Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Yes, he’s guilty with the rest of them,” Call said. “Any judge would hang him.” He walked on, and Newt put his cheek for a moment against the warm neck of the horse he had just saddled. The warmth made him want to cry. His mother had been warm too, in the years when they first knew Jake. But he couldn’t bring any of it back, and Jake was standing not twenty yards away, weaving from drink, his hands tied, sad-looking. Newt choked back his feelings and led the horses over.

The men had to be helped onto the horses because of the way their hands were tied. Little Eddie had lost a lot of blood and was so weak he could barely keep his seat.

“I’ll lead yours, Jake,” Newt said, hoping Jake would realize he meant it as a friendly gesture. Jake had several days’ stubble on his face and looked dirty and tired; his eyes had a dull look in them, as if he merely wanted to go to sleep.

Call took the rein of Dan Suggs’s horse, just in case Dan tried something—though there was little he could try. Augustus walked behind and Pea Eye led the other two horses. Deets went ahead to fix the nooses—he was good with knots.

“Dan, ain’t you gonna fight?” little Eddie kept asking. He had never seen his brother tied up and could not quite believe it.

That Dan had been outsmarted and taken without a battle shocked him more than the fact that he himself was about to be hung.

“Shut up, you damn whining pup,” Dan said. “If you’d been standing guard this wouldn’t have happened.” “You never told him to,” Roy Suggs said. He too was in a daze, the result of shock and whiskey, but it annoyed him that Dan would try to put the blame on little Eddie.

“Well, do I have to do everything?” Dan said. He was watching, hoping to get Call to relax a minute—he meant to kick the horse and try to run over him. It might startle everyone long enough that he could jump the horse down into the creek bed, where he would be hard to hit. He had said what he had merely to distract the crowd, but it didn’t work. Call kept the horse under tight control and in no time they came to the tree with the four dangling nooses.

It took a while for Deets to fix the knots to his satisfaction. The twilight began to deepen into dusk.

Jake tried to get his mind to work, but it wouldn’t snap to. He had the feeling that there ought to be something he could say that would move Call or Gus on his behalf. It made him proud that the two of them had caught Dan Suggs so easily,although it had brought him to a hard fix. Still, it cut Dan Suggs down to size. Jake tried to think back over his years of rangering—to try and think of a debt he could call in, or a memory that might move the boys—but his brain seemed to be asleep. He could think of nothing. The only one who seemed to care was the boy Newt—Maggie’s boy, Jake remembered.

She had fat legs, but she was always friendly, Maggie. Of all the whores he had known, she was the easiest to get along with. The thought crossed his mind that he ought to have married her and not gone rambling. If he had, he wouldn’t be in such a fix. But he felt little fear; just an overpowering fatigue. Life had slipped out of line. It was unfair, it was too bad, but he couldn’t find the energy to fight it any longer.

Deets finally got the nooses done. He mounted and rode behind each man, to carefully set the knots. Little Eddie submitted quietly, but Dan Suggs shook his head and struggled like a wildcat when Deets came to him.

“Nigger boy, don’t you get near me,” he said. “I won’t be hung by no black nigger.” Call and Augustus had to grab his arms and hold him steady. Dan dug his chin into his chest, so that Deets had to grab his hair and pull his head back to get the rope around his neck.

“You’re a fool, Suggs,” Augustus said. “You don’t appreciate a professional when you see one. Men Deets hangs don’t have to dance on the rope, like some I’ve seen.” “You’re yellowbellies, both of you, or you would have fought me fair,” Dan Suggs said, glaring down at him. “I’ll fight you yet, barehanded, if you’ll just let me down. I’ll fight the both of you right now, and this nigger boy too.” “You’d do better to say goodbye to your brothers,” Call said. “I expect you got them into this.” “They’re not worth a red piss and neither are you,” Dan said.

“I’ll say this for you, Suggs, you’re the kind of son of a bitch it’s a pleasure to hang,” Augustus said. “If guff’s all you can talk, go talk it to the devil.” He gave Dan Suggs’s horse a whack with a coiled rope and the horse jumped out from under him. When Dan’s horse jumped, little Eddie’s bolted too, and in a moment the two men were both swinging dead from the limb.

Roy Suggs looked pained. A brother dangled on either side of him. “I ought to have been second,” he said. “Little Eddie was the youngest.” “You’re right and I’m sorry,” Augustus said. “I never meant to scare that boy’s horse.” “That horse never had no sense,” Roy Suggs remarked. “If I was little Eddie I would have got rid of him long ago.” “I guess he waited too long to make the change,” Augustus said. “Are you about ready, sir?” “Guess so, since the boys are dead,” Roy Suggs said. “Right or wrong, they’re my brothers.” “It’s damn bad luck, having a big brother like Dan Suggs, I’d say,” Augustus said.

He walked over to Jake and put a hand on his leg for a moment.

“Jake, you might like to know that I got Lorie back,” he said.

“Who?” Jake asked. He felt very dull, and for a second the name meant nothing to him. Then he remembered the young blond whore who had been so much trouble. She had put him off several times.

“Why, Lorie—have you had so many beauties that you’ve forgotten?” Augustus said. “That damn outlaw took her away.” To Jake it seemed as remote as his rangering days—he could barely get his mind back to it. Call walked over. Now that they were about it he felt a keen sorrow. Jake had ridden the river with them and been the life of the camp once—not the steadiest boy in the troop, but lively and friendly to a fault.

“Well, it’ll soon be dark,” he said. “I’m sorry it’s us, Jake—I wish it had fallen to somebody else.” Jake grinned. Something in the way Call said it amused him, and for a second he regained a bit of his old dash.

“Hell, don’t worry about it, boys,” he said. “I’d a damn sight rather be hung by my friends than by a bunch of strangers.

The thing is, I never meant no harm,” he added. “I didn’t know they was such a gun outfit.” He looked down at Pea Eye and Deets, and at the boy. Everyone was silent, even Gus, who held the coiled rope. They were all looking at him, but it seemed no one could speak. For a moment, Jake felt good. He was back with his old compañeros, at least—those boys who had haunted his dreams. Straying off from them had been his worst mistake.

“Well, adios, boys,” he said. “I hope you won’t hold it against me.” He waited a moment, but Augustus seemed dumbstruck, holding the rope.

Jake looked down again and saw the glint of tears in the boy’s eyes. Little Newt cared for him, at least.