Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Their fright made her contemptuous of them, and whenever she caught one of them looking at her she met the look with a cold stare. From then on she said nothing to anyone and spent her days in silence, watching the brown river as it flowed behind.

TRAVELING WAS EVEN WORSE than Roscoe had supposed it would be, and he had supposed it would be pure hell.

Before he had been gone from Fort Smith much more than three hours, he had the bad luck to run into a bunch of wild pigs. For some reason Memphis, his mount, had an unreasoning fear of pigs, and this particular bunch of pigs had a strong dislike of white horses, or perhaps of deputy sheriffs. Before Roscoe had much more than noticed the pigs he was in a runaway. Fortunately the pines were not too thick, or Roscoe felt he would not have survived. The pigs were led by a big brown boar that was swifter than most pigs; the boar was nearly on them before Memphis got his speed up. Roscoe yanked out his pistol and shot at the boar till the pistol was empty, but he missed every time, and when he tried to reload, racing through the trees with a lot of pigs after him, he just dropped his bullets. He had a rifle but was afraid to get it out for fear he’d drop that too.

Fortunately the pigs weren’t very determined. They soon stopped, but Memphis couldn’t be slowed until he had run himself out. After that he was worthless for the rest of the day. In the afternoon, stopping to drink at a little creek, he bogged to his knees. Roscoe had to get off and whip him on the butt five or six times with a lariat rope before he managed to lunge out of the mud, by which time Roscoe himself was covered with it. He also lost one boot, sucked so far down in the mud he could barely reach it. He hadn’t brought an extra pair of boots, mainly because he didn’t own one, and was forced to waste most of the afternoon trying to clean the mud off the ones he had.

He made his first camp barely ten miles from town. What mostly worried him wasn’t that he was too close to the town but that he was too close to the pigs. For all he knew, the pigs were still tracking him; the thought that they might arrive just after he went to sleep kept him from getting to sleep until almost morning. Roscoe was a town man and had spent little time sleeping in the woods. He slept blissfully on the old settee in the jail, because there you didn’t have to worry about snakes, wild pigs, Indians, bandits, bears or other threats—just the occasional rowdy prisoner, who could be ignored.

Once the night got late, the woods were as noisy as a saloon, only Roscoe didn’t know what most of the noises meant. To him they meant threats. He sat with his back to a tree all night, his pistol in his hand and his rifle across his lap. Finally, about the time it grew light, he got too tired to care if bears or pigs ate him, and he stretched out for a little while.

The next day he felt so tired he could barely stay in the saddle, and Memphis was almost as tired. The excitement of the first day had left them both worn out. Neither had much interest in their surroundings, and Roscoe had no sense at all that he was getting any closer to catching up with July. Fortunately there was a well-marked Army trail between Fort Smith and Texas, and he and Memphis plodded along it all day, stopping frequently to rest.

Then, as the sun was falling, he had what seemed like a stroke of luck. He heard someone yelling, and he rode into a little clearing near the trail only to discover that the reason there was a clearing was that a farmer had cut down the trees.

Now the man was trying to get the clearing even clearer by pulling up the stumps, using a team of mules for the purpose.

The mules were tugging and pulling at a big stump, with the farmer yelling at them to pull harder.

Roscoe had little interest in the work, but he did have an interest in the presence of the farmer, which must mean that a cabin was somewhere near. Maybe he could sleep with a roof over his head for one more night. He rode over and stopped a respectful distance away, so as not to frighten the mule team. The stump was only partly out—quite a few of its thick roots were still running into the ground.

At that point the farmer, who was wearing a floppy hat, happened to notice Roscoe. Immediately the action stopped, as the farmer looked him over. Roscoe rode a little closer, meaning to introduce himself, when to his great surprise the farmer took off his hat and turned out not to be a he. Instead the fanner was a good-sized woman wearing man’s clothes.

She had brown hair and had sweated through her shirt.

“Well, are you gonna get off and help or are you just going to set there looking dumb?” she asked, wiping her forehead.

“I’m a deputy sheriff,” Roscoe replied, thinking that would be all the explanation that was needed.

“Then take off your star, if it’s that heavy,” the woman said. “Help me cut these roots. I’d like to get this stump out before dark. Otherwise we’ll have to work at night, and I hate to waste the coal oil.” Roscoe hardly knew what to think. He had never tried to pull up a stump in his life, and didn’t want to start. On the other hand he didn’t want to sleep in the woods another night if he could help it.

The woman was looking Memphis over while she caught her breath. “We might could hitch that horse to the team,” she said. “My mules ain’t particular.” “Why, this horse wouldn’t know what to do if it was hitched,” Roscoe said. “It’s a riding horse.” “Oh, I see,” the woman said. “You mean it’s dumb or too lazy to work.” It seemed the world was full of outspoken women. The woman farmer reminded Roscoe a little of Peach.

Somewhat reluctantly he got down and tied Memphis to a bush at the edge of the field. The woman was waitingimpatiently. She handed Roscoe an ax and he began to cut the thick, tough roots while the woman encouraged the team.

The stump edged out of the ground a little farther, but it didn’t come loose. Roscoe hadn’t handled an ax much in the last few years and was awkward with it. Cutting roots was not like cutting firewood. The roots were so tough the ax tended to bounce unless the hit was perfect. Once he hit a root too close to the stump and the ax bounced out of his hand and nearly hit the woman on the foot.

“Dern, I never meant to let it get loose from me,” Roscoe said.

The woman looked disgusted. “If I had a piece of rawhide I’d tie it to your hand,” she said. “Then the two of you could flop around all you wanted to. What town hired you to be deputy sheriff anyway?” “Why, Fort Smith,” Roscoe said. “July Johnson’s the sheriff.” “I wish he’d been the one that showed up,” the woman said. “Maybe he’d know how to chop a root.” Then she began to pop the mules again and Roscoe continued to whack at the roots, squeezing the ax tightly so it wouldn’t slip loose again. In no time he was sweating worse than the woman, sweat dripping into his eyes and off his nose. It had been years since he had sweated much, and he didn’t enjoy the sensation.

While he was half blinded by the sweat, the mules gave a big pull and one of the roots that he’d been about to cut suddenly slipped out of the ground, uncurled and lashed at him like a snake. The root hit him just above the knees and knocked him backward, causing him to drop the ax again. He tried to regain his balance but lost it and fell flat on his back.

The root was still twitching and curling as if it had a life of its own.

The woman didn’t even look around. The mules had the stump moving, and she kept at them, popping them with the reins and yelling at them as if they were deaf, while Roscoe lay there and watched the big stump slowly come out of the hole where it had been for so many years. A couple of small roots still held, but the mules kept going and the stump was soon free.

Roscoe got slowly to his feet, only to realize that he could barely walk.