take a letter to the boy. He had gone through life feeling that he had known what should be done, and now a woman flung it at him that he hadn't. He found that he could not easily forget a word Clara said. He could only trail the buggy down the lonely plains, her words stinging in his heart and head.
Before he reached Kansas, word had filtered ahead of him that a man was carrying a body home to Texas. The plain was filled with herds, for it was full summer. Cowboys spread the word, soldiers spread it. Several times he met trappers, coming east from the Rockies, or buffalo hunters who were finding no buffalo. The Indians heard- Pawnee and Arapahoe and Ogallala Sioux. Sometimes he would ride past parties of braves, their horses fat on spring grass, come to watch his journey. Some were curious enough to approach him, even to question him. Why did he not bury the
No, Call answered. Not a holy man. Beyond that he couldn't explain. He had come to feel that Augustus had probably been out of his mind at the end, though he hadn't looked it, and that he had been out of his mind to make the promise he had.
In one week in Kansas he ran into eight cattle herds-he would no sooner pass one than he encountered another. The only advantage to him was that the trail bosses were generous with wire and pliers. The Miles City buggy had been patched so many times that it was mostly wire by then, Call felt. He knew it would never make Texas, but he determined to keep going as long as he could-what he would do when it finally fell apart he didn't know.
Finally he was asked about Augustus and the purpose of his journey so many times that he couldn't tolerate it. He turned west into Colorado, meaning to skirt the main cattle trails. He was tired of meeting people. His only moments of peace came late in the day when he was too tired to think and was just bouncing along with Gus.
He rode through Denver, remembering that he had never sent Wilbarger's brother the telegram he had promised, notifying him of Wilbarger's death. It had been a year and he felt he owed Wilbarger that consideration, though he soon regretted coming into the town, a noisy place filled with miners and cattlemen. The sight of the buggy with the coffin excited such general curiosity that by the time he was out of the telegraph office a crowd had gathered. Call had scarcely walked out the door when an undertaker in a black hat and a blue bow tie approached him.
'Mister, you ain't nowhere near the graveyard,' the man said. He had even waxed his mustache and was altogether too shiny for Call's taste.
'I wasn't looking for it,' Call said, mounting. People were touching the coffin as if they had the right.
'We give a nice ten-dollar funeral,' the undertaker said. 'You could just leave the fellow with me and come pick out the gravestone at your leisure. Of course the gravestone's extra.'
'Not in the market,' Call said.
'Who is it, mister?' a boy asked.
'His name was McCrae,' Call said.
He was glad to put the town behind him, and thereafter took to driving at night to avoid people, though it was harder on the buggy, for he couldn't always see the bumps.
One night he felt the country was too rough for evening travel so he camped by the Purgatoire River, or Picketwire, as the cowboys called it. He heard the sound of an approaching horse and wearily picked up his rifle. It was only one horse. Dusk had not quite settled into night, and he could see the rider coming-a big man. The horse turned out to be a red mule and the big man Charles Goodnight. Call had known the famous cattleman since the Fifties, and they had ridden together a few times in the Frontier Regiment, before he and Gus were sent to the border. Call had never taken to the man-Goodnight was indifferent to authority, or at least unlikely to put any above his own-but he could not deny that the man had uncommon ability. Goodnight rode up to the campfire but did not dismount.
'I like to keep up with who's traveling the country,' he said. 'I admit I did not expect it to be you.'
'You're welcome to coffee,' Call said.
'I don't take much else at night,' he added.
'Hell, if I didn't take some grub in at night I'd starve,' Goodnight said. 'Usually too busy to eat breakfast.'
'You're welcome to get down then,' Call said.
'No, I'm too busy to do that either,' Goodnight said. 'I've got interests in Pueblo. Besides, I was never a man to sit around and gossip.
'I reckon that's McCrae,' he said, glancing at the coffin on the buggy.
'That's him,' Call said, dreading the questions that seemed to be inevitable.
'I owe him a debt for cleaning out that mangy bunch on the Canadian,' Goodnight said. 'I'd have soon had to do it myself, if he hadn't.'
'Well, he's past collecting debts,' Call said. 'Anyway he let that dern killer get away.'
'No shame to McCrae,' Goodnight said. 'I let the son of a bitch get away myself, and more than once, but a luckier man caught him. He butchered two families in the Bosque Redondo, and as he was leaving a deputy sheriff made a lucky shot and crippled his horse. They ran him down and mean to hang him in Santa Rosa next week. If you spur up you can see it.'
'Well, I swear,' Call said. 'You going?'
'No,' Goodnight said. 'I don't attend hangings, although I've presided over some, of the homegrown sort. This is the longest conversation I've had in ten years. Goodbye.'
Call took the buggy over Raton Pass and edged down into the great New Mexican plain. Though he had seen nothing but plains for a year, he was still struck by the immense reach of land that lay before him. To the north, there was still snow on the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo. He hurried to Santa Rosa, risking further damage to the wagon, only to discover that the hanging had been put back a week.
Everyone in the territory wanted to see Blue Duck hanged, it seemed. The little town was full of cowhands, with women and children sleeping in wagons. There was much argument, most of it in favor of hanging Blue Duck instantly lest he escape. Parties were constantly forming to present petitions to the sheriff, or else storm the jail, but the latter were unenthusiastic. Blue Duck had ranged the
Call took the opportunity to have a blacksmith completely rebuild the buggy. The blacksmith had lots of wagons to work on and took three days to get around to the buggy, but he let Call store the coffin in his back room, since it was attracting attention.
The only thing to do in town besides drink was to admire the new courthouse, three stories high and with a gallows at the top, from which Blue Duck would be hung. The courthouse had fine glass windows and polished floors.
Two days before the hanging was to take place, Call decided to go see the prisoner. He had already met the deputy who had crippled Blue Duck's horse. The man, whose name was Decker, was fat and stone drunk, leading Call to suspect that Goodnight had been right-the shot had been lucky. But every man in the Territory had insisted on buying the deputy a drink since then; perhaps he had been capable of sobriety before he became a hero. He was easily moved to sobs at the memory of his exploit, which he had recounted so many times that he was hoarse.
The sheriff, a balding man named Owensby, had of course heard of Call and was eager to show him the prisoner. The jail had only three cells, and Blue Duck was in the middle one, which had no window. The others had been cleared, minor culprits having simply been turned loose in order to lessen the chances that Blue Duck might somehow contrive an escape.
The minute Call saw the man he knew it was unlikely. Blue Duck had been shot in the shoulder and leg, and had a greasy rag wound around his forehead, covering another wound. Call had never seen a man so draped in chains. He was handcuffed; each leg was heavily chained; and the chains draped around his torso were bolted to the wall. Two deputies with Winchesters kept constant watch. Despite the chains and bars, Call judged that both were scared to death.
Blue Duck himself seemed indifferent to the furor outside. He was leaning back against the wall, his eyes half closed, when Call came in.
'What's he doing?' Sheriff Owensby asked. Despite all the precautions, he was so nervous that he had not been able to keep food down since the prisoner was brought in.
'Ain't doin' much,' one deputy said. 'What can he do?'
