Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

The water was a muddy brown and the current fast, but the cattle only had to swim a few yards. One or two small bunches attempted to turn back, but with most of the crew surrounding them they didn’t make a serious challenge.

Despite the smoothness, Newt felt a good deal afraid and shut his eyes for a second when his horse went to swimming depth and the water came over the saddle. But he got no wetter, and he opened his eyes to see that he was almost across the river. He struck the far bank almost at the same time as a skinny brown longhorn; Mouse and the steer struggled up the bank side by side.

It was just as Newt turned to watch the last of the cattle cross that a scream cut the air, so terrible that it almost made him faint. Before he could even look toward the scream Pea Eye went racing past him, with the Captain just behind him.

They both had coiled ropes in their hands as they raced their horses back into the water—Newt wondered what they meant to do with the ropes. Then his eyes found Sean, who was screaming again and again, in a way that made Newt want to cover his ears. He saw that Sean was barely clinging to his horse, and that a lot of brown things were wiggling around him and over him. At first, with the screaming going on, Newt couldn’t figure out what the brown things were—they seemed like giant worms. His mind took a moment to work out what his eyes were seeing. The giant worms were snakes—water moccasins. Even as the realization struck him, Mr. Gus and Deets went into the river behind Pea Eye and the Captain. How they all got there so fast he couldn’t say, for the screams had started just as Mouse and the steer reached the top of the bank, so close that Newt could see the droplets of water on the steer’s horns.

Then the screams stopped abruptly as Sean slipped under the water—his voice was replaced almost at once by the frenzied neighing of the horse, which began to thrash in the water and soon turned back toward the far bank. As he gained a footing and rose out of the water he shook three snakes from his body, one slithering off his neck.

Pea Eye and the Captain were beating about themselves with their coiled ropes. Newt saw Sean come to the surface downstream, but he wasn’t screaming any more. Pea leaned far off his horse and managed to catch Sean’s arm, but then his horse got frightened of the snakes and Pea lost his hold. Deets was close by. When Sean came up again Pea got him by the collar and held on. Sean was silent, though Newt could see that his mouth was open. Deets got Pea’s horse by the bridle and kept it still. Pea managed to get his hands under Sean’s arms and drag him across the saddle. The snakes had scattered, but several could be seen on the surface of the river. Dish Boggett had his rifle drawn but was too shaken by the sight to shoot. Deets waved him back. Suddenly there was a loud crack—Mr. Gus had shot a snake with his big Colt.

Twice more he shot and two more snakes disappeared. The Captain rode close to Pea and helped him support Sean’s body.

In a minute Pea’s horse was across the deep water and found its footing. Call and Deets held the horse still while Pea took the dying boy in his arms—then Deets led the horse ashore. Augustus rode out of the water behind Call. The cattle were still crossing, but no cowboys were crossing with them. Bert, the Rainey boys and Allen O’Brien were on the south bank, not eager to take the water. A mile back, across the long clearing, the wagon and the horses had just come in sight.

Pea handed the boy down to Dish and Deets. Call quickly took his slicker off his saddle and they laid the boy on it. His eyes were closed, his body jerking slightly. Augustus cut the boy’s shirt off—there were eight sets of fang marks, including one on his neck.

“That don’t count the legs,” Augustus said. “There ain’t no point in counting the legs.” “What done it?” Dish asked. He had seen the snakes plainly and had even wanted to shoot them, but he couldn’t believe it or understand it.

“It was his bad luck to strike a nest of them, I guess,” Augustus said. “I never seen a nest of snakes in this river before and I’ve crossed it a hundred times. I never seen that many snakes in any river.” “The storm got ’em stirred up,” Deets said.

Call knelt by the boy, helpless to do one thing for him. It was the worst luck—to come all the way from Ireland and then ride into a swarm of water moccasins. He remembered, years before, in a hot droughty summer, stopping to water his horse in a drying lake far up the Brazos—he had ridden his horse in so he could drink and had happened to look down and see that the muddy shallows of the lake were alive with cottonmouths. The puddles were like nests, filled with wiggling snakes, as brown as chocolate. Fortunately he had not ridden into such a puddle. The sight unnerved him so that he shot a snake on reflex—a useless act, to shoot one where there were hundreds.

He had seen the occasional snake in rivers along the coast but never more than one or two together; there had been at least twenty, probably more, around the boy. On the south bank, the horse he had ridden was rolling over and over in the mud, ignored by the frightened cowboys. Maybe the horse was bitten too.

Pea, who had been the first to the rescue, swimming his mount right into the midst of the snakes, suddenly felt so weakhe thought he would fall off his horse. He dismounted, clinging to the horn in case his legs gave out.

Augustus noticed how white he was and went to him.

“Are you snake-bit, Pea?” he asked, for in the confusion a man could get wounds he wasn’t aware of. He had known more than one man to take bullets without noticing it; one Ranger had been so frightened when his wound was pointed out to him that he died of fright, not the bullet.

“I don’t think I’m bit,” Pea said. “I think I whupped them off.” “Get your pants down,” Call said. “One could have struck you down low.” They could find no wound on Pea—meanwhile, the cattle had begun to drift, with no one watching them cross. Some were making the bank a hundred yards downstream. The cowboys on the south bank had still not crossed.

“Gus, you and Deets watch him,” Call said, mounting. “We’ve got to keep the cattle from drifting.” He noticed Newt sitting beside Pea’s horse, his face white as powder.

“Come help us,” he said, as Pea and Dish loped off toward the cattle.

Newt turned his horse and followed the Captain, feeling that he was doing wrong. He should have said something to Sean, even if Sean couldn’t hear him. He wanted to tell Sean to go on and find a boat somewhere and go back to Ireland quick, whatever the Captain might think. Now he knew Sean was going to die, and that it was forever too late for him to find the boat, but he wanted to say it anyway. He had had a chance to say it, but had missed it.

He trotted beside the Captain, feeling that he might vomit, and also feeling disloyal to Sean.

“He wanted to go back to Ireland!” he said suddenly, tears pouring out of his eyes. He was so grieved he didn’t care.

“Well, I expect he did,” the Captain said quietly.

Newt held his reins, still crying, and let Mouse do the work. He remembered Sean’s screams, and how much the snakes had looked like giant wiggly worms. When at last the cattle were started back toward the main herd the Captain put his horse back into the river, which startled Newt. He didn’t see how anybody could just ride back into a river that could suddenly be filled with snakes, but this time no snakes appeared. Newt saw that Mr. Gus and Deets had not moved, and wondered if Sean was dead yet. He kept feeling he ought to leave the cattle and go talk to Sean, even if it was too late for Sean to answer, but he was afraid to. He didn’t know what to do, and he sat on his horse and cried until he started vomiting. He had to lean over and vomit beneath his horse’s neck.

In his mind he began to wish for some way to undo what had happened—to make the days run backward, to the time when they were still in Lonesome Dove. He imagined Sean alive and well—and did what he had not done, told him to go off to Galveston and find a boat to take him home. But he kept looking back, and there was Deets and Mr. Gus, kneeling by Sean. He longed to see Sean sit up and be all right, but Sean didn’t, and Newt could only sit hopelessly on his horse and hold the cattle.