News of the World(41)

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.

I see. The Captain was silent a moment, puzzling over the Horrell brothers, people whose minds were lost in such delusions, such avid desire for worldly fame.

And what about the English newspapers? said the Captain. Do they expect themselves to be on the front page of the London Times?

Sir, said the taller one. The Horrells don’t know there is a England.

Well. Thank you so much for this excellent information. The Captain stepped into the stirrup and was proud of the fact that at age seventy-one he could step up from the ground onto a sixteen-hand horse. With some pain but no flinching he swung into the saddle. Clearly there was no question of doing a reading at all. He said, I will be sure to park my traps and gear and this delicate young lady nearby the springs and never stir until I can get the hell out of Lampasas.

No, seventy-two. He had just turned seventy-two on March 15, yesterday, as he had turned sixteen just before Horseshoe Bend and at that time it would have been beyond belief that he would even live to see this age, much less be traveling along a distant road far to the west, still in one piece, alive and unaccountably happy.





SEVENTEEN

HE HAD DECIDED to avoid the Horrell brothers at all costs, but the Horrell brothers found them.

The Captain was unlimbering where they had parked beside the beautiful Lampasas springs and the giant live oaks that surrounded them. The spring was in a low place, one of the soothing green low places of this high and dry country, and made a reflective pond. The surface tossed glittering reflections against the trunks. On one side was a stand of Carrizo cane, graceful and green. It had tall plumed heads. Great limbs overhead were alive with birds on their spring migration to the north, lately come up from Mexico; the quick and nervous robins, the low song of a yellow oriole, painted buntings in their outrageous clown colors.

The Horrell brothers sat on their horses and watched as the Captain and Johanna began unloading their gear. They rode good horses, Copperbottom breeds, Steel Dust lineage. The Captain could see it in the lines of their bodies. They sat and watched Pasha narrowly as he grazed in the long grasses at the verge of the spring. The live oaks were high overhead and the evening breeze moved over the surface of the water. The Captain ignored them.

You’re the man that reads the news.

Yes, I am.

Well how come we ain’t in the news?

I don’t know, the Captain said. I don’t write the newspapers.

I’m Merritt Horrell and this is Tom and he’s my brother, and these are my other brothers here. Mart and Benjamin and Sam.

The five brothers wore various articles of dress that had been pieced together out of military uniforms from both sides, missing buttons and faded to an unvarying slate color. One had two different kinds of stirrups, one metal, one wood, and none of their hats seemed to fit. The youngest, or at least the smallest, no more than fourteen by the look of him, wore a derby far too big for his head and the Captain realized the boy had stuffed the inside band with rags or paper to make it fit. It seemed suspended over his small head. Whatever woman had raised these five boys must now be in the county asylum, if Lampasas County had one, and if they did not, they had best build one soon.

Enchanted, gentlemen, he said. Maybe you are in the news. You could well be in the news back in the east. Say, Chicago or the little one-sheet paper in Ball Ground, Georgia. Just think. The Captain shook out his newspapers. Perhaps London or even California.

Well, we should be, said Merritt. He had a dull stare that was also strangely intent. We killed a right smart of Mexicans. You’d think they’d put in something.