been thrown from his horse three times, due to inebriation. The fact that he had chosen a half-broken, untrustworthy horse for the ride to Laredo was evidence that his mind was not on his work. Augustus had always been careful to choose gentle, well-broken mounts.
Call was annoyed by his friend's sudden disappearance. Even allowing for grief, and Gus had seemed sadly grieved, it was unprofessional behaviour in view of the unsettled state of things. Call supposed, himself, that the war fever would soon abate at least a little. Texas wasn't in the war yet, and when the eager volunteers discovered how far they would have to travel to get into a battle, many of them, he suspected, would develop second thoughts. Many would elect to stay at home and see if the war spread in their direction. It wasn't like the Mexican conflict, where men could ride south for a day or two and join in battle.
Still, it was a war, and the Governor's concern about the local defenses was justified. Governor Clark had an assistant, a man named Barkeley, a small man who fancied that he was a large cog in the machinery of state government.
Augustus McCrae had promised the Governor an answer regarding his intentions, and Mr. Barkeley wanted it.
'Where's McCrae? The governor's in a hurry and so am I,' Barkeley wanted to know, presenting himself at the ranger stables with an air of impatience.
'He's not here,' Call said.
'Where is he, then? This is damned inconvenient,' Barkeley snapped.
'I don't know where he is,' Call admitted. 'He just buried his wife. He may have wanted to take a ride and mourn a little.' 'We're all apt to have to bury wives,' Barkeley replied. 'McCrae has no business doing it on state time. Can't you send someone to find him?' 'No, but you're welcome to go look yourself,' Call said, piqued by the man's tone.
'Go look, what do you mean, sir?' Barkeley said. 'Look where?' 'He was here yesterday, I expect that means he's still somewhere in the state,' Call informed the man, before turning on his heel.
By midafn, with Augustus still gone, Call became genuinely worried. He had never married and could not claim to know the emotions that might torment a man at the loss of a wife; but he knew they must be powerful. In the back of his mind was the sad fate of Long Bill Coleman, whose wife had not even been dead. Long Bill had seemed to be a troubled but stable man, only the day before he killed himself--and Augustus, if anything, was a good deal more flighty than Long Bill. The thought kept entering Call's mind that Augustus might have done something foolish, in his grief.
The Kickapoo tracker, Famous Shoes, the man so trusted by Captain Scull, lived with his wives and children not far north of Austin. Though Famous Shoes preferred the country along the Little Wichita, the Comanches had been violent lately in that region, killing several Kickapoo families. Famous Shoes had brought his family south, for safety. The army, hearing of his skill, tried to hire him to track for them on several expeditions, but their present leader, Colonel d. d.
McQuorquodale, insisted that all scouts be mounted, a form of travel that Famous Shoes rejected. Colonel McQuorquodale refused to believe that a man on foot could keep up with a column of mounted cavalry, despite numerous testimonials to Famous Shoes' speed and ability, one of them by Call himself.
'He not only keeps up, he gets three or four days ahead, if you don't keep him in sight,' Call assured the Colonel. 'He's the best I've ever seen at finding water holes, Colonel.' 'You'll need the water holes, too,' Augustus said. He had a contempt for soldiers, but had been eavesdropping on the conversation while whittling on a stick.
'I have every confidence in my ability to find water, sir,' Colonel McQuorquodale said. 'I run the scouts, and they'll travel the way I tell them to, if they expect to work for Dan McQuorquodale.' On the Colonel's next expedition west, sixteen cavalry horses starved to death and several men came close to it, saved only by a heavy spring rain. Despite this evidence of the variability of water sources on the western plains, Colonel McQuorquodale refused to relax his requirements, and Famous Shoes continued to refuse to ride horses, the result being that he was in his camp, surrounded by his wives and children, when Call and Pea Eye sought him out.
Call wanted to know if Famous Shoes was available to conduct a quick search for Augustus.
When they arrived Famous Shoes was holding the paw of a small animal of some sort, studying it with deep curiosity. His wives were smiling as if they shared some joke, but Famous Shoes was only interested in the paw.
'We've lost Captain McCrae,' Call said, dismounting. 'Are you busy, or could you find the time to go look for him?' 'Right now I am wondering about this paw,' Famous Shoes said. 'It is the paw of a ferret my wives killed, but they cooked it when I was away. I did not get to look at the ferret.' 'Why would you need to look at it, if it was tasty?' Pea Eye asked. Over the years he had grown fond of Famous Shoes--he liked it that the Kickapoo was curious about things that other men didn't even notice.
'This ferret did not belong here,' Famous Shoes informed him. 'Once I went to the north and I saw many weasels like this near the Platte River. This ferret was black, but all the ferrets around here are brown. This is the kind of ferret that ought to be up by the Platte River.' Famous Shoes' penchant for diverting himself for days in order to investigate things that didn't particularly require investigation was one of the things that tried Call's patience with him.
'Maybe it was just born off-color,' Pea Eye suggested. 'Sometimes you'll see a litter of white pigs with one black pig in it.' 'This paw is from a ferret, it is not a pig,' Famous Shoes said, unpersuaded by Pea Eye's suggestion. He saw, though, that Captain Call was impatient--Captain Call was always impatient--s he put the ferret's paw in his pouch for future study.
'Captain McCrae went by this morning early,' Famous Shoes said. 'It was foggy here.
I did not see him but I heard him say something to his mare. He is on that black mare he likes, and he is going west. I saw his track while I was looking for some more of these ferrets.' 'His wife died, I expect he's just grieving,' Call said. 'I'd be obliged if you'd track him and see if you can get him to come back.' Famous Shoes considered the matter in silence for a moment. He could not do anything about the fact that Captain McCrae's wife had died--if Captain McCrae had a wife to mourn he had probably gone away so he could mourn her without anyone interfering with him too much. Also, he himself now had an interesting problem to study, the problem of the black ferret; he was comfortably settled in with his wives and children and did not particularly want to go anywhere. But Captain Call had helped him with the army, when the Colonel who wanted all scouts to ride horses had decided to put him in jail because he refused to ride. Famous Shoes had carefully explained to the Colonel, and to his captains and lieutenants, his views on horses; there were several reasons why it was not wise for Kickapoos to ride horses; besides those reasons there was a simple reason that should have been apparent to the Colonel and his men, which
