What rested him, after a day of contending with the circumstances of travel--the girth on the pack mule might break, or they might strike a creek that looked dangerous to cross--was to be by himself, a hundred yards or so from camp. Whereas guard duty seemed to make most of the rangers sleepy--there being nothing to do but sit and stare--it made Call feel at his most alert. He had a keen ear for night sounds--the rustling of varmints, the cries of owls and bullbats, deer nibbling leaves, the death squeak of a rabbit when a coyote or bobcat caught it. He listened for variations in the regular sounds, variations that could mean Indians were near; or, if not Indians, then some rarely encountered animal, like a bear.
Often he would sit all night at his guard post, refusing to change guards even when it was time.
From time to time in the night, Maudy Clark shrieked--j two or three shrieks, sounds that seemed to be jerked out of her. Call wondered if it might be dreams that called up the shrieks.
He doubted the poor woman would live long enough for the violent memories to fade.
When he came back to camp, a little before dawn, only Deets and Maudy were awake. The woman was fiddling with the buttons of an old shirt Long Bill had given her. She looked wild in her eyes, as if she might be getting ready to make one of her dashes out of camp. There was gray mist rising, making it hard to see more than a few feet. If the woman got away, with it so foggy, there might be a long delay while they located her.
Deets anticipated the very thing that Call feared.
'Don't you be running now, ma'am,' he said.
'You'll get thorns in your feet if you do.
Prickly pear all over the ground. You'll be picking them little fine stickers out all day, if you go running off now.' She had untied the cotton rope that he bound her ankles with. Gently, Deets retied it, and Maudy Clark made no protest.
'Just till breakfast,' Deets assured her.
'Then I'll let you go.'
They brought the horses and the rescued captives into Austin on a fine sunny morning. Nothing prompted a crowd like the rangers' return, whether they had been patrolling north or south.
Folks that had been dawdling in stores came into the street to ask questions. The blacksmith neglected his tasks until he heard the report. The barber left customers half shaven. The dentist ceased pulling teeth.
Somebody ran to alert the Governor and the legislators, though most of the latter were drunk or in bordellos and thus not easily rounded up.
The first thing everybody noticed was that no short man on a big horse was leading the troop back home: where was the great Captain Scull?
'Tracking a horse thief, that's where,' Augustus said, a little annoyed that most of the questions were about the captain who had cavalierly deserted them while they were doing brave work. Gus saw Jake Spoon lurking over by the blacksmith's and waved at him to come help with the horses. He was anxious to get on to a barroom and sample some whiskey, quick.
'Don't get too drunk,' Call said, when he saw where Gus was heading. 'The Governor will be wanting a report.' 'Well, you report,' Augustus said. 'If the both of us go we'll just confuse the old fool.' 'We're both captains, we both should go,' Call insisted.
'I despise governors, and besides, I need to see my girl before I get into business like that,' Gus said. One of the reasons he was feeling a little grim was that there was, as yet, no sign of Clara. Usually, when he rode in with the boys, she came running out of the store to give him a big kiss--it was something he would begin to look forward to while still fifty miles away.
But today, though the street was thronged, there was no Clara.
Call spotted Maggie, watching their return from a discreet spot in the shade of a building; he nodded and tipped his hat to her, an act that didn't escape the attention of Augustus McCrae. The other rangers had just penned the horses; Long Bill Coleman immediately headed for a saloon, to fortify himself a little before heading home to Pearl, his large, enthusiastic wife.
'This is a damn disgrace,' Augustus muttered. 'Your girl's here to smile at you and Billy has Pearl to go home to, but Clara's lagging, if she's home.' 'I expect she's just running errands,' Call said. 'It's a passel of work, running a store that size.' Augustus, though, was growing steadily more annoyed, and also more agitated. In his mind Clara's absence could mean only one of two things: she had died, or else she'd married.
What if the big horse trader Bob Allen had showed up while he was away; what if Clara had lost her head and married the man? The thought disturbed him so that he turned his horse and went full tilt back up the street toward the Forsythe store, almost colliding with a buggy as he raced.
He jumped off his horse, not even bothering to hitch him, and plunged into the store, only to see old Mr. Forsythe, Clara's father, unpacking a box of women's shoes.
'Hello, Clara ain't sick, is she?' he asked at once.
Mr. Forsythe was startled by Augustus's sudden appearance.
'Who, Clara?--I'm trying to count these shoes and see that they're properly paired up,' the old man said, a little nervously, it seemed to Gus.
Normally George Forsythe was loquacious to a fault; he would pat Gus's shoulder and talk his arm off about any number of topics that held no interest for him, but this morning he seemed annoyed by Gus's question.
'Sorry to disturb you, I just wondered if Clara was sick--I had the fear that she might have taken ill while we were gone,' Gus said.
'Oh no, Clara's healthy as a horse,' Mr. Forsythe said. 'Clara's never been sick a day in her life.' Where is she, then, you old fool? Gus thought, but he held his tongue.
'Is she out? I'd like to greet her,' he said.
'We travelled nearly to the North Pole and back since I was here.' 'No, she's not here,' Mr. Forsythe said,
