'Just because you're in love with a whore don't mean I can't express my opinion,' Bert countered.
'You can express it and I can knock your dern teeth down your throat for you,' Dish said. 'Lorie didn't make Jake Spoon into no criminal.'
Bert had always considered that Dish had been awarded the tophand position unfairly, and he was not about to put up with such insolence from him. He took his gun belt off, and Dish did the same. They squared off, but didn't immediately proceed to fisticuffs. Each walked cautiously around the other, watching for an opening-their cautiousness provoked much jocularity in the onlookers.
'Look at them priss around,' Needle Nelson said. 'I used to have a rooster I'd match against either one of them.'
'It'll be winter before they hit the first lick at this rate,' Jasper said.
Dish finally leaped at Bert, but instead of boxing, the two men grappled and were soon rolling on the ground, neither gaining much of an advantage. Call had seen the men square off, and he loped over. When he got there they were rolling on the ground, both red in the face but doing one another no harm. He rode the Hell Bitch right up to them, and when they saw him they both stopped. He had it in his mind to dress them down, but the fact that the other hands were laughing at their ineffectual combat was probably all that was needed. Anyway, the men were natural rivals in ability and could be expected to puff up at some point. He turned and rode back out of camp without saying a word to them.
When he saw him go, Newt's heart sank. The Captain said less and less to him, or to anyone. Newt felt more and more of a need for Somebody to talk about Jake. He had been the Captain's friend, and Mr. Gus's. It didn't seem right that he could be killed and buried, and no more said.
It was Deets, finally, who understood and helped. Deets was good at mending things, and one night as he was mending Newt's bridle Newt said what was on his mind. 'I wish we could at least have taken him to jail,' Newt said.
'They'd hang him too,' Deets said. 'I 'spect he'd rather us did it.'
'I wish we hadn't even come,' Newt said. 'It's just too many people dying. I didn't think we'd ever kill Jake. It wasn't like an accident.
'If he didn't kill anybody, then it wasn't fair,' he added.
'Well, there was the horses, too,' Deets said.
'He only liked pacers,' Newt said. 'He wouldn't be bothered to steal horses as long as he had one to ride. Just being along didn't make him a horsethief.'
'It do to the Captain,' Deets said. 'It do to Mr. Gus.'
'They didn't even talk to him,' Newt said bitterly. 'They just hung him. They didn't even act like they were sorry.'
'They sorry,' Deets said. 'Saying won't change it. He's gone, don't worry about him. He's gone to the peaceful place.'
He put his hand for a moment on Newt's shoulder. 'You need to rest your mind,' he said. 'Don't worry about the sleepers.'
How do you stop? Newt wondered. It wasn't a thing he could forget. Pea Eye mentioned it as he would mention the weather, something natural that just happened and was over. Only for Newt it wasn't over. Every day it would rise in his mind and stay there until something distracted him.
Newt didn't know it, but Call, too, lived almost constantly with the thought of Jake Spoon. He felt half sick from thinking about it. He couldn't concentrate on the work at hand, and often if spoken to he wouldn't respond. He wanted somehow to move time backwards to a point where Jake could have been saved. Many times, in his thoughts, he managed to save Jake, usually by having made him stay with the herd. As the herd approached the Republican, Call's thoughts were back on the Brazos, where Jake had been allowed to go astray.
At night, alone, he grew bitter at himself for indulging in such pointless thoughts. It was like the business with Maggie that Gus harped on so. His mind tried to change it, have it different, but those too were pointless thoughts. Things thought and things said didn't make much difference and with Gus spending all his time with the woman there was very little said anyway. Sometimes Gus would come over and ride with him for a few miles, but they didn't discuss Jake Spoon. As such things went, it had been simple. He could remember hangings that had been harder: once they had to hang a boy for something his father had made him do.
When they sighted the Republican River Gus was with him. From a distance it didn't seem like much of a river. 'That's the one that got the Pumphrey boy, ain't it?' Augustus said. 'Hope it don't get none of us, we're a skinny outfit as it is.'
'We wouldn't be if you did any work,' Call said. 'Are you going to leave her in Ogallala or what?'
'Are you talking about Lorie or this mare I'm riding?' Augustus asked. 'If it's Lorie, it wouldn't kill you to use her name.'
'I don't see that it matters,' Call said, though even as he said it he remembered that it had seemed to matter to Maggie-she had wanted to hear him say her name.
'You've got a name,' Augustus said. 'Don't it matter to you, whether people use it?'
'Not much,' Call said.
'No, I guess it wouldn't,' Augustus said. 'You're so sure you're right it doesn't matter to you whether people talk to you at all. I'm glad I've been wrong enough to keep in practice.'
'Why would you want to keep in practice being wrong?' Call asked. 'I'd think it would be something you'd try to avoid.'
'You can't avoid it, you've got to learn to handle it,' Augustus said. 'If you only come face to face with your own mistakes once or twice in your life it's bound to be extra painful. I face mine every day-that way they ain't usually much worse than a dry shave.'
'Anyway, I hope you leave her,' Call said. 'We might get in the Indians before we get to Montana.'
'I'll have to see,' Augustus said. 'We've grown attached. I won't leave her unless I'm sure she's in good hands.'
'Are you aiming to marry?'
'I could do worse,' Augustus said. 'I've done worse twice, in fact. However, matrimony's a big step and we ain't discussed it.'
'Of course, you ain't seen the other one yet,' Call said.
'That one's got a name too-Clara,' Augustus pointed out. 'You are determined not to use names for females. I'm surprised you even named your mare.'
'Pea Eye named her,' Call said. It was true. Pea Eye had done it the first time she bit him.
That afternoon they swam the Republican without losing an animal. At supper afterward, Jasper Fant's spirits were high-he had built up an unreasoning fear of the Republican River and felt that Once he crossed it he could count on living practically forever. He felt so good he even danced an impromptu jig.
'You've missed your calling, Jasper,' Augustus said, highly amused by this display. 'You ought to try dancing in whorehouses-you might pick up a favor or two that you otherwise couldn't afford.'
'Reckon the Captain will let us go to town once we get to Nebraska?' Needle asked. 'It seems like a long time since there's been a town.'
'If he don't, I think I'll marry a heifer,' Bert said.
Po Campo sat with his back against a wagon wheel, jingling his tambourine.
'It's going to get dry,' he said.
'Fine,' Soupy replied. 'I got wet enough down about the Red to last me forever.'
'It's better to be wet than dry,' Po Campo said. Usually cheerful, he had fallen into a somber mood.
'It ain't if you drown,' Pea Eye observed.
'There won't be much to cook when it gets dry,' Po said.
Newt and the Rainey boys had begun to talk of whores. Surely the Captain would let them go to town with the rest of the crew when they hit Ogallala. The puzzling thing was how much a whore might cost. The talk around the wagon was never very specific on that score. The Rainey boys were constantly tallying up their wages and trying to calculate whether they would be sufficient. What made it complicated was that they had played cards for credit the whole way north. The older hands had done the same, and the debts were complicated. As the arrival in Ogallala began to dominate their thoughts almost entirely, the question of cash was constantly discussed, and many debts discounted on the promise of actual money.
