against a horse; he had even slept riding, if the country was flat and the horse reliable. In the Indian-fighting days, he had tried to acquire the abilities and the endurance of his foes. He wanted to be able to do anything a Comanche could do, or an Apache.
Gus had scoffed at the notion. He said no white man could live as an Indian could, or travel as fast, or subsist on as little.
Probably Gus had been right about that. And if he hadn't been as able as the best of the Indians when he was young, there was little hope that he could compete with one now. Joey Garza was Mexican, not Indian, but many Mexicans were part Indian, and there was a rumor that the Garza boy had lived with the mountain Apaches for several years. The cold might not affect him; once, it would not have affected Call, either.
With things so uncertain, it wouldn't do to give way to fatigue, or to nap too long by the campfire. He might wake up to discover that his throat had just been cut.
In the morning, the frost was so heavy that Call had to scrape ice off the saddles. The children were so cold they couldn't eat. He decided that he had better tie them to the horse. Though there was a band of red on the eastern horizon, the sun was soon blanketed by heavy clouds, and the cold remained intense.
The wounded horse was stiff--it could barely move, and not rapidly. Fortunately, when they had been riding an hour, Call saw a few plumes of smoke to the northwest, clear in the freezing air. The smoke was coming from the chimneys of Fort Stockton.
A little later, he saw more smoke, on the eastern horizon. This smoke moved westward, and it came from a train. Call couldn't see the train, but he knew the railroad was there, for nothing else would be moving under a plume of smoke.
The wounded horse slowed to a walk, and then to a slower walk. A little before midday, the horse stopped. It could go no farther. By then, the town was no more than five miles away. Call left the horse; perhaps it would walk on in, under its own power, once it had rested for a day. He put the children on his horse, only to have his horse come up lame a mile or two farther on. A needlelike sliver of ice had cut its hoof.
But the town was not far. The little girl had recovered a little, and now and then asked for her mother.
Bobby Fant, his face a horror of frozen cuts, had not spoken all day. Call took his time, walking the lame horse slowly. He didn't want to have to carry the children, or abandon his guns and equipment.
When they were only two miles from the town, they came upon two sheepmen, butchering sheep to sell in Fort Stockton.
'Dern, where'd you folks spring from?' the older sheepman said, when he saw Call leading the lame horse with two children on it.
'From far enough away that we'd appreciate a ride to somewhere these young ones can warm themselves,' Call said.
'We'd more than appreciate it,' he added.
'We'd pay a good fare if you'd take us in your wagon the rest of the way to town.' 'Mister, you don't have to pay us nothing--we was about to haul these carcasses in anyway,' the younger sheepman said. They were shaggy men, in great buffalo coats, and they had three huge dogs with them. It had been the barking of the dogs that led Call to the wagon. There were no grazing sheep visible, though, just six bloody carcasses piled up in the wagon.
Call chose to walk behind the wagon, leading his lame horse. The young sheepman said there was a rooming house on the main street in town.
'It ain't fancy, but it's got beds,' he said. 'Who done that to that boy's face?' Bobby Fant's face had gotten worse during the night. It was swollen, and some of the cuts still leaked blood, most of which froze on his cheeks.
'A man named Mox Mox done it,' Call said. 'I shot him, but I don't think I killed him.' 'Somebody ought to kill the sonofabitch, then,' the older man said. 'I've seen rough stuff out here on the baldies, but I've never seen nothing like that--not done to a child.' Call carried Bobby Fant into the little frame rooming house. The young sheepman got off the wagon for a minute and carried the girl, who was whimpering for her mother.
A woman stood just inside the door, looking out at them through the pane of glass. Call could just see her; she was blond. The young sheepherder brought the little girl in first. By the time Call eased through the door with Bobby Fant, the woman had already taken the little girl in her arms and was whispering to her.
Call couldn't hear what the woman was whispering. The fact that the blond woman had appeared so suddenly behind the pane of glass startled him a little. The woman looked familiar. He thought for a moment she might be the children's mother, Jasper Fant's wife, though he hadn't even known Jasper Fant had a wife until yesterday, and how the woman could have anticipated them and got to Fort Stockton was a mystery.
When the woman saw Bobby Fant's face, she drew in her breath.
'Mox Mox done that, didn't he, Captain?' she asked, touching the boy's cuts gently with her fingers. 'Did you kill him, Captain?' 'Well, I hit him,' Call said. 'I doubt it was mortal, but it might slow him enough that I can catch him.' 'Bring the boy to my room,' the woman said.
'I just got off the train and was about to have a bath.
I've got hot water waiting. I'll put them both in the bathtub. It'll warm them quicker. Then I can wash those cuts.' The woman started up the stairs with the little girl.
Call thanked the young sheepman and began to climb the stairs, carrying Bobby Fant. The moment he stepped into the warm rooming house, he had begun to feel tired, so tired that it was a strain even to carry the child up one flight of stairs. He was wondering, in his fatigue, how the woman had known who he was--and how she knew about Mox Mox.
It was not until the blond woman paused at the top of the stairs and looked down at him, the little girl in her arms, that Call realized who she was: she was not the children's mother, she was Pea Eye's wife.
'My Lord, you'll have to excuse me,' he said, embarrassed. 'I didn't recognize you.' Call could not quite remember when he had last seen Lorena; in Nebraska, it seemed to him.
