Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Gus can lump it,” Lorena said. “You go on back,” “I guess I’ll just tell him you said you were all right,” Newt said, feeling hopeless.

“How old are you?” Lorena asked suddenly, to his immense surprise.

“I’m seventeen,” Newt said. “I knew Jake when I was real little.” “Well, you ride on back,” she said. “I don’t need looking after.” She said it with more friendliness in her voice, but it didn’t make it easier to do. He could see her plainly in the white night. She sat with her knees drawn up.

“Well, goodbye, then,” he said. Lorena didn’t answer. He turned back toward the herd, feeling a worse failure than ever.

Then it occurred to Newt that he would just have to trick her. He could watch without her knowing it. That way he wouldn’t have to go back to camp and admit that Lorena didn’t want him in camp with her. If he did that, the cowboys would make jokes about it all the way to Montana, making out that he had tried to do things he hadn’t tried to do. He wasn’t even sure what you were supposed to try to do. He had a sort of cloudy sense, but that was all.

He trotted what he judged to be about a half a mile from Lorena’s camp before stopping and dismounting. His new plan for watching Lorena involved leaving Mouse—if he tried to sneak back on Mouse, Lorena’s mare might nicker. He would have to tie Mouse and sneak back on foot, a violation of a major rule of cowboying. You were never supposed to be separated from your horse. The rule probably had to do with Indian fighting, Newt supposed: you would obviously be done for if the Indians caught you on foot.

But it was such a beautiful, peaceful night, the moon new and high, that Newt decided to chance it. Lorena might already be asleep, it was so peaceful. On such a night it would be little risk to tie Mouse for a few hours. He looped his rein over a tree limb and went walking back toward Lorena’s. He stopped at a little stand of live oak about a hundred yards from the camp, sat down with his back against a tree and drew his pistol. Just holding it made him feel ready for anything.Resting with his back against the tree, Newt let himself drift back into the old familiar daydreams in which he got better and better as a cowboy until even the Captain had to recognize that he was a top hand. His prowess was not lost on Lorena, either. He didn’t exactly dream that they got married, but she did ask him to get off his horse and talk for a while.

But while they were talking he began to feel that something was wrong. Lorena’s face was there and then it wasn’t.

Somehow the daydream had become a night dream, and the night dream was ending. He woke up very frightened, though at first he didn’t know why he was frightened. He just knew that something was wrong. He still sat under the tree, the gun in his hand, only there was a sound that was wrong, a sound like drumming. For a second it confused him—then he realized what it was: the cattle were running. Instantly he was running too, running for Mouse. He wasn’t sure how close the cattle were or whether they were running in his direction, but he didn’t stop to listen. He knew he had to get to Mouse and then ride back to Lorena, to help her in case the cattle swerved her way. He began to hear men yelling to the west, obviously the boys trying to turn the cattle. Then suddenly a bunch of running cattle appeared right in front of him, fifty or sixty of them. They ran right past him and on toward the bluffs.

Newt ran as hard as he could, not because he was afraid of being trampled but because he had to get Mouse and try to be some help. He kept running until he was covered with sweat and could barely get breath into his lungs. He was hoping none of the cowboys saw him afoot. He held onto the gun as he ran.

Finally he had to slow down. His legs refused to keep up the speed and he trotted the last two hundred yards to where he had tied Mouse. But the horse wasn’t there! Newt looked around to be sure he had the right place. He had used a boulder as a landmark, and the boulder was where it should be—but not the horse. Newt knew the stampede might have scared him and caused him to break the rein, but there was no broken rein hanging from the tree where Mouse had been tied.

Before he could stop himself, Newt began to cry. He had lost the Mouse, an unforgivable thing, and all because he thought he had conceived a good plan for watching Lorena. He hated to think what the Captain would say when he had to confess. He ran one way and then the other for a while, thinking there might be two identical boulders—that the horse might still be there. But it wasn’t true. The horse was just gone. He sat down under the tree where Mouse should have been, sure that he was ruined as a cowboy unless a miracle happened. He didn’t think one would.

The cattle were still running. He could feel the earth shake and hear the drumming of their hooves, though they weren’t close. Probably the boys had managed to get them circling.

Newt finally got his breath back and stopped crying, but he didn’t get up because there was no reason to. He felt a terrible anger at Mouse for having run off and put him in such a position. If Mouse had suddenly walked up, Newt felt he would cheerfully have shot him.

But Mouse didn’t walk up. Newt heard a few shots, quite a ways to the north—just the boys, firing to turn the herd. Then the drumming got fainter and finally stopped. Newt knew the run was over. He sat where he was, wondering why, of all people, he had to be so unlucky. Then he noticed that it was beginning to get light. He must have slept most of the night over by Lorena’s camp.

He got up and trudged through the faint light back toward the wagon, and had not walked a quarter of a mile before he heard a loping horse and turned to see Pea clipping along a ridge, right toward him. Though caught afoot, Newt still felt a certain relief. Pea was his friend, and wouldn’t judge him as harshly as the others would.

Even in the cool morning Pea’s horse was white with sweat, so it had been a hard run.

“Dern, you’re alive after all,” Pea said. “I figured you was. The Captain’s about to have a fit. He decided you got trampled, and he and Gus are having at it because Gus was the one sent you off.” “Why did he think I got trampled?” Newt asked.

“Because your horse was mixed in with the cattle when we finally got ’em turned,” Pea said. “They all think you’re a dead hero. Maybe I’ll get to be a hero when I tell ’em I found you.” Newt climbed upon Pea’s weary horse, almost too tired to care that his reputation had been saved.

“What’d he do, jump over a bush and throw you?” Pea asked. “I was always skittish about them small horses—they can get out from under you too quick.” “He’ll play hell doing it again,” Newt said, feeling very angry at Mouse. He ordinarily wouldn’t have spoken so strongly in the presence of Pea, or any adult, but his feelings were ragged. Somehow Pea’s explanation of what had happened made more sense than the truths—so much so that Newt began to half believe it himself. Being thrown was not particularly admirable, but it happened to all cowboys sooner or later, and it was a lot easier to admit to than what had actually occurred.

As they trotted over a ridge, Newt could see the herd about a mile away. It seemed curious that the Captain would getupset at the thought that he had been trampled—if he had let himself get thrown he deserved to be trampled—but he was too sleepy to care what anybody thought.

“Looky there,” Pea said. “I reckon that’s the new cook.” Newt had let his eyelids fall. It was not easy to get them up again, even to see the new cook. He was so sleepy things looked blurred when he did open his eyes. Then he saw a donkey with a pack on its back, walking slowly along.

“I didn’t know a donkey could cook,” he said irritably, annoyed that Pea would josh him when he was so tired.

“No, the cook’s over there,” Pea said. “He’s got a fair lead on the donkey.” Sure enough, a short man was walking through the grass some fifty yards ahead of the donkey. He was traveling slow: it was just that his donkey was traveling slower. The man wore a sombrero with a hole in the top.

“I guess the Captain found us another old bandit,” Pea said. “He ain’t much taller than a rock.” It was true that the new cook was very short. He was also very stout-looking. He carried a rifle casually over one shoulder, holding it by the barrel. When he heard them riding up he stopped and whistled at the donkey, but the donkey paid no attention.