Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

About noon he saw a lone frame house standing a half mile south of the Platte. There were corrals and a few sheds near it, and a sizable horse herd grazing in sight of the house. July felt like crying—it meant he wasn’t lost anymore. No one would build a frame house unless there was a town somewhere near. Being alone on the prairie for so many weeks had made him realize how much he liked being in towns, though when he thought about all that he had been through, he didn’t feel he had much hope of finding Ellie there. How could a woman come across such distances?

As he approached the house an old man appeared to the north, riding out of the Platte, his horse dripping water. July saw there were more horses north of the river. The old man had white hair and seemed to be a Mexican. He rode with a rifle held lightly across his saddle. July didn’t want to appear unfriendly. He stopped to wait.

The old man looked mainly at his leg. July had forgotten how ugly it looked—he had even forgotten it was still yellowish and almost bare, for he had cut his pants leg off when the leg was so swollen.

“Is it bad?” the old man asked in English. July was glad for the English.

“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.

As he approached the house he suddenly heard shrieks of laughter, and a little girl flew around the corner of the house, another slightly older girl in hot pursuit. The girl in the lead ran on to one of the sheds between the house and the corral and tried to hide in it, but her sister caught her before she could get inside, and they tussled and shrieked. The older girl was trying to put something down the younger girl’s neck, and she finally succeeded, at which point the younger girl began to hop up and down while the older one ran off, laughing.

As the two men rode up, a woman appeared on the back steps of the house. She wore a gray smock and an apron and had an infant in her arms. She was clearly out of temper, for she yelled something at the two girls, who stopped their shrieking, looked at one another and slowly approached the house. The infant the woman held was crying fretfully, though, at that, making less noise than the girls. The woman addressed herself to the older girl, who made some excuse, and the younger girl, in her own defense, pointed back toward the shed. The woman listened a minute and began to talk rapidly, giving her daughters what for, July supposed.

To see a woman so suddenly, after so much time alone, made him very nervous—particularly since the woman was so out of temper. But as they drew closer he found that, out of temper or not, he couldn’t stop looking at her. Her eyes flashed as she lectured her daughters, neither of whom was taking the lecture silently—both were trying to talk back but the mother didn’t pause to listen. She had abundant brown hair tucked into a bun at the back of her neck, though the bun had partly come loose.

The old Mexican seemed not the least disturbed by the argument in progress. In fact, he seemed amused by it, and he rode up and got off his horse as if nothing were happening.

“But she put a grasshopper down my neck,” the younger girl said. “I hate her.” “I don’t care who hates who,” the woman said. “I was up with this baby all night—you know how colicky he is. You don’t have to scream right under my window—looks like there be room on this prairie for you to scream without doing it undermy window. All we got here is room.” “It was a grasshopper,” the little girl insisted.

“Well, is it the first one you’ve ever seen?” the woman asked. “You’ll have more to worry about than grasshoppers if you wake this baby again.” The woman was rather thin, but anger put color in her cheeks. The girls finally were subdued and the woman looked up and saw him, lifting her chin with a bit of belligerence, as though she might have to tie into him too. Then she saw his discolored leg, and her look changed. She had gray eyes and she turned them on him with sudden gravity.

“Get down, señora,” the old man said.

The girls looked around and became aware for the first time that a stranger had come. They instantly stopped fidgeting and stood like statues.

The woman smiled. She seemed to have switched from anger to amusement.

“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.

Clara laughed. “You don’t look strong enough to trouble nobody around here,” she said. “We grow our own troubles—it would be a novelty to have some we ain’t already used to. These are my daughters, Sally and Betsey.” July nodded to the girls and got off his horse. After a ride his leg stiffened and he had to hobble over to the porch. The baby was still fretting. The woman rocked it in her arms as she watched July hobble.

“Snake bit him,” Cholo observed.

“I guess I rolled into it at night,” July said. “I never even seen it. Just woke up with a yellow leg.” “Well, if you’ve lived this long I expect you have nothing to fear,” Clara said. “We’ll get some food in you. The way sick people have been turning up lately, I sometimes think we oughta go out of the horse business and open a hospital. Come on in the house—you girls set him a place.” The old man helped him up the steps and into the roomy kitchen. Clara was poking the fire in the cookstove, the baby still held in one arm.

“If you’d like a wash first, I’ll have the girls draw some water,” Clara said. “I didn’t get your name.” “I’m July Johnson,” July said. “I come from Arkansas.” Clara almost dropped the poker. The girls had told her the little scarfaced man had said the woman they were with was married to a sheriff named Johnson, from Arkansas. She hadn’t given the story much credence—the woman didn’t strike her as the marrying type. Besides, the little man had whispered something to the effect that the big buffalo hunter considered himself married to her. The girls thought it mighty exciting, having a woman in the house who was married to two men. And if that wasn’t complicated enough, the woman herself claimed to be married to Dee Boot, the gunfighter they had hung last week. Cholo had been in town when the hanging took place and reported that the hanging had gone smoothly.

Clara looked more closely at the man standing in her kitchen. He was very thin and in a kind of daze—probably couldn’t quite believe that he was still alive after such a journey. She had felt that way herself upon arriving in Ogallala after her trip over the plains with Bob, and she hadn’t been snakebit or had any particular adventures.

But if he was married to the woman, the baby drooling on her bosom might be his. Clara felt a flash of annoyance, most of it with herself. She had already grown attached to the baby. She liked to lie in bed with him and watch him try to work his tiny hands. He would peer at her for long stretches, frowning, as if trying to figure life out. But when Clara laughed at him and gave him her finger to hold he would stop frowning and gurgle happily. Apart from the colic, he seemed to be a healthy baby. She knew the mother was probably still in Ogallala, and that she ought to take the child into town and see if the woman had had a change of heart and wanted her son, but she kept putting it off. It would be discouraging to have to give him up—she told herself if the mother didn’t want him bad enough to come and get him, then the mother was too foolish to have him. She reminded herself it was time she got out of the habit of babies. She wouldn’t be likely to get any more, and she knew she ought to figure out another way to keep herself amused. But she did like babies. Few things were as likely to cheer her up.

She had never seriously supposed a father would turn up, and yet only three weeks had passed and one had, standing in her kitchen, dirty, tired, and with a badly discolored leg.

Clara poked the fire a time or two more, trying to adjust to the surprise. Then she turned and looked at July.

“Mr. Johnson,” she said, “are you looking for your wife, by any chance?”July almost fell over from surprise. “Yes, her name is Ellie—Elmira,” he said. “How’d you ever know?” He began to tremble. Clara came over, took his arm and led him to a chair. The girls were standing in the doorway, watching every move.

“I been looking for Ellie all the way,” July said. “I didn’t even know she come this way. She’s not a large woman, I was afraid she might have died. Have you seen her?” “Yes,” Clara said. “She stopped here for the night about three weeks ago in the company of two buffalo hunters.” To July it seemed too much of a miracle—that with the whole plains to cross he and Ellie would strike the same house.