Dag reared back in surprise. “For me?”
“Yes, sir. It’s addressed to you in care of me.”
“Yeah, I left your address with my wife before I left.”
Bellaugh handed the letter across the table.
Dag looked at the return address. “It ain’t from my wife,” he said, his voice heavy with dread.
“Open it, Dag,” Flagg said. “Might be good news. Wasn’t your woman expectin’ a baby?”
“It’s way too soon, Jubal.”
Dag looked at the name on the return address. It was from Carmelita Delgado, the woman who was watching after Laura. He opened the envelope. The letter from Carmelita was in Spanish, but he knew the language.
Muy estimado Felix, read the formal greeting.
Then he read the first line and his heart squeezed tight in his chest.
Quanto lamento lo que ha pasado, the letter began. “I’m so sorry for what has happened.”
Tears began to flow down Dag’s cheeks as he read the rest of it. He read it again and more tears flowed from his eyes. He looked up at Flagg and Matlee.
“Laura’s—Laura’s dead,” he said. “She had a miscarriage and lost the baby. They—they couldn’t stop the bleeding.”
“I’m sorry, Dag,” Flagg said softly.
“My sympathies, Dag,” Matlee said. “I’m awful sorry.”
“Mr. Dagstaff,” Bellaugh said, “please accept my condolences and my deepest sympathies.”
But Dag didn’t hear them. He thought of Laura dying all alone, but he could not yet believe it. He could see her face now, shining, glowing with the life that had been inside her. He heard her voice and her laughter and he smelled her fragrance, felt the softness of her hair when she brushed her face against his cheek.
He took a deep breath and wiped the tears from his face.
Then, he just sat there, staring back through time, thinking of the day he had left Laura to ride north with the herd. He thought of their last kiss and her arms around him, squeezing him, her breasts burning into his chest.
“I ain’t hungry no more,” he said, numbly. “I think I’ll have one of those whiskies.”
But the liquor didn’t take away any of the pain; it only deepened his sadness.
Chapter 26
Dag felt strange riding back home with the Colorado winter breathing down their necks, the Rockies mantled in snow, the pale yellow sun weakening with each day. They all rode together with Fingers, Jo, and the chuck wagon as the centerpiece to their ragged formation. Fred Reilly, who rode for Barry Matlee, was in jail back in Cheyenne. He had been in a fight in a card game with a bunch of slickers, lost his temper, and shot the dealer at point-blank range.
Some hands were nursing sore jaws and busted heads, but they had memories to take back with them to Texas.
Jo had bought two pretty dresses in Cheyenne, and she grew more beautiful, Dag thought, with each day’s passing.
They stopped over in Pueblo, homesick for Mexican food, then continued on over Raton Pass and into New Mexico, with the larder in the chuck wagon full. Some of them had taken scatterguns up on the Colorado prairie and shot game: doves streaking south for Mexico, prairie chickens, and top-knotted quail such as none he had seen before.
They rode through the gathering chill of New Mexico, followed the Canadian, crossed the Mora, and felt butterflies in their stomachs as they neared Texas. They knew they were making better time than they had on the drive up to Cheyenne. Jimmy had sold off some of the horses in Cheyenne, so the remuda had shrunk considerably. All of the hands, including Dag, switched horses daily, so that they always had a fresh mount each morning.
Flagg had been offered a job by James Bellaugh, but he had turned the offer down. Bellaugh had warned them of thieves who might attack them and rob them when they left Cheyenne, and while they had seen a few suspicious riders, none had attacked them. There was safety in numbers, Matlee kept saying, which showed Dag just how scared he was of being robbed.
A few times, Indians trailed them, but a show of rifles soon left them in the dust and they encountered none brave enough to sound the war cry.
Dag felt hollow inside, the emptiness filled with an unutterable sadness that his Laura was dead and that he would be going back to an empty house. His mind was full of memories and they crept into his dreams each night.
Jo tried her best to comfort Dag without imposing upon his grief or intruding into his private thoughts. But she was grieving too, not only for Laura, but for Dag, who seemed to be trying to avoid being alone with her.
They crossed into Texas and headed south-east. The two drovers from the Double C said their farewells and took the money Dag gave them and thanked him profusely. They were good men, he knew, and perfectly trustworthy.
“You say howdy to Gus and Janet, hear?” Dag said, just before they rode off.
“Y’all come back,” Tom Leeds said, with a tip of his hat.
“Y’all are always welcome at the Double C,” Sutphen said.
Dag watched them go and there was a sadness in that parting too.
Into the warmth of Texas, they rode, and down the Palo Duro Canyon with its striated colors painted brilliant by the sun, and the smell of Texas full in their nostrils with each passing day, long days when their pace quickened. Heading for home, Dag thought, and the emptiness inside him would leave him with that hollow feeling and more memories of Laura.
“Felix, what are you going to do when you get back?” Jo asked when they were sitting by a stream, eating a basket lunch she had packed for just the two of them.
“I guess I’ll grieve some more for poor Laura,” he said, “and then get to goin’ on best I can.”
“I’m so sorry. I know you’re hurting real bad inside.”
“I can’t really talk about it, Jo.”
“Someday you’ll have to, Felix.”
“Just not now,” he said, and they ate their sliced beef sandwiches and drank wine Fingers had bought in Cheyenne.
“I understand,” she said, “but if you need me or Daddy, you just holler, hear?”
“I will,” he said, and hated himself for being so distant, so cold.
And maybe, he thought, he hated himself for flirting with Jo on the drive up to Cheyenne. Maybe he also hated himself for harboring thoughts of infidelity with Jo on those nights when he ached for Laura, when he wanted to hold his wife in his arms and make love to her. Tender, sweet Jo, a beautiful woman in season, but forbidden by his strict moral code.
And then they were home, and more farewells sounded as Matlee and his men rode to the Box M, and Dag continued on to the D Slash.
“You be careful, old timer,” Flagg said, as he shook hands with Dag. “Don’t take no wooden nickels.”
“You too, Jubal. It was quite a ride.”
Flagg let fly a stream of tobacco juice and shifted the cud in his mouth from one cheek to the other.
“I never had so much fun since the hogs ate my baby brother,” Flagg joked.
“You got us through it, Jubal.”
“I reckon you had a strong hand in it, Dag.”
It was awkward after that, and Jubal Flagg rode off to his home, where he had no woman waiting for him, just a house and creek and horses.
Jimmy and Little Jake said goodbye and rode off with the rest of the remuda, which had dwindled to a few head as each hand took his own horses and left for their homes.
Finally, there were only Dag, Fingers, and Jo.
“We’ll ride up to home with you, Dag,” Fingers said. “See if you need anything before we head for home.”
“You don’t have to do that, Fingers.”
“It’s on our way.”
Jo got down from the wagon and walked up to the silent house with Dag. She put her arm inside one of his and he crooked it and held it close to his side.