'I was just enjoying the summer for a minute,' Clara said.
'Well, you're always telling us how much you hate to serve cold food,' Betsey said.
Clara looked at her daughter for a moment and then went up the steps.
'Come on, July,' she said. 'These girls mean to see that we keep up our standards.'
He put the rifle back in the saddle scabbard and followed her into the house.
83.
AS THE HERD wound across the brown prairies toward the Platte, whoring became the only thing the men could talk about. Of course, they always liked to talk about it, but there had been sections of the drive when they occasionally mentioned other things-the weather, cards, the personalities of horses, trials and tribulations of the past. After Jake's death they had talked a good deal about the vagaries of justice, and what might cause a pleasant man to go bad. Once in a while they might talk about their families, although that usually ended with everyone getting homesick. Though a popular subject, it was tricky to handle.
By the time they were within a week of Ogallala, all subjects other than whoring were judged to be superfluous. Newt and the Rainey boys were rather surprised. They were interested in whoring too, in a vague sort of way, but listening to the grown men talk at night, or during almost any stop, they concluded there must be more to whoring than they had imagined. Getting to visit a whore quickly came to seem the most exciting prospect life had to offer.
'What if the Captain don't even want to stop in Ogallala?' Lippy asked, one night. 'He ain't much of a stopper.'
'Nobody's asking
'I don't guess he likes whores,' Lippy said. 'He didn't come in the saloon much, that I remember.'
Jasper was impatient with Lippy's pessimism. Any suggestion that they might not get to visit Ogallala was extremely upsetting to him.
'Can't you shut up?' he said. 'We don't care what the Captain does. We just want to be let off.'
Po Campo was also likely to dampen the discussion, once he was free from his cooking chores.
'I think you should all go to the barber and forget these whores,' he added. 'They will just take your money, and what will you get for it?'
'Something nice,' Needle said.
'A haircut will last you a month, but what you get from the whores will only last a moment,' Po remarked. 'Unless she gives you something you don't want.'
From the heated responses that ensued, Newt gathered that whores sometimes were not simply givers of pleasure. Diseases apparently sometimes resulted, although no one was very specific about them.
Po Campo was unshakable. He kept plugging for the barbershop over the whorehouse.
'If you think I'd rather have a haircut than a whore you're crazy as a June bug,' Jasper said.
Newt and the Raineys left the more abstruse questions to others and spent most of their time trying to reckon the economics of a visit to town. The summer days were long and slow, the herd placid, the heat intense. Just having Ogallala to think about made the time pass quicker.
Occasionally one of the Raineys would ride over by Newt to offer some new speculation. 'Soupy says they take off their clothes,' Ben Rainey said, one day.
Newt had once seen a Mexican girl who had pulled up her skirt to wade in the Rio Grande. She wore nothing under the skirt. When she noticed he was watching she merely giggled. Often, after that, he had slipped down to the river when nothing much was happening, hoping to see her cross again. But he never had; that one glimpse was all he had to go on when it came to naked women. He had run it through his mind so many times it was hardly useful.
'I guess that costs a bunch,' he said.
''Bout a month's wages,' Jimmy Rainey speculated.
Late one afternoon Deets rode in to report that the Platte was only ten miles ahead. Everyone in camp let out a whoop.
'By God, I wonder which way town is,' Soupy said. 'I'm ready to go.'
Call knew the men were boiling to get to town. Though he had brought happy news, Deets himself seemed subdued. He had not been himself since Jake's hanging.
'You feeling poorly?' Call asked.
'Don't like this north,' Deets said.
'It's good grazing country,' Call remarked.
'Don't like it,' Deets said. 'The light's too thin.'
Deets had a faraway look in his eye. It puzzled Call. The man had been cheerful through far harder times. Now Call would often see him sitting on his horse, looking south, across the long miles they had come. At breakfast, sometimes, Call would catch him staring into the fire the way old animals stared before they died-as if looking across into the other place. The look in Deets's eyes unsettled Call so much that he mentioned it to Augustus. He rode over to the tent one evening. Gus was sitting on a saddle blanket, barefoot, trimming his corns with a sharp pocketknife. The woman was not in sight, but Call stopped a good distance from the tent so as not to disturb her.
'If you want to talk to me you'll have to come a little closer,' Augustus said. 'I ain't walking that far barefooted.'
Call dismounted and walked over to him. 'I don't know what's the matter with Deets,' he said.
'Well, Deets is sensitive,' Augustus said. 'Probably you hurt his feelings in your blunt way.'
'I didn't hurt his feelings,' Call said. 'I always try to be especially good to Deets. He's the best man we got.'
'Best man we've ever had,' Augustus said. 'Maybe he's sick.'
'No,' Call said.
'I hope he ain't planning to leave us,' Augustus said. 'I doubt the rest of us could even find the water holes.'
'He says he don't like the north,' Call said. 'That's all he'll say.'
'I hear we strike the Platte tomorrow,' Augustus said. 'All the boys are ready to go off and catch social diseases.'
'I know it,' Call said. 'I'd just as soon miss this town, but we do need supplies.'
'Let them boys go off and hurrah a little,' Augustus said. 'It might be their last chance.'
'Why would it be their last chance?'
'Old Deets might know something,' Augustus said. 'Since he's so sensitive. 'We might all get killed by Indians in the next week or two.'
'I doubt that,' Call said. 'You ain't much more cheerful than he is.'
'No,' Augustus said. He knew they were not far from Clara's house, a fact which made Lorena extremely nervous.
'What will you do with me?' she had asked. 'Leave me in the tent when you go see her?'
'No, ma'am,' he said. 'I'll take you along and introduce you properly. You ain't just baggage, you know. Clara probably don't see another woman once a month. She'll be happy for feminine conversation.'
'She may know what I am, though,' Lorena said.
'Yes, she'll know you're a human being,' Augustus said. 'You don't have to duck your head to nobody. Half the women in this country probably started out like you did, working in saloons.'
'She didn't,' Lorena said. 'I bet she was always a lady. That's why you wanted to marry her.'
Augustus chuckled. 'A lady can slice your jugular as quick as a Comanche,' he said. 'Clara's got a sharp tongue. She's tomahawked me many a time in the past.'
'I'll be afraid to meet her, then,' Lorena said. 'I'll be afraid of what she'll say.'
'Oh, she'll be polite to you,' Augustus assured her. 'I'm the one that will have to watch my step.'
