“Won’t you come?—I have to go,” Gus said. “We’re hurrying to meet Colonel Cobb—he don’t like to wait.”

Clara didn’t answer, but she disappeared from the window, and a moment later, opened the door of the general store. She had wrapped a robe around her and came right down the steps of the store, barefoot, into the muck of the street.

“Goodness, you’ll get muddy,” Gus said—he had not supposed she would be so reckless as to walk barefoot into the mud.

Clara ignored the remark—young Mr. McCrae was muddy to the elbows and to the knees. She could tell that he was drunk—but he had not forgotten to call on her. Men were not perfect, she knew; even her father, kindly as he was, flew into a temper at least once a month, usually while doing the accounts.

“I don’t see Corporal Call—what’s become of him?” she asked.

“Oh now … you would ask, “Gus complained. “He’s off chasing Indians. He ain’t no corporal, either—I’ve told you that.”

“Well, in my fancy he is,” Clara retorted. “Don’t you be brash with me.”

“I don’t want him anywhere in your damn fancy!” Gus said. “For all we know he’s dead and scalped, by now.”

Then he realized that he didn’t want that, either. Annoying as Call was, he was still a Ranger and a friend. Clara’s quick tongue had provoked him—she would mention Call, even in the street at dawn, with the expedition leaving.

“Now, don’t be uncharitable to your friend,” Clara chided. “As I told you before, he would never do for me—too solemn! You ain’t solemn, at least—you might do, once you’ve acquired a little polish and can remember who Romeo is and what he’s supposed to do.”

“I ain’t got the time—will you marry me once I get back?” he asked.

“Why, I don’t know,” Clara said. “How should I know who’ll walk into my store, while you’re out wandering on the plains? I might meet a gentleman who could recite Shakespeare to me for hours— or even Milton.”

“That ain’t the point—I love you,” Gus said. “I won’t be happy a minute, unless I know you’ll marry me once I get back.”

“I m afraid I can’t say for sure, not right this minute,” Clara said. “But I will kiss you—would that help?”

Gus was so startled he couldn’t answer. Before he could move she came closer, put her hands on his muddy arms, reached up her face, and kissed him. He wanted to hug her tight, but didn’t—he felt he was all mud. But Gus kissed back, for all he was worth. It was only for a second. Then Clara, smiling, scampered back to the porch of the general store, her feet and ankles black with mud.

“Good-bye, Mr. McCrae, don’t get scalped if you can help it,” she said. “I’ll struggle on with my unpacking as best I can, while you travel the prairies.”

Gus was too choked with feeling to answer. He merely looked at her. Johnny Carthage was yelling at him, threatening to leave him. Gus began to hobble toward the cart, still looking at Clara. The sun had peeked through the clouds. Clara waved, smiling. In waving back, Gus almost slipped. He would have gone down again in the mud, had not a strong hand caught his arm. Matilda Jane Roberts, the Great Western, plodding by on Tom, her large grey, saw his plight just in time and caught his arm.

“Here, hold the saddle strings—just hold them and hop, I’ll get you to Johnny,” she said.

Gus did as he was told. He looked back, anxiously, wondering what the young woman who had just kissed him would think, seeing a whore help him out, so soon after their kiss.

But the porch of the general store was empty—Clara Forsythe had gone inside.

WHEN THE TROOP OF Rangers reached the Brazos River, the wide brown stream was in flood. The churning water came streaming down from the north, through the cut in the low hills where the Rangers struck the river.

The hills across the river were thick with post oak and elm. Call remembered how completely the Comanches had managed to hide themselves on the open plain. Finding them in thickets such as those across the river would be impossible.

Long Bill looked apprehensive, when he saw that the Brazos was in flood.

“If half of us don’t get drowned going over, we’ll get drowned coming back,” he observed. “I can’t swim no long distance. About ten yards is my limit.”

“Hang on to your horse, then,” Bigfoot advised. “Slide off and grab his tail. Don’t lose your holt of it, either. A horse will paw you down if he can see you in the water.”

Call’s little bay was trembling at the sight of the water. Shadrach had ridden straight into the river and was already halfway across. He clung to his saddle strings with one hand, and kept the long rifle above the flood with the other. Bigfoot took the water next; his big bay swam easily. The rest of the Rangers lingered, apprehension in their eyes.

“This is a mighty wide river,” Blackie Slidell said. “Damn the Comanches! They would beat us across.”

Call thumped the little grey’s sides with his rifle, trying to get him to jump in. It was time to go—he wanted to go. The horse made a great leap into the water and went under briefly, Call with him. But once in, the little horse swam strongly. Call managed to catch his tail—holding the rifle up was tiring. When, now and then, he caught a glimpse of the far shore, it seemed so far away that he didn’t know if a horse could swim that far. Curls of reddish water kept breaking over his head. In only a minute or two, he lost sight of all the other Rangers. He might have been in the river alone, for all he could tell. But he was in it: there was nothing to do but cling to the horse’s tail and try to keep from drowning.

When Call was halfway across, he caught a glimpse of something coming toward him, on the reddish, foaming flood. It seemed to be a horse, floating on its side. Just at that time he went under—when his head broke the surface again he saw that it was actually a dead mule, all bloated up, floating right down at him. The little bay horse was swimming as hard as he could—it looked, for a moment, as if the dead mule was going to surge right into them. Call thought his best bet might be to poke the mule aside with his rifle barrel; and he twisted a little and brought the rifle into position, meaning to shove the mule away. Just as he twisted he saw two eyes that weren’t dead and weren’t mule’s eyes, staring at him from between the stiff legs of the dead mule. The mule and the Indian boy floating down with him were only five feet away when Call fired. The boy had just raised his hand, with a knife in it, when the bullet took him in the throat. Then the mule and the body of the dying boy crashed into Call, carrying him under and loosening his grip on the bay gelding’s tail. Call went under, entangled with the corpse of the Comanche boy he had just killed. The red current rolled them over and over— all Call knew was that he mustn’t lose his musket. He clung to the gun even though he knew he might be drowning. He was so confused for a moment that he didn’t know the difference between upand down. It seemed to him he was getting deeper into the water; it was all just a red murk, with sticks and bits of bushes floating in it, but then he felt himself being lifted and was able to draw his breath.

The clouds had broken, while Call was struggling under water— the sunlight when he broke the surface, bright sunlight on the foam-flecked water, with the deep blue sky above, was the most welcome sight he had ever seen.

“Don’t try to swim, just let me drag you,” a voice said. “I believe I can get you to the shallows if you’ll just keep still, but if you struggle we’ll likely both go under.”

Call was able to determine that his rescuer was the tall boy from Arkansas, Jimmy Tweed. Unlike the rest of the Rangers, Jimmy had declined to dismount and cross the river holding on to his horse’s tail. He was still in the saddle, which was mostly submerged. But his horse was a stout black mare, and she kept swimming, even though not much more than her nose and her ears were above the stream.