Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

That afternoon they swam the Republican without losing an animal. At supper afterward, Jasper Fant’s spirits were high—he had built up an unreasoning fear of the Republican River and felt that once he crossed it he could count on living practically forever. He felt so good he even danced an impromptu jig.

“You’ve missed your calling, Jasper,” Augustus said, highly amused by this display. “You ought to try dancing in whorehouses—you might pick up a favor or two that you otherwise couldn’t afford.” “Reckon the Captain will let us go to town once we get to Nebraska?” Needle asked. “It seems like a long time since there’s been a town.”“If he don’t, I think I’ll marry a heifer,” Bert said.

Po Campo sat with his back against a wagon wheel, jingling his tambourine.

“It’s going to get dry,” he said.

“Fine,” Soupy replied. “I got wet enough down about the Red to last me forever.” “It’s better to be wet than dry,” Po Campo said. Usually cheerful, he had fallen into a somber mood.

“It ain’t if you drown,” Pea Eye observed.

“There won’t be much to cook when it gets dry,” Po said.

Newt and the Rainey boys had begun to talk of whores. Surely the Captain would let them go to town with the rest of the crew when they hit Ogallala. The puzzling thing was how much a whore might cost. The talk around the wagon was never very specific on that score. The Rainey boys were constantly tallying up their wages and trying to calculate whether they would be sufficient. What made it complicated was that they had played cards for credit the whole way north. The older hands had done the same, and the debts were complicated. As the arrival in Ogallala began to dominate their thoughts almost entirely, the question of cash was constantly discussed, and many debts discounted on the promise of actual money.

“What if they don’t pay us here?” the pessimistic Needle asked one night. “We signed on for Montana, we might not get no wages in Nebraska.” “Oh, the Captain will pay us,” Dish said. Despite his attachment to Lorena he was becoming as excited as the rest about going to town.

“Why would he?” Lippy asked. “He don’t care whether you have a whore or not, Dish.” That sentiment struck everyone as almost undoubtedly true, and established a general worry. By the time they crossed the Stinking Water the worry had become so oppressive that many hands could think of nothing else. Finally a delegation, headed by Jasper, approached Augustus on the subject. They surrounded him one morning when he came for breakfast and expressed their fear.

Augustus had a big laugh when he figured out what was bothering them. “Why, you girls,” he said. “All you want is orgies.” “No, it’s whores we want,” Jasper said, a little irritated. “It’s fine for you to laugh, you got Lorie.” “Yes, but what’s good for me ain’t necessarily good for the weak-minded,” Augustus said.

However, the next day he passed the word that everyone would be paid half wages in Ogallala. Call was not enthusiastic but the men had worked well and he couldn’t oppose giving them a day in town.

As soon as they heard the ruling, spirits improved, all except Po Campo’s. He continued to insist that it would be dry.

WHEN ELMIRA’S FEVER finally broke she was so weak she could barely turn her head on the pillow. The first thing she saw was Zwey, looking in the window of the doctor’s little house. It was raining, but Zwey stood there in his buffalo coat, looking in at her.

The next day he was still there, and the next. She wanted to call out to him to see if he had news of Dee, but she was too weak. Her voice was just a whisper. The doctor who tended her, a short man with a red beard, seemed not much healthier than she was. He coughed so hard that sometimes he would have to set her medicine down to keep from spilling it. His name was Patrick Arandel, and his hands shook after each coughing fit. But he had taken her in and tended her almost constantly for the first week, expecting all the time that she would die.

“He’s as loyal as any dog,” he whispered to her, when she was well enough to understand conversation. For a while she had just stared back at him without comprehension when he spoke to her. He meant Zwey, of course.

“I couldn’t even get the man to go away and eat,” the doctor told her. “I live on tea, myself, but he’s a big man. Tea won’t keep him going. I guess he asked me a thousand times if you were going to live.” The doctor sat in a little thin frame chair by her bed and gave her medicine by the spoonful. “It’s to build you up,” he said.

“You didn’t hardly have no blood in you when you got here.” Elmira wished there was a window shade so she couldn’t see Zwey staring at her. He stared for hours. She could feel his eyes on her, but she was too weak to turn her head away. Luke seemed to be gone—at least he never showed up.

“Where’s Dee?” she whispered, when her voice came back a little. The doctor didn’t hear her, she said it so faint, but he happened to notice her lips move. She had to say it again.

“Dee Boot?” she whispered.

“Oh, did you follow that story?” the doctor said. “Hung him right on schedule about a week after they brought you in.

Buried him in Boot Hill. It’s a good joke on him, since his name was Boot. He killed a nine-year-old boy, he won’t be missed around here.” Elmira shut her eyes, hoping she could be dead. From then on she spat out her medicine, letting it dribble onto the gown the doctor had given her. He didn’t understand at first.

“Sick to your stomach?” he said. “That’s natural. We’ll try soup.” He tried soup and she spat that out too for a day, but she was too weak to fight the doctor, who was almost as patient as Zwey. They kept her jailed with their patience, when all she wanted to do was die. Dee was gone, after she had come such a way and found him. She hated Zwey and Luke for bringing her to the doctor—surely she would have died right on the street if they hadn’t. The last thing she wanted to do was get well and have to live—but days passed, and the doctor sat in the little chair, feeding her soup, and Zwey stared in the window, even though she wouldn’t look.

Even not looking, she could smell Zwey. It was hot summer, and the doctor left the window open all day. She could hear horses going by on the street and smell Zwey standing there only a few feet from her. Flies bothered her—the doctor asked if she wanted Zwey to come in, for he would be only too happy to sit and shoo the flies, but Elmira didn’t answer. If Dee was dead, she was through with talk.

It occurred to her one night that she could ask Zwey to shoot her. He would give her a gun, of course, but she didn’t think she had the strength to pull the trigger. Better to ask him to shoot her. That would solve it, and they wouldn’t do much to Zwey if he told them he killed her at her own request.