Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

People who had seldom laid eyes on Elmira suddenly showed up at the jail and began to question him about her habits, as if he was an authority on them—though all he had ever seen the woman do was cook a catfish or two.

One of the worst was old lady Harkness, who had once taught school somewhere or other in Mississippi and had treated grownups like schoolchildren ever since. She helped out a little in her son’s general store, where evidently there wasn’t work enough to keep her busy. She marched across the street as if she had been appointed by God to investigate the whole thing. Roscoe had already discussed it with the blacksmith and the postmaster and a couple of cotton farmers, and was hoping for a little time off in which to think it through. Old lady Harkness didn’t let that stop her.

“Roscoe, if you was my deputy, I’d arrest you,” she said. “What do you mean lettin’ somebody run off with July’s wife?” “Nobody run off with her,” Roscoe said. “She just run off with herself, I guess.” “What do you know about it?” old lady Harkness said. “I don’t guess she’d just have got on a boatful of men if she wasn’t partial to one of them. When are you going after her?” “I ain’t,” Roscoe said, startled. It had never occurred to him to go after Elmira.

“Well, you will unless you’re good for nothing, I guess,” the old lady said. “This ain’t much of a town if things like that can happen and the deputy just sit there.” “It never was much of a town,” Roscoe reminded her, but the point, which was obvious, merely seemed to anger her.

“If you ain’t up to getting the woman, then you better go get July,” she said. “He might want his wife back before she gets up there somewhere and gets scalped.” She then marched off, much to Roscoe’s relief. He went in and took a drink or two from a bottle of whiskey he kept under his couch and usually only used as a remedy for toothache. He was careful not to drink too much, since the last thing he needed was for the people in Fort Smith to get the notion he was a drunk. But then, the next thing he knew, despite his care, the whiskey bottle was empty, and he seemed to have drunk it, although it did not feel to him like he was drunk. In the still heat he got drowsy and went to sleep on the couch, only to awake in a sweat to find Peach and Charlie Barnes staring down at him.

It was very upsetting, for it seemed to him the day had started out with Peach and Charlie staring down at him. In hisconfusion it occurred to him that he might have dreamed the whole business about Elmira running off. Only there were Peach and Charlie again; the dream might be starting over. He wanted to wake up before it got to the part about the whiskey barge, but it turned out he was awake, after all.

“Is she still gone?” he asked, hoping by some miracle that Elmira had showed up while he was steeping.

“Of course she’s still gone,” Peach said. “And you’re drunk on the job. Get up from there and go get July.” “But July went to Texas,” Roscoe said. “The only place I’ve ever been to is Little Rock, and it’s in the other direction.” “Roscoe, if you can’t find Texas you’re a disgrace to your profession,” Peach said.

Peach had a habit of misunderstanding people, even when the point was most obvious.

“I can find Texas,” he said. “The point is, kin I find July?” “He’s riding with a boy, and he’s going to San Antonio,” Peach said. “I guess if you ask around, someone will have seen them.” “Yeah, but what if I miss ’em?” Roscoe asked.

“Then I guess you’ll end up in California,” she said.

Roscoe found that he had a headache, and listening to Peach made it worse.

“His wife’s gone,” Charlie Barnes said.

“Dern it, Charlie, shut up!” Peach said. “He knows that. I don’t think he’s forgot that.” Roscoe had not forgotten it. Overnight it had become the dominant fact of his life. Elmira was gone and he was expected to do something about it. Moreover, his choices were limited. Either he went upriver and tried to find Elmira or he had to go to Texas and look for July. He himself was far from sure that either action was wise..

Trying to recover his wits, with a headache and Peach and Charlie Barnes staring at him for the second time that day, was not easy. Mainly Roscoe felt aggrieved that July had put him in such a position. July had been doing well enough without a wife, it seemed to Roscoe; but if he had to marry, he could have been a little more careful and at least married someone who would have the courtesy to stay around Fort Smith—about the least that one ought to be able to ask of a wife.

Instead, he had made the worst possible choice and left Roscoe to suffer the consequences.

“I ain’t much of a traveler,” Roscoe said, for actually his one trip, to Little Rock, had been one of the nightmares of his life, since he had ridden the whole way in a cold rain and had run a fever for a month as a result.

Nonetheless, the next morning he found himself saddling up the big white gelding he had ridden for the last ten years, a horse named Memphis, the town of his origin. Several of the townspeople were there at the jail, watching him pack his bedroll and tie on his rifle scabbard, and none of them seemed worried that he was about to ride off and leave them unprotected. Although Roscoe said little, he felt very pettish toward the citizens of Fort Smith, and toward Peach Johnson and Charlie Barnes in particular. If Peach had just minded her own business, nobody would even have discovered that Elmira was missing until July returned, and then July would have been able to take care of the problem, which rightly was his problem anyway.

“Well, I hope nobody don’t rob the bank while I’m gone,” he said to the little crowd watching him. He wanted to suggest worse possibilities, such as Indian raids, but, in fact, the Indians had not molested Fort Smith in years, though the main reason he rode white horses was that he had heard somewhere that Indians were afraid of them.

The remark about the bank being robbed was aimed at Charlie Barnes, who blinked a couple of times in response. It had never been robbed, but if it had been, Charlie might have died on the spot, not out of fright but because he hated to lose a nickel.

The little jail, which had been more or less Roscoe’s home for the last few years, had never seemed more appealing to him. Indeed, he felt like crying every time he looked at it, but of course it would not do to cry in front of half the town. It was another beautiful morning, with the hint of summer—Roscoe had always loved the summer and hated the cold, and he wondered if he would get back in time to enjoy the sultry days of July and August, when it was so hot even the river hardly seemed to move. He was much given to premonitions—had had them all his life—and he had a premonition now.

It seemed to him that he wouldn’t get back. It seemed to him he might be looking his last on Fort Smith, but the townspeople gave him no chance to linger or be sorry.

“Elmira’ll be to Canada before you get started,” Peach pointed out.

Reluctantly, Roscoe climbed up on Memphis, a horse so tall it was only necessary to be on him to have a view. “Well, I hate to go off and leave you without no deputy,” he said. “I doubt if July will like it. He put me in charge of this place.” Nobody said a word to that.

“If July gets back and I ain’t with him, you tell him I went looking,” Roscoe said. “We may just circle around for a while, meand July. First I’ll look for him, then he can look for me. And if the town goes to hell in the meantime, don’t blame it on Roscoe Brown.” “Roscoe, we got the fort over there half a mile away,” Peach said. “I guess the soldiers can look after us as good as you can.” That was true, of course. There wouldn’t even be a Fort Smith if there hadn’t been a fort first. Still, the soldiers didn’t concern themselves much with the town.