Brookshire.
'What is your objection then, if you have one?' Lorena asked.
'I don't know that I can protect you--that's it,' Call said. 'I let the Garza boy slip right by me and kill Roy Bean. Then, I let Mox Mox get away. That's two poor performances in a row. I just don't know that I can protect you.' To his surprise, Lorena took his arm as they walked down the street.
'Did you hear me?' Call asked, fearing that he had not stressed the risk quite enough.
'I heard you, Captain,' Lorena said. 'I need to go find my husband. He's the one you ought to be protecting. Help me pick out a good horse, and let's go.' Lorena's look was determined, and her step determined too. What she said startled Call, but by the time she walked him past the saloon and the hardware store, he had come to see that she was right.
Lorena had been taken by Blue Duck and held two weeks; but she had survived and recovered.
More than that, she had educated herself, and was rearing a family.
But Pea Eye had depended on him and Gus until the time when he came to depend on Lorena herself. Pea was able enough when he was given clear orders, but only when he was given clear orders.
No doubt Lorena was well aware of that characteristic, too. Pea Eye was not accustomed to acting alone. It was doubtful that he could have found his way to Presidio so promptly if he had been without the help of Famous Shoes.
Call picked out a strong mare for Lorena, and bought her an adequate saddle. An hour later, the two of them rode out of Fort Stockton, the strong wind at their backs.
The skinny sheriff and his deputy, Jerry Brown, stood in the empty, windy street, and watched them leave. The skinny sheriff was a little disappointed. The old Ranger had not been friendly at all.
'Now where are they going?' Deputy Brown asked.
'Why, I don't know, Jerry--they're headed south,' the sheriff said. 'I didn't ask them their route, and they didn't mention much.' 'We don't get women that pretty in this town, not often,' Jerry Brown said. 'I ain't seen one that pretty since I come out here, and I been out here six years. I wish she'd stayed a little longer.' 'Why?' the sheriff asked, surprised that his deputy was being so forward. 'You don't even know the woman.' 'No, but I might have met her in a store or somewhere,' Jerry Brown said. 'I might have got to say hello to her, at least.
'I'm a bachelor,' he added, though the sheriff knew that.
But soon, the Ranger and the pretty woman were swallowed up by the great blue distance to the south, and Deputy Jerry Brown, who was a bachelor, went back into the jail and spent the windy morning playing solitaire.
Part III Maria's Children
'Don't go off and leave me here, you goddamn Cherokee rascal!' Mox Mox said.
He wanted to kill Jimmy Cumsa and wanted to kill him badly; but he had no weapon and was sorely wounded, to boot. In the scramble to get away from Call, his pistol had fallen out of its holster. He had been flopped over his horse, and somehow, the gun got jerked loose.
Mox Mox bled and bled, and coughed and coughed as they ran. He was shot in the lung, which he knew was bad. Every cough caused a pain like needles sticking in him. Then Jimmy Cumsa rode up beside him and took his rifle. The scabbard had Mox Mox's blood all over it, but Jimmy took the rifle and scabbard anyway. Mox Mox had no pistol and was too weak to stop Jimmy.
Mox Mox rode on, as far as he could. He only had the one horse, but when the herd spooked, Jimmy had managed to keep three horses ahead of him. He had four mounts; he could run a long way.
'Let me switch, Jim--I need a fresher horse,' Mox Mox said, as his horse began to tire, but Jimmy Cumsa didn't answer, or offer him a fresh horse, either.
Finally, his mount faltered, trying to climb out of a gully. They had ridden some twenty miles.
The horse stumbled back to the bottom of the gully and stood there, shaking. It was dusk; Mox Mox could barely see Jimmy Cumsa, who was in the process of shifting his saddle to one of the extra horses, the big sorrel that had belonged to Oteros.
Mox Mox slid carefully to the ground. He coughed, and the needles stuck him. He was trying to get matches out of his saddlebags, when Jimmy Cumsa came over and started to help him. Mox Mox took a step or two back, then staggered and sat down.
'Build a fire, Jimmy--it's chill,' he said, but again, Jimmy didn't answer, and he wasn't helping, either. He simply transferred Mox Mox's saddlebags with the matches in them and a little food and ammunition to another horse.
'Build a fire,' Mox Mox said, again.
'We'll freeze if you don't build a fire.' 'Nope, no more fires for you, Mox,' Jimmy Cumsa said.
'Why not? What's wrong with you?' Mox Mox asked.
'Not near as much as is wrong with you,' Jimmy Cumsa said. 'I ain't shot in the lung, and I ain't dying. You're both, Mox. Building you a fire would be a waste of matches, and I ain't got the time to waste on a man that's dying anyway.' 'I ain't dying, I'm just shot,' Mox Mox said. 'I'll live if I can get warm.' 'Hellfire will warm you, Mox,' Jimmy Cumsa said, mounting Oteros's big horse.
'You'll cook plenty warm down in hell, like all those people that you put the brush on and burned.' Mox Mox realized then that Jimmy Cumsa meant it. He was not going to help him. He was going to leave him there to die, with a bleeding lung and no matches, in weather that was bitter.
'I should have killed you long ago, you Cherokee dog,' Mox Mox said. 'I should have shot you in your goddamn sleep.' 'You wouldn't have got me, even in my sleep,' Jimmy Cumsa said. 'I could be sound asleep, or drunk, and still be quicker than you. That's why I'm called Quick Jimmy.' 'You damn snake, get off and make me a fire,' Mox Mox said.
