Streets of Laredo: A Novel (2 page)

"I'll stroll over to the hotel and pick up that valise." "Grateful," was all Brookshire could say.

What he really wanted to do was crawl under the seat, but of course, that would be impossible-- anyway, the railroad car had walls. He wasn't going to blow away.

A few minutes later, Captain Call came walking in with the valise and with his own saddle and duffle roll. He sat down across from Brookshire as if nothing untoward had happened.

But Brookshire knew that something had happened-- something very untoward. He was embarrassed and also deeply grateful to the Captain. Not only had he guided him onto the train and then walked two hundred yards out of his way to fetch the valise, but he had done both things politely. He hadn't asked Brookshire why he couldn't walk a hundred yards and tote his own baggage; he just accepted that it was an impossibility and put him on the train without a fuss.

Brookshire worked for people who never let him forget that he was an underling. Captain Call hadn't been especially friendly when they met that morning, but he hadn't treated Brookshire as an underling. When he noticed that a crisis was occurring, he had dealt with it efficiently and with no evident feelings of contempt for Brookshire's weakness.

It was exceptional behavior, in Brookshire's view. He had met with a good deal of exceptional behavior in his years with Colonel Terry, but most of it had been exceptionally bad. He was not used to decent treatment, but he had received it from Captain Call. When his heart finally stopped pounding, he took another look at the man who sat across the aisle from him.

Call was smoking. If he even remembered that something out of the ordinary had happened on the railroad platform, he gave no sign.

The train started and they were soon cutting a narrow furrow through the endless miles of prairie.

The stiff wind was still blowing, ruffling the surface of the sea of grass.

"Does your hat ever blow off, Captain?" Brookshire asked.

"Rarely," Call said.

"You see, I've got mine trained," he added, looking over at the man from Brooklyn.

"You're new to these parts--it takes you a while to get yours trained just right." "I doubt mine will ever be trained--I'll probably have to chase it all over Texas," Brookshire said.

Then, relaxing, he fell asleep. When he awoke and looked out the window, there was nothing to see but grass. Captain Call seemed not to have moved. He was still smoking. The stock of a rifle protruded from his duffle roll. Brookshire felt glad Call was there. It was a long way to San Antonio--if he had no one to share the ride with, he might get the blowing-away feeling again. Probably, after all, his superiors had been right in their choice of bandit killers. Most likely Captain Call could do the job.

"How long have you been a lawman, Captain?" he inquired, to be polite.

Call didn't turn his head.

"I ain't a lawman," he said. "I work for myself." After that, a silence grew.

Brookshire felt rather as he felt when he went to a dance. Somehow he had stepped off on the wrong foot.

"Well, you picked an exciting line of work, I'd have to say," he said.

Captain Call didn't answer.

Brookshire felt at a loss. He began to regret having made the remark--he began to regret having spoken at all. He sighed.

The Captain still said nothing. Brookshire realized he didn't know much about Texans.

Perhaps they just weren't inclined to conversation.

Certainly Captain Call didn't appear to be much inclined to it. He didn't appear to be excited about his line of work, either.

Brookshire began to miss Katie, his wife. Katie wasn't lavish with her conversation, either. A month might pass with the two of them scarcely exchanging more than three or four words.

But the plains outside the window were vast and empty. The wind was still blowing, rippling and sometimes flattening the top of the grass.

Brookshire began to wish, very much, that he could go home to Brooklyn. If only he were in Brooklyn and not in Texas, he might not feel so low. If he were in Brooklyn, he felt sure he would be sitting with Katie, in their cozy kitchen. Katie might not say much, but in their cozy kitchen, the wind never blew.

Lorena woke to the sound of the baby coughing.

Pea Eye was up walking her, trying to get her quiet. For a minute or two, Lorena let him: she felt too sad to move--sad, or mad, or a mixture; even without a sick child she was apt to feel that way on nights before Pea Eye had to leave.

"I guess she's croupy," Pea Eye said.

"Give her to me," Lorena said. Wearily, she propped up a little, took the baby, and gave her the breast.

"It's not the croup, it's that dry cough--you ought to recognize the difference by now," Lorena said.

"The boys all had the same cough--Clarie didn't have it." As she said it she heard Clarie go past their bedroom, on her way to milk. Clarie was the oldest; at fifteen she already had more energy than most grown men, and she didn't have to be told to do the chores. Even Pea Eye admitted that there were days when his Clarie could outwork him, and Pea Eye was neither lazy nor weak.

"I guess I'm just the worrying kind," Pea Eye said, relieved that the baby had stopped coughing, if only in order to nurse.

"There's other diseases children can have besides croup," Lorena reminded him.

"Seems like every time I have to leave, someone around here is sick," Pea Eye said. "I'll be dreary company for the Captain, worrying about you and the children." He would worry about them, Lorena felt sure, but right at the moment what he wanted was sympathy, and right at the moment, sympathy was the last thing she was in the mood to give him.

"You're the one going off to get shot at," she reminded him--there was anger in her voice; she couldn't suppress it.

"Clarie and I can take care of things here," she said. "If we have trouble the neighbors will help us--I'm their only schoolteacher. They'll fetch me a doctor if Laurie gets worse." When the little girl finished nursing, Lorena held her out to Pea Eye. He took her with him to the kitchen--he needed to get the coffee started.

It was a four-hour trot to the railroad where he was supposed to meet the Captain. He needed to be on his way soon. But when he tried to saucer his coffee--he had long ago formed the habit of drinking his coffee from a saucer-- Laurie wiggled, causing him to pour too hard.

Most of the coffee splashed out. When Lorena came into the kitchen Pea Eye was looking for a rag. He needed to wipe up his spill.

"I wish you'd learn to drink coffee out of a cup, like the rest of us," Lorena said.

"It's just a habit I got into when I was rangering," Pea Eye said. "I didn't have no babies to hold in those days. I could concentrate better. I was just a bachelor most of my life --same as the Captain is." "You were never the same as the Captain is," Lorena informed him. She took the baby and scooted a chair well back from the table, so coffee wouldn't drip on her gown.

"I hadn't learned to be married yet, in those days," Pea Eye said, mildly.

Lorie seemed slightly out of temper--he thought it best to take a mild line at such times.

"No, you hadn't learned to be married--I had to teach you, and I'm still at it," Lorena said.

"We're both lucky. Clara got me started on my education and I got you started being a husband." "Both lucky, but I'm luckier," Pea Eye said. "I'd rather be married than do them fractions, or whatever they are that you teach the brats.

"At least I would if it's you that I'm married to," he said, reflecting.

"I don't like it that he keeps taking you away from us," Lorena said. She felt it was better to say it than to choke on it, and she had choked on it a good many times.

"Why can't he take someone younger, if he needs help with a bandit?" she asked. "Besides that, he don't even ask! He just sends those telegrams and orders you to come, as if he owned you." Though Pea Eye had not yet admitted it out loud to Lorie, he himself had begun to dread the arrival of the telegrams. The Captain dispatched them to the little office in Quitaque; they were delivered, within a week or two, by a cowboy or a mule skinner, any traveler who happened to be coming their way. They were short telegrams; even so, Lorena had to read them to him. She had learned to read years ago, and he hadn't. It was a little embarrassing, being the husband of a schoolteacher, while being unable to read. Clarie, of course, could read like a whiz--she had won the local spelling bee every year since she turned six. Pea Eye had always meant to learn, and he still meant to learn, but meanwhile, he had the farm to farm, and farming it generally kept him busy from sunup until sundown. In the harvesting season, it kept him busy from well before sunup until well after dark.

Usually the Captain's telegrams would consist of a single sentence informing him of a date, a time, and a place where the Captain wanted him to appear.

Short as they were, though, Lorena never failed to flush with anger while reading them to him. A deep flush would spread up her cheeks, nearly to her eyes; the vein on her forehead would stand out, and the little scar on her upper lip would seem whiter in contrast to her darkening face. She rarely said anything in words. Her blood said it for her.

Now, down on one knee in the kitchen, trying to wipe up the spilled coffee with a dishrag, Pea Eye felt such a heavy sadness descend on him that for a moment he would have liked just to lie down beneath it and let it crush him. Little Laurie was only three months old. Lorena had school to teach and the baby and the three boys to look after, and yet here he was, about to go away and leave them again, just because some railroad man wanted the Captain to run down a bandit.

Of course, Clarie was nearly grown and would be a big help to her mother, but knowing that wouldn't keep him from feeling low the whole trip--every night and morning he'd miss Lorie and the children; he would also worry constantly about the farm chores that weren't getting done. Even if little Laurie hadn't taken the croup--he considered her sickness the croup, though Lorie didn't--he wouldn't have wanted to go. It was beginning to bother Pea Eye a good deal that the Captain just couldn't seem to recognize that he was married. Not only was he married, but he was the father of five children. He had other things to do besides chase bandits. When he left he would be doing one duty, but at the same time he'd be neglecting others, and the ones he'd be neglecting were important. It meant feeling miserable and guilty for several weeks, and he didn't look forward to feeling that way. The truth was, half the time he felt miserable and guilty even when he wasn't neglecting his wife, or his children, or his chores.

"I've heard it's a young bandit, this time," Pea Eye said. "Maybe it won't take too long." "Why wouldn't it, if the man's young?" Lorena asked.

"The Captain's got too much experience," Pea Eye said. "The young ones seldom give him much trouble." "If it's going to be so easy, why does he need you?" she asked.

Pea Eye didn't answer because he didn't know. Twice he had gone to Wyoming with the Captain. Once they had gone to Yuma, Arizona, an exceptionally hot place in Pea Eye's view. Several times they'd gone to Oklahoma, and once or twice, into Old Mexico. But normally, they were able to corner their quarry somewhere in Texas. A few hard cases fought to the end, but the majority of the outlaws --bank robbers, mostly--realized once they were up against the famous Captain Call, it was time to surrender. As soon as they gave up, Pea Eye's duties really began. He was in charge of seeing they were handcuffed properly, or tied to their horses, or whatever the situation required.

Compared to Indian fighting, it was not particularly dangerous work. He rarely had to fire his gun or even draw it.

It hardly seemed important enough to leave home for; yet here he was, preparing to leave home and feeling blue all the way down to his bones as a result.

"I expect I'll worry the whole way," Pea Eye said. "But at least I'll be paid cash money." Lorena was silent. She hated the mornings when Pea Eye had to leave; hated the night before he left; just plain hated the whole period after one of the telegrams came. She knew Pea Eye no longer wanted to leave. Living with her, working the farm, helping her with the children, was what he wanted to do. She didn't doubt his love, or his devotion, or his loyalty, or his strength. All these were at her service, except when Captain Call needed some part of them to be at .his service.

Lorena had resolved, though, not to help Pea Eye leave. The fact that he had a loyalty to the Captain was part of the bargain she had made when she married him. Clara Allen--the woman Clarie was named for--had told her how it would be in that respect, and Clara had been right. were Pea Eye not loyal to the Captain, who had employed him most of his life, he wouldn't be likely to bring much loyalty to her, either. Clara pointed that out.

But she would not help Pea Eye leave. She wasn't going to pass a benediction on it.

As she was sitting in silence avoiding Pea Eye's miserable gaze, Clarie came in from the milking shed with a brimming pail of milk. It was a cold morning; the bucket steamed a little, and Clarie had color in her cheeks. Lorena couldn't help smiling. Even in unhappy moments, the sight of her beautiful young daughter was apt to make her smile. Clarie got a cheesecloth, spread it carefully over the old milk strainer, and slowly poured the hot, foamy milk through it.