Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Since there was no likelihood he would be offered breakfast, Roscoe mounted and rode off, feeling pretty sorry for thegirl. The old man was a rascal who had not even thanked him for the whiskey. If Texans were all going to be like him, it could only be a sorry trip.

A mile or two along in the day, Memphis began to grow restive, flicking his ears and looking around. Roscoe looked, but saw nothing. The country was pretty heavily wooded. Roscoe thought maybe a wolf was following them, or possibly some wild pigs, but he could spot nothing. They covered five or six miles at a leisurely pace.

Roscoe was half asleep in the saddle when a bad thing happened. Memphis brushed against a tree limb that had a wasp’s nest on it. The nest broke loose from the limb and fell right in Roscoe’s lap. It soon rolled off the saddle, but not before twenty or thirty wasps buzzed up. When Roscoe awoke, all he could see was wasps. He was stung twice on the neck, twice on the face, and once on the hand as he was battling them.

It was a rude awakening. He put Memphis into a lope and soon outran the wasps, but two had got down his shirt, and these stung him several more times before he could crush them to death against his body. He quickly got down from his horse and took off his shirt to make sure no more wasps were in it.

While he was standing there, smarting from yellow-jacket stings, he saw the girl—the same skinny girl who had been in the cabin, wearing the same cotton-sack dress. She tried to duck behind a bush but Roscoe happened to look up just at the right second and see her. Roscoe hastily put his shirt back on, though the wasp stings were stinging like fire and he would have liked to spit on them at least. But a man couldn’t be rubbing spit on himself with a girl watching.

“Well, come on out, since you’re here,” Roscoe said, thinking it interesting that the girl had easily kept up with Memphis for six miles. For all he knew the old man had sent her to request more whiskey, or something.

The girl came slowly to him, shy as a rabbit. She was still barefoot and her legs were scratched from all the rough country.

She stopped twenty feet away, as if not sure how close she was supposed to come. She was rather a pretty girl, Roscoe thought, although her brown hair was dirty and she had bruises on her thin arms from the old man’s rough treatment.

“How come you to follow?” Roscoe asked. It was the first good look he had had at her—she seemed not more than fourteen or fifteen.

The girl just stood, too shy to talk.

“I didn’t get your name,” Roscoe said, trying to be polite.

“Ma called me her Janey,” the girl said. “I run off from old Sam.” “Oh,” Roscoe said, wishing that the wasps had picked another time to sting him, and also that the girl named Janey had picked another time to run off.

“I near kilt him this morning,” the girl said. “He used me bad and I ain’t really his anyway, it’s just he give Bill some skunk pelts for me. I was gonna take the ax and kill him but then you come by and I run off to go with you.” The girl had a low husky voice, lower than a boy’s, and once over her first moment of shyness wasn’t loath to talk.

“I seen you get stung,” she said. “There’s a creek just along there. Mud poultices are the best for them yellow-jacket stings. You mix ’em with spit and it helps.” That of course was common knowledge, though it was thoughtful of the girl to mention it. The running-away business he thought he better deal with at once.

“I’m a deputy sheriff,” Roscoe said. “I’m headed down to Texas to find a man. I must travel fast, and I’ve got but one horse.” He stopped, feeling sure the girl would take the hint. Instead, something like a smile crossed her face for an instant.

“You call this fast travelin’?” she asked. “I could have been two miles ahead of you just running on foot. I done already walked all the way here from San Antone, and I guess I can keep up with you unless you lope.” The remark almost swayed Roscoe in the girl’s favor. If she had been to San Antonio, she might know how to get back. He himself had been plagued from the start by a sense of hopelessness about finding his way, and would have welcomed a guide.

But a runaway girl was not the sort of guide he had in mind. After all, the only reason he was looking for July was to report on a runaway woman. How would it look if he showed up with another? July would think it highly irregular, and if the folks back in Fort Smith got wind of it it could easily be made to look bad. After all, old Sam hadn’t kept her around just because she could fry a possum in the dark.

The memory of the frying possum crossed his mind, reminding him that he was very hungry. What with the wasp stings on top of the hunger, it was difficult to express himself clearly, or even to think clearly, for that matter.

As if reading his hunger from his expression, the girl quickly moved to strengthen her case. “I can catch varmints,” she said. “Bill taught me the trick. Mostly I can outrun ’em. I can fish if you’ve got a hook.”“Oh,” Roscoe said, “I guess you caught that possum then.” The girl shrugged. “I can walk faster than possums can run,” she said. “If we can get to the creek I’ll fix them stings.” The stings were burning like fire. Roscoe decided there would be no impropriety in letting the girl go as far as the creek.

He considered offering to let her ride double, but before he could mention it she ran on ahead. Not only could she walk faster than a possum could run, she could run faster than Memphis could walk. He had to put the horse into a trot to keep up with her. By the time they got to the creek, Roscoe felt lightheaded from the combination of hunger and wasp stings. His vision was swimming again, as it had when he was drunk. A wasp had got him close to one eye; soon the eye swelled shut. His head felt larger than it usually did. It was a very inconvenient life, and, as usual when traveling got bad, he felt resentful of July for having married a woman who would run off.

The girl beat him to the creek and began making mud poultices and spitting in them. She immediately dismantled a couple of crawdad houses to get the kind of mud she required. Fortunately the creek had a high bank, which cast a little shade. Roscoe sat in the shade and allowed the girl to pack the mud poultices over the stings on his face. She even managed to get one on the swelling near his eye.

“You get that shirt off,” she said, startling Roscoe so that he obeyed. The mud felt cool.

“Old Sam et crawdads,” she said, as she sat back to survey her handiwork. “He can’t shoot worth a dern so he had to live off the varmints I could catch.” “Well, I wish you could catch a fat rabbit,” Roscoe said. “I’m plumb starved.” The next moment the girl was gone. She disappeared over the bank. Roscoe felt silly, for of course he had not really meant for her to go catch a rabbit. She might be fast, but rabbits were surely faster.

His feeling of lightheadedness came back and he lay down in the cool shade, thinking a little nap wouldn’t hurt. He shut his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them he saw a surprising sight—or two sights, really. One was a dead cottontail lying near him. The other was the girl, who was wading down the edge of the creek, a short stick in her hands.

Suddenly a big bullfrog jumped off the bank. While the frog was in the air, the girl hit it with the stick and knocked it far up the bank. She scrambled up after it, and Roscoe stood up to watch, although he had only one eye to watch with. She had knocked the frog into some weeds, which slowed its hopping some. The frog cleared the weeds once, but it couldn’t jump far, and the girl was soon on it with her stick. A moment later she came down the bank holding the squashed frog by the legs. Its pink tongue was hanging out.