man, men look at him as he passes and they say such and such about him – there goes Caleb Booth, the lucky man. A lucky man is a man you want fighting near you and he gives the needful sense that the world is a thing of mysteries and wonders. That it’s bigger than you, bigger than all the shit and blood you seen. That God might be in it somehow looking out for you. Troopers maybe are rough souls and the regular padre don’t get much joy out of us. But that don’t say we don’t have things we cherish. Stories that tell another story just the whole while they are being told. Things you can’t ever quite put your finger on. Every man alive has asked why he is here on the earth and what was the likely purpose of that. To watch Caleb Booth come back from the door of death with his mortal wound, well, somewhere in there all mixed up with not knowing was knowing something. I ain’t saying we knowed what we knowed, I ain’t saying Starling Carlton or Lige Magan jumped up and said he knowed something, or anyone else. I ain’t saying that.
No, sir.
Late spring’s bringing the first of the wagon trains and also the major with his new bride. She ain’t riding side-saddle. Kitted out in proper ladies’ britches. In the gates she comes like a message from a far far country, where things is different and people eat off nice plates. Country opens like an enormous parcel and the plains is sparkling with ten thousand flowers and you can feel that first tincture of healing warmth in the days. And across this great carpet of colours has come the major and his bride. God Almighty. He carries her indoors as custom demands and we all stand in front of his quarters and give a cheer and throw our hats into the air. We don’t hardly know what else to do. We feel as happy for the major like it was us that married her. John Cole says he never saw a woman to match her. He’s right. Major hasn’t said a word but the fort gazetteer says her name before she wed were Lavinia Grady so I guess there must be Irish in her anyhow. Major’s name is Neale so I guess she’s Mrs Neale now. I was surprised to note the major’s Christian name because I don’t believe I knew it rightly till that moment. Tilson. Goddamn Tilson Neale. Which was news to me. But that’s how you learn things I guess.
Well the major is a new man now and he is as happy as a duck in the rain, I do not lie. It is good to see what marriage can do for a man like him who feels the world as a burden he must carry alone. She don’t even come out the next day in a dress so I guess she must be intending to stick to the britches. I notice it is sort of a skirt divided into two pieces really. I never seen the like before, I guess the east is getting very forward and all sorts of new things are shooting up. Also she favours these little Mexican jackets, she must have ten of them because every day is a new colour. As a one-time professional girl I can’t help wondering what her underwears may comprise of. In my day it was all frills and satinised cotton. There’s something sleek about her, like a trout moving through the water. Her hair is glossy as pine-needles, pitch-black, and she wears a diamond-spangled net over it, like she was ready for business. She carries one of them new Colt guns in her belt. She’s better armed than we are. Guess we think Mrs Neale is top-notch alright. It warms my heart to see how much she is kind to the major. They link arms about the place and she talks like a geyser. Every little thing she says has grammar in it, she sounds like a bishop. I seen the colonel meet her for the first time and he stammered like a schoolboy. I don’t blame him. It’s like being bathed in flames just looking to her, and I ain’t even that sort of man would like to kiss her. It’s like meeting a bit of sharp weather. Blowing against you. She’s a peach among women, I guess. There’s other officers’ wives in the