Streets Of Laredo: A Novel by McMurtry Larry

Author:McMurtry, Larry [McMurtry, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2010-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

5.

Famous Shoes had not wanted to go into Presidio.

“The hard sheriff will arrest me,” he told Pea Eye. “He thinks I stole a horse. It was a long time ago, but he will remember.”

“We’ve got to have shells,” Pea Eye reminded him. “If we don’t get shells, we’ll starve and never find the Captain.”

They’d had a hard trip across the Pecos country. The cold was bitter, and the antelope stayed just out of range, tempting Pea Eye to shoot time after time at animals he couldn’t hit. They’d had no food at all for the last thirty miles.

“You’re working for the Captain now,” Pea said. “You’re like a deputy. Doniphan won’t arrest no deputy of Captain Call’s.”

But Doniphan, the hard sheriff, came with the one-eared deputy, Tom Johnson, and pointed rifles at them in the hardware store. Doniphan wore a long mustache and carried two handguns, besides the rifle. The one-eared deputy had a red face, from drink. His life had not been easy since Billy Williams shot off his ear. People mocked him, and Doniphan, his boss, had no sympathy. As everyone on the border knew, Doniphan had been born without sympathy.

“We’re here waiting for Captain Call,” Pea Eye said, when he saw the rifles pointed at them. “We’re both deputies. We’ve been hired to help the Captain bring in Joey Garza.”

“This Indian is a horsethief,” Doniphan said. “He’s escaped me once, because of a fire. He won’t escape me again.”

“He’s called Famous Shoes because he walks everywhere,” Pea Eye told him. “He wouldn’t steal a horse because he don’t use horses. The only use he’d have for one would be to eat it.”

“Stealing horses to eat is still stealing horses,” Doniphan said. “Start walking toward the jail.”

“I have never stolen a horse in my life,” Pea Eye said. “Why are you arresting me?”

“Because you’re with this horsethief,” the sheriff answered. “You might be a horsethief, too.”

Pea Eye went along to the jail. He felt bad about Famous Shoes. He should have come into the town alone and bought the cartridges. He had ignored the old man’s advice, which was foolish of him. Almost every time he ignored someone’s advice, whether it was Lorena’s or Mr. Goodnight’s or the Captain’s or Famous Shoes’, he had cause to regret it.

Doniphan put the two prisoners in separate cells.

“Once I hang this old red nigger, and I’ll get to it quick, you can go,” Doniphan said. “I suspect you’re a criminal, but I can’t prove it.”

The next day, several people came to the jail and stared at Famous Shoes. Doniphan had let everyone know the man had been recaptured. He decided to keep the old man on display for a week, as a form of publicity. His boast was that no criminal escaped him. Now he had recaptured the one man who had escaped him. He decided to hang him publicly, as an example. Normally, he would just have taken him out and yanked him up and let him choke; normally, an old Indian with a taste for horseflesh would not have merited a public hanging.

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