Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“I guess we’ll try to find a ridge to camp on,” Jake said. “It would be nice to be upwind from these smelly beasts.” “Good God, Jake, if you’re that finicky you ought to have been a barber,” Augustus said. “Then you could smell hair oil and toilet water all day and never be offended.” He walked over and helped Lorena mount. The brown mare was restless and kept slinging her head.

“I may take to barbering yet,” Jake said, annoyed that Gus had seen fit to help Lorie again. She was going to have to learn to mount sometime, with over a thousand miles of riding ahead.

“I hope you’ll come back for breakfast,” Augustus said. “We eat about an hour before sunrise. Woodrow Call likes to put in a full day, as you may remember.” “For that matter we intend to have our breakfast sent out by the hotel,” Jake said sarcastically, spurring his horse.

Call watched them go, annoyed. Augustus noticed, and chuckled.

“Even you can’t stop inconvenient things from happening, Call,” he said. “Jake can only be controlled up to a point, and Lorie’s a woman. She can’t be controlled at all.” Call didn’t want to argue about it. He picked up his Henry and walked out of the circle of firelight, meaning to have a few minutes to himself. Passing behind the wagon, he bumped into Newt, who had evidently been holding his water while the woman was in camp and had just slipped off to relieve himself.

“Sorry, Captain,” he said.

“You ought to go get Dish,” Call said. “I don’t know why he rode off. It ain’t his shift. I guess we’ll start tomorrow. We can’t take all the cattle in Mexico.” He stood silently a moment. The mood to walk had left him.

Newt was surprised. The Captain never shared his decisions with him, and yet it seemed that the decision to leave had just been made, right there behind the wagon.

“Captain,” he asked, “how far is it, up north?” It was something he couldn’t stop wondering about, and since the Captain hadn’t walked away, the question just popped out.

Then he immediately felt silly for asking it. “I guess it’s a mighty far piece, up north,” he said, as if to relieve the Captain of the need to answer.

It struck Call that they should have educated the boy a little better. He seemed to think north was a place, not just a direction. It was another of Gus’s failings—he considered himself a great educator, and yet he rarely told anyone anything they needed to know.

“It’s a ways farther than you’ve been,” Call said, not sure the boy had ever been anywhere. Probably they had at least taken him to Pickles Gap at some point.

“Oh, I been north,” Newt said, not wanting the Captain to think him completely untraveled. “I been north clear to San Antone—remember?” Call remembered then—Deets had taken him once.

“Where we’re going is a sight farther,” he said.“WELL, I’M GOING TO MISS WANZ,” Augustus said, as he and Call were eating their bacon in the faint morning light. “Plus I already miss my Dutch ovens. You would want to move just as my sourdough got right at its prime.” “I’d like to think there’s a better reason for living in a place than you being able to cook biscuits,” Call said. “Though I admit they’re good biscuits.” “You ought to admit it, you’ve et enough of them,” Augustus said. “I still think we ought to just hire the town and take it with us. Then we’d have a good barkeep and someone to play the pianer.” With Call suddenly determined to leave that very day, Augustus found himself regretful, nostalgic already for things he hadn’t particularly cared for but hated to think of losing.

“What about the well?” he asked. “Another month and we’d have it dug.” “We?” Call asked. “When did you hit a lick on that well?” He looked around and saw to his astonishment that Augustus’s two pigs were laying under the wagon, snuffling. In the half dark he had thought it was Bolivar snoring.

“Who asked them dern pigs?” he said.

“I guess they tracked us,” Augustus said. “They’re enterprising pigs.” “I guess you’re planning to take them too?” “It’s still a free country,” Augustus said. “They can come if they want the inconvenience. Wonder where Jake camped.” At that point the late shift came riding in—Newt, Pea, Dish Boggett and Jasper Fant, plus a fifth man, who hadn’t been part of the shift.

“Why, it’s Soupy Jones,” Call said.

“Godamighty,” Augustus said. “The man must of have lost his wits, what few he had.” Soupy had rangered with them a few months, before they quit. He was brave but lazy, a fine cardplayer, and by all odds the best horseman any of them had ever known. His love of being horseback was so strong that he could seldom be induced to dismount, except to sleep or eat.

“I thought Soupy married,” Call said, as the boys unsaddled their night horses.

“That was the gossip,” Augustus said. “Married a rich woman and became a sheriff, I heard. Well, maybe she run off with a preacher. If she didn’t, I don’t know why he’s out this time of night.” Soupy, a short man, came walking over with Pea Eye.

“Look what rode up,” Pea Eye said. “I near mistook him for a bandit since it was pitch-dark.” “’I god, Soupy, you should have waited till we lit the lanterns,” Augustus said, standing up to shake hands. “A sharp bunch of gun hands like us, you’re lucky not to be shot.” “Aw, Gus,” Soupy said, not knowing what else to say. He had always been nonplused by Gus’s witticisms.

“Morning, Captain,” he said, as Call shook his hand.

“Have some grub,” Call said. He had always been fond of the man, despite his unwillingness to dismount if there was something to do on the ground.

“Where’d you come from, Soupy?” Augustus asked. “Didn’t we hear you was mayor of someplace. Or was it governor?” “I was just in Bastrop, Gus,” Soupy said. “Bastrop don’t have no mayor, or governor either. It’s barely a town.” “Well, we’re barely an outfit,” Augustus said, “though we got two fine pigs that just joined us last night. Are you looking for employment?” “Yes, my wife died,” Soupy said. “She was never strong,” he added, in the silence that followed the remark.