She would become cheerful again so quickly that it would make Pea Eye feel a little lonely. Hurts didn't go out of his mind that quickly, particularly if he was the cause of them. They seemed to settle in his throat, like gravel in a chicken's craw. Often, his feelings of absence or confusion would linger so long in his breast, while Lorena and the children went on with their lives, moving around him as if he wasn't there, that Pea Eye had a hard time feeling he was in their lives at all. He would begin to feel he was just some stranger who happened to be staying where his family lived.

Often, too, it would not be until the next day, when some child jumped in his lap or came to him with a problem, that he would recover a sense of being connected to them.

As the Captain went about preparing to leave--they had bought a couple of extra rifles in Presidio, and the Captain took one of them and a good supply of ammunition--Pea Eye felt the same sadness tightening his throat that he felt at home when Lorena tried to assure him that his world wasn't coming to an end.

Lorena could say that to him all she liked, but her saying it didn't take away Pea Eye's feelings that the world might be coming to an end anyway.

As he grew older, he felt more keenly how hard it was to know anyone. Lorena and the Captain, in turn, let him stay with them and share their lives. But Lorena and the Captain were complete, in a way that he wasn't, and being complete, they didn't realize how partial he felt. He was not as good as they were, not as smart and not as strong.

They might know him, but he felt he would never be much good at knowing them. Often, in bed at night, listening to Lorena breathe and feeling her body warming his, tears would come to his eyes, from the sense that he didn't know his Lorena. He didn't, and he never would. He felt grateful, though, that she was letting him stay with her, and glad that they had the children and the farm.

But it didn't mean that the world wasn't coming to an end, or that it wouldn't.

Pea Eye didn't attempt to tell the Captain how he felt, though. The Captain was preparing to leave, and he didn't linger when he had someplace to go.

"I'll meet you on the other side of the river," Call said. "If I don't have too much aggravation with Mox Mox, I wouldn't think I'd be gone much more than a week." "Don't neglect any killers," Roy Bean admonished. He was swaddled in his buffalo robe, the cocked pistol still in his hand.

"You oughtn't to leave that pistol cocked," Pea Eye said, as they watched the Captain lope away to the east. "You might have a bad dream and jerk and shoot your knee off." "It might rain whores out of the sky, too, but I doubt it," Roy Bean said.

Joey Garza watched Captain Call's departure through a telescope he had taken off the train from San Angelo. The telescope had belonged to an old man with stringy gray hair, who protested so much when Joey took it that Joey shot him. He had not intended to kill anybody when he stopped the train; he'd only wanted to add to his treasures. If the old man had surrendered the telescope peacefully, Joey wouldn't have killed him. The old man claimed to be a teacher. He said he taught about the stars, and needed the telescope in order to study the stars.

He was bound for Fort Davis, where the stars were easier to see, or so he said. He offered to give Joey all his money if Joey would leave him the telescope.

"You see, I can't get another, not in these parts," the man said. "I had to send to England for this one." Joey thought he was just a disagreeable old man, so he shot him and took the telescope and the money, too. Apart from two or three good watches, the telescope was the only thing on that particular train that Joey felt was worth stealing. He hoped that by going east, closer to the cities of the Texans, he would find better things on the trains he robbed. But if San Angelo was any example, this theory was no good. The train mainly held cowboys, who were being sent to some large ranch. None of the cowboys had anything of value. Sometimes Joey took fine spurs, but the spurs these cowboys wore were of no interest.

Even their saddles were poor. So he took the telescope, and the little stand that it rested on, killed the old man, and left.

That night, he used the telescope to look at the stars. He had to admit that the old man had been telling the truth. The telescope brought the stars much closer. When Joey pointed it at the moon, the results were even better. He could see what seemed to be mountains on the moon. The surface of the moon looked a little like the country where the Apaches had taken him. It was pretty bare.

The best use of the telescope, though, was to look at men. He concealed his mother's spotted pony in a gully, before pointing the telescope at Roy Bean's door. By adjusting it a little, he could see with great clarity. He saw the famous Captain Call come out with his tall friend, and get ready to leave. He saw the Captain take an extra rifle, and even saw that Judge Roy Bean kept his pistol cocked.

It annoyed Joey, that the Captain left his men behind. There were four of them; three were still inside.

If they stayed, he would have to kill them before he could hang the judge, but he didn't want to kill them while the famous bounty hunter, Captain Call, was close enough to hear the shots.

It meant waiting, which Joey hated. He wanted to hang the judge, and then follow Captain Call and shoot him. Once Call was dead, he intended to go to Ojinaga and steal his brother and sister. It bothered him that his mother gave them so much attention. He meant to steal them and give them to the manburner, if he could find him.

If the manburner wanted to burn them, that was fine with Joey. They were damaged anyway, too damaged to deserve all the attention his mother gave them. They were merely the products of her whoring.

Stealing them would show her what he felt about her low behavior. If the manburner had no interest in burning them, Joey meant to take them deep into Mexico and give them away, to someone who wanted two slaves. He would take them so far away that his mother would never find them, and if he could find no one who wanted them for slaves, he might take them to his cave and throw them off the cliff behind it.

To his relief, the men Captain Call left at the saloon didn't stay long. The tall man went back inside and got them. There were two more white men, and old Famous Shoes.

The two white men looked drunk. One of them was so drunk that he had difficulty mounting. But eventually, they got started. Famous Shoes led them across the river and took them north.

Probably the Captain had sent them to catch him, when he came home. If that was the plan, it was silly. He might not go home, and even if he did, white men who were so drunk they couldn't mount their horses were not going to catch him. He could ride in and steal his brother and sister while they were in the cantina, getting drunk again. They would never see him, or even know he had been there.