(Via:Here.)
Agathe—standing in the dusty street—sensed her tantrum unsnarling from the heat and disquietude. What a dreary place! Sweat dribbled down her nose.
And I ain't about to ask 'im, neither, the Smith decided—with a sidelong appraisal of the other man. Ten to one he doesn't use his real name. If he even knows it. Gabriel did answer—to a horde of names and latched onto them all. In the white man's world—he was Gabriel of the Camp Greenwood Indian Scouts.
In the realm of the Comanche—he was Storm Caller, Rider-of-Storms—in his heart this was his genuine name. His dad had been a Parisian—who jilted his Comanche wife and son to marry a white woman. His mother had passed away after acquiring one of the blankets—dispensed by the government which had been in cold blood vitiated with smallpox.
Yet he had left his ancestral homelands on the Staked Plains—to become an Indian Scout for the U.S. Cavalry. Each and everything about him was a conundrum: he was a labyrinthine man leading a simple life—a man ceaselessly at war with Fate and his own self, ripped up between the two opposing cultures that had bred him, body and soul.
Bupkis of this unbroken battle was crystal clear as he slanted back and watched the woman. Agathe, standing in the dusty street, sensed her tantrum unsnarling from the heat and disquietude. What a dreary place! Sweat dribbled down her nose. Beyond the miniature town—the desiccated land lay flat to the horizon in three directions—but to the north the hunchbacked spine of a mountain range twinkled blue and purple with distance.
The hot wind ventilating her cheeks brought no mitigation—but oh, how ethical it felt to stand straight after hours of crawling around in the incarcerated space—like the two or three coins left in her worn change purse. With intricacy she eschewed—from elongating to ease her twinging muscles.
But a lady didn't do such things. Of course—a lady didn't sweat, either—but she had no authority over her body's reaction to the torrid day—coalesced by the many layers of garments that modesty wanted. The driver dissipated into the stage office—and it appeared to Agathe that there was no else having life in the king-sized dun-colored landscape but the torpid guard and herself—lento languishing under the yellow sun.
Where was everybody? And most prominently, where was Louis? Something drifted in the street and she gyrated around, fervently.