She had been a young woman then. Of course, many years had passed, and she would have to be older. But the fact that she was so much older that he hadn't recognized her, left him feeling at a loss.
'You don't need to be embarrassed,' Lorena said. 'You kept Mox Mox from burning these children, and you brought them out. That's enough.' He carried the boy into her room where, indeed, a bath was steaming.
'Put him on the bed,' Lorena said. 'Just put him on the bed. I'll take care of these youngsters. You better go get a little rest yourself.' 'Yes, I'm weary,' Call said.
In fact, he felt so weary that he could hardly carry the child across the small room.
'I'm mighty surprised to see you,' he added. He felt that he ought to say more, but he didn't know quite what.
'I came looking for my husband,' Lorena said. 'I was hoping you'd have him with you.' 'I don't, but I know where he is,' Captain Call said. 'He ain't far.' The woman's face brightened, when he said it.
He went downstairs and got a room key, though later, he was unable to remember getting a key or even going to the room.
When he woke up, fully clothed on a bed, many hours later, it was worry about his horse that caused him to wake. He had forgotten the horse completely, once he entered the rooming house, and had just left it standing in the street. He looked out the window, but could see nothing. It was pitch-dark.
He wondered if anyone had done anything about his horse.
Lorena didn't leave the children all day, except to walk down the street and find a doctor who could treat Bobby's face.
Fortunately, there was no damage to either eye. The boy could see fine, but some of the cuts on his cheeks were so deep that the doctor told her he would probably always bear the scars.
Lorena was not sleeping much, and did not expect to sleep much until she knew that Mox Mox was dead. The sight of Bobby Fant's face was enough to keep her awake. It reminded her too vividly of the little boy who had not been lucky enough to be rescued, the boy Mox Mox had burned in her place. That boy's death cries still echoed in her mind, and she remembered the deep, grinding fear she had felt as she waited for it to happen to her. The fear had been so nearly unbearable that it made the other things the men did to her seem a small business. She had trained herself over the years not to remember that fear. If she dwelt on it, even for an hour, it paralyzed her and made it difficult for her to do her schoolwork, or be a wife, or even do her motherly chores.
When she looked out the door of the rooming house and saw Captain Call coming, she had been shocked at how decrepit he looked.
Pea Eye had mentioned, casually, that the Captain wasn't quite as spry as he had been, but the comment hadn't prepared her for how the man actually looked.
Lorena had not seen Call since the morning, long before, when he had left Clara Allen's house with Gus McCrae's body. The man had not been young when he rode off that morning, but neither had he been the old man who walked stiffly into the rooming house in Fort Stockton. Of course, her daughter Clarie was fifteen years old, and Call's departure from Clara's on his trip back to Texas with Gus's body had occurred two years before she married Pea. She had not seen Captain Call in nearly twenty years.
She should have been prepared for him to be old.
She just hadn't supposed he would look so stiff and worn out. Of course, he had traveled a long distance with two children, in the bitter cold.
He had probably been traveling since the day Pea Eye had refused to go with him. Younger men than Captain Call would have been tired.
The day after he arrived with the children, Call was too tired even to go downstairs. He knocked timidly on Lorena's door and asked if she could request the lady who owned the rooming house to bring him some food. He also asked if Lorena would inquire about his horse. Had it been stabled and fed?
Lorena got him food, and was able to assure him that the local sheriff had taken charge of his mount. The lameness wasn't serious, and the horse would be ready to travel in a few days. Call seemed reassured. He considered it a serious lapse, that he had forgotten to stable his own horse.
'It was so warm, I guess I fainted,' he said. 'I don't recall going to bed. I don't usually forget to stable my horse.' 'You saved two children,' Lorena pointed out, again. 'There's people here who aren't busy that can take care of your horse.' 'Well, it's my horse,' Call said. 'I have always looked after my own mounts.' 'My seven-year-old can unsaddle a horse and feed it as well as you can, Captain,' Lorena said. 'But my seven-year-old couldn't save two children from Mox Mox.' Call took the point--he didn't mention the horse again, for fear of irritating Lorena.
But he didn't forget the lapse, either. It took him a day and a half to feel refreshed enough to walk down to the livery stable and inspect the horse himself. He felt he ought to get moving, for none of the work he had set out to do had been accomplished. Mox Mox wasn't dead, or if he was, no one had found him. And he was no closer to catching Joey Garza than he had been when he left Amarillo. Brookshire would be having fits about the delay, and his boss, Colonel Terry, was probably having worse fits.
On the third day, Jasper Fant arrived with his wife, to take his stolen children home.
To Call's surprise, Jasper had grown bald; he had also grown a belly. His wife was a small woman, of the wiry type. Her name was May.
Both parents gasped when they saw their son's face. The wiry little mother held her children and sobbed.
Jasper turned a violent red.
'Why, the damned killer, why did he do it, Captain?' Jasper asked.
Lorena stood with Call, watching. The little girl clung to her mother's neck so tightly that the woman couldn't speak. Jasper and May had been on a train for two days. They had left as soon as the telegram came, telling them that their children were alive.
A few hours later, the little family got on the train to go home. May tried to thank Call, but broke into such sobs of gratitude that she couldn't get the words out. Jasper grasped his hand and held it until Call was afraid
