Lorena's children had become protective of Rafael, all of them. She didn't harbor much hope for that particular goat, though. The coyotes were too numerous and too hungry.
'No beaux,' Clara admitted. 'I expect it's just as well. I'm too set in my ways now. I doubt there's a man alive who could put up with me. .
'Even if there is such a man alive, he probably doesn't live in Nebraska,' Clara added, a little later.
Lorena thought her old friend looked sad.
'You probably run all the boys off,' she said. 'You have to be gentle with menfolk, you know.
They aren't tough, like us.' 'Well, I did scatter a few, I guess,' Clara said. 'But that was years ago.' Rafael stumbled back in, crying; the remains of the goat had been found. The boys all wore long faces. Lorena hugged Rafael, and shushed him. They were planning to acquire a few goats soon, and Rafael could look after them.
The day she was to leave for Nebraska, Clara walked down to say farewell to Call. He was sitting with Teresa outside his shack, whittling a stick. Teresa liked to feel the smoothness of the wood of the sticks, once Call had whittled all the knots away. He had smoothed her a number of little sticks to play with. Teresa touched them with her fingers, and sometimes she held one to her cheek.
'Well, I'm off to the depot, I guess,' Clara said. 'I wanted to say goodbye, Woodrow.' Call had been hoping Clara would come by, before she left. There was something he wanted to ask her.
But he didn't want Teresa to hear his question.
'Tessie, would you go to the house and ask Mrs.
Parker if I could have some coffee?' he asked Teresa. 'I woke up with a headache--coffee usually helps.' Teresa handed him back the little smoothed stick and started up the path to the house. She was barefooted; the day was warm. She stepped on a grass burr and had to pause for a moment, standing on one leg in order to remove it from her foot.
'I've heard there were schools for the blind,' Call said to Clara. 'Do you know anything about them?' 'Why, no,' Clara replied. 'Tessie's the first blind person I've ever had in my life.
But I can inquire for you, Woodrow.' 'I'd appreciate it,' Call said.
'I've got a little money saved. If there's a way Teresa can get her education, I'd like to help. I believe she's bright.' 'You're right about that--she's bright,' Clara told him.
'If she goes away, I'm sure we'll all miss her,' Call said.
'You most of all, Woodrow,' Clara said.
Call didn't answer, but the look on his face said more than Clara wanted to hear or see or know about one human missing another. She shook his hand and turned toward the house.
A moment later, she grew irritated-- unreasonably irritated. She turned back on the path.
'Call Lorena Lorena,' she said, loudly.
'You don't have to call her Mrs. Parker now.
'The man's trying, but he just rubs me the wrong way,' Clara said, when she marched into the kitchen. Lorena was washing a cut on Georgie's hand. She wasn't paying much attention.
Later, though, she remembered the remark. She wondered what Clara had meant by it, and why she looked so angry when she came in.
The bounty on Joey Garza was never collected. Colonel Terry sent a detective to look into the circumstances of his death, and the detective's research revealed that the fatal shot, the one that finished Joey Garza, had been fired by a Mexican butcher in Ojinaga, Mexico. Besides that, the butcher then claimed that Joey Garza's own mother had stabbed the young bandit, and that Joey had turned the knife on her and killed her, depriving the village of its best midwife.
Citing the careless loss of the ledger books, which made it impossible to compute the costs of the expedition accurately, the railroad halved Brookshire's pension. What was left was sent to his widowed sister in Avon, Connecticut.
The same sister received a long letter from a Mrs.
P. E. Parker, of Quitaque, Texas.
Mrs. Parker assured the grieving sister that the last words Mr. Parker had heard Brookshire say were to remember his sister and send her his love.
Call discovered that he had a gift for sharpening tools. Even with one hand, it was a skill he more than mastered. One day, watching Pea Eye futilely trying to cut a piece of rawhide with a dull knife, Call reached out and took it from Pea. He had a whetstone, and he soon had a good edge on the blade.
From then on, Pea Eye and Lorena brought whatever needed sharpening to the Captain. He sharpened scissors and shovel blades. He sharpened axes and rasps, and scythes and awls, and planing blades. He even improved the slicing edge on the plows.
In time, the neighbors heard of Call's skill and began to ride over with bushel baskets full of knives and hatchets, for him to work on.
Lorena insisted that he order a wooden leg.
They wrote off for catalogues. Finally, Call ordered one--to sharpen some of the larger tools properly, he needed to be able to stand.
When the leg came, Call found that he had to whittle it a bit to secure a smooth fit.
He was shy about it, at first. No one but Teresa could be with him, when he put on his leg or took it off. She learned to tuck his pants leg expertly. She laughed at him if he stumbled, but Call did not mind. The truth was, the leg made a big difference. Now he could stand up and work all day.
