Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“That’s all right, Bol,” Call said. He lead the shaking man to the house, which was all shambles and filth, spiderwebs and rat shit everywhere. Bol shuffled around and heated coffee, and Call stood on the front porch and drank a cup. Looking down the street, he was surprised to see that the town didn’t look the same. Something wasn’t there that had been. At first he couldn’t place what, and he thought it might be the dust or his erratic vision, but then he remembered the Dry Bean. It was the saloon that seemed to be gone.

Call took the dun down to the roofless barn and unsaddled him. The stone watering trough was full of water, clear water, but there was not much to feed the horse. Call turned him out to graze and watched while he took a long roll.

Then, curious to know if the saloon was really gone, he walked across the dry bed of Hat Creek and into the main street.He had no sooner turned into the street than he saw a one-legged man coming toward him through the dusk. Why, Gus?

he thought, not knowing for a second if he were with the living or the dead. He remembered sitting in the grave on the Guadalupe, and for a moment could not remember climbing out.

But the one-legged man only turned out to be Dillard Brawley, the barber who had ruined his voice screeching the time he and Gus had had to take off his leg.

For his part, Dillard Brawley was so surprised to see Captain Call standing in the street that he almost dropped the few perch he had managed to catch in the river. In the growing dark he had to step close to see it was the Captain—there was only a little light left.

“Why, Captain,” Dillard said in his hoarse whisper, “did you and the boys finally get back?” “Not the boys,” Call said. “Just me. What happened to the saloon?” He could see that he had been right—the general store was still there, but the Dry Bean was gone.

“Burnt,” Dillard whispered. “Burnt near a year ago.” “What started the fire?” Call asked.

“Wanz started it. Burnt up in it, too. Locked himself in that whore’s room and wouldn’t come out.” “Well, I swear,” Call said.

“The pi-aner burnt up with him,” Dillard said. “Made the church folks mad. They thought if he was gonna roast himself he ought to have at least rolled the pi-aner out the door. They’ve had to sing hymns to a fiddle ever since.” Call walked over and stood where the saloon had been. There was nothing left but pale ashes and a few charred boards.

“When she left, Wanz couldn’t stand it,” Dillard said. “He sat in her room a month and then he burnt it.” “Who?” Call asked, looking at the ashes.

“The woman,” Dillard whispered. “The woman. They say he missed that whore.".

LARRY McMURTRY, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and many other awards, is the author of more than twenty-four novels, two collections of essays, three memoirs, and more than thirty screenplays, and is the editor of an anthology of modern Western fiction. His reputation as a critically acclaimed and bestselling author is unequaled.

BY LARRY MCMURTRY By Sorrow’s River The Wandering Hill Sin Killer Sacajawea’s Nickname: Essays on the American West Paradise Boone’s Lick Roads Still Wild: A Collection of Western Stories Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen Duane’s Depressed Crazy Horse Comanche Moon Dead Man’s Walk The Late Child Streets of Laredo The Evening Star Buffalo Girls Some Can Whistle Anything for Billy

Film Flam:

Essays on Hollywood.

Texasville Lonesome Dove The Desert Rose Cadillac Jack Somebody’s Darling Terms of Endearment All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers Moving On The Last Picture Show In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas Leaving Cheyenne Horseman, Pass By BY LARRY MCMURTRY AND DIANA OSSANA Pretty Boy Floyd Zeke and Ned.