Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“I been thinking I might better go on and catch Jake Spoon,” July said. He said everything in the same tone of voice, making it doubly difficult to pay attention to him, but Elmira caught his meaning.

“Do what?” she asked.

“Go get Jake Spoon,” July said. “I’m over my jaundice enough to ride.” “Let him go,” Elmira said. “Who wants him, anyway?” July was not about to tell her Peach wanted him. “Well, he killed Benny,” he said.

“I say let him go,” Elmira said. “That was an accident.” She came downstairs and dipped her face in the cool water, then wiped it on an old piece of sacking they used for a towel.

“He shouldn’t have run,” July said. “He might have got off.” “No, Peach would have shot him,” Elmira said. “She’s the one don’t care about the law.” That was a possibility. Peach had an uncontrollable temper.

“他不应该跑，”七月说。“他可能已经下车了。”“不，皮奇会开枪打死他的，”埃尔米拉说。“她才是那个不关心法律的人。”这是有可能的。桃子的脾气很难控制。

“Well, I’ve got to catch him—it’s my job,” he said.

Elmira felt like laughing. July was flattering himself if he thought he could catch a man like Jake Spoon. But then, if she laughed she would be giving herself away. July had no idea that she knew Jake Spoon, but she had known Jake even before she knew Dee. He and Dee had been buddies up in Kansas. Jake even asked her to marry him once, in a joking way—for Jake was not the marrying kind and she hadn’t been then, either. He had always kidded her, in the days when she was a sporting girl in Dodge, that she would end up respectable, though even he couldn’t have guessed that she’d marry a sheriff. It amused him no end when he found out. She had seen him twice in the street after he came to Fort Smith, and she could tell by the way he grinned and tipped his hat to her that he thought it one of the world’s finest jokes. If he had ever come to the cabin and seen that it had a dirt floor, he would have realized it was one of those jokes that aren’t funny.

And yet she had not hesitated when July proposed, though she had only known him three days. It was the buffalo hunters who convinced her she had better change her way of life. One had taken a fancy to her, a man so big and rough that she feared to refuse him, though she should have—in all her days she had never been used so hard. And the buffalo hunters were numerous. Had it not been for Dee, they might have finished her. But Dee had always been partial to her and loaned her enough money to make a start in a town where she had no reputation: St. Jo, Missouri, which was where July came to testify. She met him in court, for she had no job at the time and was watching the trial to pass the hours.

She just had a dusty little room in a boardinghouse in St. Jo, and the boy a cubbyhole in the attic. Dee snuck in twice, in the dead of night, so as not to tarnish her reputation. He liked Joe, too, and had the notion that he ought to grow up to be something. It was the last time she saw Dee that they had worked out the smallpox story.

她在圣乔的一间公寓里有一间满是灰尘的小房间，男孩在阁楼上有一个小房间。迪伊在深夜偷偷溜了两次进来，以免玷污她的声誉。他也喜欢乔，觉得他应该长大后有所作为。这是她最后一次见到迪伊，他们已经想出了天花的故事。

“I’m going north, Ellie—I’m tired of sweating,” he said. “You go south and you’ll be fine. If anybody asks say your husband died of smallpox—you can get to be a widow without ever having been married. I might get the smallpox anyway, unless I’m lucky.” “I’d go north with you, Dee,” she said quietly, not putting much weight on it. Dee didn’t care to have much weight put on things.But Dee just grinned and pulled at his little blond mustache.

“我要去北方，艾莉——我厌倦了流汗，”他说。“你去南方，你会没事的。如果有人问起，比如说你丈夫死于天花——你可以在没有结婚的情况下成为寡妇。无论如何，除非我幸运，否则我可能会感染天花。”“我会和你一起去北方，迪，”她平静地说，没有过多强调。迪不想在事情上增加太多的负担。但迪只是咧嘴一笑，扯了扯他那金色的小胡子。

“Nope,” he said. “You got to go respectable. I bet you make a schoolmarm yet.” Then he had given her a sweet kiss, told her to look after his boy, and left her with ten dollars and the memory of their reckless years together in Abilene and Dodge. She had known he wouldn’t take her north—Dee traveled alone. It was only when he settled in a town to gamble that he liked a woman. But he had offered to go shoot the buffalo hunter who had used her so hard. She had pretended she didn’t know the man’s name. Dee wasn’t a hard man, certainly not as hard as the buffalo hunter. He would have been the one to end up dead.

“不，”他说。“你得体面一点。我打赌你还可以当校长。”然后，他给了她一个甜蜜的吻，让她照顾好他的儿子，给她留下了十美元，以及他们在阿比林和道奇一起度过的鲁莽岁月的记忆。她知道他不会带她去北方——迪伊独自旅行。只有当他定居在一个城镇赌博时，他才喜欢上一个女人。但他主动提出要射杀那个如此利用她的水牛猎人。她假装不知道那个男人的名字。迪伊不是一个强硬的人，当然没有水牛猎人那么强硬。他最终会死的。

As for July, it had been no trick to marry him. He was like some of the young cowboys who had never touched a woman or even spoken to one. In two days he was hers. She soon knew that he made no impression on her. His habits never varied. He did the same things in the same way every day. Nine days out of ten he even forgot to wipe the buttermilk off his upper lip. But he wasn’t hard like the buffalo hunters. With him she was safe from that kind of treatment, at least.

至于七月，嫁给他绝非易事。他就像一些年轻的牛仔，从未接触过女人，甚至从未与女人交谈过。两天后，他就是她的了。她很快就知道他没有给她留下任何印象。他的习惯从未改变。他每天都以同样的方式做同样的事情。十有八九，他甚至忘了擦掉上唇的酪乳。但他不像水牛猎人那样强硬。有了他，她至少可以免受那种待遇。

When she heard Jake was in town she thought she might just run away with him, though she knew he was even less dependable than Dee. But once he shot Benny she had to give up that little dream, the only little dream she had.

当她听说杰克在城里时，她想她可能会和他私奔，尽管她知道他比迪伊更不可靠。但一旦他枪杀了本尼，她就不得不放弃那个小梦想，那是她唯一的小梦想。

Since then, life had been very boring. She spent most of her days sitting in the loft, letting her feet dangle, remembering the old days with Dee and Jake.

从那以后，生活变得非常无聊。她大部分时间都坐在阁楼里，双脚悬空，回忆着和迪伊和杰克在一起的旧时光。

July was sitting in the dark, buttermilk on his lip, looking at her as patiently as if he were a calf. The very look of him, so patient, made her want to torment him any way she could.

七月坐在黑暗中，嘴唇上沾着酪乳，像小牛一样耐心地看着她。他如此耐心的样子，让她想尽一切办法折磨他。

July knew that for some reason he irritated Elmira—she reacted crossly to almost everything he said or suggested.

July知道，出于某种原因，他惹恼了Elmira——她对他说的或建议的几乎所有事情都反应不好。

Sometimes he wondered if all men only made their wives look hostile and sullen. If it wasn’t the case, then he wondered what made the difference.

有时他想知道，是否所有的男人都只是让他们的妻子看起来充满敌意和闷闷不乐。如果不是这样，那么他想知道是什么造成了不同。

He had always taken pains to be as nice as possible, sharing all the chores with little Joe and sparing her inconveniences whenever he could. Yet it seemed the more polite he tried to be, the more he stumbled or said the wrong thing or generally upset her. At night it had gotten so he could hardly put a hand on her, she looked at him so coldly. She could lie a foot from him and make him feel that he was miles away. It all made him feel terrible, for he had come to love her more than anything.

“Wipe your lip, July,” she said. “I wish you’d ever learn, or else stop drinking that buttermilk.” Embarrassed, he wiped it. When Elmira was annoyed she made him so nervous that he couldn’t really remember whether he had eaten, or what.

“You ain’t sick, are you?” he asked. There were fevers going around, and if she had one it would explain why she felt so testy.

“I ain’t sick,” she said.

Since he had started the business about Jake, he thought he might as well finish it. She was mad anyway.

“If I start after Spoon now, I expect I could be back in a month,” he said.

Ellie just looked at him. It was all right with her if he was gone for a year. The only reason she objected to his going was that she knew Peach was behind it; if somebody was going to tell the man what to do, it ought to be her, not Peach.

“Take Joe with you,” she said.