to interfere with his robbing for a while. Perhaps the clever boy would just ride away.
But it was clear that all the options belonged to Joey Garza. Call couldn't see him, couldn't find him, couldn't affect his actions. He eased back down. He had begun to feel the dangling arm, as well as the shattered leg. He lay flat, concealing the pistol under his bloody shirttail. If the boy did happen to ride by to inspect the body, Call might yet get off a shot. But he didn't expect this to happen.
His head was swimming. He was so light in the head that he felt he was off the ground. He seemed to be somewhere between the sagebrush and the moving clouds.
He tried to keep his eyes open. He felt dreamy and tried to fight the feeling. He kept telling himself that any moment he might look up and see the Garza boy standing over him, or looking down at him from horseback. He had to try to stay alert. But his eyelids wouldn't obey. They kept closing, at first for only a fraction of a second. But then it seemed to Call that despite himself, he was floating away into the world behind his eyelids. They wouldn't stay open. They wouldn't.
In the world behind his eyelids, everything was white.
When Lorena heard the shooting, she quickly took her pistol out of her bag. In Presidio, Captain Call had given her one of his rifles; she took that, too.
'If we get separated, you'd have a gun you might kill an antelope or a deer with,' he had said.
'I've never killed a big animal,' Lorena had replied. 'I'd rather we didn't get separated.' Now they were separated. Lorena had trouble getting the heavy rifle out of its scabbard. She finally had to take the scabbard off the saddle to do it. She took the pistol and the rifle and crawled quickly into a thick clump of chaparral near the camp. The thorns were sharp and she got scratched in several places, but she didn't care. She clutched the guns and pushed on into the very center of the chaparral. If the shooter was Mox Mox and he had killed Captain Call, she meant to kill herself, or else fight so hard that Mox Mox would have to kill her to get her out of the brush. She didn't intend to be Mox Mox's prisoner again, not even if it meant losing the life she wanted to devote to her children. Clara and Pea Eye would have to raise the children. She would not live to let Mox Mox smear grease in her eyes again.
Lorena crouched in the brush listening, the pistol in her hand. After the first several rifle shots, there was a long silence. She could only endure it.
She didn't dare come out of her hiding place, although she knew it would be no hiding place at all to the killers if they came for her.
Then she heard three smaller reports-- pistol shots, she supposed. Crouching, she remembered the night Gus had rescued her from Blue Duck and Ermoke. She remembered the shooting, and how she had hoped she would die somehow if Gus was killed. She felt that terrible feeling again. If Captain Call had fallen and left her to Mox Mox, she wanted to die. She wanted to have it over; her hope was that she would have the strength to shoot herself. She would have to not think too much of her children. She would have to let them pass in her mind to Clara and Pea.
But the cold hours passed, and Lorena heard nothing and saw nothing. There was not a movement anywhere. She twisted around and around in the thorny chaparral, hoping to catch a glimpse of the men who might be coming, so she could prepare.
But no men came. Lorena waited hours; four or more, judging by the weak sun. Finally she began to be a little less frightened. The terror that had tightened her chest and made it hard even to breathe began to loosen. It might be that no one was coming. It might be that Captain Call had killed Mox Mox, or the Garza boy, or whoever had been there. If he hadn't, someone would have come.
She kept looking in the direction Captain Call had taken. She knew he must be injured or dead, otherwise he would have returned. She began to feel that she should go look for him, but it was midafternoon, and the sun was dropping in its arc before she could conquer her fear sufficiently to crawl out of the chaparral. The thorns had made her feel at least a little bit safe. She was reluctant to leave them, but she knew she had to. If Captain Call was dead, it was time to know it. Then she would have to try and go on alone. She knew where the Rio Grande was. That morning, Captain Call had said they would be there in two more days.
She thought she could survive two days and find her way, if no one caught her.
When she stood up she could see one of the stray horses. It had not moved from where it had been that morning, though the other horse was gone. She mounted and rode toward the horse, her pistol in her hand.
It took her only a few minutes to cover the distance to the stray horse.
The first thing she saw as she came near the stray was a dead horse: it was Captain Call's.
Lying not far from it was a dead mule deer. As Lorena approached, a fawn bounded away.
Then she saw the Captain's rifle. There was blood on the sand near it, and a bloody trail leading toward the stray horse. Lorena dismounted and followed the trail of blood, pistol in hand.
When she found the Captain lying flat on his back behind a sage bush, a pistol lying near, she thought he was dead. Blood had pooled beneath him, some of it seeping out of a wound in his chest; the rest was from a smashed arm and smashed leg.
She thought he was dead. She had better leave him and try to get to the river and find Pea Eye. But when she knelt by the Captain, she saw his eyelids flutter. He opened his eyes and his hand came up, as if he were about to fire a gun at her. Only he had no gun in his hand. The pistol lay not a foot away, beside his mangled leg.
Call saw that it was the woman, Pea Eye's wife. Her face had collected itself out of the whiteness he lay in. She had a horse behind her. He had almost shot at her, thinking she was Joey Garza--it was lucky he had lost hold of his gun.
'He got me, you go on,' he whispered.
'Who got you--was it Mox Mox?' 'No,' Call said. 'Mox Mox would have come to burn me. It was the boy. I never saw a trace of him.' Then he fainted. His voice had been a feeble whisper. Yet he wasn't dead. How he had lived with such wounds and such a loss of blood was a mystery, though Lorena knew that people did survive the most terrible wounds, all the time. Gus McCrae could have survived, if only he would have allowed his legs to be taken off. Lorena had felt angry for years that Gus would not allow that; as if she would have stopped loving him because he had no legs!
Now the same violence or worse had been done to the Captain. If he lived at all, he would probably have to lose the leg and the arm.
