The only man in the whole army Inish thought had any sense was Bob Lee, and Bob Lee's a little too stiff necked for my taste.' Then she looked at Governor Pease, who was staring at her as if she was insane.
'Close your mouth, Ed, before a bug flies down your gullet,' she said. 'I'm taking Johnny off to our picnic now. I've managed to find virtues in him that Inish never suspected.' As Madame Scull was about to leave she paused a moment and looked at Call.
'A thousand cattle is a good deal more than Inish is worth,' she said. 'I wouldn't give three cats for him myself, unless the cats were mangy. If you see that yellow gal of mine while you're looking for Inish, bring her back too. I have yet to find a match for that yellow gal. She had the Cuba touch.' 'I doubt we'll spot her, ma'am,' Call said. 'The Comanches went north and we're going south.' 'And you think life is that simple, do you, Captain?' Inez Scull said, with more than a little mockery in her tone. 'You think it's just a matter of plain north or south, do you?' Call was perplexed. He could not clear his mind of the image of Long Bill Coleman, hanging dead by his own hand from a live oak limb. More than ten years of his life had been bound up with Long Bill Coleman--now he was dead. He found it hard to attend to the mocking woman in front of him--his mind wanted to drift backward down the long river of the past, to the beginning of his rangering days. He wished Madame Scull would just go away and not be teasing him with questions.
'I hope you'll come to tea with me before you leave, Captain,' Madame Scull said. 'I might be able to teach you that there's more to life than north and south.' With that she turned on her heels and left.
'Can't interfere with Mexico, not the U.S.
Cavalry,' Major Nettleson said. Then he left, putting on his military hat as he went through the door.
Governor Pease spat once more, inaccurately, at the brass spittoon.
'If I had a wife like that I'd run farther than Mexico,' the Governor said, quietly.
His own wife had only raised her voice to him once in twenty years of marriage, and that was because the baby was about to knock the soup pot off the table.
Call didn't know what to say. He thought he had best stick to simple, practical considerations and not let himself be sidetracked by what Madame Scull felt, or didn't feel, about her husband.
'You mentioned a thousand head of cattle, Governor,' Call said.
'Yes, that's the demand,' Governor Pease said, in a slow, weary voice. 'A thousand head --we have a month to make the delivery.' 'What if the Captain's already dead?' Call asked.
'Why, that's the gamble,' the Governor said.
'The man might take our cattle and send us Inish's head in a sack.' 'Or he might just take the cattle and vanish,' Call said.
'Yes, he might--but I have to send you,' the Governor said. 'At least I have to ask you if you'll go--I'm not forgetting that I just sent you off on a wild-goose chase just when we needed you here the most. But Ahumado has Inish and he's set a price on him. Inish is still a hero. They'll impeach me if I don't try to get him back.' 'Where will we get the cattle?' Call asked.
'Why, the legislature will vote the money for the cattle, I'm sure,' the Governor said.
Call started to ask a practical question, only to have his mind stall. He saw Long Bill's black face again and couldn't seem to think beyond it.
The Governor talked and the Governor talked, but Call was simply unable to take in what he was saying, a fact Governor Pease finally noticed.
'Wrong time--y've got your friend to bury,' he said. 'We can talk of these arrangements tomorrow, when your sad duty has been done.' 'Thanks,' Call said. He turned and was about to leave, but Governor Pease caught his arm.
'Just one more thing, Captain Call,' he said.
'Inez mentioned having you to tea--don't go. The state of Texas needs you more than she does, in this troubled hour.' 'Yes sir, I expect it does,' Call said.
When Call got back to the ranger corrals he heard the sound of hammering from behind the barn.
Ikey Ripple, the oldest ranger left alive, was making Long Bill a coffin--or, at least, he was supervising. Ikey had never advanced much in the ranks of the rangers due to his taste for supervising, as opposed to actually working.
He and Long Bill had been sincere friends, though, which is why he stood beside Deets to supervise the sawing of every plank and the driving of every nail.
'Billy was particular and he'd want to be laid out proper,' Ikey said, when Call joined the group, which consisted of the entire ranger troop, such as it then was.
Augustus sat on one end of the wagon that was to haul Long Bill to his grave: he was silent, somber, and drunk. Deets put the coffin together meticulously, well aware that he was being watched by the whole troop. Lee Hitch and Stove Jones had spent a night of insobriety in a Mexican cantina; they were so hung over as to be incapable of carpentry. Stove Jones was bald and Lee Hitch shaggy--they spent their evenings in the cantina because they had ceased to be able to secure adequate credit in the saloons of Austin. Call noticed that neither man was wearing a sidearm.
'Where's your guns?' he asked them.
Lee Hitch looked at his hip and saw no pistol, which seemed to surprise him as much as if his whole leg were missing.
'Well, where is it, damn it?' he asked himself.
'I don't require you to swear,' Call said. 'We've a mission to go on soon and you'll need you your weapons. Where's yours, Stove?' Stove Jones took refuge in deep, silent solemnity when asked questions he didn't want to answer. He stared back at Call solemnly, but Call was not to be bluffed by such tactics, forcing Stove to rack his brain for a suitable answer.
'I expect it's under my saddle,' he said finally.
