"That ain't the first time Dan's pecked you--why won't you avoid that turkey?" Maggie said.

"Go down to the mud puddle and daub a little mud on that peck--it'll soothe it." When Newt went down Maggie excused herself for a moment and went with him--she wanted to run the old turkey off before it did damage to her garden.

While Maggie was gone Call looked around the room. A pair of Jake's spurs were on the floor by the little sofa and his shaving brush and razor were by the wash basin.

Call knew it was none of his business where Jake kept his razor, or his spurs, or his bandanna, and yet the sight of so many of Jake's things in Maggie's room disturbed him in a way he had not expected. When she came back he thanked her for the beefsteak, gave Newt a penny for some sassafras candy--newt was a well-bbhaved little boy who deserved an occasional treat--and left.

Call got his rifle and started to take a short walk down by the river. He had been twice to the Governor that day and had spent the afternoon going over the company accounts with Jake, a task that always tired him. He didn't intend to walk long.

As he came out of the bunkhouse he saw Jake Spoon leave a saloon across the street and angle off toward Maggie's rooms.

Ordinarily he would have thought nothing of it, but that night he did think of it. He didn't wait to see if Jake went up the stairs to the room he himself had just left; he felt that would be unseemly. Instead, he walked out of town, disquieted without quite knowing why. He realized he had no right to boss Maggie Tilton at all. She had her employment and could do as she pleased.

The thought that disturbed him--right or no right--was that Jake and Maggie were now living together. That notion startled him greatly. Maggie was a respectable woman now, with a child who was well liked. She needed to be thinking of her work and her child and not risk her respectability for any reason --certainly not for the irresponsible Jake Spoon.

Call walked out of Austin on the wagon road that led to San Antonio. He wished Gus were back, not because the Governor wanted him back but so he could ask his opinion about the matter of Maggie and Jake. Of course, he knew nothing definite--all he knew was that what he was feeling left him too agitated for sleep.

In what seemed like a matter of minutes Call was surprised to see, at a curve in the wagon road, a big live oak tree that had been split by lightning some years before. The reason for his surprise was that the live oak was ten miles from town. In his confusion he had walked much farther than he had meant to--usually he only strolled two or three miles and went to bed. But he had walked ten miles without noticing, and would have to walk another ten to get back to the bunkhouse.

The walk back went slower--it was almost dawn when he got back to the bunkhouse. Across the way, Maggie's window was dark. Was Jake sleeping there? And what if he was? He had long since put the whole question of Maggie and men out of his mind. Now, suddenly, it was very much in his mind, and yet he had no one to discuss the matter withand was far from knowing even what he felt himself.

Old Ikey Ripple, retired now except for ceremonial appearances, was sitting on a nail keg rubbing his white hair when Call walked up, in the first light.

"Hello, you're up early," Call said, to the old man. Ikey, of course, was always up early.

"Yep, I don't like to miss none of the day," Ikey said.

Ikey was a snuff dipper; he had already worked his lip over a good wad of snuff.

"Where have you been, Captain?" he asked.

"It's too early for patrol." "Just looking around," Call said. "Someone saw three Indians west of town yesterday. I don't want them slipping in and running off any stock." "Will you be going off to the war, Captain?" Ikey asked.

Call shook his head, which seemed to reassure the old man.

"If you was to go off to that war I expect the Indians would slip in and get all the stock," Ikey said.

Ikey looked around and saw only the morning mist. The mention of Indians to the west was unwelcome. Those same Indians could be hidden by the mist--they might be lurking anywhere in which case he was more than glad to have Captain Call with him.

"I've been skeert of Indians all my life," Ikey said, feeling the sudden need to unburden himself in the matter. "I expect I've woke up a thousand times, expecting to see an Indian standing over me ready to yank off my scalp. But here I am eighty and they ain't got me yet, so I expect it was wasted worry." "I imagine you'll be safe, if you just stay in town," Call told him. "You need to be careful, though, if you're off fishing." "Oh, I don't fish no more--give it up," Ikey said.

"Why, Ikey?" Call asked. "Fishing is a harmless pursuit." "It's because of the bones," Ikey said.

"Remember Jacob Low? He was that tailor who choked on a fish bone. Got it stuck in his gullet and was dead before anybody knew what to do.

Here I've survived the Comanches near eighty years--I'm damned if I want to take the risk of choking on a bone from one of them bony little perch." "I don't recall that you've been married, since I've known you," Call said.

But he left the remark hanging--j a remark, not quite a question. He felt absurd suddenly.

Maggie Tilton had wanted, for years, to marry him, but he had declined, preferring bachelorhood--why was he talking about marriage to an eighty-year-old bachelor who had little to do but gossip? Though fond of Maggie, he had never wanted to marry and didn't know why he was so disturbed to discover that she was keeping closer company with Jake than he had supposed.

"Illinois," Ikey Ripple said. "I sparked a girl once--it was in Illinois." Though Captain Call didn't question him further, Ikey thought back, across sixty years, to the girl he had sparked in Illinois, whose name was Sally. They had danced once in a hoedown; she had blue eyes. But Sally had fallen out of a boat on a foggy morning, while crossing the Mississippi River on a trip to Still.

Louis with her father. Her body, so far as he could recall, had never been found. Had her name been Sally? Or had it been Mary? Had her eyes been blue? Or had they been brown? He had danced with her once at a hoedown. Was it her father she had been with on the boat trip? Or was it her mother?

Captain Call, who had seemed interested, for a moment, in Ikey's past with women, walked off to seek breakfast, leaving Ikey to sit alone, on his nail keg. As the morning sun burned away the mist in the streets of Austin, the mist in Ikey's memory deepened, as he tried to think about that girl--was it Mary or Sally, were her eyes blue or brown, was it her mother or her father she was in the boat with?--he had danced with at a hoedown long ago.