Night fell, and Captain Call kept riding. He stopped now and then to check on the wound in the horse's neck. The little girl had gone to sleep, propped against her brother's chest.

Bobby, the boy, was wide awake.

"We're gonna keep going," Call told him. "Gnaw on that meat and give your sister some if she wakes up." "My hands are freezing off," the boy said.

"I wish it wasn't so cold." "Keep your hands under the blanket," Call said. "I can't stop and make a fire. Mox Mox might find us." "That squint--I wish you'd kilt him," Bobby said.

"Well, I didn't, but I might yet," Call said.

Call rode on, trying to knot an old bandanna around his neck to protect it from the cutting wind. The little gun battle had been badly handled, he knew. Bobby Fant was right to reproach him for not killing Mox Mox. The boy's screams had caused him to rush what he ought not to have rushed. It would have been wiser to let the boy endure the whipping for another few seconds.

The large man might have moved out of the way and given him a clear shot at Mox Mox. He might even have had a clear shot at Jimmy c.u.msa, if he had waited a minute more to start firing.

As it was, he had rushed, and the result of his rushing was that he had killed the six incompetents and let the two really dangerous men escape. It was foolish behavior. He had rescued the children, but he hadn't removed the threat. He should have kept his mind on the prime object, which was to kill Mox Mox. Jimmy c.u.msa might be deadly, but he hadn't been leading the pack, and he didn't quirt children for his amus.e.m.e.nt.

Another truth, just as discouraging, was that he had not shot well. Only the boy who had been caught with his pants down had been killed cleanly, with one shot, and that was probably luck.

All the others had required two or more bullets. It was poor shooting, and yet he'd had all the advantages: not a shot had been fired at him, he had been shooting from less than fifty yards' distance, and he had taken the men completely by surprise.

Call blamed his swollen knuckles. Also, he wasn't as sure of his eyesight as he had been. If the men had been better fighters, he would have been in trouble. If Mox Mox and Jimmy c.u.msa had taken cover instead of running, the outcome of the struggle might have been different.

Call often picked over battles, in his mind. There were few fixed rules. Once men started shooting at one another with deadly intent, strategies and plans were usually forgotten. Men acted and reacted according to their instincts. Experience didn't always tell; veterans of many battles made wild, inexplicable mistakes. Even men who remained perfectly calm in battle did things that they could not make sense of later, if they survived to rehash the battle.

But, right or wrong, it was done. At least he had Jasper Fant's children, and they would survive, if he could get them to a warm place soon enough.

As Call rode on, the cold grew more intense. His mind returned again and again to the shooting. It troubled him that he had shot so poorly. Augustus McCrae, given similar advantages would probably have killed all the men with a pistol.

Before the night ended, the children got so cold that Call had to stop and risk a fire. He could barely gather sticks with his stiff fingers. The children's feet were so cold that Call knew he was risking frostbite if he didn't do something.

Fortunately, there was enough scrubby brush that he soon had adequate wood. He made two fires and put the freezing children between them. The crusted blood on the boy's face was icy. He had been plucky when first rescued, but had gone into a kind of shock and couldn't speak. The little girl was so cold she was past whimpering.

Call built up the fires and kept them flaming as the children slept. He himself hunkered near the flames only a few minutes at a time. It was so cold that he doubted any killer would be vigorous enough to take advantage of them. But he couldn't be sure, and he didn't want to get too warm himself. When he hunkered by the fire, fatigue began to suck at him, a deep fatigue. He was accustomed to sleeping in s.n.a.t.c.hes; squatting, leaning against a horse; he had even slept riding, if the country was flat and the horse reliable. In the Indian-fighting days, he had tried to acquire the abilities and the endurance of his foes. He wanted to be able to do anything a Comanche could do, or an Apache.

Gus had scoffed at the notion. He said no white man could live as an Indian could, or travel as fast, or subsist on as little.

Probably Gus had been right about that. And if he hadn't been as able as the best of the Indians when he was young, there was little hope that he could compete with one now. Joey Garza was Mexican, not Indian, but many Mexicans were part Indian, and there was a rumor that the Garza boy had lived with the mountain Apaches for several years. The cold might not affect him; once, it would not have affected Call, either.

With things so uncertain, it wouldn't do to give way to fatigue, or to nap too long by the campfire. He might wake up to discover that his throat had just been cut.

In the morning, the frost was so heavy that Call had to sc.r.a.pe ice off the saddles. The children were so cold they couldn't eat. He decided that he had better tie them to the horse. Though there was a band of red on the eastern horizon, the sun was soon blanketed by heavy clouds, and the cold remained intense.

The wounded horse was stiff--it could barely move, and not rapidly. Fortunately, when they had been riding an hour, Call saw a few plumes of smoke to the northwest, clear in the freezing air. The smoke was coming from the chimneys of Fort Stockton.

A little later, he saw more smoke, on the eastern horizon. This smoke moved westward, and it came from a train. Call couldn't see the train, but he knew the railroad was there, for nothing else would be moving under a plume of smoke.

The wounded horse slowed to a walk, and then to a slower walk. A little before midday, the horse stopped. It could go no farther. By then, the town was no more than five miles away. Call left the horse; perhaps it would walk on in, under its own power, once it had rested for a day. He put the children on his horse, only to have his horse come up lame a mile or two farther on. A needlelike sliver of ice had cut its hoof.

But the town was not far. The little girl had recovered a little, and now and then asked for her mother.

Bobby Fant, his face a horror of frozen cuts, had not spoken all day. Call took his time, walking the lame horse slowly. He didn't want to have to carry the children, or abandon his guns and equipment.

When they were only two miles from the town, they came upon two sheepmen, butchering sheep to sell in Fort Stockton.

"Dern, where'd you folks spring from?" the older sheepman said, when he saw Call leading the lame horse with two children on it.

"From far enough away that we'd appreciate a ride to somewhere these young ones can warm themselves," Call said.

"We'd more than appreciate it," he added.

"We'd pay a good fare if you'd take us in your wagon the rest of the way to town." "Mister, you don't have to pay us nothing--we was about to haul these carca.s.ses in anyway," the younger sheepman said. They were s.h.a.ggy men, in great buffalo coats, and they had three huge dogs with them. It had been the barking of the dogs that led Call to the wagon. There were no grazing sheep visible, though, just six b.l.o.o.d.y carca.s.ses piled up in the wagon.

Call chose to walk behind the wagon, leading his lame horse. The young sheepman said there was a rooming house on the main street in town.

"It ain't fancy, but it's got beds," he said. "Who done that to that boy's face?" Bobby Fant's face had gotten worse during the night. It was swollen, and some of the cuts still leaked blood, most of which froze on his cheeks.

"A man named Mox Mox done it," Call said. "I shot him, but I don't think I killed him." "Somebody ought to kill the sonofab.i.t.c.h, then," the older man said. "I've seen rough stuff out here on the baldies, but I've never seen nothing like that--not done to a child." Call carried Bobby Fant into the little frame rooming house. The young sheepman got off the wagon for a minute and carried the girl, who was whimpering for her mother.

A woman stood just inside the door, looking out at them through the pane of gla.s.s. Call could just see her; she was blond. The young sheepherder brought the little girl in first. By the time Call eased through the door with Bobby Fant, the woman had already taken the little girl in her arms and was whispering to her.

Call couldn't hear what the woman was whispering. The fact that the blond woman had appeared so suddenly behind the pane of gla.s.s startled him a little. The woman looked familiar. He thought for a moment she might be the children's mother, Jasper Fant's wife, though he hadn't even known Jasper Fant had a wife until yesterday, and how the woman could have antic.i.p.ated them and got to Fort Stockton was a mystery.

When the woman saw Bobby Fant's face, she drew in her breath.

"Mox Mox done that, didn't he, Captain?" she asked, touching the boy's cuts gently with her fingers. "Did you kill him, Captain?" "Well, I hit him," Call said. "I doubt it was mortal, but it might slow him enough that I can catch him." "Bring the boy to my room," the woman said.

"I just got off the train and was about to have a bath.

I've got hot water waiting. I'll put them both in the bathtub. It'll warm them quicker. Then I can wash those cuts." The woman started up the stairs with the little girl.

Call thanked the young sheepman and began to climb the stairs, carrying Bobby Fant. The moment he stepped into the warm rooming house, he had begun to feel tired, so tired that it was a strain even to carry the child up one flight of stairs. He was wondering, in his fatigue, how the woman had known who he was--and how she knew about Mox Mox.

It was not until the blond woman paused at the top of the stairs and looked down at him, the little girl in her arms, that Call realized who she was: she was not the children's mother, she was Pea Eye's wife.

"My Lord, you'll have to excuse me," he said, embarra.s.sed. "I didn't recognize you." Call could not quite remember when he had last seen Lorena; in Nebraska, it seemed to him.

She had been a young woman then. Of course, many years had pa.s.sed, and she would have to be older. But the fact that she was so much older that he hadn't recognized her, left him feeling at a loss.

"You don't need to be embarra.s.sed," Lorena said. "You kept Mox Mox from burning these children, and you brought them out. That's enough." He carried the boy into her room where, indeed, a bath was steaming.

"Put him on the bed," Lorena said. "Just put him on the bed. I'll take care of these youngsters. You better go get a little rest yourself." "Yes, I'm weary," Call said.

In fact, he felt so weary that he could hardly carry the child across the small room.

"I'm mighty surprised to see you," he added. He felt that he ought to say more, but he didn't know quite what.

"I came looking for my husband," Lorena said. "I was hoping you'd have him with you." "I don't, but I know where he is," Captain Call said. "He ain't far." The woman's face brightened, when he said it.

He went downstairs and got a room key, though later, he was unable to remember getting a key or even going to the room.