asked, with an annoyed look on his face. 'You're mounted and he's afoot.' 'Yes, but he's a swift walker and I'm a poor tracker,' Call admitted. 'I might be able to track him, but it would be chancy.' 'What a damned nuisance--the man's gone off just when we need him most,' Inish Scull said.
He tugged at his peppery gray beard in a vexed fashion. When a fit of anger took him he grew red above his whiskers; and, as all of the men knew, he was apt to grow angry if offered the slightest delay.
Call didn't say it, but he found the Captain's comment peculiar. After all, Famous Shoes had been off, ever since they crossed the Prairie Dog Fork of the Brazos. The scout wandered at will, returning only occasionally to parley a bit with the Captain, as he just had that morning.
Based on past behaviour, Captain Scull had no reason to expect to hear from Famous Shoes for a day or two more, by which time the scout could have visited his grandmother and returned.
It was impatient and unreasonable behaviour, in Call's view; but then, that seemed to be the way of captains, at least the ones he had served.
They were impatient to a fault--if they didn't get a fight one place, they would turn and seek a fight somewhere else, no matter what the men felt about it, or what condition they were in. They had missed Kicking Wolf, so now, if Deets was right, the Captain's thoughts had fixed on Ahumado, a Mexican bandit hundreds of mules to the south, and a marauder every bit as capable as Kicking Wolf or Buffalo Hump.
Still, Call had never disobeyed an order, or complained about one, either--it was Gus McCrae who grumbled about orders, though usually he was circumspect about who he grumbled to. Call knew that if the Captain really wanted him to go after Famous Shoes, he would at least have to try.
Call felt lank--he thought he had better quickly gulp down a plate of stew before he went off on a pursuit that might take days.
Captain Scull, though, did not immediately press the order. He stood with his back to the fire, swishing the remains of his coffee around in his cup. He looked at the sky, he looked at the horses, he looked south. Call held his peace--the muttering about Ahumado might only have been a momentary fancy that the Captain, once he had assessed the situation, would reject.
The Captain sighed, gulped down the rest of his coffee, held out the cup for Deets to refill, and looked at Call again.
'I got short shrift from my grandmothers,' he remarked. 'One of them had ten children and the other accounted for fourteen--they were tired of brats by the time I came along. How long do you think Famous Shoes planned to visit?' 'Sir, I have no idea,' Call admitted.
'He wasn't even sure his grandmother still lived on the Washita. If he don't locate her I expect he'll be back tomorrow.' 'Unless he thinks of somebody else to visit,' Augustus said.
Call hastily got himself a plate of stew.
He felt he had been a little derelict in hesitating to set off immediately in pursuit of Famous Shoes. After all, the man could scarcely be more than five miles away. With reasonable luck, he ought to be able to overtake him. It was only the featurelessness of the plains that worried him: he might ride within a mile of Famous Shoes and still miss him, because of the dips and slantings of the prairie.
Now he felt like he ought to be ready to leave, if that was what the Captain wanted.
'Taters ain't cooked yet,' Deets informed him, as he dished up the stew. 'That meat mostly raw, too.' 'I don't care, it'll fill me,' Call said. 'If you'd like me to go look for him, Captain, I will.' Inish Scull didn't respond--indeed, he gave no indication that he had even heard Woodrow Call. Captain Scull was often casual, if not indifferent, in that way, a fact which vexed Augustus McCrae terribly. Here Woodrow, who was as cold and hungry as the rest of them, was offering to go off and run the risk of getting scalped, and the Captain didn't even have the good manners to answer him! It made Gus burn with indignation, though it also annoyed him that Call would be so quick to offer himself for what was clearly a foolish duty. Famous Shoes would turn up in a day or two, whether anybody looked for him or not.
'I was thinking of Mexico, Mr. Call,' Captain Scull said finally. 'I see no point in pursuing Kicking Wolf for the sake of three horses. We'll corner the man sooner or later, or if we don't get him the smallpox will.' 'What? The smallpox?' Augustus said; he had a big nervousness about diseases, the various poxes particularly.
'Yes, it's travelling this way,' Inish Scull said impatiently, his mind being now on Mexico.
'The theory is that the Forty-niners spread it among the red men, as they were running out to California to look for gold,' he added. 'Very damn few of them will find any of the precious ore. But they've brought the pox to the prairies, I guess. The Indians along the Santa Fe Trail have it bad, and I hear that those along the Oregon Trail are dying by the hundreds.
It'll be among the Comanches soon, if it ain't already. Once the pox gets among them they'll die off so quick we'll probably have to disband the rangers. There'll be no healthy Indians left to fight.' Captain Scull finished his speech and lifted his coffee cup, but before he could sip, a peppering of gunfire swept the camp.
'It's Buffalo Hump, I knowed it!' Augustus said.
Call had only gulped down a few bites of stew when the shooting started. He ran back to his horse and pulled out his rifle, expecting the Indians to be upon them, but when he turned the prairie looked empty. Most of the rangers had taken cover behind their horses, there being no other cover to take.
Captain Scull had drawn his big pistol, but had not moved from his spot by the coffeepot. He had his head tilted slightly to one side, watchful and curious.
'We just lost Watson,' he said, examining the camp. 'Either that, or he's enjoying a mighty heavy nap.' Augustus ran over and knelt by Jimmy Watson, a man a year or two older than himself and Call. At first he saw no wound and thought the Captain might be right about the heavy nap, but when he turned Jimmy Watson slightly he saw that a bullet had got him right under his armpit. He must have been lifting his gun and the bullet passed just beneath it and killed him.
'Nope, Jim's dead,' Gus said. 'I wish the damn Comanches would stand up, so we could see them.' 'Wish for Christmas and roast pig, while you're wishing,' Call said. 'They ain't going to stand up.' Then, a moment later, five young warriors appeared horseback, a considerable distance from the camp. They were yelling and whooping, but they weren't attacking. The lead horseman was a tall youth whose hair streamed out behind him as he raced his pony.
Several of the rangers lifted their rifles, but no one fired a shot. The Comanches had gauged the distance
