'It may be foolish but it's how I felt and how I feel,' Clara said.
She calmed herself with an effort. She had not called him into the street to fight over the disappointments of a decade--though it had not all been disappointment by any means.
Augustus didn't know what to do. Though it appeared to be a hopeless thing, he didn't know how to simply give up. The hope of someday marrying Clara had been the deepest hope of his life. What would his life be, with that hope lost?
He could not even formulate a guess, though he knew it would be bleak and black.
'When will you be leaving?' he asked finally, in a flat voice.
'Why, Sunday,' Clara said. 'We're going to New Orleans and take the steamer up the Mississippi and the Missouri. It'll be chilly travelling, I expect--at least the last part of it will.' Gus felt such a weight inside him that he didn't know how he was even going to walk away.
'Then it's goodbye, I guess,' he said.
'For a while, yes,' Clara said. 'My hope is that you'll visit, in about ten years.' 'Visit you once you're married-- now why would you want that?' Augustus asked, startled by the remark.
'Because I'd want you to know my children,' Clara said. 'I'd want them to have your friendship.' Augustus was silent for a bit. Clara was looking at him with something in her eyes that he couldn't define. Though she had just broken his heart, she still seemed to want something of him--what, he was not sure.
'You're just saying that now, Clara,' he said, though he thought his throat might close up with sadness and leave him unable to speak.
'Bob, he won't be wanting me there, and you won't either, once you've been married awhile,' he said finally.
Clara shook her head and put her arms around him.
'I can't claim to know too much about marriage yet, but there is one thing I know for sure--I'll never be so married that I won't need your friendship --don't you forget that,' she said.
Then tears started in her eyes again--she turned abruptly and walked quickly back into her store.
Augustus stayed where he was for a bit, looking at the store. Whether staying or returning, looking at that store had long filled him with hope. The sight of the Forsythe store--j a plain frame building--affected him more powerfully than any sight on earth; for the store contained Clara.
There he had met her; there, for years, they had kissed, quarrelled, joked, teased; often they had made plans for a future together, a future they would now never have.
When he walked into the little room in the rough bunkhouse that he shared with Woodrow Call, what he felt in his heart must have showed in his face.
Woodrow was just about to go out, but the sight of Gus stopped him. He had never seen Gus with quite such a strange look on his face.
'Are you sick?' Call asked.
Gus made no reply. He sat down on his cot and took off his hat.
'I have to pay a call, but I'll be back soon,' Call said. 'The Governor wants to see us again.' 'Why? We done saw him, the fool,' Gus asked.
'We're captains now,' Call reminded him. 'Did you think we were just going to see him that one time?' 'Yes, I had hoped I wouldn't have to look at the jackass again,' Gus said.
'I don't know what's the matter,' Call said, 'but I hope it wears off quick. You needn't be sulky just because the Governor wants to see us.' Augustus suddenly drew back his fist and punched the center of the cot he sat on, as hard as he could. The cot, a spindly-legged thing, immediately collapsed.
'Dern it, now you broke your bed,' Call said in surprise.
'Don't matter, I won't be sleeping in it anyway,' Augustus said. 'I wish that damn governor would send us off again today, because I'm ready to go. If I ain't rangering I mean to be out drinking all night, or else reside in a whorehouse.' Call had no idea what had come over his friend --bbf he could investigate, Augustus suddenly got up and walked past him out the door.
'I'll be down at the saloon, in case you lose my track,' he said.
'I doubt I'll lose your track,' Call said, still puzzled. By then Augustus was in the street, and he didn't turn.
Call, about to leave Maggie's, was in a hurry, aware that he was almost late for his appointment with the Governor, and he still had to find Gus and drag him out of whatever saloon he was in. He didn't at first understand what Maggie had just said to him. She had said something about a child, but his mind was on his meeting with the Governor and he hadn't quite taken her comment in.
'What? I guess I need to clean out my ears,' he said.
Maggie didn't want to repeat it--she didn't want it to be true, and yet it was true.
'I said I'm going to have a baby,' she said.
Call looked at Maggie again and saw that she was about to cry. She had just made him coffee and fed him a tasty beefsteak, the best food he had had in a month. She had a plate in her hand, but the hand that held the plate was not steady. Of course, she usually got upset when he had to leave, even if he was just going to the bunkhouse. Maggie wanted him to live with her, a thing he could not agree to do. The part about the baby hardly registered with him until he saw the look in her eyes. The look in her eyes was desperate.
'The baby's yours, Woodrow,' she said.
'I'm hoping you'll help me bring it up.' Call took his hand off the doorknob.
