Besides, part of her mind had already begun to occupy itself with the logistics of flight: getting the children's things together, finding neighbors who might take their animals, or hiring a helper to live in the house and look after things. There was no time even to write Clara. Lorena knew she would not draw an easy breath until the children were gone and safe.
Clara would be surprised, when five children got off the train expecting to live with her. But Lorena knew Clara would take them. Since her daughters' marriages, Clara had been too much alone, anyway. At least it seemed so, from her letters. Having children in the house again might not be the worst thing for her.
'I expect you think I'm too old to subdue the man,' Goodnight said. He was annoyed, and surprised at his annoyance. But the definite way the young woman had come down for Call and not for him, stirred something in Goodnight; the competitor, perhaps, or just the male. In his long years as a pioneer, he had always led, no matter how long, how difficult or how ugly the task. He had always led. He had been the man to do the job, whatever that job was. He was vain enough to think he was still the man who could do the job, whatever it happened to be, although his own vanity annoyed him, too.
'No, you're not a killer,' Lorena said.
'I know you may have killed to survive, but you're not a killer. Mox Mox is a killer, and so is Captain Call. Send a killer after a killer. That's why I said it. I wasn't thinking about your age.
'Besides, people here need you,' she added. 'This whole part of the country needs you. You're the man who built the school, and I know you've built others, too. You brought the doctor here.
You paid for the courthouse. You're needed. Nobody needs Captain Call.' 'Well, the rich men need him,' Goodnight said.
'Yes, because he's a killer,' Lorena said.
'That's why they need him. He's as hard as Blue Duck, and he's as hard as Mox Mox.' 'He's got that other boy to catch first,' Goodnight reminded her.
'Mr. Goodnight, I've got to start packing,' Lorena said, standing up. 'I've got to go to the school and dismiss my pupils. They'll want to know why, and I'm going to tell them. Then I've got to hunt up somebody to do the chores here, for a while. Then I've got to pack. I want to start for Amarillo tonight. I want my children out of here, now.' 'You'll be in a regular lather, before you get all that done,' Goodnight said. 'I expect I could stop the train for you, at Quanah, and I'll send a wagon and a cowboy or two to help you get to the train.' 'Much obliged,' Lorena said. 'And could you lend me a weapon? All my husband left me with was a shotgun. Of course, he didn't know about Mox Mox. I've never even said that name to him.' 'I can lend you several guns, but I doubt you'll need them, once you're on the train for Nebraska,' Goodnight said.
'My children are going to Nebraska, I'm not,' Lorena replied.
'Not going?' Goodnight said. 'Why not, ma'am? You're the one he nearly burned. I doubt that he's in six hundred miles of here, but six hundred miles can be crossed. If anyone has a right to be scared, it's you. Why not leave with your children?' 'Because I have to find my husband and bring him home,' Lorena said. 'I should have set my heels and kept him, but I didn't. It's my place to go bring him back.' 'Now, that's rash,' Goodnight said. 'If you'd like me to lend you something, why not accept the loan of a man who knows the country and can go get your husband and bring him home?' 'None of your cowboys married him,' Lorena said. 'I married him. He's a good man, and I need him. Besides, he won't mind anybody but me, unless it's the Captain. I'm going to go find him, and he's going to mind me, particularly now.' Charles Goodnight, rarely quelled, felt quelled this time. He knew determination when he saw it. He ceased to argue, but he did promise to send two cowboys with a wagon, to get her to the train at Quanah. As he was preparing to leave, he told Lorena he wanted to provide each of her boys with a horse, when they returned.
'I do like the way that talkative little boy takes up for himself,' he repeated.
'Don't forget to send me the gun,' Lorena said. 'I don't want to be going south without a gun.'
Riding to Crow Town across the empty land, Maria began to wish she would never have to arrive. The happiest moments of her life had often been spent alone, with her horse. From the time of Three Legs, she had always loved going away alone, with her horse.
To avoid Presidio and Doniphan, the hard sheriff, she rode up the river for two days before crossing into Texas. She saw mule deer and antelope, many antelope, but no people. It was cold, and the north wind sang in her face. At night, she persuaded her spotted horse--she called him Grasshopper, because he had a way of suddenly springing sideways--to lie down, so she could sleep close to him and share his warmth.
Twice she saw trains moving across the long plain. The trains did not seem to be moving very fast; no wonder Joey could rob them. The locomotives pulled only two or three cars. They were just little trains, moving slowly across the endless line of the horizon. Maria had ridden a train only once, to go to her mother when her mother was dying. It had rattled so badly that she had been unable to think.
Grasshopper did not like the new country, and he shied at many things. Once, a tumbleweed surprised him, and he bucked a few times.
Maria was amused, that he was so skittish; she didn't think he could throw her. She enjoyed it, when Grasshopper was naughty. He was irritated with her for bringing him so far from the cornfield. But he obediently lay down at night, so Maria would be warm.
As she rode east, through the sage and the thin chaparral, Maria wondered about herself. Why was she traveling so far, for a boy who didn't care about anyone but himself? She should just let Joey go. There was a hopelessness in what she was doing, and Maria felt it strongly. She should stay at home and help Rafael and Teresa, for they were loving children.
With them, even though they were damaged, she could be happy as a mother, and they could be happy too.
But Joey was different. He would not yield her even a moment of affection. She wondered if he blamed her for Juan Castro, and for the fact that he had been sold to the Apaches.
It seemed to Maria, remembering before that time, that Joey had been a good boy. He played with other children, and she could tease him and hug him.
But when Joey came back, there was no touching him, and he never smiled, unless he was looking at himself in the mirror. Maria wondered if it was wrong to blame the change in Joey on the Apaches. Perhaps the coldness had been in him earlier. Perhaps it came from her grandfather, a cold old man who did not speak a word to his wife, Maria's grandmother, for seven years, because he blamed her for the death of their first son. What was in Joey could have come from that old man.
