Call saw that Jake was so drunk he could barely sit up.
"You should have made a chance a little sooner, Jake," Augustus said. "A man that will go along with six killings is making his escape a little slow."
"I had to wait for a chance, Gus," Jake said. "You can't just trot off from Dan Suggs."
"You shut your damn mouth, Spoon," Dan Suggs said. "These friends of yours are no more than rank outlaws. I don't see no badges on them. They got their damn gall, taking us to jail."
Pea Eye and Newt stopped and dismounted. Newt saw that Jake was tied like the rest.
"Saddle these men's horses," Call said to the boy. Then he walked off toward the nearest trees.
"Where's he going?" Roy Suggs asked, finding his voice at last.
"Gone to pick a tree to hang you from, son," Augustus said mildly. He turned to Dan Suggs, who looked at him with his teeth bared in a snarl. "I don't know what makes you think we'd tote you all the way to a jail," Gus said.
"I tell you we bought them horses!" Dan said.
"Oh, drop your bluff," Augustus said. "I buried Wilbarger myself, not to mention his two cowboys. We buried them farmers and we'll bury that body over there. I imagine it's all your doings, too. Your brothers don't look so rough, and Jake ain't normally a killer."
Augustus looked at Jake, who was still sitting down. "What's the story on that one, Jake?" he asked.
"Why, I merely said hello to a girl," Jake said. "I didn't know she was anybody's wife, and the old bastard knocked me down with a shotgun. He was gonna do worse, too. It was only self-defense. No jury will hang you for self-defense."
Augustus was silent. Jake got to his feet awkwardly, for his hands were tied behind him. He looked at Pea Eye, who was standing quietly with Deets.
"Pea, you know me," Jake said. "You know I ain't no killer. Old Deets knows it too. You boys wouldn't want to hang a friend, I hope."
"I've done a many a thing I didn't want to do, Jake," Pea Eye said.
Jake walked over to Augustus. "I ain't no criminal, Gus," he said. "Dan's the only one that done anything. He shot that old man over there, and he killed them farmers. He shot Wilbarger and his men. Me and the other boys have killed nobody."
"We'll hang him for the killings and the rest of you for the horse theft, then," Augustus said. "Out in these parts the punishment's the same, as you well know.
"Ride with an outlaw, die with him," he added. "I admit it's a harsh code. But you rode on the other side long enough to know how it works. I'm sorry you crossed the line, though."
Jake's momentary optimism had passed, and he felt tired and despairing. He would have liked a good bed in a whorehouse and a nice night's sleep.
"I never seen no line, Gus," he said. "I was just trying to get to Kansas without getting scalped."
Newt had saddled the men's horses. Call came back and took the ropes off the four saddles.
"We're lucky to have caught 'em by the trees," he said. Newt felt numb from all that he had seen.
"Have we got to hang Jake too?" he asked. "He was my ma's friend."
Call was surprised by the remark. Newt was surprised too — it had just popped out. He remembered how jolly Jake had been, then — it was mainly on Jake's visits that he had heard his mother laugh. It puzzled him how the years could have moved so, to bring them from such happy times to the moment at hand.
"Yes, he's guilty with the rest of them," Call said. "Any judge would hang him."
He walked on, and Newt put his cheek for a moment against the warm neck of the horse he had just saddled. The warmth made him want to cry. His mother had been warm too, in the years when they first knew Jake. But he couldn't bring any of it back, and Jake was standing not twenty yards away, weaving from drink, his hands tied, sad-looking. Newt choked back his feelings and led the horses over.
The men had to be helped onto the horses because of the way their hands were tied. Little Eddie had lost a lot of blood and was so weak he could barely keep his seat.
"I'll lead yours, Jake," Newt said, hoping Jake would realize he meant it as a friendly gesture. Jake had several days' stubble on his face and looked dirty and tired; his eyes had a dull look in them, as if he merely wanted to go to sleep.
Call took the rein of Dan Suggs's horse, just in case Dan tried something — though there was little he could try. Augustus walked behind and Pea Eye led the other two horses. Deets went ahead to fix the nooses — he was good with knots.
"Dan, ain't you gonna fight?" little Eddie kept asking. He had never seen his brother tied up and could not quite believe it. That Dan had been outsmarted and taken without a battle shocked him more than the fact that he himself was about to be hung.
"Shut up, you damn whining pup," Dan said. "If you'd been standing guard this wouldn't have happened."
"You never told him to," Roy Suggs said. He too was in a daze, the result of shock and whiskey, but it annoyed him that Dan would try to put the blame on little Eddie.
"Well, do I have to do everything?" Dan said. He was watching, hoping to get Call to relax a minute — he meant to kick the horse and try to run over him. It might startle everyone long enough that he could jump the horse down into the creek bed, where he would be hard to hit. He had said what he had merely to distract the crowd, but it didn't work. Call kept the horse under tight control and in no time they came to the tree with the four dangling nooses.
It took a while for Deets to fix the knots to his satisfaction. The twilight began to deepen into dusk.
Jake tried to get his mind to work, but it wouldn't snap to. He had the feeling that there ought to be something he could say that would move Call or Gus on his behalf. It made him proud that the two of them had caught Dan Suggs so easily, although it had brought him to a hard fix. Still, it cut Dan Suggs down to size. Jake tried to think back over his years of rangering — to try and think of a debt he could call in, or a memory that might move the boys — but his brain seemed to be asleep. He could think of nothing. The only one who seemed to care was the boy Newt — Maggie's boy, Jake remembered. She had fat legs, but she was always friendly, Maggie. Of all the whores he had known, she was the easiest to get along with. The thought crossed his mind that he ought to have married her and not gone rambling. If he had, he wouldn't be in such a fix. But he felt little fear; just an overpowering fatigue. Life had slipped out of line. It was unfair, it was too bad, but he couldn't find the energy to fight it any longer.
Deets finally got the nooses done. He mounted and rode behind each man, to carefully set the knots. Little Eddie submitted quietly, but Dan Suggs shook his head and struggled like a wildcat when Deets came to him.
"Nigger boy, don't you get near me," he said. "I won't be hung by no black nigger."
Call and Augustus had to grab his arms and hold him steady. Dan dug his chin into his chest, so that Deets had to grab his hair and pull his head back to get the rope around his neck.
"You're a fool, Suggs," Augustus said. "You don't appreciate a professional when you see one. Men Deets hangs don't have to dance on the rope, like some I've seen."
"You're yellowbellies, both of you, or you would have fought me fair," Dan Suggs said, glaring down at him. "I'll fight you yet, barehanded, if you'll just let me down. I'll fight the both of you right now, and this nigger boy too."
"You'd do better to say goodbye to your brothers," Call said. "I expect you got them into this."
"They're not worth a red piss and neither are you," Dan said.
"I'll say this for you, Suggs, you're the kind of son of a bitch it's a pleasure to hang," Augustus said. "If guff's all you can talk, go talk it to the devil."
He gave Dan Suggs's horse a whack with a coiled rope and the horse jumped out from under him. When Dan's horse jumped, little Eddie's bolted too, and in a moment the two men were both swinging dead from the limb.
Roy Suggs looked pained. A brother dangled on either side of him. "I ought to have been second," he said. "Little Eddie was the youngest."
r /> "You're right and I'm sorry," Augustus said. "I never meant to scare that boy's horse."
"That horse never had no sense," Roy Suggs remarked. "If I was little Eddie I would have got rid of him long ago."
"I guess he waited too long to make the change," Augustus said. "Are you about ready, sir?"
"Guess so, since the boys are dead," Roy Suggs said. "Right or wrong, they're my brothers."
"It's damn bad luck, having a big brother like Dan Suggs, I'd say," Augustus said.
He walked over to Jake and put a hand on his leg for a moment.
"Jake, you might like to know that I got Lorie back," he said.
"Who?" Jake asked. He felt very dull, and for a second the name meant nothing to him. Then he remembered the young blond whore who had been so much trouble. She had put him off several times.
"Why, Lorie — have you had so many beauties that you've forgotten?" Augustus said. "That damn outlaw took her away."
To Jake it seemed as remote as his rangering days — he could barely get his mind back to it. Call walked over. Now that they were about it he felt a keen sorrow. Jake had ridden the river with them and been the life of the camp once — not the steadiest boy in the troop, but lively and friendly to a fault.
"Well, it'll soon be dark," he said. "I'm sorry it's us, Jake — I wish it had fallen to somebody else."
Jake grinned. Something in the way Call said it amused him, and for a second he regained a bit of his old dash.
"Hell, don't worry about it, boys," he said. "I'd a damn sight rather be hung by my friends than by a bunch of strangers. The thing is, I never meant no harm," he added. "I didn't know they was such a gun outfit."
He looked down at Pea Eye and Deets, and at the boy. Everyone was silent, even Gus, who held the coiled rope. They were all looking at him, but it seemed no one could speak. For a moment, Jake felt good. He was back with his old compañeros, at least — those boys who had haunted his dreams. Straying off from them had been his worst mistake.
"Well, adios, boys," he said. "I hope you won't hold it against me."
He waited a moment, but Augustus seemed dumbstruck, holding the rope.
Jake looked down again and saw the glint of tears in the boy's eyes. Little Newt cared for him, at least.
"Newt, why don't you take this pony?" he said, looking at the boy. "He's a pacer — you won't find no easier gait. And the rest of you boys divide what money's in my pocket."
He smiled at the thought of how surprised they would be when they saw how much he had — it was that lucky week in Fort Worth he had to thank for it.
"All right, Jake, many thanks," Newt said, his voice cracking.
Before he got the thanks out, Jake Spoon had quickly spurred his pacing horse high back in the flanks with both spurs. The rope squeaked against the bark of the limb. Augustus stepped over and caught the swinging body and held it still.
"I swear," Pea Eye said. "He didn't wait for you, Gus."
"Nope, he died fine," Augustus said. "Go dig him a grave, will you, Pea?"
They buried Jake Spoon by moonlight on the slope above the creek and, after some discussion, cut down Roy Suggs and little Eddie, plus the old man Dan Suggs had killed, a drummer named Collins with a wagonful of patent medicines. There was a good lantern in the wagon, which, besides the medicines, contained four white rabbits in a cage. The old man had run a medicine show, evidently, and did a little magic. The wagon contained a lot of cheaply printed circulars which advertised the show.
"Headed for Denver, I guess," Call said.
Dan Suggs they left hanging. Augustus took one of the circulars and wrote "Dan Suggs, Man Burner and Horse Thief on the back of it. He rode over and pinned the sign to Dan Suggs's shirt.
"That way if a lawman comes looking for him he'll know he can quit the search," Augustus said.
They rounded up Wilbarger's horses and unhitched the two mules that had been pulling the little wagon. Augustus wanted to take the white rabbits, but the cage was awkward to carry. Finally Deets put two in his saddlebags, and Augustus took the other two. He also sampled the patent medicines and took several bottles of it.
"What do you think it will cure, Gus?" Pea Eye asked.
"Sobriety, if you guzzle enough of it," Augustus said. "I expect it's just whiskey and syrup."
The wagon itself was in such poor repair that they decided to leave it sit. Call broke up the tailgate and made a little marker for Jake's grave, scratching his name on it with a pocketknife by the light of the old man's lantern. He hammered the marker into the loose-packed dirt with the blunt side of a hatchet they had found in the wagon. Augustus trotted over, bringing Call his mare.
"I'm tired of justice, ain't you?" he asked.
"Well, I wish he hadn't got so careless about his company," Call said. "It was that that cost him."
"Life works out peculiar," Augustus said. "If he hadn't talked you into making this trip, we wouldn't have had to hang him today. He could be sitting down in Lonesome Dove, playing cards with Wanz."
"On the other hand, it was gambling brought him down," Call said. "That's what started it."
Deets and Pea Eye and Newt held the little horse herd. Newt was leading the horse Jake had left him. He didn't know if it was right to get on him so soon after Jake's death.
"You can ride the pacing pony," Deets said. "Mister Jake meant you to have it."
"What will I do with his saddle?" Newt asked. "He didn't say anything about the saddle."
"It's better than that old singletree of yours," Pea Eye said. "Take it — Jake's through with it."
"Don't neither of you want it?" Newt asked. It bothered him to take it, for Jake hadn't mentioned it.
"Oh, no," Deets said. "Saddle goes with the horse, I guess."
Nervous and a little reluctant, Newt got on Jake's horse. The stirrups were too long for him, but Deets got down and quickly adjusted them. As he was finishing the lacing, Call and Augustus rode by. Deets took the bridle off Newt's other horse and turned him, still saddled, into the horse herd. No one seemed to have anything to say.
They started Wilbarger's horses west across the dark prairie in the direction the cattle should be. Captain Call led, Augustus and Deets rode to the sides, and Pea Eye and Newt brought up the rear. Newt had to admit that Jake's horse had a beautiful smooth gait, but even so he wished he hadn't changed horses — not so soon. It seemed wrong to be enjoying Jake's horse, and his fine saddle too, after what had happened. But he was tired, so tired he didn't even feel the sadness for very long. Soon his head dropped and he sat on the pacing gelding, sound asleep. Pea Eye noticed and trotted close beside him so he could catch the weary boy if he started to fall off.
PART III
75
CLARA WAS MILKING A MARE when Sally, her oldest girl, came racing down to the lots.
"Somebody's coming, Ma," Sally said, excitement in her face. Sally was ten years old and sociable — she loved visitors.
The young mare had dropped her foal early and the colt was too weak to stand up, which was why she was milking. The colt would suck milk off a rag, and Clara was determined to save it if she could. When Sally ran up, the mare flinched, causing Clara to squirt a stream of milk along her own arm.
"Haven't I told you to walk up to horses?" Clara said. She stood up and wiped the milk off her dripping arm.
"I'm sorry, Ma," Sally said, more excited than sorry. "See, there's a wagon coming."
Then Betsey, only seven, came flying out of the house, her brown hair streaming, and raced down to the corrals. Betsey liked company as much as her sister.
"Who's coming?" she asked.
The wagon was barely visible coming along the Platte from the west.
"I thought I told you girls to churn," Clara said. "Seems like all you do is hang out the window watching for travelers."
Of course, no one could blame them, for company was rare. They lived twenty miles from town, and a bad town at that — Ogallala. If they went in, it was usua
lly for church, but they seldom made the trip. Their company mostly consisted of men who came to trade horses with Bob, her husband, and now that he was injured, few came. They had just as many horses — more, in fact — and Clara knew more about them than Bob had ever learned, but there were few men disposed to bargain with a woman, and Clara was not disposed to give their horses away. When she named a price she meant it, but usually men got their backs up and wouldn't buy.
"I expect they're just buffalo hunters," Clara said, watching the distant wagon creep over the brown plains. "You girls won't learn much from them, unless you're interested in learning how to spit tobacco."
"I ain't," Betsey said.
"You aren't, you mean," Sally said. "I thought all the buffalo were dead — how come they still hunt them?"
"Because people are slow learners, like your sister," Clara said, grinning at Betsey to mitigate the criticism.
"Are you gonna invite them for the night?" Sally asked. "Want me to kill a hen?"
"Not just yet, they may not be in the mood to stop," Clara said. "Besides, you and I don't agree about hens. You might kill one of the ones I like."
"Mother, they're just to eat," Sally said.
"Nope. I keep those hens to talk to me when I'm lonesome," Clara said. "I'll only eat the ones who can't make good conversation." Betsey wrinkled up her nose, amused by the comment. "Oh, Ma," she said, "hens don't talk."
"They talk," Clara said. "You just don't understand hen talk. I'm an old hen myself and it makes good sense to me."
"You ain't old, Ma," Sally said.
"That wagon won't be here for an hour," Clara said. "Go see about your pa. His fever comes up in the afternoon. Wet a rag and wipe his face."
Both girls stood looking at her silently. They hated to go into the sickroom. Both of them had bright-blue eyes, their legacy from Bob, but their hair was like hers and they were built like her, even to the knobby knees. Bob had been kicked in the head by a mustang he was determined to break, against Clara's advice. She had seen it happen — he had the mare snubbed to a post with a heavy rope and only turned his back on her for a second. But the mare struck with her front feet, quick as a snake. Bob had bent over to pick up another rope and the kick had caught him right back of the ear. The crack had sounded like a shot. The mare pawed him three or four times before Clara could reach him and drag him out of the way, but those blows had been minor. The kick behind the ear had almost killed him. They had been so sure he would die that they even dug the grave, up on the knoll east of the house where their three boys were buried: Jim and Jeff and Johnny, the three deaths Clara felt had turned her heart to stone: she hoped for stone, anyway, for stone wouldn't suffer from such losses.