“They’re gone for now,” Bigfoot said. “I don’t expect they’ll interfere with us again, not unless we’re foolish.”

“Maybe the scalp hunters will kill them,” Long Bill suggested. “Killing Indians is scalp hunters’ work. Kirker and Glanton ought to get busy and do it.”

“I expect we’d best turn back,” the Major said. “We’ve lost two men, two horses, and that mule.”

“And the ammunition,” Shadrach reminded him.

“Yes, I ought to have transferred it,” the Major admitted.

He sighed, looking west. “I guess we’ll have to mark this road another time,” he said, in a tone of regret.

The scouts did not comment.

“Hurrah, we’re going back,” Gus said to Call once the news was announced.

“If they let us, we are,” Call said. He was looking across the plain where the Comanches had gone, thinking about Buffalo Hump.

The land before him, which looked so empty, wasn’t. A people were there who knew the emptiness better than he did; they knew it even better than Bigfoot or Shadrach. They knew it and they claimed it. They were the people of the emptiness.

“I’m glad I seen them,” Call said.

“I ain’t,” Gus said. “Zeke and Josh are dead, and I nearly was.”

“I’m still glad I seen them,” Call said.That day at dusk, as the troop was making a wary passage eastward, they found the old Comanche woman, wandering in the sage. A notch had been cut in her right nostril.

Of the tongueless boy there was no sign. When they asked the old woman what became of him she wailed and pointed north, toward the llano. Black Sam helped her up behind him on his mule, and they rode on, slowly, toward the Pecos.

“WHERE is SANTA FE?” Call asked, when he first heard that an expedition was being got up to capture it. Gus McCrae had just heard the news, and had come running as fast as he could to inform Call so the two of them could be among the first to join.

“They say Caleb Cobb’s leading the troop,” Gus said.

Call was as vague about the name as he had been about the place. Several times, it seemed to him, he had heard people mention a place called Santa Fe, but so far as he could recall, he had not until that moment heard the name Caleb Cobb.

Gus, who had been painting a saloon when the news reached him, was highly excited, but short on particulars.

“Why, everybody’s heard of Caleb Cobb,” he said, though in fact the name was new to him as well.

“No, everybody ain’t, because I ain’t,” Call informed him. “Is he a soldier, or what? I ain’t joining up if I have to work for a soldier again.”

“I think Caleb Cobb was the man who captured old Santa Anna,“Gus said. “I guess sometimes he soldiers and sometimes he don’t. I’ve heard that he fought Indians with Sam Houston himself.”

The last assertion was a pure lie, but it was a lie with a serious purpose, and the purpose was to overcome Woodrow Call’s stubborn skepticism and get him in the mood to join the expedition that would soon set out to capture Santa Fe.

Call had four mules yet to shoe and was not eager for a long palaver. There had been no rangering since the little troop had returned to San Antonio, though he and Gus were still drawing their pay.

Idleness didn’t suit him; from time to time he still lent old Jesus a hand with the horseshoeing. Gus McCrae rarely did anything except solicit whores; in all likelihood it was a pimp named Redmond Dale, owner of San Antonio’s newest saloon, who had talked Gus into doing the painting—no doubt he had offered free services as an inducement. What time Gus didn’t spend in the whorehouses he usually spent in jail. With no work to do he had developed a tendency to drink liquor, and drinking liquor made him argumentative. The day seldom passed without Gus getting into a fight, the usual result being that he would whip three or four sober citizens and be hauled off to jail. Even when he didn’t actually fight, he yelled or shot off his pistol or generally disturbed the peace.

“Anyway, we need to join up as soon as we can,” Gus said. “I think we have to go up to Austin to enlist. I sure don’t want to miss this expedition. Would you take them damn horseshoe nails out of your mouth and talk to me?”

Call had four horseshoe nails in his mouth at the time. To humour his friend he took them out and eased the mule’s hoof back on the ground for a minute.

“I still don’t know where Santa Fe is,” Call said. “I don’t want to join an expedition unless I know where it’s going.”

“I don’t see why not,” Gus said, irked by his friend’s habit of asking too many questions.

“All the Rangers are going,” Gus added. “Long Bill has already left to sign up, and Bob Bascom’s about to leave. Johnny Carthage wants to go bad, but he’s gimpy now—I doubt they’ll take him.”

The wound from the Comanche arrow had not healed well. One-eyed Johnny could still walk, but he was not speedy and would be at a severe disadvantage if he had to run.“I think Santa Fe’s out where we were the first time, only farther,” Call remarked.

“Well, it could be out that way,” Gus allowed. He was embarrassed to admit that he didn’t know much about the place the great expedition was being got up to capture.

“Gus, if it’s farther than we went the first time, we’ll never get there,” Call said. “Even if we do get there, what makes you think we can take it?”

“Why, of course we can take it!” Gus said. “Why are you so damn doubtful?”

Call shrugged, and picked up the horse’s hoof again.

“It’s a Mexican town—it’s just defended by Mexicans,” Gus insisted. “Of course we’ll take it, and take it quick. Caleb Cobb wouldn’t let a bunch of Mexicans whip him, I don’t guess!”

“I might go if I thought there would be somebody with us who could find the place,” Call said. “Is Bigfoot going?”

“I expect he is—of course he’ll go,” Gus said, though someone had told him that Bigfoot Wallace was off bear hunting.

“I don’t think you know anything,” Call informed him. “You just heard some talk and now you want to go fight. Santa Fe could be two thousand miles away, for all you know. I ain’t even got a horse that could travel that far.”

“Oh, they’ll furnish the mounts,” Gus said. “They say there’s silver and gold piled everywhere in Santa Fe. I expect we can pick up enough just walking around to buy ourselves fifty horses.”

“You’d believe anything,” Call said. “What about Buffalo Hump? If Santa Fe’s in his direction, he’ll find us and kill us all.”

“I don’t expect he’d care if we took Santa Fe,” Gus said, though he knew it was a weak comment. The thought of Buffalo Hump cast a chill on his enthusiasm. Capturing Santa Fe and picking up gold and silver off the ground were fine prospects, but if it involved crossing the Comancheria, as probably it did, then the whole matter had a side to it that was a good deal less pleasant. Since returning with the troop, he and Call had not been more than a few miles out of town—once or twice they had gone a little distance into the hills to hunt pigs or turkeys, but they did not camp out. The week scarcely passed without the Indians picking off some traveler, often almost in the outskirts of town. When they went out to hunt, they went in a group and took care to be heavily armed. Gus wore two pistols now, unless he was just engaged in light work such as painting saloons. He had not forgotten what happened west of the Pecos —time and time again, in his dreams, he had seen Buffalo Hump. He remembered that Zeke Moody had dropped his pistol and been scalped alive, as a result. He carried two so that if he got nervous and dropped one, he would still have a spare.

One of his friend Woodrow’s most annoying traits was that he kept producing information you didn’t want.

“I’ve heard that some of the army’s coming on this expedition,” he said. “I doubt the Indians would want to interfere with us if we’ve got the army along.”

“Buffalo Hump has an army, too,” Call reminded his excitable friend. “If he can find ten warriors to ride with him, then he’s got an army.