Jake Spoon picked himself up, but cautiously. He left the windblown cards to lie in the dust. Gus McCrae looked as if he were in the mood to give someone a thorough licking. The men resumed working with the horse, but they kept one eye on Gus, who stood with his back to them. It was clear that it wouldn't take much to set him off.

But when Gus turned it was to motion for Deets to come with him.

"You, there," he said to Jake, "leave them cards alone and help the boys shoe that horse." Long Bill started to protest the order.

Deets was handy with a hasp and a horseshoe nail, and there was nothing in the way of labor that Jake was handy with. But he saw that Gus was upset, and held his tongue.

Augustus walked Deets out of town to where the cemetery lay, in a curve of a stream. They could hear the water rushing before they reached the stream.

Once amid the live oaks that bordered the river Gus felt a little relief from his sour mood, a mood mostly caused by Inez Scull. He didn't like the woman, but she exuded a strong nectar, too strong to easily ignore.

Deets followed Gus quietly, glad to be relieved of the horseshoeing. When they came to the cemetery he took off his hat, an old felt Captain Call had given him only the day before.

It had belonged to one of the rangers killed in the raid. Deets was mighty proud of his hat, but he took it off quickly when they came to the graveyard. It wouldn't do to be disrespectful of the dead.

Augustus walked him carefully through the fresh graves until he came to those of Clara's mother and father. He knew Deets couldn't read the names on the wooden crosses, so he wanted him to take care to note exactly where the two graves were.

"These are the Forsythes," he told Deets.

"They were parents of a good friend of mine. I aim to put up good stone headstones when I get time-- she'd want me to, I expect." The thought of Clara entrusting him with the care of her parents' graves left him briefly overcome.

He knelt down and didn't try to speak.

"Deets, can you garden?" he asked, when the mood passed and he had better control of his voice.

"I can garden," Deets assured him.

"Kept a big one, back home. Lord, we grew the string beans." Augustus realized he knew almost nothing about the young black man. Deets had just shown up one day, as people did--black people, particularly. Their owners died and they were set to wandering.

"Where was back home, Deets?" Gus asked.

"Louisee, I believe," Deets said, after a moment. "It was in Louisee, somewhere on the river." "Oh, Louisiana, I guess you mean," Gus said. "I want you to tend these graves like you would a garden. Only you don't need to grow no string beans, just flowers. My friend's mother was partial to bluebonnets, particularly. I'd like you to get some flowers growing on these graves, come spring." It was clear to Deets that Mr. Gus had a powerful affection for the friend he mentioned. When he mentioned her his voice shook. As for flowers, that was easy.

"The flowers be coming soon," he said. "I'll get some of the bluebonnets and put them on these graves." "I'll see you get a wage for it--a fair wage," Augustus said. "I want you to keep tending these two graves as long you're in these parts. Just these two, now. You don't have time to be flowering up other people's graves." "No sir," Deets said. "I see which two.

I'll make 'em pretty." "You tend them, come what may," Gus said.

"That's how my friend wants it." He paused--he seemed to have difficulty with his voice. Deets waited.

"You'll need to be keeping them pretty, year after year," Gus said, with a glance at the young black man who knelt, hat in hand, a few feet away.

"You'll need to do it whatever happens to me," Gus said, looking down at the clods of brown earth on the fresh grave.

These last ^ws startled Deets. It was clear that Mr. Gus was mighty concerned about the upkeep of the two graves. Deets could not but feel proud that he had been selected, from all the company, to be the one to see that the burial places were well maintained.

But now Mr. Gus was concerning him a little.

What did he mean, whatever happened to him? It sounded as if he might be intending to leave, which was startling and upsetting. Of all the rangers only Pea Eye, a young man like himself, had been as kind to him as Mr. Gus.

"I expect you be seeing for yourself what a good job I do, Captain," Deets said. He tried to pick his ^ws carefully, for the matter clearly meant a lot to Mr. Gus.

"But if I ain't here to see it for myself, you tend these graves anyway," Gus said, with force in his voice suddenly. "You make 'em pretty anyway, Deets, even if I'm dead and in a grave myself." It had suddenly come to Augustus that he might die without ever seeing Clara again--or, even worse, Clara herself might die before they could ever have another moment together with one another. It was a terrible thought to think, and yet men and women died every day on the frontier; and Nebraska, where Clara had gone, was no less a frontier than Texas. Thirty people, all of them alive when he and Call left Austin, lay buried under the freshly turned earth just before him.

"I ain't guaranteed tomorrow--y ain't either," he told Deets. "If I should fall I wouldn't want my friend to have to be ... worrying about these graves not being tended." Deets had never heard Mr. Gus speak so.

He realized he had been given a solemn responsibility.

"I'll be seeing to the graves, Captain," he said.

Mr. Gus nodded. He was looking away; it was as if he were thinking of a far place, a place well distant from the little graveyard outside of Austin. He nodded, but he didn't speak.

Deets thought it might be best just to leave him alone, to do his looking away. He walked out of the graveyard, put his hat back on, and began to inspect some of the first spring flowers, to see if any of them might do for prettying up the two graves.

Maggie now seldom went out. The baby was growing inside her, its kicks stronger every day.

Even with her coat on it was obvious to everyone who saw her that she was with child.

Fortunately her room was light, with a good south breeze blowing through it most of the time. Woodrow had started taking most of his meals with her, which meant that she did have to go out and shop a little in the market.