Sad and unsteadied, Jake managed to secure the lead rope attached to the pack mule. Now that he actually had to leave, the fact of the mule irritated him. It had already proven itself to be an annoying beast, but if he waited until morning and tried to sell it back to the horse traders they would only offer him a pittance. He decided to sell the mule in Fort Worth, instead. Perhaps there was a shortage of good mules up there--he would see.
In leaving he passed beneath Maggie's window.
If the lamp had been lit he would have hitched his animals and rushed up for one more farewell, perhaps even one more embrace; but the window was dark.
Tears rushed out at the thought that he was leaving his Mag, but Jake didn't stop. He knew Newt wanted him to stay, but he wasn't so sure about Maggie. She didn't chatter much with him anymore; perhaps it was her illness. In any case there were said to be merry women in Colorado, and Colorado was where he was bound.
Above him in the dark room, Maggie watched him leave. Newt had come in sobbing and cried himself to sleep. Maggie watched out the darkened window as Jake made his extended farewells. She left the light off deliberately, so that Jake would not rush at her again, confused, sad, importunate; one minute he wanted her to bless his departure, the next he wanted her to marry him and keep him in Austin. In either mood he sought her welcome, wanted her to lie with him. It had been months since Maggie had felt well. She had a cough that wouldn't leave her. She did her job and tended her child, but she rarely had the energy now to deal with Jake Spoon's confusions, or his needs.
Though Maggie knew she would miss Jake-- she felt a certain sadness as he passed beneath her window-- she also felt relieved that he was going.
Though he was as helpful as he knew how to be, having him with her was like having two children, and she no longer had the energy for it. She had never been able to be quite what Jake wanted, though she had tried; though she would now have no one to carry her groceries or help her with her garden, she would also be free of the strain involved in never being quite what a man wanted.
Her true regret was for Newt. Jake had been what father Newt had; Newt's life would be the poorer, for his leaving. Maggie was glad that all the ranger boys liked her son; they let him stay with them all day, when they were in town. The fear that haunted Maggie, that seized her every time she coughed, was that she would die before Newt was grown.
What would happen to Newt then? Sometimes Maggie imagined that with her death Woodrow would soften and accept his son, but it was not a thing she could be confident of. Many nights she scarcely slept.
She tried to evaluate her own coughing; she wondered what her son would do, if she died.
At least she knew he was welcome with the ranger boys, Augustus and Pea Eye and Deets.
Newt had grown up with those men; they had all had a hand in his raising. Ikey Ripple was like a grandfather to the boy. Maggie knew Augustus well enough to know that, with all his whoring and his drinking, he would see to it that Newt was well cared for.
Gus wouldn't desert him, nor would Deets or Pea--even without her, Newt would be better off than many of the orphaned children adrift in the country now, children whose parents the war had taken.
But such reflections didn't end Maggie's fears. Augustus McCrae was not immortal, and neither were the others. What if they had to leave Texas to earn a living, as Jake was doing?
What if they were all killed in an Indian fight?
The worry about Newt and his future was a worry Maggie could not entirely put down--it made her determined to last. If she could just last a few more years Newt would be old enough that someone might employ him--she knew that many cowboys were no more than twelve or thirteen when they first gained employment on the many ranches to the south.
The streets of Austin were empty: Jake was gone. Maggie sat by the window a long time, thinking, hoping, looking down at the silent street.
Then, just as she was about to go to bed, she saw Pea Eye roll out of the wagon where he had been napping. Maggie watched, expecting him to walk off--she had never known Pea Eye to be drunk, but then old friends such as Jake Spoon didn't leave the troop every day. It was late in the night and chilly; it had begun to drizzle. Maggie waited, thinking Pea Eye would wake up, stand up, and make his way to the shelter of the bunkhouse.
But he didn't wake up. He lay as he had fallen, flat on his face in the street.
Maggie went to bed, telling herself that Pea Eye was, after all, a grown man--z a roving ranger he had no doubt slept out of doors in far worse weather, and in more dangerous places than the streets of Austin.
Maggie's reasoning failed to convince her--the thought of Pea Eye kept sleep from coming. No doubt he had slept out of doors in worse weather, but, on those occasions, she hadn't been in sight of him. Finally she got up, took a heavy quilt out of her cedar chest, went down the stairs, walked the few steps, covered Pea with the quilt, and pulled him around so that his legs were no longer sticking into the street where a wagon could run over them, as in the case of the senator who lost his hand.
The next morning, when Maggie went down to recover her quilt, Pea Eye was seated with his back to the wagon wheel, looking like a man in shaky health and spirits.
'I wish I could take my head off,' he said, to Maggie. 'If I could take it off I'd chuck it far enough away that I couldn't feel it throb.' 'Many a man has ruined his health for good, drinking whiskey with Gus McCrae,' Maggie informed him sternly.
Pea Eye didn't dispute the opinion.
'Gus? He can hold more liquor than a tub,' he said. 'Is this your quilt?' 'Yes, I thought I better cover you,' Maggie said.
'I had an awful dream,' Pea Eye said.
'I dreamed a big Comanche held me up by my legs and scalped me.' 'That wasn't a Comanche, that was me,' Maggie said. 'Your legs were sticking into the street--I was afraid a wagon would run over you, so I pulled you around.' 'Jake's gone off to Colorado to find a silver mine,' Pea Eye said.
Maggie didn't answer. Instead, to Pea Eye's consternation, she began to cry. She didn't say anything; she just took her quilt and walked home with it, crying.
