Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

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.

When dawn did come, it was a low and gloomy one, the sky heavily overcast. Newt, with Dish, the Irishman and Needle Nelson, was with a large portion of the herd, perhaps a thousand cattle. No one was quite sure where the rest of the herd was. The cattle were too tired to be troublesome, so Dish loped off to look and was gone what seemed like half a day.

When he finally came back, Deets was with him. The main herd was six or seven miles east.

“How many did the lightning hit?” Newt asked, remembering the sight of the cattle falling dead.

“Thirteen,” Dish said. “That ain’t the worst, though. It kilt Bill Spettle. Knocked him right off his horse. They’re burying him now.” Newt had been feeling very hungry, but the news took his appetite. He had been chatting with Bill Spettle not two hours before the storm began. Bill was beginning to be rather talkative, after hundreds of miles of silence.

“They say it turned him black,” Dish remarked. “I didn’t see it.” Newt was never to see where Bill Spettle was buried. When they rejoined the main herd it was on the move, the grave somewhere behind on the muddy plain. No one knew quite what to say to Pete Spettle, who had somehow held the remuda together all night. He was holding it together still, though he looked weary and stunned.

The men were all starving, so Call allowed them to stop for a quick feed, but only a quick one. It was looking like rain again. He knew the Canadian was near and he wanted to cross it before more rains came; otherwise they might be trapped for a week.

“Ain’t we gonna rest?” Jasper asked, appalled that they were required to keep driving after such a night.

“We’ll rest north of the river,” Call said.

Deets had been sent to find a crossing, but came back almost before he had left. The Canadian was only four miles away, and there was a crossing that had obviously been used by many herds.

“We all gonna have to swim,” he said, to Jasper’s consternation.

“I just hope we don’t have to swim it in a dern rainstorm,” Dish said, looking at the heavy clouds.

“I don’t see what difference it makes,” Needle said. “It can get just so wet, and if you’re swimming you’re bound to be wet.” “It oughta quit raining, it’s rained enough,” Pea Eye said, but the heavens ignored him.

Call was more worried than he let on. They had already lost a boy that day—another boy hastily buried, who would never see his home again. He had no wish to risk any more, and yet the river had to be crossed. He loped up to look at the crossing and satisfied himself that it was safe. The river was high, but it wasn’t a wide river—they wouldn’t need to swim far.

He rode back to the herd. Many of the men had changed into their dry clothes while he was gone, a wasteful effort, with the river coming up.

“You best strip off when we get to the river or you’ll just get those clothes wet too,” Call said. “Wrap your clothes up good in your slickers so you’ll have something dry to put on when we get across.” “Ride naked?” Jasper asked, shocked that such a thing would be required of him. Northern travel was proving even worse than he had thought it would be. Bill Spettle had been so stiffened when they found him that they had not been able to straighten him out properly—they had just wrapped him in a bedroll and stuck him in a hole.

“Well, I’d rather be naked a spell than to have to travel in wet duds, like we done all last night,” Pea Eye said.