Clara nodded and went back to packing the picnic basket. 'If that was all you accomplished you could have done it in Ogallala and been a friend to me,' she said. 'I lost three boys, Gus. I needed a friend.'
'You ought to wrote me that, then,' he said. 'I didn't know.'
Clara's mouth tightened. 'I hope I meet a man sometime in my life who can figure such things out,' she said. 'I wrote you but I tore up the letters. I figured if you didn't come of your own accord you wouldn't be no good to me anyway.'
'Well, you was married,' he said, not knowing why he bothered to argue.
'I was never so married but what I could have managed a friend,' she said. 'I want you to look at Bob before you go. The poor man's laid up there for two months, wasting away.'
The anger had died out of her eyes. She came and sat down in a chair, looking at him in the intent way she had, as if reading in his face the events of the fifteen years he had spent away from her.
'Where'd you get Miss Wood?' she asked.
'She's been in Lonesome Dove a while,' he said.
'Doing what?'
'Doing what she could, but don't you hold it against her,' he said.
Clara looked at him coolly. 'I don't judge women that harsh,' she said. 'I might have done the same under some circumstances.'
'I doubt it,' he said.
'Yes, but you don't know as much about women as you like to think you do,' Clara said. 'You're overrated in that regard.'
'By God, you're sassy,' Augustus said.
Clara just smiled, her old beguiling smile. 'I'm honest,' she said. 'To most men, that's sassy.'
'Well, it might interest you to know that Lorie started this trip with your old friend Jake Spoon,' Augustus said. 'He was his usual careless self and let her get kidnapped by a real rough man.'
'Oh, so you rescued her?' Clara said. 'No wonder she worships you. What happened to Jake?'
'He met a bad end,' Augustus said. 'We hung him. He was with a gang of murderers.'
Clara didn't flinch at the news. She heard the girls coming back down the stairs. Lorena was carrying the baby. Clara stood up so Lorena could sit. The baby's eyes followed her.
'Betsey, go find July and the men and ask them if they want to wash up before we go,' she said.
'I doubt you can get Woodrow Call to go to your picnic,' Augustus said. 'He'll be wanting to get back to work.'
But Call went. He had come back to the house, still trying to think of a way to talk Clara down on the horses, only to find the girls loading a small wagon, Lorena holding a baby, and Gus carrying a crock of buttermilk.
'Could you drive for us, Captain?' Clara asked, handing him the reins to the little mule team before he could answer. With such a crowd there watching he couldn't muster a protest, and he drove the little wagon three miles west on the Platte to a place where there were a few small cottonwoods.
'It ain't as nice as our place on the Guadalupe, Gus, but it's the best we can do,' Clara said.
'Oh, your orchard, you mean,' Augustus said.
Clara looked puzzled for a moment-she had forgotten that that was what they called the picnic spot on the Guadalupe.
The day remained fair, and the picnic was a great success for everyone except Captain Call and July Johnson, both of whom felt awkward and merely waited for it to be over. The girls tried to get July to wade in the Platte, but he resisted solemnly. Newt waded, and then Lorena, rolling up her pants, and Lorena and Betsey walked far downstream, out of sight of the party. The baby dozed in the shade, while Clara and Augustus bantered. The sixteen-year gap in their communications proved no hindrance at all. Then Augustus rolled up his pants and waded with the girls, while Clara and Lorena watched. All the food was consumed, Call drinking about half the buttermilk himself. He had always loved buttermilk and had not had any for a long time.
'You don't plan on returning to Arkansas, Mr. Johnson?' he asked.
'I don't know that I will,' July said. In fact, he had given no thought to his future at all.
Augustus ate most of the fried chicken and marveled at how comfortable Lorena seemed to be. She liked the girls, and seeing her with them reminded him that she was not much more than a girl herself, despite her experiences. He knew that she had been advanced too quickly into life, though perhaps not so far to yet enjoy a bit of girlhood.
When it came time to go back to the ranch he helped Lorie into the wagon with the girls, and he and Clara walked behind. Newt, who had enjoyed the picnic mightily, fell into conversation with Sally and rode beside the wagon. Lorena didn't seem concerned-she and Betsey had taken to one another at once, and were chatting happily.
'You should leave that girl here,' Clara said, startling Augustus. He had been thinking the same thing.
'I doubt she'd stay,' he said.
'If you stay out of it she might,' Clara said. 'I'll ask her. You have no business taking a girl like that into Montana. She might not survive.'
'In some ways she ain't so young,' he said.
'I like her,' Clara said, ignoring him. 'I expect you'll marry her and I'll have to watch you have five or six babies in your old age. I guess I'd be annoyed, but I could live with it. Don't take her up to Montana. She'll either die or get killed, or else she'll age before her time, like I have.'
'I can't tell that you've aged much,' Augustus said.
'You've just been around me one day,' Clara said. 'There's certain things I can still do and certain things I'm finished with.'
'What things are you finished with?' he asked.
'You'd find out if you stayed around me much,' Clara said.
'I notice you've taken a fancy to young Mr. Johnson,' Augustus said. 'I expect if I did stay around he'd beat me out.'
'He's nearly as dull as Woodrow Call, but he's nicer,' Clara said. 'He'll do what he's told, mostly, and I've come to appreciate that quality in a man. I could never count on you to do what you're told.'
'So do you aim to marry him?'
'No, that's one of the things I'm through with,' Clara said. 'Of course I ain't quite-poor Bob ain't dead. But if he passes away, I'm through with it.'
Clara smiled. Augustus chuckled. 'I hope you ain't contemplating an irregular situation,' he said.
Clara smiled. 'What's irregular about having a boarder?' she asked. 'Lots of widows take boarders. Anyway, he likes my girls better than he likes me. He might be ready to marry again by the time Sally's of age.'
At that moment Sally was chattering away to young Newt, who was getting his first taste of conversation with a sprightly young lady.
'Who's his mother?' Clara asked. She liked the boy's looks, and also his manners. 'I never knew Call was prone to ladies,' she added.
'Oh, Woodrow ain't,' Augustus said. 'He can barely stand to be within fifty yards of you.'
'I know that,' Clara said. 'He's been stiff all day because I won't bargain away my horses. My price is my price. But that boy's his, and don't you tell me he ain't. They walk alike, they stand alike, and they look alike.'
'I expect you're right,' Augustus said.
'Yes, I'm right,' Clara said. 'You ain't answered my question.'
'His mother was a woman named Maggie,' he said. 'She was a whore. She died when Newt was six.'
'I like that boy,' Clara said. 'I'd keep him too, if I got the chance. He's about the age my Jimmy would be, if Jimmy had lived.'
'Newt's a fine boy,' Augustus said.
'It's a miracle, ain't it, when one grows up nice,' Clara said. 'He's got a quiet way, that boy. I like that. It's surprising to find gentle behavior when his father is Captain Call.'
'Oh, Newt don't know Call's his father,' Augustus said. 'I expect he's heard hints, but he don't know it.'
'And Call don't claim him, when anybody can see it?' Clara said, shocked. 'I never had much opinion of Call, and now I have less.'
'Call don't like to admit mistakes,' Augustus said. 'It's his way.'
