For one thing, he despised fancy gear. He rode a plain saddle, and all that he required in a weapon was that it be reliable and accurate.
For another thing, he had never met a governor or a president of a railroad or a senator or a rich man that he liked or felt comfortable with. Why place himself in some arrogant fool's debt for the sake of a gun he'd never shoot nor probably even load?
Only a few days before, Call and Charles Goodnight had discussed the matter of gifts from the rich and powerful. It had been the day, in fact, that Goodnight had ridden out to the little line cabin he let Call use when he was between jobs, and handed Call the telegram asking him to meet a Mr. Ned Brookshire in Amarillo at seven a.m., in the lobby of the best hotel.
Goodnight himself was famous; probably as famous as a cattleman could get. He had also been offered twenty-five or thirty engraved Winchesters in recent years, but, like Call, he was skeptical of the rich and powerful and seldom felt comfortable in their company.
Throughout most of their lives, which had only occasionally intersected, Woodrow Call and Charles Goodnight had not exactly gotten along. Somehow in the old days, the Indian-fighting days, they had rubbed one another the wrong way almost every time they met. Even now, they did not exactly consider themselves friends. Once a week or so, when Goodnight was around his home ranch, he had formed the habit of riding out to the little line cabin to check on his guest, the famous Texas Ranger.
The shack sat not far from the north rim of the Palo Duro Canyon. Often the two men would sit, largely in silence, looking down into the canyon until dusk and then darkness filled it.
In the dusk and shadows they saw their history; in the fading afterlight they saw the fallen: the Rangers, the Indians, the cowboys.
"Let a man give you a fancy gun and he'll tell everybody in five counties that he's your friend, when in fact, you may despise him," Goodnight said, spitting. "I don't number too many rich fools among my friends--how about you?" "I have not had a friend for several years," Call said. Only after he said it did it occur to him that the remark might sound a little odd--as if he were asking for sympathy.
"Of course, there's Pea and there's Bol," he added, hastily. "Bol's out of his head, but I count him a friend." "Oh, your cook, I think he fed me once," Goodnight said. "If he's out of his head, how do you keep up with him?" "I left him with a family in San Antonio," Call said. "When I get a job down near the border I sometimes put him on his mule and take him with me. There's another family in Nuevo Laredo I can board him with when it comes time to do the work.
"He enjoys a little travel," Call added.
"He's still got his memories--he just can't put any two of them together." "Hell, I can barely sort out two memories myself," Goodnight said. "It's what I get for living too long. My head fills up and sloshes over, like a damn bucket.
Whatever sloshes out is lost. I doubt I still know half of what I knew when I was fifty years old." "You take too many train trips," Call observed, in a mild tone.
"I thought we were talking about my bad memory," Goodnight said, squinting at him. "What's train travel got to do with it?" "All this traveling by train weakens the memory --it's bound to," Call said. "A man that travels horseback needs to remember where the water holes are, but a man that rides in a train can forget about water holes, because trains don't drink." Goodnight let that observation soak in for a few minutes.
"I was never lost, night or day," he said finally. "How about you?" "I got turned around once, in Mexico," Call said. "It was a cloudy night. My horse fell and got up pointed in the wrong direction. I was yawny that night and didn't notice till morning." "Was you mad at the horse when you did notice?" Goodnight asked.
"I was mad at myself," Call said.
"Well, this is a pointless conversation," Goodnight said, turning abruptly toward his horse. Without another word, he mounted and rode away. He had always been abrupt, Call reflected. When Charles Goodnight concluded that a conversation had overrun its point, he was apt to make a swift departure.
While Mr. Brookshire
was walking back across the street, trying to whack the dust out of his fedora by hitting it against his leg, the train he and Call had been waiting for came in sight. It was the train that would, in time, deliver them to San Antonio.
Call was trying to think of a polite way to inform Mr. Brookshire that the fedora wouldn't do in a windy place like Texas. A hat that kept blowing off could lead to no end of trouble when dealing with a bandit as advanced as Joey Garza.
Even more, Call wished Brookshire could be persuaded just to go on back to New York, leaving him to deal with the young Mexican bandit alone.
Traveling across the West with errand boys such as Mr. Brookshire took considerably more energy than tracking the bandits themselves. Call had little to say to such men, but they invariably had much to say to him. Six hundred miles of Mr.