Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Mainly Fowler talked of Indians, for whom he had a pure hatred. He had been a buffalo hunter and had had many run-ins with them. When the buffalo ran out he began to traffic in whiskey. So far neither he nor any of his men had offered Elmira the slightest offense. It surprised her. They were a rough-looking bunch, and she had taken a big gamble in getting on the boat. No one in Fort Smith had seen her leave, as far as she knew, and the boatmen could have killed her and thrown her to the turtles without anyone’s being the wiser. The first few nights in her cubbyhole she had been wakeful and a little frightened, expecting one of the men to stumble in and fall on her. She waited, thinking it would happen—if it did, she would only have her old life back, which had been part of the point of leaving. She would stop being July Johnson’s wife, at least. It might be rough for a while, but eventually she would find Dee and life would improve.

But the men avoided her, day or night—all except Fowler, who wandered the boat constantly. Once, standing beside her, he knelt suddenly and cocked his rifle, but what he thought was an Indian turned out to be a bush. “The heat’s got my eye jumping,” he said, spitting a brown stream of tobacco into the water.

Elmira also watched the distant banks, which were green with the grass of spring. As the river gradually narrowed, she saw many animals: deer, coyote, cattle—but no Indians. She remembered stories heard over the years about women being carried off by Indians; in Kansas she had had such a woman pointed out to her, one who had been rescued and brought back to live with whites again. To her the woman seemed no different from other women, though it was true that she seemed cowed; but then, many women were cowed by events more ordinary. It was hard to see how the Indians could be much worse than the buffalo hunters, two of whom were on board. The sight of them brought back painful memories. They were big men with buffalo-skin coats and long shaggy hair—they looked like the animals they hunted. At night, in her cubbyhole, she would sometimes hear them relieving themselves over the side of the boat; they would stand just beyond the whiskey casks and pour their water into the Arkansas.

For some reason the sound reminded her of July, perhaps because she had never heard him make it. July was reticent about such things and would walk far into the woods when he had to go, to spare her any embarrassment. She found his reticence and shyness strangely irritating—it sometimes made her want to tell him what she had really done before they married. But she held back that truth, and every other truth she knew; she ceased talking to July Johnson at all.

In the long days and nights, with no one to talk to but Fowler, and him only occasionally, Elmira found herself thinking more and more about Dee. Joe she didn’t think about, had never thought about much. He had never seemed hers, exactly, though she had certainly borne him. But from the first she had looked at him with detachment and only mild interest, and the twelve years since his birth had been a waiting period—waiting for the time for when she could send him away and belong only to herself again. It occurred to her that the one good thing about marrying July Johnson was that he would do to leave Joe with.

With Dee, she could belong to herself, for if ever a man belonged to himself, it was Dee. You never knew where Dee would be from one day to the next; when he was there he was always eager to share the fun, but then, before you could look around he had vanished, off to another town or another girl.

Soon the skies above the river got wider and wider as the river wound out of the trees and cut through the plains. The nights were cool, the mornings warming quickly, so that when Elmira woke the river behind her would be covered with a frosting of mist, and the boat would be lost in the mist completely, until the sun could break through. Several times ducks and geese, taking off in the mist, almost flew into her as she stood at the rear of the boat wrapped in the buffalo robe.When the mist was heavy the splash of birds or the jumping of fish startled her; once she was frightened by the heavy beat of wings as one of the huge gray cranes flew low over the boat. As the mist thinned she would see the cranes standing solemnly in the shallows, ignoring the strings of ducks that swam nearby. Pockets of mist would linger on the water for an hour or more after the sun had risen and the sky turned a clear blue.

At night many sounds came from the banks, the most frequent being the thin howling of coyotes. From time to time during the day they would see a coyote or a gray wolf on the bank, and the hunters would sharpen their aim by shooting at the animals. They seldom killed one, for the river was still too wide; sometimes Elmira would see the bullets kick mud.

When there was no rain she liked the nights and would often slip to the rear of the boat and listen to the gurgle and suck of the water. There were stars by the millions; one night the full moon seemed to rise out of the smoky river. The moon was so large that at first it seemed to touch both banks. Its light turned the evening mist to a color like pearl. But then the moon rose higher and grew yellow as a melon.

It was the morning after the full moon that a fight broke out between one of the whiskey traders and a buffalo hunter.

Elmira, waking, heard loud argument, which was nothing new—almost every night there was loud argument, once the men got drunk. Once or twice they fought with fists, bumping against the casks that formed the walls of her room, but those fights ran their course. She had seen many men fight and was not much disturbed.

But the morning fight was different—she was awakened by a high scream. It ended in a kind of moan and she heard a body fall to the deck of the boat. Then she heard heavy breathing, as the winner of the fight caught his breath. The man soon walked away and a heavy silence fell—so heavy that Elmira wondered if everyone had left the boat. She began to feel frightened. Maybe Indians had got on the boat and killed all the whiskey traders. She huddled in her quilts, wondering what to do, but then she heard Fowler’s gruff voice. It had just been a fight of some kind.

When the sun came up she went to her place at the rear of the boat. It was very still. The men were up, sitting in a group at the far end. When she looked, she saw a man lying face down near the place where the fight had taken place. He wasn’t moving. She recognized him as one of the whiskey traders by his red hair.

A few minutes later Fowler and a couple of the men came and stood looking at the body. Then, as Elmira watched, they took off his belt and boots, rolled him over and cleaned out his pockets. The front of his body was stiff with blood. When the men had everything valuable off his body they simply picked the man up and threw him overboard. He floated in the water face down, and as the boat went on, Elmira looked and saw the body bump the boat. That’s the end of you, she thought. She didn’t know the man’s name. She wished he would sink so she wouldn’t have to see him. It was still misty, though, and soon the body was lost in the mist.

A little later Fowler brought her a plate of breakfast.

“What was the fight about?” she asked.

“’Bout you,” Fowler said, his eyelid drooping.

That was a surprise. The men seemed to have almost no interest in her. Also, if the fight was over her, it was unusual that the victim had not tried to claim her.

“About me how?” she asked.

Fowler looked at her with his eye and a half.

“Well, you’re the only woman we got,” he said. “There’s some would take advantage of you. Only the one talking it the most is kilt now.” “I guess he is,” she said. “Which one killed him?” “Big Zwey,” Fowler said.

Big Zwey was the worst-looking of the buffalo hunters. He had an oily beard and fingernails as black as tar. It was peculiar to think that a buffalo hunter had been her protector after what she had been through with them.

“Why’d he do it?” she asked. “What difference does it make to him what happens to me?” “He fancies you,” Fowler said. “Wants to marry you, he says.” “Marry me?” Elmira said. “He can’t marry me.” Fowler chuckled. “He don’t know that,” he said. “Big Zwey ain’t quite normal.” None of you are quite normal, Elmira thought, and I must not be either, or I wouldn’t be here.

“You took a chance, gettin’ on a boat with men like us,” Fowler said.

Elmira didn’t respond. Often, from then on, she felt Big Zwey’s eyes on her, though he never spoke to her or even came near her. None of the other men did either—probably afraid they would be killed and dumped overboard if they approached her. Sometimes Zwey would sit watching her for hours, from far down the boat. It made her feel bitter.Already he thought she belonged to him, and the other men thought so too. It kept them away from her, but in their eyes she didn’t belong to herself. She belonged to a buffalo hunter who had never even spoken to her.