upon; nor did they have any rock to stand on; nor any circle to shelter or protect them.
As to the home beyond the river, Lorena didn't know. She just wanted to find her husband and bring her children back from Nebraska. She wanted the six humans she was responsible for to be back again in their home, where she could watch over them.
At the telegraph office in the late afternoon, she had been given one good piece of information by the elderly fellow who worked the telegraph.
Several telegrams had poured in for Captain Call, instructing him to hurry to San Angelo. Joey Garza had struck there, only the week before.
The next morning, at breakfast--she was the only woman in the small hotel dining room-- Lorena happened to overhear a conversation that sent her heart leaping. Two Texas Rangers were at a table talking, and she heard the name Call mentioned.
The Rangers had looked at her hard when they walked in and saw her alone in the dining room, but Lorena had not sent her children away and traveled so far to be balked by hard looks from lawmen.
She got up and went over to their table.
'Excuse me, I heard you mention Captain Call,' she said. 'My husband is his deputy.
I'd be grateful if you'd give me any news of the group.' The men looked surprised. The larger one rattled his spoon in his coffee cup; he was uncomfortable talking to women in public places.
'Don't know much, ma'am,' he said, finally.
'Call nearly killed a sheriff in Presidio. They don't know yet whether the man will live. Call was getting his deputy out of jail and just went wild. He got his deputy and an old Indian he uses to track down bandits.' 'That's my husband. He oughtn't to have been in jail, he's never broken the law,' Lorena said.
'Well, you don't have to break much law out in Joe Doniphan's part of the country,' the large Ranger said. 'He'd arrest you for spittin', if he didn't like your looks.' 'I guess Captain Call didn't like his looks,' the other Ranger said.
'Thank you, I appreciate the news,' Lorena said, politely.
She went back to her table in a happier frame of mind. Pea was alive, and with the Captain. She didn't like the Captain, but he was able enough. He would protect Pea until she found him.
When the two Rangers left the room, they didn't look at Lorena so hard. They even stopped for a moment, and tipped their hats.
The evening of the second day, as the party traveled east from Presidio, Call, Brookshire, the two deputies, and Famous Shoes climbed out of the Maravilla Canyon just at dusk and made a camp. The winter sun was filling the canyon behind them with red light.
'That old man who kills bears is coming with his dogs,' Famous Shoes remarked. 'I saw his track on the Salt Fork of the Brazos, but then, he was going north. I did not expect him to be coming this way.' 'If it's Ben Lily, he don't ask nobody's opinion when he changes directions,' Pea Eye said. Twice the old bear hunter had turned up at their farmhouse on the Red River, on his way to kill cougars in the Palo Duro Canyon. He had killed the last bears in the Palo Duro years before, but there were many cougars, and from time to time, Ben Lily rested from his lifelong bear hunt and killed cougars for a while instead.
'I'll feed him, but I won't feed his dogs,' Call said. 'It don't take that many dogs to run lions, and I doubt there's any bears left in Texas for him to run. He's killed them all.' A few minutes later, they heard the baying of six or seven dogs. In the still, silent night it was hard to tell how far away Ben Lily and his dog pack might be.
'He is like me, no horse,' Famous Shoes said. 'I doubt he can finish off the lions, in the time he has left. He is an old man.' 'Who's this?' Brookshire asked. He had never heard of the person they were talking about, though that fact was not particularly odd. Six months ago, he had scarcely even heard of Texas, and could not have named one living Texan. Now he knew several Texans in person, and several more by reputation.
'He's a hunter, he don't do nothing else,' Pea Eye said. 'I don't guess he ever has done nothing else.' 'They say he hunted all the bears out of Louisiana and Arkansas before he come here,' Deputy Plunkert said. Since leaving Presidio, the deputy had been in a lighter mood. They were on their way to San Angelo, which was not that long a distance from Laredo. If they were successful and captured the Garza boy promptly, he might be on his way home within two weeks. Just being north of the border made him feel a lot better about life. Once he got home, he meant to plan his life so that he never had to enter Mexico again. If necessary, he and Doobie would move north, to San Antonio, or even Austin, to avoid the possibility that anything would require him to cross the border again.
As the winter night deepened and the half-moon rose, they heard the baying of Ben Lily's dogs, coming closer.
'If the man travels so much, maybe he'll know something,' Brookshire suggested. 'He's coming from the east, and the last robbery was east, unless there's been one we don't know about.' 'No, he won't know anything, he only pays attention to bears and lions,' Call said.
'Humans don't interest him. If he was on the track of a bear or cougar and a train was being robbed right in front of him, I doubt he'd even stop to look.' Many times, over the years, Call had encountered the hunter, but on no occasion had he gotten any cooperation from him. Ben Lily expected to get information, not give it. He had no use for civilizations, nor for society, nor individuals, and was even impatient with his dogs.
All he liked to do was kill bears. He only hunted lions to pass the time, or to earn a little money now and then, from ranchers who wanted lions or wolves cleaned off their ranches.
Toward midnight, the horses and mules began to snort and whinny. They pulled at their picket ropes. Call got up and went to quiet the animals, and when he had them calm, he walked east about a mile, meaning to intercept the dogs.
Ben Lily usually traveled with a pack of eight or ten, and eight or ten dogs running into camp might spook the horses so badly that one or two might injure themselves. Call had only a sidearm with him. He did not expect trouble.
Ben Lily's dogs were usually shy of humans, since they rarely saw any, other than the old hunter himself.
Call's hands were aching. He wished he had a little whiskey, although he had never been a drinker, really.
