Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“I guess we’ll drown the skeeters when we hit the river,” Newt said. It was the only thing that promised relief. He had been dreading the river, but that was before the mosquitoes hit.

To make matters worse, one particular red cow had begun to irritate him almost beyond endurance. She had developed a genius for wiggling into thickets and just stopping. Shouting made no impression on her at all—she would stand in the thicket looking at him, well aware that she was safe. Once Newt dismounted, planning to scare her on foot, but she lowered her head menacingly and he abandoned that idea.

Time and again she hid in a thicket, and time and again, after shouting himself hoarse, he would give up and force his horse into the thicket after her. The cow would bolt out, popping limbs with her horns, and run as if she meant to lead the herd. But when the next thicket appeared, she would wiggle right in. She was so much trouble that he was sorely tempted to leave her—it seemed to him the boys were driving the herd and he was just driving the one red cow.

Once the mosquitoes hit, the cow’s dilatoriness became almost more than Newt could endure. The cow would stand in a thicket and look at him silently and stupidly, moving only when she had to and stopping again as soon as she could find a convenient thicket. Newt fought down a terrible urge just to pull his gun and shoot her—that would show the hussy!

Nothing less was going to make any impression on her—he had never felt so provoked by a single animal before. But he couldn’t shoot her and he couldn’t leave her; the Captain wouldn’t approve of either action. He had already shouted himself hoarse. All he could do was pop her out of thicket after thicket.

Call had taken the precaution of buying a lead steer from the Pumphreys—a big, docile longhorn they called Old Dog. The steer had never been to Montana, of course, but he had led several herds to Matagorda Bay. Call figured the old steer would at least last until they had the herd well trail-broken.

“Old Dog’s like me,” Augustus said, watching Dish Boggett edge the old steer to the front of the herd in preparation for the crossing.

“How’s that?” Call asked. “Lazy, you mean?” “Mature, I mean,” Augustus said. “He don’t get excited about little things.” “You don’t get excited about nothing,” Call said. “Not unless it’s biscuits or whores. So what was Jake up to?” he asked. It rankled him that the man was being so little help. Jake had done many irritating things in his rangering days, but nothing as aggravating as bringing a whore along on a cattle drive.

“Jake was up to being Jake,” Augustus said. “It’s a full-time job. He requires a woman to help him with it.” Dish had gradually eased Old Dog to the front of the herd, working slowly and quietly. The old steer was twice as big as most of the scrawny yearlings that made up the herd. His horns were long and they bent irregularly, as if they were jointed.

Just before the men reached the river they came out into a clearing a mile or more wide. It was a relief, after the constant battle with the mesquite and chaparral. The grass was tall. Call loped through it with Deets, to look at the crossing. Dish trotted over to Augustus on the trim sorrel he called Mustache, a fine cow horse whose eyes were always watching to see that no rebellious cow tried to make a break for freedom. Dish uncoiled his rope and made a few practice throws at a low mesquite seedling. Then he even took a throw, for a joke, at a low-flying buzzard that had just risen off the carcass of an armadillo.

“I guess you’re practicing up so you can rope a woman, if we make it to Ogallala,” Augustus said.

“You don’t have to rope women in that town, I hear,” Dish said. “They rope you.”“It’s a long way to Nebrasky,” Augustus said. “You’ll be ready to be roped by then, Dish.” “Where’d you go for half the morning?” Dish asked. He was hoping Gus would talk a little about Lorena, though part of him didn’t want to hear it, since it would involve Jake Spoon.

“Oh, Miss Lorena and I like to take our coffee together in the morning,” Augustus said.

“I hope the weather didn’t treat her too bad,” Dish said, feeling wistful suddenly. He could think of nothing pleasanter than taking coffee with Lorena in the morning.

“No, she’s fine,” Augustus said. “The fresh air agrees with her, I guess.” Dish said no more, and Augustus decided not to tease him. Occasionally the very youngness of the young moved him to charity—they had no sense of the swiftness of life, nor of its limits. The years would pass like weeks, and loves would pass too, or else grow sour. Young Dish, skilled cowhand that he was, might not live to see the whores of Ogallala, and the tender feelings he harbored for Lorena might be the sweetest he would ever have.

Looking at Dish, so tight with his need for Lorena, whom he would probably never have, Augustus remembered his own love for Clara Allen—it had pained him and pleased him at once. As a young woman Clara had such grace that just looking at her could choke a man; then, she was always laughing, though her life had not been the easiest. Despite her cheerful eyes, Clara was prone to sudden angers, and sadnesses so deep that nothing he could say or do would prompt her to answer him, or even to look at him. When she left to marry her horse trader, he felt that he had missed the great opportunity of his life; for all their fun together he had not quite been able to touch her, either in her happiness or her sadness. It wasn’t because of his wife, either—it was because Clara had chosen the angle of their relation. She loved him in certain ways, wanted him for certain purposes, and all his straining, his tricks, his looks and his experience could not induce her to alter the angle.

The day she told him she was going to marry the horse trader from Kentucky, he had been too stunned to say much. She just told him plainly, with no fuss: Bob was the kind of man she needed, and that was that. He could remember the moment still: they had been standing in front of her little store, in Austin, and she had taken his hand and held it for a time.

“Well, Clara,” he said, feeling very lame, “I think you are a fool but I wish you happiness. I guess I’ll see you from time to time.” “You won’t if I can help it, Gus,” she said. “You leave me be for the next ten years or so. Then come and visit.” “Why ten years?” he asked, puzzled.

Clara grinned—her humor never rested for long. “Why, I’ll be a wife,” she said. “I won’t be wanting to be tempted by the likes of you. But once I’ve got the hang of married life I’ll want you to come.” It made no sense at all to Augustus. “Why?” he asked. “Planning to run off after ten years, or what?” “No,” Clara said. “But I’d want my children to know you. I’d want them to have your friendship.” It struck him that he was already years late—it had been some sixteen years since Clara held his hand in front of the store. He had not watched the time closely, but it wouldn’t matter. It might only mean that there would be more children for him to be friends with.

“I may just balk in Ogallala,” he said out loud.

Dish was surprised. “Well, balk any time you want to, Gus,” he said.

Augustus was put out with himself for having spoken his thoughts. Still, the chance of settling near Clara and her family appealed to him more than the thought of following Call into another wilderness. Clara was an alert woman who, even as a girl, had read all the papers; he would have someone to talk to about the events of the times. Call had no interest in the events of the times, and a person like Pea Eye wouldn’t even know what an event was. It would be nice to chat regularly with a woman who kept up—though of course it was possible that sixteen years on the frontier had taken the edge off Clara’s curiosity.

“Can you read, Dish?” he asked.

“Well, I know my letters,” Dish said. “I can read some words. Of course there’s plenty I ain’t had no practice with.” A few hundred yards away they could see Call and Deets riding along the riverbank, studying the situation.

“I wisht we was up to the Red River,” Dish said. “I don’t like this low country.” “I wish we was to the Yellowstone, myself,” Augustus said. “Maybe Captain Call would be satisfied with that.” When they reached the river it seemed that it was going to be the smoothest crossing possible. Old Dog seemed to have an affinity for Deets and followed him right into the water without so much as stopping to sniff. Call and Dish, Augustusand Pea and Needle Nelson spread out on the downriver side, but the cattle showed no signs of wanting to do anything but follow Old Dog.