'The Governor wants to see you--Captain Call told me that much,' Pea Eye said.
Though Augustus knew he ought to go light on the young man, something about Pea Eye's solemn manner made teasing him hard to resist.
'If I'm under arrest you best get out your handcuffso,' he said, sticking out his hands in surrender.
Pea Eye was startled, as he often was by Captain McCrae's behaviour.
'I ain't got no handcuffso, Captain,' he said.
'Well, you might have to tie me, then,' Gus said. 'I'm still a wild boy. I might escape before you get me back to Austin.' Pea Eye wondered if the Captain had gone a little daft. He was holding out his hands, as if he expected to be tied.
'Captain, I wouldn't arrest you,' he said.
'I just came to tell you Captain Call asked if you'd come back. The Governor asked too, I believe.' 'Yes, and what will you tell them if I decide to slip off?' Gus asked.
Pea Eye felt that he was being given a kind of examination, just when he least expected one.
'I'd just tell them you didn't want to come,' he said. 'If you don't want to come back, you don't have to, that's how I see it.' 'I'm glad you feel that way, Pea,' Augustus said, letting his hand drop, finally.
'I fear I'd be uncomfortable travelling with a man who had a commission to arrest me.' 'I was not given no papers,' Pea Eye said --he thought a commission must involve a document of some kind.
Augustus looked past the crag of rock toward El Paso del Norte, the Pass of the North.
'I guess I've travelled long enough in a westerly direction,' he said. 'I believe I'll go back with you, Pea--x'll help your career.' 'My what?' Pea Eye asked.
'Your job, Pea--j your job,' Augustus said, annoyed that he was unable to employ his full vocabulary with the young man. 'You might make sergeant yet, just for bringing me home.'
Famous Shoes was so excited by the old things he was finding on the hill of arrowheads that he did not want to leave. All afternoon he stayed on the hill, searching the ground carefully for things the Old People might have left. He looked at the base of rocks and into holes and cracks in the land. He saw the two rangers leave and ride back toward the camp by the river, but he did not have time to join them. After only a little searching he found six more arrowheads, a fragment of a pot, and a little tool of bone that would have been used to scrape hides. With every discovery his excitement grew. At first he spread the arrowheads on a flat rock, but then he decided it would be wiser not to leave them exposed. The spirits of the Old People might be nearby; they might not like it that he was finding the things they had lost or left behind. If he left the arrowheads exposed, the old spirits might turn themselves into rats or chipmunks and try to carry the arrowheads back to the spirit place. The objects he was finding might be the oldest things in the world. If he took them to the elders of the tribe they could learn many things from them.
It would not do to leave them at risk, particularly not after he found the bear tooth. Famous Shoes saw something white near the base of the crag and discovered, once he dug it out with his knife, that it was the tooth of a great bear. It was far larger than the tooth of any bear he had ever seen, and its edge had been scraped to make it sharp. It could be used as a small knife, or as an awl, to punch holes in the skins of buffalo or deer.
Famous Shoes knew he had made a tremendous discovery. He was glad, now, that he had been sent after Captain McCrae; because of it he had found the place where the Old People had once lived. He wrapped his finds carefully in a piece of deerskin and put them in his pouch. He meant to go at once to find the Kickapoo elders, some of whom lived along the Trinity River. While the elders studied what he had found, which included a small round stone used to grind corn, he meant to come back to the hill of arrowheads and look some more. There were several more such hills nearby where he might look. If he were lucky he might even find the hole in the earth where the People had first come out into the light. Famous Shoes thought it possible that he had been acting on wrong information in regard to the hole of emergence.
It might not be near the caprock at all. It might be somewhere around the very hill he was standing on, where the Old People had dropped so many of their arrowheads.
The possibility that the hole might be nearby was not something he meant to tell the rangers. When darkness fell he left the hill and went toward their campfire, which he could see winking in the darkness, back by the river. He thought it would be courteous to tell Captain McCrae that he had to leave at once, on an errand of great importance. Captain McCrae was not lost, and would not need him to guide them home.
When Famous Shoes reached the camp he saw that the young ranger who had travelled with him was already asleep. In fact he was snoring and his snores could be heard some distance from the camp. The snores reminded Famous Shoes of the sounds an angry badger would make.
'Snores awful, don't he?' Augustus said, when Famous Shoes appeared. He had been enjoying a little whiskey--he had used his supply only sparingly, so as not to run out before he got back to a place where he could count on finding a settler with a jug.
'He did not snore like that while he was with me,' Famous Shoes said. 'He did not snore at all while we were looking for you.' 'I doubt he slept, while he was with you,' Augustus said. 'It's hard to snore much if you're wide awake. I expect he was afraid you would scalp him if he went to sleep while he was with you.' Famous Shoes did not reply. He knew that Captain McCrae often joked, but the discoveries he had just made were serious; he did not have the leisure to listen to jokes or to talk that made no sense.
'Did you find any more of them old arrowheads?' Gus asked.
'I have to go visit some people now,' Famous Shoes said. He did not want to discuss his findings with Captain McCrae. Even though Captain McCrae had shown him the old arrowheads, Famous Shoes still thought it was unwise to discuss the Old People and their tools with him. He himself did not know what was sacred and what wasn't, with such old things--t was for the elders to interpret.
'Well, you ain't chained, go if you like,' Augustus said. 'I'll tell Woodrow Call you done your job proper, so he won't cut your pay.' Famous Shoes did not answer. He was wondering if all the hills beyond the Pecos had old things on them. It would take a long time to search so many hills. He knew he had better get busy. It had been windy lately--the wind had blown the soil away, making it easier to see the arrowheads and pieces of pots. He wanted to hurry to the Trinity and then come back.
Some white man looking for gold might dig in one of the hills and disturb the arrowheads and other
