Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“What’s Montana got to do with us?” he asked.

“Why, Call, you ought to see it,” Jake said. “A prettier country never was.” “How far’d you go?” Augustus asked.

“Way up, past the Yellowstone,” Jake said. “I was near to the Milk River. You can smell Canady from there.” “I bet you can smell Indians too,” Call said. “How’d you get past the Cheyenne?” “They shipped most of them out,” Jake said. “Some of the Blackfeet are still troublesome. But I was with the Army, doing a little scouting.” That hardly made sense. Jake Spoon might scout his way across a card table, but Montana was something else.

“When’d you take to scouting?” Call asked dryly.

“Oh, I was just with a feller taking some beef to the Blackfeet,” Jake said. “The Army came along to help.” “A lot of damn help the Army would be, driving beef,” Gus said.

“They helped us keep our hair,” Jake said, laying his knife and fork across his plate as neatly as if he were eating at a fancy table.

“My main job was to skeer the buffalo out of the way,” he said.

“Buffalo,” Augustus said. “I thought they was about gone.” “Pshaw,” Jake said. “I must have seen fifty thousand up above the Yellowstone. The damn buffalo hunters ain’t got the guts to take on them Indians. Oh, they’ll finish them, once the Cheyenne and the Sioux finally cave in, and they may have even since I left. The damn Indians have the grass of Montana all to themselves. And has it got grass. Call, you ought to see it.” “I’d go today if I could fly,” Call said.

“Be safer to walk,” Augustus said. “By the time we walked up there maybe they would have licked the Indians.” “That’s just it, boys,” Jake said. “The minute they’re licked there’s going to be fortunes made in Montana. Why, it’s cattle land like you’ve never seen, Call. High grass and plenty of water.” “Chilly, though, ain’t it?” Augustus asked.

“Oh, it’s got weather,” Jake said. “Hell, a man can wear a coat.” “Better yet, a man can stay inside,” Augustus said.

“I’ve yet to see a fortune made inside,” Call said. “Except by a banker, and we ain’t bankers. What did you have in mind, Jake?” “Getting to it first,” Jake said. “Round up some of these free cattle and take ’em on up. Beat all the other sons of bitches, and we’d soon be rich.” Augustus and Call exchanged looks. It was odd talk to be hearing from Jake Spoon, who had never been known for his ambition—much less for a fondness for cows. Pretty whores, pacing horses, and lots of clean shirts had been his main requirements in life.

“Why, Jake, what reformed you?” Gus asked. “You was never a man to hanker after fortune.” “Living with the cows from here to Montana would mean a change in your habits, if I remember them right,” Call said.

Jake grinned his slow grin. “You boys,” he said. “You got me down for lazier than I am. I ain’t no lover of cow shit and trail dust, I admit, but I’ve seen something that you haven’t seen: Montana. Just because I like to play cards don’t mean I can’t smell an opportunity when one’s right under my nose. Why, you boys ain’t even got a barn with a roof on it. I doubt it would bust you to move.” “Jake, if you ain’t something,” Augustus said. “Here we ain’t seen hide nor hair of you for ten years and now you come riding in and want us to pack up and go north to get scalped.” “Well, Gus, me and Call are going bald anyway,” Jake said. “You’re the only one whose hair they’d want.”“All the more reason not to carry it to a hostile land,” Augustus said. “Why don’t you just calm down and play cards with me for a few days? Then when I’ve won all your money we’ll talk about going places.” Jake whittled down a match and began to meticulously pick his teeth.

“By the time you clean me, Montana will be all settled up,” he said. “I don’t clean quick.” “What about that horse?” Call asked. “You didn’t gant him like that just so you could get here and help us beat the rush to Montana. What’s this about your luck running thick?” Jake looked a little more sorrowful as he picked his teeth. “Kilt a dentist,” he said. “A pure accident, but I kilt him.” “Where’d this happen?” Call asked.

“Fort Smith, Arkansas,” Jake said. “Not three weeks ago.” “Well, I’ve always considered dentistry a dangerous profession,” Augustus said. “Making a living by yanking people’s teeth out is asking for trouble.” “He wasn’t even pulling my tooth,” Jake said. “I didn’t even know there was a dentist in the town. I got in a little argument in a saloon and a damn mule skinner threw down on me. Somebody’s old buffalo rifle was leaning against the wall right by me and that’s what I went for. Hell, I was sitting on my own pistols—I never wouldn’t have got to it in time. I wasn’t even playin’ cards with the mule skinner.” “What riled him then?” Gus asked.

“Whiskey,” Jake said. “He was bull drunk. Before I even noticed, he took a dislike to my dress and pulled his Colt.” “Well, I don’t know what took you to Arkansas in the first place, Jake,” Augustus said. “A fancy dresser like yourself is bound to excite comment in them parts.” Call had found, over the years, that it only did to believe half of what Jake said. Jake was not a bald liar, but once he thought over a scrape, his imagination sort of worked on it and shaded it in his own favor.

“If the man pointed a gun at you and you shot him, then that was self-defense,” Call said. “I still don’t see where the dentist comes in.” “It was bad luck all around,” Jake said. “I never even shot the mule skinner. I did shoot, but I missed, which was enough to scare him off. But of course I shot that dern buffalo gun. It was just a little plank saloon we were sitting in. A plank won’t stop a fifty-caliber bullet.” “Neither will a dentist,” Augustus observed. “Not unless you shoot down on him from the top, and even then I expect the bullet would come out his foot.” Call shook his head—Augustus could think of the damndest things.

“So where was the dentist?” he asked.

“Walking along on the other side of the street,” Jake said. “They got big wide streets in that town, too.” “But not wide enough, I guess,” Call said.

“Nope,” Jake said. “We went to the door to watch the mule skinner run off and saw the dentist laying over there dead, fifty yards away. He had managed to get in the exact wrong spot.” “Pea done the same thing once,” Augustus said. “Remember, Woodrow? Up in the Wichita country? Pea shot at a wolf and missed and the bullet went over a hill and kilt one of our horses.” “I won’t forget that,” Call said. “It was little Billy it killed. I hated to lose that horse.” “Of course we couldn’t convince Pea he’d done it,” Augustus said. “He don’t understand trajectory.” “Well, I understand it,” Jake said. “Everybody in town liked that dentist.” “Aw, Jake, that won’t stick,” Augustus said. “Nobody really likes dentists.” “This one was the mayor,” Jake said.

“Well, it was accidental death,” Call said.

“Yeah, but I’m just a gambler,” Jake said. “They all like to think they’re respectable back in Arkansas. Besides, the dentist’s brother was the sheriff, and somebody told him I was a gunfighter. He invited me to leave town a week before it happened.” Call sighed. All the gunfighter business went back to one lucky shot Jake had made when he was a mere boy starting out in the Rangers. It was funny how one shot could make a man’s reputation like that. It was a hip shot Jake made because he was scared, and it killed a Mexican bandit who was riding toward them on a dead run. It was Call’s opinion, and Augustus’s too, that Jake hadn’t even been shooting at the bandit—he was probably shooting in hopes of bringing downthe horse, which might have fallen on the bandit and crippled him a little. But Jake shot blind from the hip, with the sun in his eyes to boot, and hit the bandit right in the Adam’s apple, a thing not likely to occur more than once in a lifetime, if that often.

But it was Jake’s luck that most of the men who saw him make the shot were raw boys too, with not enough judgment to appreciate how lucky a thing it was. Those that survived and grew up told the story all across the West, so there was hardly a man from the Mexican border to Canada who hadn’t heard what a dead pistol shot Jake Spoon was, though any man who had fought with him through the years would know he was no shot at all with a pistol and only a fair shot with a rifle.

Call and Augustus had always worried about Jake because of his unearned reputation, but he was a lucky fellow and there were not many men around dumb enough to enjoy pistol fights, so Jake managed to get by. It was ironic that the shot which finally got him in trouble was as big an accident as the shot that had made his fame.

“How’d you get loose from the sheriff?” Call asked.