odd things, all except you. I don't think you ever wanted to be happy anyway. It don't suit you, so you managed to avoid it.'
'That's silly,' Call said.
'It ain't, either,' Augustus said. 'I don't guess I've watched you punish yourself for thirty years to be totally wrong about you. I just don't know what you done to deserve the punishment.'
'You've got a strange way of thinking,' Call said.
They had hardly ridden three miles from the grove when they spotted a little camp at the foot of a limestone bluff. It was near a pool and a few trees.
'I bet that's Jake,' Call said.
'No, it's just Lorie,' Augustus said. 'She's resting by a tree. I bet J ake's gone to town and left her.'
Call looked again, but the camp was half a mile away and all he could see was the horses and the pack mule. Throughout his years as a Ranger, Augustus had always been renowned for his remarkable eyesight. Time and again, on the high plains and in the Pecos country, it had been proven that he could see farther than other people. In the shimmering mirages the men were always mistaking sage bushes for Indians. Call himself could shade his eyes and squint and still not be certain, but Augustus would merely glance at the supposed Indian for a moment, laugh and go back to card playing or whiskey drinking or whatever he might be doing.
'Yep, that's a big tribe of sage bushes,' he would say.
Pea, particularly, stood in awe of Augustus's vision, his own being notably weak. Sometimes on a hunt Augustus would try in vain to show Pea Eye an antelope or a deer.
'I might could see it if we could get closer,' Pea would say.
'Pea, I don't know what keeps you from riding off a cliff,' Augustus responded. 'If we get closer the animal will just get farther.'
'Let's hire Lorie to cook,' Augustus said.
'Let's don't,' Call said. 'Bring her into that camp and there'd be fights ever day, even if she was a decent woman.'
'I don't know why you're so down on whores, Woodrow,' Augustus said. 'You had yours, as I remember.'
'Yes, that was my mistake,' Call said, annoyed that Gus would bring it up.
'It ain't a mistake to behave like a human being once in a while,' Augustus said. 'Poor Maggie got her heart broke, but she gave you a fine son before she quit.'
'You don't know that and I don't want to talk about it,' Call said. 'He could be yours, or Jake's, or some damn gambler's.'
'Yes, but he ain't, he's yours,' Augustus said. 'Anybody with a good eye can see it. Besides, Maggie told me. She and I were good friends.'
'I don't know about friends,' Call said. 'I'm sure you were a good customer.'
'The two can overlap,' Augustus pointed out, well aware that his friend was not happy to have such a subject broached. Call had been secretive about it when it was happening and had been even more secretive about it since.
When they rode into the little camp, Lorena was sitting under the tree, quietly watching them. She had evidently just bathed in the pool, for her long blond hair was wet. Once in a while she squeezed water off a strand with her fingers. She had a bruise below one eye.
''I god, Lorie, it looks like an easy life,' Augustus said. 'You got your own swimming hole. Where's Jake?'
'He went to town,' Lorena said. 'He's done been gone two days.'
'Must be in a good game,' Augustus said. 'Jake will play for a week if he's ahead.'
Call thought it was unconscionable to leave any woman alone that long in such rough country.
'When do you expect him back?' he asked.
'He said he wasn't coming back,' Lorena said. 'He left mad. He's been mad the whole way up here. He said I could have the horse and the mule and go where I pleased.'
'I doubt he meant it,' Augustus said. 'What do you think?'
'He'll be back,' Lorena said.
Call was not so sure. Jake had never been one to load himself with responsibilities unnecessarily.
To his annoyance, Gus got down and hitched his horse to a bush. Then he unsaddled.
'I thought you was going to Austin,' Call said.
'Woodrow, you go,' Augustus said. 'I ain't in the mood for city life just now. I'll stay here and play cards with Lorie until that scamp shows up.'
Call was very annoyed. One of Gus's worst traits was an inability to stick to a plan. Call might spend all night working out a strategy, and Augustus might go along with it for ten minutes and then lose patience and just do whatever came into his mind. Of course, going into town to hire a cook was no great project, but it was still irritating that Gus would just drop off. But Call knew it was pointless to argue.
'Well, I hope you get back to the herd tonight, in case I'm late,' he said. 'There should be somebody with some experience around.'
'Oh, I don't know,' Augustus said. 'It's time that outfit got a little practice in doing without us. They probably think the sun won't come up unless you're there to allow it.'
Rather than re-argue yet another old argument, Call turned the Hell Bitch. Even experienced men were apt to flounder badly in crises if they lacked leadership. He had seen highly competent men stand as if paralyzed in a crisis, though once someone took command and told them what to do they might perform splendidly. A loose group like the Hat Creek outfit wouldn't even know how to decide who was to decide, if both he and Gus were gone.
He put the Hell Bitch into a lope-it was a pleasure to watch the easy way the mare ate up the miles. With such a horse under him he could soon forget most of his vexations.
Then, for no reason, between one stride and the next, the Hell Bitch suddenly rolled out of her easy gait into a flying buck. Call was riding along relaxed and, before he could even jerk her head up, he lost a stirrup and knew he was thrown. Well, goddamn you, you finally got me, he thought, and a second later was on the ground. But he had taken a wrap around his hand with one rein and held on, hoping the rein wouldn't snap. The rein held, and Call got to his feet and caught the other rein.
'Well, your little plan failed,' he said to the mare. He knew that with a little better luck she would have been loose and gone. She didn't fight at all when he remounted, and she showed no sign of wanting to buck anymore. Call kept her in a trot for a mile or two before letting her go back to the lope. He didn't expect her to try it again. She was too intelligent to waste her energies at a time when she knew he would be set for trouble. Somehow she had sensed that he had his mind on other things when she exploded. In a way it pleased him-he had never cared for totally docile horses. He liked an animal that was as alert as he was-or, in the mare's case, even more alert. She had been aware of his preoccupations, whereas he had had no inkling of her intentions.
Now she was content to ignore her own failure, but he had no doubt that if she judged the time to be right she would try again. He decided to find some braided horsehair reins when he got to Austin-the thin leather rein he was using could easily have snapped. Braided horsehair would give him an advantage if he got thrown again, and he had never been exceptional at riding bucking horses.
'You try what you like,' he said. He had begun, more and more, to talk out loud to her when they were alone. 'I'll tell you this: I aim to ride you across the Yellowstone, and if I don't it'll be because one of us gets killed first.'
The gray mare loped on toward Austin, once again easily eating up the miles.
45.
LORENA WAS AMUSED that Gus had stopped. He was not a man to miss a chance. If he thought to trick her again, he would have to work hard at it, but she was relieved to have him stay. The two days since Jake had left were wearisome. Although she knew he would come back in time, she was less and less certain that it mattered, for Jake had taken a grudge against her and she suspected he would be slow to give it up. It was puzzling to her, thinking back on it, why she had been so quick to trust him. Somehow he had convinced her he was the answer to all her problems. She had felt an overpowering feeling of need and trust when he had sat down and began talking to
