AT NOON HE put the saddle on Pasha. He would ride alongside the packhorse’s head. This was not friendly country. As he put the saddle on he finally gave in to old age and reached for one of the sheep fleeces out of their stack of blankets and threw it across the saddle seat. So much more comfortable than the hard leather. Johanna watched, her dark blue eyes mild and understanding now that the strange old woman was gone. He snapped a lead on a ring of Fancy’s driving bridle and held the lead in one hand as they went on. Their water bottles were full. It would do. They would be at Lampasas soon. Pasha’s easy smooth walk was a joy to ride and the Captain could not help but pat his neck and fool with his mane and try to get it to lie all on one side.
THERE WAS QUITE a lot of trouble in Lampasas. He knew this from when he had passed through years earlier. It was one of those feuds between two families, each with a large number of sons. It seemed to be one of the rules or laws of human nature. The boys all grow up together and then they become young men and they fight, at first in play, and then somebody gets hurt, and before you know it the revenge drama is on.
Around them the dun-colored pelt of grasses shone in the thin sunlight as if it were studded with mica and quartz and now with the days growing longer the first green shoots grew up beneath. He began to see more people on the road going toward Lampasas. As best he could calculate it was a Saturday and perhaps the people in this region found it their custom to come to town to shop or celebrate or seek out company on a Saturday and stay all night to sleep off a hangover or go to church in the morning or both.
It was now the second week in March and a time of tender growth, when it slowly dawned on people that the world would not always be cold and brown. This high level country was like something unexpectedly and suddenly loved and responding to the bounty of young rain and longer hours of sunlight. Awake, awake, ye drowsy sleeper. The wind was fresh and wet. They drove through the Brooke crossing of the Lampasas River. As in all semi-arid regions the green was all in the riverbeds, the ravines, the stream crossings where water gathered and the wind sailed overhead. Thick colonies of Carrizo cane grew in the little valley of the Lampasas and they shook their glossy plumes in concert.
When they reached the level again, the Captain and Johanna came across a group of four men on horseback, with stampede strings hanging down their backs and hair-tassels at the end of the strings. They were all armed. They pulled up their horses strung straight across the road. They were the people now being called “cowboys,” an occupational specialty that moved into place as the buffalo were shot in their millions.
He pulled up Pasha and Fancy. Johanna would be troubled and so he got down and came to stand beside her where she sat on the front seat. After a moment’s stillness she stood up and vaulted over the backrest with her skirts flying and dropped down in the wagon bed between the water butt and the box of food and cooking supplies. She took to the jorongo as an otter slides into his hole.
Curative Waters, said one of the men.
Bullet holes, said another.
They wore broad-brimmed hats against the relentless sun, the brims shading the V of skin showing in their open shirt collars. They carried reatas at the right-hand side of their saddles. All of them right-handed. They were riding Mother Hubbard saddles with big flat horns and a flank cinch. Bunches of piggin’ strings tied on the left side.
Where y’all coming from?
Durand, the Captain said. And we are headed to Castroville, fifteen miles west of San Antonio. Would you like me to get out a map and show you?
No sir, said another. I know where it is. Shooter Weiss gets seed from there. He paused. I don’t know how to spell his name. He’s a Kraut.
Then it would be S-c-h-u-t-e-r, said the Captain. Now, is there any particular reason you are blocking my road?
They turned to one another and their horses shifted. They were small horses with thick, long manes and tails that swept the road. Mustangs. The horses had sloped back ends like whippets.
There’s been a lot of raiding between here and Castroville, said one. The Comanches and the Kiowa are driving people out of the hill country. They got cover down there. Can’t see them coming, like up here. It’s almost empty down there. People driven out. You had best take care.
I will.
Well, are you going into Lampasas?
That’s where this road goes. And since it is apparently the only one, I did not contemplate riding straight off into the trackless wilds of Lampasas County. Is there some other road you could recommend?
The tallest one among them said, Sir, I remember you from when you read your newspapers there one time in Meridian. I was most interested to hear all the news. So I tell you what. You might not want to go into Wiley and Toland’s saloon, it’s called The Gem. I am telling you because you ought to know that the Horrell brothers find refreshment there when they are not out shooting down Mexican persons.
You don’t say. And they would object to my appearing there?
They all looked at one another.
Tell him, said one.
Well then, the tallest one said. They are all wrapped around the axle about the Eastern newspapers, the ones that show engravings of cowboys, and they think they ought to be appearing in them. And if you show up to read the news they are going to start hassling you to read about them.
You are joking.
I am not. They are mentally not very fast. They are every one of them one brick short of a load. And when we heard of you coming I said, Well, by God—excuse me young lady—(he touched his hat)—that there must be the Captain come to read his newspapers. And so, me and my brothers, we heard you read in Meridian one time and we were impressed by all the happenings everywhere and everything, and we sure liked your reading.
The others nodded. Johanna saw the man touch his hat and look at her and wondered what it meant. Perhaps a warning. He might throw it at her, he might be directing a curse of some sort at her.
You are very kind, said the Captain.
And I said, I bet the Horrell brothers is going to expect themselves to be in the Eastern newspapers and when they are not they are going to raise Old Jack with the Captain. And besides there’s going to be some kind of a meeting about a farmer’s union and a dance and they get all excited. Benjamin starts in stuttering.
That’s thinking ahead, said one of the others. He turned, loose and supple at the waist, to keep the Captain in view as his restive little horse spun to the left in a quick move to unseat him. He kept it going right on around and brought it back to where it had been in the first place, facing the Captain and said, Quit that you son of a bitch. He touched his hat. Excuse me young lady.
Johanna sat with a stilled face inside the jorongo, her favorite cave of red wool, her magical protection.
I appreciate your concern, the Captain said.
Happy to be of service, said the tall one. We are busting cattle out of the brush over there on Bean Creek and we come across old Mrs. Becker going north on the Durand road and she said she seen you and you was worried about some stolen chickens. So we came riding back to find you.
Ah well, a minor matter, said the Captain. He stood beside Pasha and patted his jaw, sat his hat lower on his forehead.
Yes sir. So my brother here said, Well, that’s Captain Kidd and we’d best leave our work and go warn him. Those cows can stay laid up one more day. They ain’t going to get no wilder than they already are.
Another brother said, Not possible.
A third said, We’ll be around here somewhere, you know, for the night.
Kidd nodded slowly. You have no bedrolls, he said.
Yes sir, well, we just lay down on the ground and sleep.