As the two men rode up, a woman appeared on the back steps of the house. She wore a gray smock and an apron and had an infant in her arms. She was clearly out of temper, for she yelled something at the two girls, who stopped their shrieking, looked at one another and slowly approached the house. The infant the woman held was crying fretfully, though, at that, making less noise than the girls. The woman addressed herself to the older girl, who made some excuse, and the younger girl, in her own defense, pointed back toward the shed. The woman listened a minute and began to talk rapidly, giving her daughters what for, July supposed.
To see a woman so suddenly, after so much time alone, made him very nervous-particularly since the woman was so out of temper. But as they drew closer he found that, out of temper or not, he couldn't stop looking at her. Her eyes flashed as she lectured her daughters, neither of whom was taking the lecture silently-both were trying to talk back but the mother didn't pause to listen. She had abundant brown hair tucked into a bun at the back of her neck, though the bun had partly come loose.
The old Mexican seemed not the least disturbed by the argument in progress. In fact, he seemed amused by it, and he rode up and got off his horse as if nothing were happening.
'But she put a grasshopper down my neck,' the younger girl said. 'I hate her.'
'I don't care who hates who,' the woman said. 'I was up with this baby all night-you know how colicky he is. You don't have to scream right under my window-looks like there be room on this prairie for you to scream without doing it under my window. All we got here is room.'
'It was a grasshopper,' the little girl insisted.
'Well, is it the first one you've ever seen?' the woman asked. 'You'll have more to worry about than grasshoppers if you wake this baby again.'
The woman was rather thin, but anger put color in her cheeks. The girls finally were subdued and the woman looked up and saw him, lifting her chin with a bit of belligerence, as though she might have to tie into him too. Then she saw his discolored leg, and her look changed. She had gray eyes and she turned them on him with sudden gravity.
'Get down,
The girls looked around and became aware for the first time that a stranger had come. They instantly stopped fidgeting and stood like statues.
The woman smiled. She seemed to have switched from anger to amusement.
'Hello, I'm Clara,' she said. 'Pardon the commotion. We're a loud bunch. Get down, sir. You're welcome.'
July had not spoken in so long, except for the few words he had said to Cholo and his ravings to Roscoe Brown, that his voice came out cracked. 'Thank you, I wouldn't want to trouble you,' he said.
Clara laughed. 'You don't look strong enough to trouble nobody around here,' she said. 'We grow our own troubles-it would be a novelty to have some we ain't already used to. These are my daughters, Sally and Betsey.'
July nodded to the girls and got off his horse. After a ride his leg stiffened and he had to hobble over to the porch. The baby was still fretting. The woman rocked it in her arms as she watched July hobble.
'Snake bit him,' Cholo observed.
'I guess I rolled into it at night,' July said. 'I never even seen it. Just woke up with a yellow leg.'
'Well, if you've lived this long I expect you have nothing to fear,' Clara said. 'We'll get some food in you. The way sick people have been turning up lately, I sometimes think we oughta go out of the horse business and open a hospital. Come on in the house-you girls set him a place.'
The old man helped him up the steps and into the roomy kitchen. Clara was poking the fire in the cookstove, the baby still held in one arm.
'If you'd like a wash first, I'll have the girls draw some water,' Clara said. 'I didn't get your name.'
'I'm July Johnson,' July said. 'I come from Arkansas.'
Clara almost dropped the poker. The girls had told her the little scarfaced man had said the woman they were with was married to a sheriff named Johnson, from Arkansas. She hadn't given the story much credence-the woman didn't strike her as the marrying type. Besides, the little man had whispered something to the effect that the big buffalo hunter considered himself married to her. The girls thought it mighty exciting, having a woman in the house who was married to two men. And if that wasn't complicated enough, the woman herself claimed to be married to Dee Boot, the gunfighter they had hung last week. Cholo had been in town when the hanging took place and reported that the hanging had gone smoothly.
Clara looked more closely at the man standing in her kitchen. He was very thin and in a kind of daze-probably couldn't quite believe that he was still alive after such a journey. She had felt that way herself upon arriving in Ogallala after her trip over the plains with Bob, and she hadn't been snakebit or had any particular adventures.
But if he was married to the woman, the baby drooling on her bosom might be his. Clara felt a flash of annoyance, most of it with herself. She had already grown attached to the baby. She liked to lie in bed with him and watch him try to work his tiny hands. He would peer at her for long stretches, frowning, as if trying to figure life out. But when Clara laughed at him and gave him her finger to hold he would stop frowning and gurgle happily. Apart from the colic, he seemed to be a healthy baby. She knew the mother was probably still in Ogallala, and that she ought to take the child into town and see if the woman had had a change of heart and wanted her son, but she kept putting it off. It would be discouraging to have to give him up-she told herself if the mother didn't want him bad enough to come and get him, then the mother was too foolish to have him. She reminded herself it was time she got out of the habit of babies. She wouldn't be likely to get any more, and she knew she ought to figure out another way to keep herself amused. But she did like babies. Few things were as likely to cheer her up.
She had never seriously supposed a father would turn up, and yet only three weeks had passed and one had, standing in her kitchen, dirty, tired, and with a badly discolored leg.
Clara poked the fire a time or two more, trying to adjust to the surprise. Then she turned and looked at July.
'Mr. Johnson,' she said, 'are you looking for your wife, by any chance?'
July almost fell over from surprise. 'Yes, her name is Ellie-Elmira,' he said. 'How'd you ever know?'
He began to tremble. Clara came over, took his arm and led him to a chair. The girls were standing in the doorway, watching every move.
'I been looking for Ellie all the way,' July said. 'I didn't even know she come this way. She's not a large woman, I was afraid she might have died. Have you seen her?'
'Yes,' Clara said. 'She stopped here for the night about three weeks ago in the company of two buffalo hunters.'
To July it seemed too much of a miracle-that with the whole plains to cross he and Ellie would strike the same house. The woman, who was watching him intently, seemed to read his mind.
'We get a lot of travelers,' she said, as though he hadn't spoken. 'Situating this place right here was one of the smartest things my husband ever did. Anyone coming along the Platte who might need a horse isn't going to miss us. We're on the only road. If we hadn't located on this road, we'd have been starved out long ago.'
'It seems…' July said, and he couldn't finish. It was all he had hoped for, to be able to find her someday. He had risked and lost three lives to do it, and though Ellie wasn't right there, surely she was in town. He began to tremble and then to cry-he couldn't help it. His hopes were to be answered after all.
Silently Clara handed him a rough dish towel. She scowled fiercely at the girls until they backed off. She followed them out the back door to give the man a moment to collect himself.
'Why's he crying?' Betsey asked.
'He's just unnerved-he's come along a long way and I imagine he had stopped expecting to make it,' Clara said.
'But he's a man,' Sally said. Their father had never cried, as far as she knew.
'Men have tears in them too, same as you,' Clara said. 'Go draw some water. I think we might offer him a bath.'
She went back in. July had not quite gained control of himself. He was too shaken with relief. The baby, now in a good mood, was mouthing its own fingers and rolling its eyes up to her. Might as well tell the man, she thought. She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.
'Mr. Johnson, I guess I've got another piece of news for you,' Clara said. She looked from the baby's face to his, seeking resemblances. It seemed to her the foreheads were the same, and though the child had little hair, the little was the same color as July's. He was not a badlooking man, just gaunt from his travels, and dirty. She had a notion
