Streets Of Laredo

The white line of dawn began to show in the east, across the river. Soon, Lorena knew, she would have to go in, drunk or not, rested or not, and start tending to the injured and the children. It was too late for the knowledge she craved; she would never know much about Maria.

That chance--an important one--had been lost forever.

The line of white to the east widened, and the lower stars began to fade. In that direction, only a few steps beyond where the goats were sleeping, Maria Sanchez lay buried, not far from the Rio Grande, in a narrow grave.

Call's greatest embarrassment was that he could not stand up and walk outside to relieve himself. For a time he had no crutch and would have been too weak to use one, even if one had been available. He had to make water in a jug, and often was too weak even to do that properly. He had only his left hand, and his finger joints were still swollen so badly with arthritis that he couldn't work his own buttons.

Mostly, Pea Eye helped him. But if Pea Eye was sleeping or had hobbled outside with Maria's children, Lorena came and assisted him matter-of-factly, ignoring his embarrassment and shame. She did it quickly, as she might have dipped water out of a bucket.

"We don't have the bedding to spare, Captain," she said once; it was her only comment on the matter.

At such times, Call wanted to take out his pocketknife and cut his own throat. But someone had taken his pocketknife, and even if he had had it, he doubted he could have made a clean job of it with only his left hand to use.

Call spoke only to the little blind girl, Teresa. She insisted on caring for him and he accepted her help, although sometimes her girlish chatter tired him. She was very helpful to him; also, she was a young child, and blind. She could not see his stumps, or the black bruise that covered most of his chest, where the bullet was that the doctor had not been bold enough to remove. Call wished the man had made an attempt; perhaps then he would have died.

At least Teresa couldn't see him, and she hadn't known him as he had been. She sat by him and fed him, and while she fed him, told him little stories about spiders and rabbits. Her speech was like a birdsong, quick and light. Hearing her voice was Call's only pleasure. He never reproached Teresa or sent her away, even when he was weary or hot with pain. In the mornings he waited patiently for her; as soon as she awoke, Teresa would come over and put her cool hand on Call's forehead to see how bad his fever was.

From the moment Joey Garza's three bullets struck, Call's only escape from pain had been unconsciousness. He clung to sleep, but his dozings became shorter and shorter. On the day he was wounded he had wanted to live; he wanted to finish the job he had been hired to do. He had never left a job unfinished in his life.

Remaining himself, remaining who he was, meant finishing the job he had undertaken.

But as Captain Call floated in and out of fever and hallucination, the first thought that filtered into his consciousness each time he awoke was a sense of irrevocable failure--a failure that could never be redeemed. He could not finish the job; would never finish or even undertake such a job again.

He had failed and was beyond making the failure good.

He deeply regretted not doing exactly what Gus McCrae had done: letting the wounds finish him. His wounds had finished him as the man he had been. He clung to a form of life; but a worthless form. He had never enjoyed letting people wait on him; he had always saddled his own horse, and unsaddled it too.

But now people waited on him all day. Teresa brought him food and spooned it into his mouth.

Lorena changed his bandages. Pea Eye, crippled himself, nonetheless had two hands and helped him into a clean shirt and fresh pants when the time came to change.

Call could not clear his mind sufficiently to bring what had happened into a clear sequence, or even to remember it all. He inquired about Brookshire and was told that his body had been taken to the undertaker's in Presidio, the day Lorena and Billy had gone to procure the coffins for Maria Sanchez and her son. It was still there, awaiting instructions. No one had had time to inform Colonel Terry of all that had occurred.

Some days, Call understood that he had killed Mox Mox; at other times, he thought Charles Goodnight had killed him--at least, Goodnight had been mentioned in co

The confusion only made his sense of failure worse: two men who should never have been with him in the first place, who had been cajoled in!coming by Call's own misjudgments, were now dead. It was a sorry thing.

Call's one consolation was that Pea Eye had wounded Joey Garza, and had finished the job he had been hired to do. He didn't understand about Maria or the butcher, though--what did the butcher have to do with anything? But he did grasp that Joey had killed his mother, and that the feebleminded boy and the little blind girl would be going with them to the Panhandle, when he was able to travel. When that would be, no one seemed to know. Call continued to be very weak. It was a long trip to the railroad, and the trip would have to be made in a wagon. The doctor didn't think Call was up to it yet. Lorena didn't, either.

"I carried him this far and kept him alive," Lorena said. "I want him to survive the trip back. We'll just have to wait until he's stronger."

One day, Lorena went to Presidio and came back with three crutches. One was for Pea Eye; the other two were for Call.

Call could only look at the crutches. He was just at the point where he could sit up without growing faint. Sitting up made it easier for Teresa to feed him. He couldn't use a crutch; not yet.

Pea Eye used his immediately. He pulled himself up and crutched his way around the room.

Pea Eye seemed to be feeling fine. It was known throughout the border country that Pea Eye had fired the shots that stopped Joey Garza. The doctor had let it be known that the shotgun wounds would have killed Joey, in time. The butcher had happened to finish him, but Pea Eye had made possible what the butcher had done. Pea Eye was a hero on both sides of the river.

Lorena saw Captain Call looking sadly at the crutches. The old man scarcely spoke all day, except to the little blind girl. Lorena had ceased to be certain that she had done the old man any favor by working so hard to save him. She had only saved him for grief, it seemed. He was an old man with no prospects; it was clear that he would prefer to be dead. He just didn't know how to be.

"You'll get stronger, Captain," Lorena said. "You'll be using these crutches as good as Pea Eye, one of these days." "I doubt it," Call said. He didn't want the crutches. How could a man on crutches mount a horse?