Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

A day above Horsehead Crossing, as he was plodding along half asleep in the still afternoon, he felt something hit him and immediately put his hand to his side. It came away bloody, although he had not seen an Indian or even heard a gunshot.

在马头渡口上空的一天，当他在寂静的下午半睡半醒地缓慢前行时，他感到有什么东西击中了他，立刻把手放在一边。虽然他没有看到印第安人，甚至没有听到枪声，但它还是血淋淋地离开了。

As he turned to race for the river he glimpsed a short brown man rising from behind a large yucca plant. Call didn’t know how badly he was shot, or how many Indians he was up against. He went off the bank too fast and the buggy crashed against a big rock at the water’s edge. It splintered and turned over, the coffin underneath it. Call glanced back and saw only four Indians. He dismounted, snuck north along the river for a hundred yards, and was able to shoot one of the four.

当他转身奔向河边时，他瞥见一个矮小的棕色男人从一棵大型丝兰植物后面站了起来。Call不知道他中枪有多厉害，也不知道他面对多少印度人。他下岸太快了，马车撞上了水边的一块大石头。它裂开了，翻了个身，棺材在下面。Call回头一看，只看见四个印第安人。他下了马，沿着河边偷偷向北走了一百码，并射中了四个人中的一个。

He crossed the river and waited all day and all night, but never saw the other three again. His wound felt minor, though the bullet was somewhere in him, and would have to stay until he made Austin, he knew.

他过了河，日夜等待，但再也没有见过其他三个人。他知道，虽然子弹就在他身上的某个地方，但他的伤口感觉很小，必须一直待到他到达奥斯汀。

The narrow-channeled Pecos was running and the coffin was underwater. Call finally cut it loose, and with the help of Greasy dragged it from the mud. He knew he was in a fine fix, for it was still five hundred miles to the south Guadalupe and the buggy was ruined. For all he knew, more Indians might arrive at any moment, which meant that he had to work looking over his shoulder. He managed to drag the coffin over, but it was a sorry, muddy affair by the time he was done.

狭窄的通道佩科斯正在奔跑，棺材在水下。Call终于松开了它，在Greasy的帮助下把它从泥里拖了出来。他知道自己处境很好，因为瓜达卢佩以南还有五百英里，马车已经毁了。据他所知，随时都可能有更多的印度人到达，这意味着他不得不回头看看。他设法把棺材拖过来，但当他把棺材拖完的时候，这已经是一件令人遗憾的、泥泞的事情了。

Also, the Pecos water scalded his innards and drained his strength.

此外，佩科斯的水烫伤了他的内脏，耗尽了他的体力。

Call knew he could never drag the coffin all the way to Austin—he himself would be lucky to get across the bleached, waterless land to the Colorado or the San Saba. On the other hand he had no intention of leaving Gus, now that he had brought him so far. He broke open the coffin and rewrapped his friend’s remains in the tarp he had been using for a bed cover on wet nights—there were few of those to worry about. Then he lashed the bundle to Gus’s sign, itself well weathered, with most of the lettering worn off. He cut down a small salt-cedar and made a crude axle, fixing the sign between the two buggy wheels. It was more travois than buggy, but it moved. He felt his wound a trifle less every day, though he knew it had been a small-bore bullet that hit him. A larger bore and he would be down and probably dead.

Call知道他永远无法把棺材拖到奥斯汀——他自己很幸运能穿过漂白的无水土地到达科罗拉多州或圣萨巴州。另一方面，既然他已经带他走了这么远，他就不打算离开格斯。他打开棺材，用湿漉漉的夜晚用来盖床罩的防水布重新包裹了朋友的遗体——这样的事情很少需要担心。然后，他把那捆东西绑在格斯的标志上，标志本身风化得很好，大部分字母都磨掉了。他砍下一棵小盐雪松，做了一个粗糙的车轴，把标志固定在两个车轮之间。与其说是马车，不如说是拖车，但它动了。尽管他知道是一颗小口径子弹击中了他，但他每天都觉得自己的伤口少了一点。更大的口径，他会倒下，可能会死。

Several times he thought he glimpsed Indians slipping over a ridge or behind distant yucca, but could never be sure. Soon he felt feverish and began to distrust his own eyesight. In the shining mirages ahead he thought he saw horsemen, who never appeared. Once he thought he saw Deets, and another time Blue Duck. He decided his reason must be going and began to blame Gus for it all. Gus had spent a lifetime trying to get him into situations that confused him, and had finally succeeded.

有几次，他以为自己瞥见印第安人从山脊上或远处的丝兰后面溜走了，但永远无法确定。不久，他感到发烧，开始怀疑自己的视力。在前方闪闪发光的海市蜃楼中，他仿佛看到了从未出现过的骑兵。有一次他以为他看到了迪茨，还有一次是蓝鸭。他决定自己的理由一定会消失，并开始把这一切归咎于格斯。格斯花了一辈子的时间试图让他陷入困惑的境地，最终成功了。

“You done this,” he said aloud several times. “Jake started me off, but you was the one sent me back across here.” His water ran out the third day. The mule and the dun chewed on the greasewood bushes or what sage there was, but both were weakening. Call longed for the Kiowa mare. He wished he had given the boy his name and kept the mare.

“你做到了，”他大声说了几次。“杰克让我开始，但是你把我送回这里的。”他的水在第三天就用完了。骡子和黄褐啃着油树丛或鼠尾草，但两者都在变弱。呼唤着基奥瓦母马。他希望他给了男孩他的名字，并保留了母马。

Then Greasy, the mule, stopped—he had decided to die. Call had to use the dun to pull the travois. Greasy didn’t bother following them.

然后，骡子Greasy停了下来——他已经决定死了。Call不得不使用dun来拉动travois。Greasy没有费心跟着他们。

Call supposed the dun would die too, but the horse walked on to the Colorado. After that, there was little more to fear, although his wound festered somewhat, and leaked. It reminded him of Lippy—often his eyes would fill when he thought of the boys left up north.

Call以为那只dun也会死，但那匹马还是走到了科罗拉多州。在那之后，没有什么可害怕的了，尽管他的伤口有点溃烂，而且漏了。这让他想起了里皮——每当他想起留在北方的男孩们，他的眼睛就会充满泪水。

By the time he finally rode onto the little hill with the live oaks above the Guadalupe, the sign was about gone. The Latin motto, of which Augustus had been so proud, being at the bottom, had long since been broken off. The part about the pigs was gone, and the part about what they rented and sold, and Deets’s name as well. Most of Pea Eye’s name had flaked off, and his own also. Call hoped to save the plank where Gus had written his own name, but the rope he had tied the body with had rubbed out most of the lettering. In fact, the sign was not much more than a collection of splinters, two of which Call got in his hand as he was untying Gus. Only the top of the sign, the part that said “Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium” was still readable.

当他终于骑上瓜达卢佩上方有活橡树的小山时，标志已经不见了。奥古斯都一直引以为傲的拉丁语座右铭，位于最底层，早已被打破。关于猪的部分已经消失了，关于它们出租和出售的部分，以及Deets的名字也消失了。Pea Eye的大部分名字都消失了，他自己的名字也消失了。Call希望能保住格斯写自己名字的木板，但他绑在尸体上的绳子已经擦掉了大部分的字迹。事实上，这个标志只不过是一堆碎片，Call在解开格斯的绳子时，手里拿着两块碎片。只有标志的顶部，上面写着“帽溪牛公司和Livery Emporium”的部分仍然可读。

Call dug the grave with a little hand shovel. In his condition it took most of a day; at one point he grew so weak that he sat down in the grave to rest, sweat pouring off him—if there had been anyone else to shovel he would have been inclined to be buried there himself. But he pulled himself up and finished the work and lowered Augustus in.

Call用一把小手铲挖了坟墓。在他的情况下，这花了一天的大部分时间；有一次，他变得如此虚弱，以至于坐在坟墓里休息，汗水从他身上倾泻而下——如果还有其他人来铲，他自己也会倾向于埋在那里。但他把自己拉起来，完成了工作，把奥古斯都放了下来。

“There,” he said. “This will teach me to be more careful about what I promise.” He used the plank with “Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium” on it as a crossbar, tying it to a long mesquite stick, which he drove into the ground with a big rock. While he was tying the crossbar tight with two saddle strings, a wagon with settlers in it came along the ridge. They were a young couple, with two or three children peeking shyly around them, narrow-faced as young possums. The young man was fair and the sun had blistered him beet-red; his young wife had a bonnet pulled close about her face. It was clear that the grave marker puzzled them. The young man stopped the wagon and stared at it. Not having seen him put Augustus under, they were not sure whether they were looking at a grave, or just a sign.“Where is this Hat Creek outfit, mister?” the young man asked.

“在那里，”他说。“这会让我对自己的承诺更加小心。”他用那块上面写着“帽溪牛公司和Livery Emporium”的木板作为横杆，把它绑在一根长的豆科木棍上，然后用一块大石头把它压到地上。当他用两根马鞍绳把横杆系紧时，一辆载有定居者的马车沿着山脊驶来。他们是一对年轻夫妇，有两三个孩子害羞地在他们周围偷看，脸像小负鼠一样窄。这个年轻人很漂亮，太阳把他晒得通红；他年轻的妻子把一顶帽子紧紧地戴在脸上。很明显，墓碑让他们很困惑。年轻人停下马车，盯着它看。没有看到他把奥古斯都放在下面，他们不确定自己是在看坟墓，还是只是在看一个标志。“先生，帽子溪的衣服在哪里？”年轻人问。

“Buried, what ain’t in Montana,” Call said. He knew it wasn’t helpful, but he was in no mood for conversation.

“埋葬了，蒙大拿州没有的东西，”Call说。他知道这没有帮助，但他没有心情交谈。

“Dern, I was hoping to come to a place with a blacksmith,” the young man said. Then he noticed that Call walked stiffly, and saw that he was wounded.

“德恩，我本来想和铁匠一起去的，”年轻人说。然后他注意到Call走得很僵硬，看到自己受伤了。

“Can we help you, mister?” the young man asked.

“先生，我们能帮你吗？”年轻人问。

“Much obliged,” Call said. “I’ve only a short way to go.” The young settlers moved down the ridge toward San Antonio. Call walked down to the little pool, meaning to rest a few minutes. He fell into a heavy sleep and didn’t wake until dawn. The business of the sign worried him, one more evidence of Augustus’s ability to vex well beyond the grave. If one young man supposed it meant there was a livery stable nearby, others would do the same. People might be inconvenienced for days, wandering through the limestone hills, trying to find a company who were mostly ghosts.

“非常感谢，”Call说。“我只有很短的路要走。”年轻的定居者沿着山脊向圣安东尼奥移动。Call走到小池边，打算休息几分钟。他沉沉地睡着了，直到天亮才醒来。这个标志的生意让他很担心，这再次证明奥古斯都有能力在坟墓之外制造麻烦。如果一个年轻人认为这意味着附近有一个制服马厩，其他人也会这么做。人们可能会在石灰岩山上徘徊数天，试图找到一个主要是鬼魂的公司。

Besides, Augustus’s name wasn’t on the sign, though it was his grave. No one might ever realize that it was his grave. Call walked back up the hill and got out his knife, thinking he might carve the name on the other side of the board, but the old board was so dry and splintery that he felt he might destroy it altogether if he worked on it much. Finally he just scratched A.M. on the other side of the board. It wasn’t much, and it wouldn’t last, he knew. Somebody would just get irritated at not finding the livery stable and bust the sign up anyway. In any case, Gus was where he had decided he wanted to be, and they had both known many fine men who lay in unmarked graves.

此外，虽然这是奥古斯都的坟墓，但招牌上没有奥古斯都的名字。没有人会意识到这是他的坟墓。Call走回山上，拿出刀子，以为他可能会在木板的另一边刻上这个名字，但那块旧木板太干太碎了，他觉得如果他再努力，可能会把它彻底毁掉。最后，他只是在黑板的另一边划了个上午。他知道，这并不多，也不会持续太久。有人会因为没有找到稳定的制服而生气，不管怎样都会破坏注册。无论如何，格斯是他决定要去的地方，他们都认识许多躺在没有标记的坟墓里的好人。

Call remembered he had told the young couple that he only had a short way to travel. It showed that his mind was probably going, for he had no place in particular to travel at all. Worn out, and with a festering wound, he was in no shape to turn back for Montana, and Jerry, the dun, could never have made the trip, even if he himself could have. He didn’t know that he wanted to go back, for that matter. He had never felt that he had any home on the earth anyway. He remembered riding to Texas in a wagon when just a boy—his parents were already dead. Since then it had been mostly roaming, the years in Lonesome Dove apart.

电话里记得他告诉这对年轻夫妇，他只有很短的路要走。这表明他的头脑可能在动，因为他根本没有特别的地方去旅行。他疲惫不堪，伤口溃烂，无法返回蒙大拿州，而那个黄褐色的杰瑞，即使他自己能去，也永远无法成行。就这点而言，他不知道他想回去。他从来没有觉得自己在地球上有家。他记得当他还是个孩子的时候，他坐着马车去了德克萨斯州——他的父母已经死了。从那以后，它大部分时间都在漫游，除了在孤独鸽子的那些年。

Call turned south toward San Antonio, thinking he might find a doctor. But when he came to the town he turned and went around it, spooked at the thought of all the people. He didn’t want to go among such a lot of people with his mind so shaky. He rode the weary dun on south, feeling that he might just as well go to Lonesome Dove as anywhere.

电话转向南方，指向圣安东尼奥，以为他可能会找到医生。但当他来到镇上时，一想到所有的人，他就吓了一跳，绕着镇转了一圈。他不想在头脑如此不稳定的情况下与这么多人交往。他骑着疲惫的沙丘向南走，觉得去孤独的鸽子和去任何地方一样好。

Crossing the green Nueces, he remembered the snakes and the Irish boy. He knew he ought to go by and find the widow Spettle to tell her she had one less son, but decided the bad news could wait. It had already waited a year, unless she had gotten it from one of the returning cowhands.

穿过绿色的纽塞斯河，他想起了蛇和那个爱尔兰男孩。他知道他应该过去找寡妇斯皮特尔，告诉她她少了一个儿子，但他决定这个坏消息可以等一下。它已经等了一年了，除非她从一个回来的牛仔那里得到它。

He rode the dun into Lonesome Dove late on a day in August, only to be startled by the harsh clanging of the dinner bell, the one Bolivar had loved to beat with the broken crowbar. The sound made him feel that he rode through a land of ghosts. He felt lost in his mind and wondered if all the boys would be there when he got home.

八月的一天晚些时候，他骑着dun进入Lonesome Dove，却被晚餐铃的刺耳叮当声吓了一跳，这是玻利瓦尔喜欢用折断的撬棍敲打的。这声音让他觉得自己仿佛穿越了一片鬼地。他感到心绪不宁，不知道回家时是否所有的男孩都在那里。

But when he trotted through the chaparral toward the Hat Creek barn, he saw that it was old Bolivar himself, beating the same bell with the same piece of crowbar. The old man’s hair was white and his serape filthier than ever.

但当他小跑穿过灌木丛走向哈特溪谷仓时，他看到那是老玻利瓦尔本人，用同样的一根撬棍敲着同样的铃铛。老人的头发是白的，他的披肩比以前更脏了。

When Bolivar looked up and saw the Captain riding out of the sunset, he dropped the piece of crowbar, narrowly missing his foot. His return to Mexico had been a trial and a disappointment. His girls were married and gone, his wife unrelenting in her anger at his years of neglect. Her tongue was like a saw and the look in her eyes made him feel bad. So he had left her one day forever, and walked to Lonesome Dove, living in the house the gringos had abandoned. He sharpened knives to earn a living, which for himself was merely coffee and frijoles. He slept on the cookstove; rats had chewed up the old beds. He grew lonely, and could not remember who he had been. Still, every evening, he took the broken crowbar and beat the bell—the sound rang through the town and across the Rio Grande.

当玻利瓦尔抬头看到船长骑马走出日落时，他掉下了一根撬棍，险些撞到脚。他回到墨西哥是一次考验，也是一次失望。他的女儿们都结婚了，走了，他的妻子对他多年的忽视感到愤怒。她的舌头像锯子，眼睛里的表情让他感觉不舒服。于是，有一天，他永远地离开了她，走到孤独的鸽子那里，住在外国佬遗弃的房子里。他磨刀子谋生，对他自己来说，这不过是咖啡和油炸食品。他睡在炉灶上；老鼠把旧床吃光了。他变得孤独，不记得自己是谁了。尽管如此，每天晚上，他都会拿起折断的撬棍敲钟——铃声响彻全城，穿过格兰德河。

When Call dismounted and dropped his reins old Bolivar walked over, trembling, a look of disbelief on his face. “Oh, Capitán, Capitán,” he said, and began to blubber. Tears of relief rolled down his rough cheeks. He clutched at Call’s arms, as if he were worn out and might fall.

When Call dismounted and dropped his reins old Bolivar walked over, trembling, a look of disbelief on his face. “Oh, Capitán, Capitán,” he said, and began to blubber. Tears of relief rolled down his rough cheeks. He clutched at Call’s arms, as if he were worn out and might fall.