tools.
Augustus saw that Famous Shoes was anxious to leave but he didn't want him to go before he could attempt to interest him in the great issue of mortality, the problem he had been pondering in the last two weeks, as he rode west. His efforts to interest Pea Eye in the matter of mortality had met with complete failure. Pea Eye was mindful that he might die sooner rather than later, from doing the dangerous work of rangering, but he didn't have much to say on the subject. When Augustus tried to get his opinion on factors that prevailed in life or death situations such as Indian fights, he found that Pea Eye had no opinion. Some men died and some men lived, Pea Eye knew that, but the why of it was well beyond his reasoning powers; even beyond his interest. When questioned on the subject, Pea Eye just went to sleep.
'Before you go loping off, tell me why you think I'm lucky,' Augustus asked. 'Is it just because I found them arrowheads?' 'No, that was not luck, you have good eyes,' Famous Shoes said. 'No arrow has ever found you--no bullet either--though you have been in many battles. No bear has eaten you and no snake has bitten you.' 'Buffalo Hump's lance bit me, though,' Augustus said, pointing. 'It bit me right out there on those flats.' 'It only bit your hip a little,' Famous Shoes reminded him--he had heard the story often.
'I admit that I was lucky it was so dark,' Gus said. 'If it had been daylight I expect he would have got me.' In Famous Shoes' opinion that was true.
If the encounter with Buffalo Hump had occurred in daylight Captain McCrae would probably be dead.
'If I have all this luck, why do my wives keep dying?' Augustus asked.
It seemed to Famous Shoes that Captain McCrae was wanting to know the answer to questions that had no answer. Though it was sometimes possible to say why a particular woman died, it was not possible to say why one man's wives died while another man's lived. Such things were mysteries--no man could understand them, any more than a man could understand the rain and the wind. In some springs there were rain clouds, in other springs none. In some years frost came early, in other years it came late. Some women bore children easily, others died in the effort. Why one man fell in battle while the man fighting right beside him lived was a thing that could not be known. Some medicine man might know about the arrowheads he had found, and about the scraper, or the pots, but no medicine man or wise man knew why one man died and another lived. Wise men themselves often died before fools, and cowards before men who were brave. Famous Shoes knew that Captain McCrae enjoyed discussing such matters, but he himself could not spare the time for extended conversation, not when he had such a great distance to travel, on such an urgent errand.
'It was good that you showed me those arrowheads that were not from the Comanche,' Famous Shoes said. 'That was a good place to look for old arrowheads. I found some for myself.' 'I've heard they sell arrowheads, back east,' Augustus told him. 'The Indians back east have forgotten how to make them--I guess they've got too used to guns. Back in Carolina and Georgia and them places, the only way folks can get arrowheads is to buy them in a store.' Famous Shoes was feeling very impatient.
Captain McCrae was one of the most talkative people he had ever known. Sometimes, when there was leisure for lengthy conversation, he was an interesting man to listen to. He was curious about things that most white men paid no attention to. But everyone was curious about death--Famous Shoes didn't feel he could spend any more time discussing it with Captain McCrae, and he had no interest in discussing tribes of Indians who were so degenerate that they no longer knew how to make arrowheads.
'I will see you again when I have time,' he said.
'Damnit, I wish you wasn't always in such a hurry,' Augustus said, but his ^ws simply floated away. Famous Shoes was already walking toward the Trinity River.
Augustus could not restrain his amusement that Woodrow Call, stiff and nervous, confided his suspicion that Maggie Tilton had an involvement with Jake Spoon that went beyond the friendly.
'Didn't you ever notice Jake carrying her groceries, or helping her with her garden?' Augustus asked.
'I noticed,' Call said. 'But a man ought to help a woman carry groceries, or help her with a garden if he knows anything about gardens.
I'm ignorant in that field myself.' 'Not as ignorant as you are in the woman field,' Augustus said. 'If Maggie was the sun you'd have to carry around a sundial to let you know if it's a cloudy day.' 'You can hold off on the fancy talk, Gus,' Call said, annoyed. It had taken him a week to work up to confiding in Augustus and he did not appreciate the flippant way his confidence was being treated.
'I think he bunks there,' he added, so there would be no doubt as to the nature of his suspicions.
Augustus realized that his friend was considerably upset. With effort he held in his amusement and even passed up a chance to make another flowery comparison in regard to Woodrow's ignorance about women--an ignorance he believed to be profound.
He knew there were times when Call could be safely teased and times when he couldn't; in his judgment much more teasing in the present situation might result in fisticuffso. Woodrow appeared to be drawn about as tightly as it was safe to draw him.
'Woodrow, you're correct--Jake's been bunking with Maggie for a while,' Augustus said, keeping his tone mild.
It was the news Call had feared; yet Augustus delivered it as matter-of-factly as if he were merely announcing that he needed a new pair of boots. They were standing by the corrals in bright sunlight, watching Pea Eye try to rope a young gelding, a strawberry roan. The boy Newt watched from a perch atop the fence.
Pea Eye caught the gelding on the third throw and dug in his heels as the young horse began to fight the rope.
'Pea's getting trained up to a point where he can almost rope,' Gus said. 'I can remember when it took him thirty throws to catch his horse.' Call was silent. He wasn't interested in how many throws it took Pea Eye to catch a horse, nor was he interested in the six young horses the rangers had just purchased from a horse trader near Waco, though he had approved the purchase himself and signed the check.
Normally the arrival of six new horses, acquired at no small cost, would have occupied him immediately--but what occupied him then was Augustus's acknowledgment that Jake was living with Maggie Tilton and her son, Newt--or, if not fully living with her, at least bunking with her to the extent that suited his pleasure and hers.
Augustus saw that his friend was stumped, if not stunned, by the discovery of a situation that had been no secret to most of the rangers for well over a year. It was a peculiar oversight on Woodrow's part, not to notice such things, but then Woodrow Call always had been able to overlook almost everything in life not connected with the work of being a Texas Ranger.
