huddled by the fire in the hours before dawn. Sitting up was more re/l than laying on the cold ground.
'Pea Eye is a good sleeper,' Famous Shoes observed. 'I don't think he would hear a bear if one came along.' 'Why, there ain't bears here, are there?' Brookshire asked. 'The Captain didn't mention bears when we came through here before.' 'In the Madre, where I live, there are many bears,' Famous Shoes said. 'There are not too many bears left along the river, but there are still enough that a bear could come along.' 'If one came along, it would eat Pea Eye before he woke up,' he added.
Brookshire was glad he had several guns with him. If a bear came into camp, he supposed he could hit it. The range would not be a problem.
'I think that horse I hear has something wrong with it,' Famous Shoes said. 'It's just stumbling along.' He got up and disappeared into the darkness.
Brookshire had heard one or two faint sounds, but he couldn't identify them. If the old Indian thought they were made by a stumbling horse, he was probably right.
Famous Shoes was back almost immediately, leading Deputy Plunkert's horse, which was indeed crippled and without its saddle and bridle. Its right shoulder seemed to be broken, and a rear leg was injured as well. When Famous Shoes tried to inspect its rear leg, the horse squealed in pain.
The squeal woke up Pea Eye, who had been dreaming that it was Saturday afternoon at home.
Lorena had been giving the boys their haircuts.
All the boys hated having their hair cut; they considered it unfair that they should have to have their hair cut so often, since Clarie, their big sister, could let her hair grow as long as she liked.
Nonetheless, Lorena insisted on cutting the boys' hair every other Saturday afternoon. She had ordered special hair clippers from a catalogue and had a special pair of scissors that she used to give haircuts with. The boys all complained that the clippers pinched them cruelly, but Lorena ignored their complaints.
After she finished with the boys, Lorena would cut his hair. Although the clippers did occasionally pinch a little, Pea Eye didn't mind Lorena's haircuts at all. He liked the touch of his wife's cool hands as she smoothed his hair and brushed it. He had a tendency to cowlicks.
Lorena could never correct them, but she would often take several minutes at the end of each haircut, smoothing the remains of the cowlicks with her cool hands, trying to make him look presentable or at least acceptable, in case they felt like making the fifteen-mile trip to church on Sunday morning. Pea Eye would go into a happy reverie while Lorena cut his hair.
He knew he was very lucky to have such a considerate and affectionate wife, one who would take time from her many chores to cut his hair and try to make it look good. He knew he didn't really look very good--he never had--it was all that much more a miracle that Lorena chose to give him such loving attention. He didn't know why she did, and he never allowed himself to expect it to continue; yet through the years, as the children grew, it seemed that it did continue.
It was so nice to see Lorena and the boys, even in a dream, that Pea Eye was reluctant to wake up and face the day. It was very pleasant to be with his family in his dream of Saturday afternoon. He could even see the clippings of brown hair--the boys had brown hair--all over the kitchen floor. Lorena would sweep up the hair cuttings as soon as she finished the haircuts. If she saw a particularly fetching lock from one of her sons, though, she might keep it and put it in her album of family memories.
'Why, it ain't too different from taking scalps,' Pea Eye had observed once, when he noticed Lorie saving a lock of Georgie's hair.
'It is too different!' Lorena said. Then to his horror, she burst into tears.
'I just want a few curls of hair from my menfolks,' she said, in a shaking voice. 'I'd have it to remember you all by, in case something happened to any of you.' She cried hard, and Pea Eye felt miserable. Then she stopped crying. At least that was over, he thought. He regretted his careless remark about the scalps.
'Things happen to people, don't you understand that?' Lorena said, and began crying again, harder than ever.
Still, despite that painful memory, one of the many that had been caused by his slips of the tongue, it was hard to leave the peaceful dream of home and haircutting to come back to the cold world of Mexico. Deputy Plunkert's horse was back in camp, badly crippled. But where was Deputy Plunkert?
'I think his horse fell,' Famous Shoes said. 'It has blood on its head. I think it fell and hit a rock.' Sure enough, the horse had a cut place on its head.
'Could you backtrack this horse?' Pea Eye asked. 'Ted Plunkert might be hurt.' 'I think you should kill this horse--it can't walk any further,' Famous Shoes said. 'We can eat him.' Then he left. He was gone several hours.
His absence made Brookshire nervous. Morning became noon, and then midafternoon. They were just sitting and waiting, and Brookshire hated waiting. At least when they were moving, he could convince himself that they were following a plan. It was the Captain's plan. On a day-to-day and hour-to hour basis it might seem pointless, but there was always at least the hope that the Captain might know what he was doing. He might yet catch Joey Garza, or kill him, thus ending the threat. After all, Brookshire had seen with his own eyes how quickly Captain Call had ended the threat of Sheriff Joe Doniphan. It had only taken him a few seconds once he got to it.
The few seconds that it would take him to end the career of Joey Garza might arrive just as unexpectedly. The hands of the clock would keep turning, and one day the Captain and Joey Garza would finally be in the same place. Then when that moment arrived, Joey Garza would be dead or captured, and Colonel Terry could get a good night's sleep, or at least start worrying about something else. Brookshire had never witnessed anything as violent as what Captain Call had done to the sheriff. He had seen the results of such violence during the War, but he had not actually seen the violence happen.
'I wish Famous Shoes would get back,' Pea Eye said. He had already shot the crippled horse, but he didn't butcher it. They still had bacon, and a little venison from a small buck he had shot. He didn't feel he had to be reduced to eating horsemeat, not yet.
There were only two hours of sunlight left when Famous Shoes returned. Though he rarely seemed to show the effects of travel, this time he did. When he returned he wasn't trotting, he was walking. He had a belt in his hand, which he handed to Pea Eye. It was Deputy Plunkert's belt.
'That horse ran off a bluff,' he said.
