“So you’re doing it, are you, Mr. Call?” Clara said, when she saw him. She had a look of scorn in her eyes, which puzzled him, since he was merely carrying out the request of the man who had loved her for so long. Of course Dish had told her that Gus wanted his body taken to Texas.>>

Pea Eye and Needle followed Newt silently. Pea Eye felt old and frightened. In a few minutes the whole ground of his life had shifted, and he felt stricken with foreboding. For thirty years the Captain had been there to give orders, and frequently the orders had kept them alive. He had always been with the Captain, and yet now he wasn’t. He couldn’t understand why the Captain had given Newt the horse, the gun and the watch. The business of the ax, and what he had heard when retrieving it, was forgotten—it had puzzled him so long that it had finally just slipped from his mind.>>

豌豆眼和针默默地跟着纽特。Pea Eye感到又老又害怕。几分钟后，他生活的整个领域都发生了变化，他感到一阵不祥的预感。三十年来，船长一直在那里发号施令，这些命令经常让他们活着。他一直和船长在一起，但现在他不在了。他不明白为什么船长把马、枪和手表都给了纽特。斧头的事，以及他取回斧头时听到的话，都被遗忘了——这件事让他困惑了很久，终于从脑海中溜走了。

For two weeks, through the spring evenings, Newt was very happy. He had never expected to share such a time with the Captain, and he hoped the Captain would speak to him soon and explain all that had puzzled him for so long.>>

“Upset me too,” Call said. “It was a peculiar sign. It’s on the wagon.” “I consider it my masterpiece, that and the fact that I’ve kept you from not getting no worse for so long,” Augustus said.>>

The day had never been bright, but it seemed to linger. There was a long, rainy dusk, so long that it made Pea Eye feel gloomy. It was cramped in the cave. He longed to stretch his legs, and then made the foolish mistake of saying so to Gus.>>

They expected to start the herd that day, as Captain Call had never been known to linger. But this time he did. He came back from the grave, got a big hammer and knocked a board loose from the side of the wagon. He didn’t explain what he was doing to anyone, and the look on his face discouraged anyone from asking. He took the board and carried it down to the grave. The rest of the day he sat alone by Deets’s grave, carving something into it with his knife. The sun flashed on his knife, and the cowhands watched in puzzlement. They just didn’t know what it could be that would take the Captain so long.>>

“Well, my lord,” he said, from time to time. “My lord.” An Indian boy had killed him, the Captain said. Deets was still wearing a pair of the old patchy quilt pants that he had favored for so long. Pea Eye scarcely knew what to think. He and Deets had been the main hired help on the Hat Creek outfit ever since there had been a Hat Creek outfit. Now it was down to him. It would mean a lot more chores for him, undoubtedly, for the Captain only trusted the two of them with certain chores. He remembered that he and Deets had had a pretty good conversation once. He had been vaguely planning to have another one with him if the chance came along. Of course that was off, now. Pea Eye went over and leaned against a wagon wheel, wishing he could stop feeling weak in the legs.>>

Po Campo hated to leave the river. The morning they left it he lingered behind so long with the wagon that the herd was completely out of sight. Lippy, who rode on the wagon, found this fact alarming. After all, they were in Indian country, and there was nothing to keep a few Indians from nipping in and taking their scalps.>>

So when Clara came downstairs and asked her to stay, it felt like being given back something—something that had been lost so long that she had ceased to think about it. Just before Clara and Gus came in, the girls had been nagging her to teach them how to sew. Lorena could sew fairly well. The girls complained that their mother never took the time to teach them. Their mother, about whom they were full of gripes, was more interested in horses than in sewing.>>

He studied the situation in silence for several minutes—so long that Clara grew impatient.>>

“My husband’s dying,” Clara said. “But whether he’s dead or alive, I’ll still raise that child.” “I don’t know what to do,” July said. “It’s been so long since I done anything right that I can’t remember it. I don’t know if I’ll ever get Ellie back to Fort Smith. They might even have hired a new sheriff by now.” “Finding a job’s the least of your problems,” Clara said. “I’ll give you a job, if you want one. Cholo’s been doing Bob’s work and his too, and he can’t keep it up forever.” “I always lived in Arkansas,” July said. It had never occurred to him that he might settle anywhere else.>>

Ellie don’t know it yet.” “Did you say Jake Spoon?” Clara said. “I know Jake. We courted once. I saw him in Ogallala about a year ago but the woman he was with didn’t like my looks so we didn’t talk much. Why were you after Jake?” July could barely remember it all, it seemed to have happened so long ago.>>

“Hello, I’m Clara,” she said. “Pardon the commotion. We’re a loud bunch. Get down, sir. You’re welcome.” July had not spoken in so long, except for the few words he had said to Cholo and his ravings to Roscoe Brown, that his voice came out cracked. “Thank you, I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” he said.>>

“Not as bad as it was,” July said. “Is Ogallala near here?” “Twenty miles,” the old man said. “I’m Cholo. Come to the house. You must be hungry.” July didn’t argue. He had almost forgotten that people sat at tables, in houses, to eat. He had lived so long on half-cooked bacon, or half-cooked game, that he had become shy at the thought of sitting at a proper table. He didn’t look proper, he knew.>>

Suddenly Clara felt angry that the man had been fool enough to think he could break that mare, when both she and Cholo had warned him to leave her alone. It made her angry at herself, to have lived so long with a horse trader who had no more savvy than that.>>

“Hell, gravediggers could make a fortune in these parts,” Augustus said. “Pea, you ought to buy you a bigger spade and go in business.” “No, I’ll pass, Gus,” Pea Eye said mildly. “I’d rather dig wells.” Call was thinking of Jake—that a man who had ridden with them so long could let such a thing happen. Of course he was outnumbered, but it was no excuse. He could have fought or run, once he saw the caliber of his companions.>>

Lorena didn’t say anything. She felt so sleepy that she could hardly sit up, and after a moment she leaned against Gus and shut her eyes. He put his arms around her. His arms were warm and the sun on her face was warm. Sleep had pulled at her so much lately that it seemed she was never fully awake, but it didn’t matter so long as Gus was there to talk to her and sleep close beside her. If he was there she could let go and slide into sleep. He didn’t mind. Often she would rest in his arms, while he held forth, talking almost to himself, for she only half heard. Only when she thought of coming to a town did she feel worried. She stayed in her sleeps as long as she could, so as not to have to worry about the towns.>>

“We might not last long if we did,” Augustus said. “Every mangy renegade that’s left loose knows about this place. If a bunch of them showed up at once we’d be in trouble.” Lorena understood that, but she didn’t want to go. Lying on the pallet and playing cards for buttons was fine, so long as it was just Gus who was there. She didn’t want to see other men, for any reason at all. She didn’t want them to see her.>>

Po Campo didn’t go to Fort Worth either. He sat with his back to one of the wheels of the wagon, whittling one of the little female figures he liked to carve. As he walked along during the day he kept his eye out for promising chunks of wood and, if he saw one, would pitch it in the wagon. Then at night he whittled. He would start with a fairly big chunk, and after a week or so would have it whittled into a little wooden woman about two inches high.“I hope he comes back,” Po Campo said. “I enjoy his acquaintance, although he doesn’t like my cooking.” “Well, we wasn’t used to eating bugs and such when you first came,” Pea Eye said. “I expect he’ll work up a taste for it when he comes back. It never used to take him so long to catch a bandit.” “He won’t catch Blue Duck,” Po Campo said.>>

Call began to be very worried about Gus. It was unusual for him to be gone so long with only one man to chase. Of course, Blue Duck might have had a gang waiting, and Gus might have ridden into an ambush. He had not done any serious fighting in years. Even Pea Eye had begun to worry about him.>>

Lorena had her face in her arms, but she could still hear him moan and gurgle for breath. She wished he would die—it shouldn’t take so long just to die.>>

Only this time she wasn’t there to follow. Roscoe looked all around and there wasn’t a soul in sight, though the plain stretched out and he could see for miles. He was alone, and by no means sure of his direction. It scared him. He had come to depend on the girl, even though she was a loud sleeper. He yelled a time or two, but got no response. The fact that he could see so far scared him a little. He had been raised in a land of trees and was not used to country that looked so long and empty. How he could have lost Janey in such an open place was a mystery to him. He sat still for a while, hoping she would pop up, but she didn’t, and finally he rode on at a slow walk.>>

Call got his rifle, out of the scabbard and cleaned it, though it was in perfect order. Sometimes the mere act of cleaning a gun, an act he had performed thousands of times, would empty his mind of jarring thoughts and memories—but this time it didn’t work. Gus had jarred him with mention of Maggie, the bitterest memory of his life. She had died in Lonesome Dove some twelve years before, but the memory had lost none of its salt and sting, for what had happened with her had been unnecessary and was now uncorrectable. He had made mistakes in battle and led men to their deaths, but his mind didn’t linger on those mistakes; at least the battles had been necessary, and the men soldiers. He could feel that he hadBut Maggie had not been a fighting man—just a needful young whore, who had for some reason fixed on him as the man who could save her from her own mistakes. Gus had known her first, and Jake, and many other men, whereas he had only visited her out of curiosity to find out what it was that he had heard men talk and scheme about for so long. It turned out not to be much, in his view—a brief, awkward experience, where the pleasure was soon drowned in embarrassment and a feeling of sadness. He ought not to have gone back twice, let alone a third time, yet something drew him back—not so much the need of his own flesh as the helplessness and need of the woman. She had such frightened eyes. He never met her in the saloon but came up the back stairs, usually after dark; she would be standing just inside the door waiting, her face anxious. Some weakness in him brought him back every few nights, for two months or more. He had never said much to her, but she said a lot to him. She had a small, quick voice, almost like a child’s. She would talk constantly, as if to cover his embarrassment at what they had met to do. Some nights he would sit for half an hour, for he came to like her talk, though he had long since forgotten what she had said. But when she talked, her face would relax for a while, her eyes lose their fright. She would clasp his hand while she talked—one night she buttoned his shirt. And when he was ready to leave—always a need to leave, to be away, would come over him—she would look at him with fright in her face again, as if she had one more thing to say but couldn’t say it.>>

But he had no intention of complaining. They were on their way, and he was part of the outfit. After waiting for the moment so long, what was a little dust?>>

Newt and the two Irishmen were holding the herd. The Irishmen were particularly good night herders because they could sing; their melodies seemed to soothe the cattle. In fact, the whole camp enjoyed the Irish singing. Newt couldn’t sing a lick, but he had rapidly developed into such a skilled cowhand that Call felt a little guilty for having held him back so long.>>