Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Or it could just be the company he’s tired of,” Augustus suggested. “I’d buy him if he was for sale. I’ve always got along with mules.” “This mule ain’t for sale,” the cook said, looking the camp over. “I wisht all I had to do was live in a tent.” Without further ado, he turned and went back.

When he was gone, Lorena came out and sat in the bright sun. While they ate, Wilbarger’s cowboys began to move the herd toward the river.

“That Wilbarger is a curious man,” Augustus said. “He’s blunt-spoken, but I guess he’ll do.” Before noon all the herds had crossed and the wagon and remuda of the last one was just moving out of sight to the north.

“We might as well cross while the crossing’s good,” Augustus said. “It could come another rain.” He folded the tent, which was awkward to carry on a horse. His horse didn’t like it and tried to pitch, but Augustus finally got him settled down. The river had gone down some, and they crossed without difficulty and made camp on a long ridge about two miles to the north of it.

“Now then, we ought to be set,” Augustus said, once he had the tent secured. “I imagine the boys will be along in a week or so.” Lorena didn’t care if they never came along, but she was glad they had the tent. It was scarcely up before rain clouds boiled again out of the northwest.

“Let her rain, we’re ready,” Augustus said, taking the box of buttons from his saddlebag. “I guess it won’t stop us from playing cards.” Wilbarger had thoughtfully let them have some coffee and a side of bacon, and with those provisions and the tent and the buttons, they passed a week. A little of the hollowness left Lorena’s cheeks, and her bruises healed. She still slept close to Augustus at night and her eyes still followed him when he went out to move the horses or do some errand. Once or twice on pretty evenings they rode over to the river. Augustus had rigged a fishing line out of some coarse thread they had found in Adobe Walls. He bent a needle for a hook and used tadpoles for bait. But he caught no fish. Whenever he went to the river, he stripped off and bathed.

“Come in, Lorie,” he said several times. “A bath won’t hurt you.” Finally she did. She had not washed in a long time, and it felt good. Gus was sitting on a rock not far away, letting the sun dry him. The water was rapid, and she didn’t wade in too deep. She was surprised to see how white her skin looked, once the dirt was all washed off. The sight of her own brown legs and white belly surprised her so that she began to cry. Once the crying started, she couldn’t stop it—she cried as if she would never stop. Gus noticed and walked over to help her out of the river, for she was just standing there sobbing, the water up to her thighs.

Gus didn’t reprimand her. “I ’spect the best thing is for you to cry it out, Lorie,” he said. “You just remember, you got a long time to live.” “They shouldn’t have took me,” Lorena said, when she stopped crying. She got her rag of a dress and went back to the tent.

ONCE THEY HIT the Territory, Newt began to worry about Indians. He was not alone in his worrying. The Irishman had heard so much about scalping that he often tugged at his own hair as if to reassure himself that it wouldn’t come off easily. Pea Eye, who spent most of his time sharpening his knife or making sure he had enough ammunition, was astonished that the Irishman had never seen a scalped person. During Pea’s years as a Ranger they were always finding scalped settlers, and, for that matter, several of his friends had been scalped.

The Spettle boys, who were slowly becoming more talkative, confided in Newt that they would run away and go home if they weren’t afraid of getting lost.

“But you have to drive the horses,” Newt pointed out. “The Captain hired you.” “Didn’t know we was coming where the Indians were,” Bill Spettle said.

For all the talk, they saw neither Indians nor cowboys for days on end. They saw no one—just an occasional wolf or coyote. It seemed to Newt that the sky got bigger and the country emptier every day. There was nothing to see but grass and sky. The space was so empty that it was hard to imagine that there might ever be towns in it, or people.

The Irishman particularly found the huge emptiness disturbing. “I guess we left the people,” he said often. Or, “When’s the next people?” Nobody was quite sure when to expect the next people. “It’s too bad Gus ain’t here,” Pea Eye said. “Gus would know.

He’s an expert on where places is at.” “Why, there’s nothing north of here,” Dish said, surprised that anyone would think otherwise. “You have to go east a ways to get into the towns.” “I thought we was going to strike Ogallala,” Needle reminded him.

“I don’t say we won’t,” Dish said. “That’s up to the Captain. But if it ain’t no bigger than Dodge, it wouldn’t take much to miss it.” Po Campo had become a great favorite with the men because of the tastiness of his cooking. He was friendly and kind to everyone, and yet, like the Captain, he kept apart. Po just did it in a different way. He might sing to them in his throaty voice, but he was a man of mystery, a strange man, walking all day behind the wagon, and at night whittling his little women. Soon each of the cowboys had been given one of the carvings.

“To remind you of your sisters,” Po said.

A day and a half before they reached the Canadian the rains started again. At the sight of the great gray clouds forming in the west, morale immediately sank and the men untied their slickers, resigned to a long, cold, dangerous night.

The storm that struck them half a day from the Canadian was of a different intensity because of the lightning. By midafternoon, Newt, who was as usual with the drags, became conscious of rumblings and flashing far on the west. He saw Deets conferring with the Captain, though it was hard to imagine what advice might help. They were out in the middle of the plain, far from any shelter.

All through the late afternoon lightning flickered in the west. As the sun was setting Newt saw something he had never

seen:

a bolt of lightning shot south to north, bisecting the setting sun. The bolt seemed to travel the whole length of the western horizon—the crack that came with it was so sharp that Newt almost expected to see the sun split in half, like a big red melon.

After that bolt, the clouds rolled down on the group like a huge black herd, snuffing out the afterglow in five minutes. The remuda became restless, and Newt rode over to help Pete Spettle, but a bolt of lightning struck so close by that his horse went into a violent fit of pitching and promptly threw him. He had kept a tight grip on the reins and the horse didn’t break free, but Newt had a time calming him enough that he could remount. Claps of thunder were almost constant by then, and so loud that they made his head ring. The herd was stopped, the cowboys spread around it in as tight a ring as possible.

Just as Newt mounted, a bolt of lightning struck the edge of the herd not a hundred feet from where the Captain rode. A number of cattle instantly fell, as if clubbed by the same club. It was as if a portion of the wall of cattle had broken and fallen to earth like so many bricks.

A second later the cattle were running. They broke west in a mass and surged through the riders as if they weren’t there, although Dish, the Captain and Deets were all trying to turn them. The rain came almost as the cattle began to move.

Newt spurred and tried to reach the head of the herd, which was nearer him than anyone. He saw a long line of lightning curl down and strike, but the cattle didn’t stop. He heard the clicking of thousands of horns as the cattle bumped one another. Again he saw the bluish light rolling on the tips of the cattle’s horns, and was glad when the wall of rain came.

He rushed to it with relief. Rain was just wet—it didn’t scare him, and he knew that if it rained hard enough the lightning would finally stop.The cattle ran for many miles, but soon the storm was to the east of them and he had only the rain and darkness to contend with. As he had done before, he plodded along much of the night beside the cattle. Occasionally he would hear the shout of another cowboy, but it was too dark and rainy to see anything. The length of such nights was a torment. A hundred times, or a thousand, he would look in what he thought was an easterly direction, hoping to see the grayness that meant dawn. But all directions were equally black for what seemed like twenty hours.