Soul Catcher (43 page)

^{Though all he said was, "It becomes you."}

^{"I'll go take it off now."}

^{"No, wear it," Cain said. "Throw those other rags away."}

^"Why?"

^{"Because it looks good on you."}

^{She pursed her mouth cynically and stared hard at him. "You wantin' Mr. Eberly to see he got his money's worth when you bring me back?"}

^{"No," he said peevishly, in part because he knew she was right. "I just thought you could use it."}

^{"It wasn't on account you wanted to show me off to him?"}

^{"Take the damn thing off if you want," he snapped at her. "Throw it away for all I care. I was just trying to do you a kindness."}

^{She stared across at him. Finally, she said, "I shouldn'ta said that. Thank you."}

^{He nodded grudgingly.}

^{Later, after they'd eaten, they sat quietly near the fire. Rosetta worked on plaiting her hair while he sat there oiling his gun, though it didn't need for oiling. The silence between them solidified, grew dense as molasses. He wondered what had caused it, then realized what it was--the dress. Rosetta acted differently in it, moved differently, tentatively, not as innocently or naturally, as if it had made her feel different, self-conscious in a way she'd not been before. And somehow he felt different, too, around her. More so even than his having seen her naked or realizing she was pregnant, or the business with Preacher, they were now both aware of the other's physical presence in a way they had not been before. He wondered if the dress had been such a good idea.}

^{"You think they'll catch Henry?" she asked after a while, more to break the silence than anything else.}

^{"I reckon so," he replied, looking up from his gun. "You sure he didn't say anything to you about where he was going?"}

^{"Not a word. I wouldn't a tole you anyhow. I ain't a blabbermouth like him."}

^{"Eberly was of the opinion Henry and you ran off together."}

^{"We run off at the same time, not together."}

^{"Eberly was very concerned that Henry might have done something with you."}

^{"Huh! You think I let that nigger touch me? But maybe I should of. That would rile him good. He wouldn't want nobody gettin' what was his."}

^{Cain glanced across the fire at her. He watched her plaiting her hair, deftly weaving it with her fingers. He had always told himself his business was just to bring them back, safe and sound. To get paid and be on his way. What happened to them after that was not his concern. They could run away again for all he cared; in fact, that suited him just fine, for then he could go off and catch them again and make more money, which had happened more than a few times.}

^{Despite telling himself not to, he asked, "What do you think Eberly'll do with you?"}

^{She drew her lips taut but didn't say anything.}

^{"You cost him a pretty penny," he said to her. "Not to mention the inconvenience and the worry."}

^{"Worry?" she snorted.}

^{"He was plenty worried, all right."}

^{"That man just used to gettin' what he wants."}

^{Again he asked, "What do you think he'll do with you?"}

^{"Ain't no concern of yours. You'll get your money, don't you worry."}

^{"I'm just asking is all."}

^{She lifted her shoulders and let them drop mechanically. "He don't like to be disrespected."}

^{"I saw that. Will he punish you?"}

^{"He won't lay a hand on me. That ain't his manner. But he'll get even, one way or the other."}

^{"What of the child?"}

^{"I don't like to think about it."}

^{"Maybe this time he wants it, too. He said you stole something of value of his."}

^{"What I stole from him was me," she said. "It's
me
he wants back."}

^{"But it's his child, as well."}

^{He saw the muscle in her jaw knotting itself. As he watched, he saw tears squeeze out at the corners of her eyes and slide down her face. It was the first time he'd seen her cry, and he could tell it was something that cost her a great deal.}

^{"All right if I go down and wash myself?" she asked.}

^{Cain nodded. He finished oiling his gun and put it away in his holster. The night had gotten cooler and his leg began to act up. He took off his boots and lifted his pant leg and began to massage his calf. When Rosetta returned, she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and sat opposite him.}

^{"Where'd you get them scars, Cain?"}

^{"The war."}

^"Lordy."

^{From his pocket, he removed the bottle of laudanum, pulled out the cork stopper with his teeth, and took a sip, feeling the numbing warmth fan sweetly out inside him.}

^{"Don't you know that stuff ain't no good for you, Cain?"}

^{"It takes the pain away."}

^{"Sometimes pain's a good thing."}

^{"It always struck me as something to be avoided."}

^{"It makes you know you're livin'." He thought then of what the young Indian girl had done to his hand when he thought he was dead, squeezing the flesh so that he felt the pain of being alive.}

^{"How'd you get started on that?" Rosetta asked.}

^{"It's a long and not particularly interesting story."}

^{"Ain't got nothin' better to do."}

^{Cain looked across at her, her eyes watery and diffuse now from her having been crying. He took another swig, stoppered the bottle, and put it away in his pocket. He'd never told anyone about the war before. In part because he was embarrassed by his desertion,
both
of his desertions: his running off
to
the war and then his running
from
it. But then he thought,
What the hell.
In a couple of days, she would be back to her life and he would be heading out west and they'd never see each other again.}

^{* * *}

^{S
o he told her about the war, the battle of Buena Vista, how the Mexicans sent wave after wave of men to their deaths. He told her how easy it was to kill a man, just about the easiest thing he'd ever done. How finally he'd been hit by grapeshot and then waking up and listening as the wounded around him were executed by the enemy. How he thought he'd be next, and only by a stroke of luck had they stopped before they got to him. How he'd been able to crawl off behind a rock. How the Indian girl appeared out of nowhere and brought him to her hut up in the mountains and nursed him back to health. How he'd foolishly felt the call of duty and turned himself in and the months he'd spent in prison. How it was the doctor there who gave all the wounded laudanum. How he'd come to depend on it like a nursing calf does a teat. He told it all to her. All except for what he'd felt for the girl and what had become of her.}

^{Rosetta, however, must have sensed that he'd held back something. When he was done talking, she looked across the fire at him and a vague smile played across her mouth.}

^{"What?" he asked.}

^{"The girl?" she said.}

^{"What of her?"}

^{"You didn't say what happened to her? Did you go back there?"}

^{"Yes," he replied. "When I got out of prison. She was already dead by then."}

^"How?"

^{"They killed her. The Mexicans."}

^"Why?"

^{"For befriending the gringoes."}

^{"And what did you do?"}

^{"How do you know I did anything?"}

^{"You ain't the sort of man let something like that go."}

^{He nodded. "I found one of the men responsible for her death. A priest. It was him that got the townspeople riled up. I went into the church when he was praying and slit his throat."}

^{"You killed a man of God?"}

^{"He wasn't a man of God. Any more than that fellow today was. If there's a hell, he's got a front-row seat."}

^{"Then what'd you do?"}

^{"I left Mexico."}

^{"You never went back home?"}

^{"Couldn't. Not after what I did. And, like I told you, my father had disowned me."}

^{"Tha's right. You suppose to marry that rich woman but you run away."}

^{He nodded.}

^{"You love that Indian girl?"}

^{"No," he lied. "It was just something that happened."}

^{"But you blamed yourself for her death, didn't you?"}

^{"I suppose," he said, staring into the fire until he could almost see the girl's face in the flames staring back at him. "She wouldn't have died if I hadn't come into her life. Or if I had stayed."}

^{"You don't know that for sure."}

^{"Maybe I could've protected her."}

^{"Some things you can't protect against."}

^{"I could've tried. I could've at least died trying."}

^{"Sometimes dying is the easy way out. Sometimes it harder to go on living."}

^{He shrugged, unconvinced.}

^{"Lookit me, Cain. I tried to protect my chile and no matter what I done, it wasn't no use. Sometimes things's just gonna happen, and they ain't nothin' you can do about it. And the only thing you can do is keep on livin'."}

^{He wasn't sure if she meant her first child or this one she was carrying. Or whether she was talking about her trying to escape and his bringing her back. And then he decided it didn't really matter. He felt suddenly exhausted, as if all the weeks of journeying, all the nights sleeping on the damp ground, the long days in the saddle, the rain and snow and cold, the fights with Preacher and with her, being shot at and knifed and the near drowning--as if all of it had only, right at that moment, caught up with him. He felt old and dried up and worn down, felt like a man who had traversed a great desert, and when he'd reached what he thought was the other side discovered only more desert, that it went on endlessly. He was tired of all this, tired of hunting runaways, tired of dealing with men like Eberly. Tired of the whole bloody thing.}