Augustus knew what his friend was feeling--he himself felt exactly the same thing. The Comanches had killed a Texas Ranger and got away clean. Behaviour such as that would soon make the rangers the laughingstock of the prairies. And yet Captain Scull's reputation as a deadly and determined fighter was well earned. He and Call had often seen the Captain deal out slaughter.
What was wrong with him this morning?
Captain Scull suddenly looked at the two young rangers, a trace of a smile on his lips --his look, as was often the case, made both men feel that he could read their minds.
'Why, do I smell discontent? I believe I catch a whiff of it,' the Captain said.
'What's the matter, Mr. Call? Afraid I've lost my vinegar?' 'Why, no sir,' Call said, truthfully.
Despite his pique, he had not supposed that Captain Scull had lost his fight. What he felt was that the Captain, as a commander, was changeable in ways he didn't understand.
'I would have liked to punish those braves, while we still had a chance to catch them,' Call added.
'That was my thought, too,' Augustus said.
'They killed Jimmy Watson, and he was a mighty fine fellow.' 'That he was, Mr. McCrae--t he was,' Captain Scull said. 'Normally I would have given chase myself, but this morning I'm not in the mood for it--not right this minute, at least.' Inish Scull went to his saddlebags and took out the huge brown plug of tobacco he cut his chaws from. He had a special little knife with a mother-of-pearl handle, just for cutting his tobacco. He was so fearful of losing his little knife that he kept it attached to his belt by a thin silver chain, such as he might use on a pocket watch.
The Captain took out his knife, found a place not far from the fire, and began to cut himself a day's worth of chaws, working carefully--he liked to make each chaw as close to square as possible.
Often, once the Captain had cut off a chaw, he would hold it up for inspection, and trim it a little more, removing a sliver here and a sliver there, to make it a little closer to square.
'I believe our stew's about ready, Deets,' he said, once he had restored the big brownish plug to his saddlebag. 'Let's eat. I might recover my chasing mood once I've sampled the grub.
'Ever work in an office, Mr. Call?' he then inquired, as the men lined up with their tin plates to get their stew. Call was startled. Why would the Captain suppose he had ever worked in an office, when the records plainly showed that he had been employed as a Texas Ranger from the age of nineteen?
'No sir, I've worked outside my whole life,' Call said.
'Well, I have worked in an office, sir,' the Captain said. 'It was the Customs House in Brooklyn, and I was sent to work there by my pa, in the hope of breaking me of certain bad habits.
I worked there for a year and did the same thing, in the same way, every day. I arrived at the same time, left at the same time, took my sip of wine and bite of bread at the same time. I even pissed and shat at the same time--I was a regular automaton while I held that office job, and I was bored, sir--bored!
Intolerably bored!' Inish Scull's face reddened suddenly, at the memory of his own boredom in the office in Brooklyn. He neatly stacked up his ten squares of cut tobacco and looked at Call.
'The tragedy of man is not death or epidemic or lust or rage or fitful jealousy,' he said loudly--his voice tended to rise while declaiming unpleasant facts.
'No sir, the tragedy of man is boredom, sir--boredom!' the Captain said. 'A man can only do a given thing so many times with freshness and spirit--then, no matter what it is, it becomes like an office task. I enjoy cards and whoring, but even cards and whoring can grow boresome. You tup your wife a thousand times and that becomes an office task, too.' Scull paused, to see if the hard truths he was expounding were having any effect on his listeners, and found that they were. All the men were listening, with the exception of an old fellow named Ikey Ripple, who had gulped a little stew and fallen back to sleep.
'You see?' the Captain said. 'Mr. Ike Ripple is bored even now, even though Buffalo Hump could show up any minute and lift his hair.
'Now ... that's my point, sir!' he said, looking directly at Call. 'I will break the resistance of the goddamn red Comanches on these plains, given the time and the resources, but I'll be damned if I'll jump up and chase every Indian brat that fires a gun off at me. Do that and it becomes office work--d you get my point, Mr. Call?' Call thought he got the point, but he wasn't sure he agreed with it. Fighting Indians meant risking your life--how many men in offices had to risk their lives?
'Why, yes, Captain, I believe I do,' Call said mildly. After all, the Captain was older--he had survived more Indian fights than any man on the frontier. Perhaps they had grown boresome to him.
'Uh, Captain, you never said how your cousin died--t one that got buried by the beetles,' Long Bill remarked. The details of the unorthodox burial had been preying on his mind; he was curious as to what sort of death had led up to it.
'Oh, cousin Willy--why, snakebite,' the Captain said. 'Willy was bitten by a fer-de-lance, one of the deadliest snakes in the world.' He had begun to stuff the square-cut plugs of tobacco into his coat pocket, for use during the day.
'He was a scientist to the end, our William,' he went on. 'He timed his own death, you know--timed it with a stopwatch.' 'Timed it? But why, sir?' Gus asked.
'If I was dying of snakebite I doubt I'd get out my watch.' 'Oh--then what would you do, Mr. McCrae?' the Captain asked, in a pleasant tone.
Augustus thought of Clara Forsythe, so fetching with her curls and her frank smile.
'I believe I'd just scrawl off a letter to my girl,' Gus said. 'I'd be wanting to bid her goodbye, I expect.' 'Why, that's fine--t's the human instinct,' Captain Scull said. 'You're a romantic fellow, I see. So was our Willy, in his way --only he was romantic about science.
Professor Agassiz taught him to never waste an experience, and he didn't. The average time of death from the bite of a fer-de-lance is twenty minutes. I expect Willy hoped to improve on the average, but he didn't. He died in seventeen minutes, thirty-four seconds, give or take a second or two.' Captain Scull stood up and looked across the gray plain.
