Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Just thinking of such a simple solution seemed to ease her mind a bit—she could have Zwey shoot her. And yet, days passed and she got so she could sit up in bed, and she didn’t do it. Her mind kept going back to the spot of sunlight where Dee’s face had vanished. His face had just faded into the sunlight. She couldn’t stop thinking of it—in dreams she would see it so clearly that she would wake up, to the sound of Zwey’s snoring. He slept outside her window, with his back to the wall of the house—his snores were so loud a person might have thought a bull was sleeping there.

“What went with Luke?” she asked him one day.

“Went to Santa Fe,” Zwey said. It had been a month since she had spoken to him. He thought probably she never would again.

“Hired on with some traders,” he said. “Come all this way and then headed back.” “I guess your child didn’t live,” the doctor said one day. “I wouldn’t have expected it to, out on the prairie, with you having such a close call.” Elmira didn’t answer. She remembered her breasts hurting, that was all. She had forgotten the child, the woman with the two daughters, the big house. Maybe the baby was dead. Then she remembered July, and Arkansas, and a lot that she had forgotten. It was just as well forgotten: none of it mattered compared to Dee. It was all past, well past. Some day shewould have Zwey shoot her and she wouldn’t have to think about things anymore.

But she put it off, and in time got well enough to walk. She didn’t go far, just to the door, to get a chamber pot or put one out of the room—the heat made the smells worse. Even Zwey had finally taken off his buffalo coat—he stood at the window in an old shirt, with holes worn in it so that the thick hairs of his chest poked through.

The doctor never asked her about money. Though she had gotten better, he hadn’t. She could hear him coughing through the wall, and sometimes saw him spit into a handkerchief. His hands trembled badly, and he always smelled of whiskey. It troubled her that he didn’t ask her for money. She had always been one to pay her way. Finally she mentioned it. She knew Zwey would go to work and get money for her if she asked him to.

“You’ll have to let me know what I owe,” she said, but Patrick Arandel just shook his head.

“I came here to get away from money,” he said. “Did it, too. I got away from it, and it ain’t easy to get away from money.” Elmira didn’t mention it again. If he wanted to be paid, he could mention it—she had tried.

Then one day, with no warning from anyone, the door to her room opened and July walked in. Zwey was standing at the window when it happened. July’s face seemed thinner.

“I found you, Ellie,” he said, and there were tears in his eyes. Zwey was watching, but because of the shadows she didn’t know if he could see that July was crying.

Elmira looked away. She didn’t know what to do. Mainly she regretted that she had not had Zwey shoot her. Now July had found her. He had not come all the way in the room, but he was standing there, with the door half open, waiting for her to ask him in.

She didn’t ask him in, didn’t speak. It seemed she would always have bad luck, if he could come all that way across the plains and still find her.

Finally July came in the room and closed the door.

“The doctor says you’re strong enough to talk,” July said, wiping his eyes on his shirtsleeve. “You don’t have to talk, though. You just lie there and get well. I won’t stay very long. I just wanted you to know I came.” Elmira looked at him once and then looked at the wall. Well, you’re a fool, she thought. You ought not to have followed.

You ought to just told folks I was dead.

“I got one piece of bad news,” July said, and his eyes filled up again. “It’s real bad, and it’s my fault. Joe got killed, him and Roscoe and a girl. An outlaw killed them. I ought to have stayed with them, but I don’t know if it would have come out different if I had.” You wouldn’t be here telling me, anyway, Elmira thought.

The news about Joe didn’t touch her. She had never thought much about Joe. He had come when she had other things to worry about and she had never got in the habit of worrying about him. He gave her less trouble than July, though. At least he had sense enough to figure out she didn’t want to be bothered with him, and had let her alone. If he was dead, that was that. She didn’t remember him well—he hadn’t talked much. He had just run out of luck on the plains. It might have happened to her, and she wished it had.

“Ellie, the baby’s fine,” July said. “I didn’t even know it was ours, that’s the funny thing. I seen Clara holding it and I had no notion it was ours. She named him Martin, if that’s all right with you.

“I guess we got our own family now,” July added. His heart was sinking so that his voice almost failed, for Ellie had not turned her head or given much more than a momentary sign of recognition. She hadn’t spoken. He wanted to think it was just her weakness, but he knew it was more than that. She wasn’t happy that he had found her. She didn’t care about the baby—didn’t even care that Joe was dead. Her face had not changed expression since the first look of surprise.

And all the while the large man with the holes in his shirt stood at the window silently, looking in. He was one of the buffalo hunters, July supposed. The doctor had spoken well of the man, mentioning how loyal he was to Elmira. But July didn’t understand why he was standing there, and his heart was sinking because Ellie wouldn’t look at him. He had come such a way, too. But she wouldn’t, and he didn’t think it was just because she was sick.

“We’ll bring the baby in whenever you want it,” July said. “I can rent a room till you’re better. He’s a strong baby. Clara says it won’t hurt him a bit to come in. They’ve got a little wagon.” Elmira waited. If she didn’t talk, sooner or later he would leave.

His voice was shaky. He sat down in the chair the doctor usually sat in, by the bedside. After a moment he took one of her hands. Zwey was still looking in. July only held her hand for a moment. He dropped it and stood up.

“I’ll check every few days, Ellie,” he said. “The doctor can send for me if you need me.” He paused. In the face of her silence, he didn’t know what to say. She sat propped up against the pillow, silent—it wasalmost as if she were dead. It reminded him of times in Arkansas, times in the loft when he felt as if he were with someone who wasn’t there. When he had found out she was alive and at the doctor’s in Ogallala, he had gone off behind Clara’s saddle shed and wept for an hour from relief. After all the worry and doubt, he had found her.

But now, in a minute, the relief was gone, and he was reminded of all her difficulties, how nothing he did pleased her, not even finding her in Ogallala. He didn’t know what more to do or say. She had married him and carried his child, and yet she wouldn’t turn her head to look at him.

Maybe it’s too soon, he thought, as he stumbled, in a daze of pain and worry, out of the doctor’s house. The big man was there watching.