Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“I’ll watch west and you watch east,” Augustus said. Almost as soon as he finished speaking a shot hit the cave bank just above their heads, causing dirt to shower down. Augustus looked down the creek and saw two horsemen cross it, too far away to make accurate targets in the dusk.

“I guess we’re fairly surrounded,” he said. “Some downstream and some upstream.” “I don’t see why we didn’t stay in Texas,” Pea Eye said. “The Indians was mostly whipped down there.” “Well, this is just bad luck we’re having,” Augustus said. “We just run into a little bunch of fighters. I imagine they’re about as scarce as the buffalo.” “Reckon we can hold ’em off until the Captain comes and looks for us?” Pea asked.

“Yes, if I don’t get sick from this leg,” Augustus said. “This leg don’t feel right. If it don’t heal you may have to go for help.” The thought frightened Pea Eye badly. Go for help, when Gus had just said they were surrounded? Go and be scalped, was what that was an invitation to.

“I ’spect they’d catch me if I tried that,” Pea said. “Maybe the Captain will figure out that we’re in trouble and hurry on up here.” “He won’t miss us for another week,” Augustus said. “I don’t fancy squatting here by this creek for a week.” A few minutes later they heard a loud, strange cry from the east. It was an Indian war cry. Another came from the west, and several from the far bank of the river. The evening would be still and peaceful for a few minutes and then the war cries would start again. Pea had never approved of the way Indians yelled when they fought—it upset his nerves. This yelling was no exception. Some of the cries were so piercing that he wanted to hold his ears.

Augustus, however, listened with appreciation. The war cries continued for an hour. In a lull, Augustus cupped his hands and let out a long, loud cry himself. He kept it up until he ran out of breath. Pea Eye had never heard Augustus yell like that and hardly knew what to make of it. It sounded exactly like a Comanche war cry.

The Indians surrounding them apparently didn’t know what to make of it either. When Gus stopped yelling, they did too.

“I was just thanking them for the concert,” Augustus said. “Remember that old Comanche that went blind and used to hang around the Fort? He taught me that. I doubt they’ve ever heard Comanche up in these parts. It might spook them a little.” “Reckon they’ll sneak up in the dark?” Pea asked. That was his lifelong worry—being snuck up on in the dark by an Indian.

“I doubt it,” Augustus said. “The eyesight of your average Indian is overrated. They spend too much time in them smoky tepees. The bulk of them can’t see in the dark no better than we can, if as well. So it’s a big chance for them, sneaking up on sharpshooters like us.” “Well, I ain’t a sharpshooter,” Pea Eye said. “I need to take a good aim or else I miss.” “You’re near as depressing as Jasper Fant,” Augustus said.

No Indians came in the night, and Augustus was glad of that. He began to feel feverish and was afraid of taking a chill. He had to cover himself with saddle blankets, though he kept his gun hand free and managed to stay awake most of the night—unlike Pea, who snored beside him, as deeply asleep as if he were in a feather bed.

By morning Augustus had a high fever. Though his leg worried him most, he also had pain in his side. He decided he hadbeen wrong in his first analysis, and that he did have a bullet wound there, after all. The fever had him feeling weak.

While he was waiting, pistol cocked, to see if the Indians would try to rush them, he heard thunder. Within half an hour lightning was striking all around them, and thunder crashing.

“Oh, dern,” Pea Eye said. “Now I guess we’ll get lightning-struck.” “Go back to sleep, if all you can do is be pessimistic,” Augustus said. “I smell rain, which is a blessing. Indians mostly don’t like to fight in the wet. Only white men are dumb enough just to keep on fighting no matter what the weather is like.” “We’ve fought Indians in the wet,” Pea Eye said.

“Yes, but it was us forced it on them,” Augustus said. “They’d rather do battle on sunny days, which is only sensible.” “Here they’re probably gonna kill us, and you take up for them,” Pea Eye said. He had never understood Gus and never would, even if the Indians didn’t kill them.

“I’m an admirer of good sense wherever I find it,” Augustus said.

“I hope you find some today, then, and get us out of this,” Pea said.

Then it began to rain in earnest. It rained so hard that it became impossible to see, or even talk. A muddy stream began to pour off the bank, only inches in front of them. The rain struck so hard it reminded Pea of driving nails. Usually such freshets were short-lived, but this one wasn’t. It seemed to rain for hours, and was still raining when dawn came, though not as hard. Alarmingly, to Pea, the creek had become a river, more than deep enough to swim a horse. It rose so that it was only two or three yards in from where they were scrunched into the cave, and it soon washed away their crude breastworks.

And it was still raining. It was cold, too, though fortunately they had a good overhang and were fairly dry. Gus had drug the bedrolls in before the rain started.

Pea was shocked to see that Gus didn’t look himself. His face was drawn and his hands unsteady. He was chewing on some jerky he had pulled out of a saddlebag, but it seemed he barely had the strength to eat.

“Are you poorly?” Pea asked.

“I should have got that arrow out sooner,” Augustus said. “This leg’s gonna give me problems.” He handed Pea some jerky and they sat in silence for a while, watching the brown flood sweep past them.

“Hell, a frog could have waded that creek yesterday,” Pea said. “Now look at it. It’s still raining, too. We may get drowned instead of scalped. It’s a good thing Jasper ain’t here,” he added. “He’s mighty afraid of water.” “Actually, this flood is an opportunity for you,” Augustus said. “If we can last the day, you might swim past them tonight and get away.” “Well, but that wouldn’t be right,” Pea Eye said. “I wouldn’t want just to leave you sitting here.” “I won’t be sitting, I’ll be floating, if this keeps up,” Augustus said. “The good aspect of it is that it might cool off these Indians. They might go back to their families and let us be.” “I’d still hate to leave you, even so,” Pea said.

“You can’t carry me to the herd, and I doubt I can walk it,” Augustus said. “I’m running such a fever I’m apt to go out of my head any time. You’ll probably have to trot back and bring some of the boys, or maybe the wagon. Then I can ride back in style.” The thought struck Pea Eye for the first time that Gus might die. He had no color, and he was shaking. It had never been suggested that Gus might die. Of course, he knew any man could die. Pea himself had seen many die. Yet it was a condition he had never associated with Gus McCrae, or with the Captain either. They were not normal men, as he understood normal, and he had never reckoned with the possibility that either of them might die. Now, when he looked at Gus and saw his pallor and his shakes, the thought came into his mind and wouldn’t leave. Gus might die. Pea knew at once that he had to do everything possible to prevent it. If he went back to the wagon and reported that Gus was dead, there was no telling what the Captain would say.

Yet he didn’t know exactly what he could do. They had no medicine, it was raining fits, the Indians had them surrounded, and they were a hundred miles or more from the Hat Creek outfit.

“It’s a soggy situation, I admit,” Augustus said, as if reading Pea Eye’s thoughts. “But it ain’t fatal yet. I could hold out here for a few days. Call could make it back to this creek in one ride on that feisty mare of his. Best thing for you to do would be just to travel at night. If you walk around in the daytime, some of these red boys might spot you and you’d have about the chance of a rabbit. I guess you could make it to the Yellowstone in three nights, though, and they ought to be there by then.” Pea Eye dreaded the prospect. He hated night travel, and it would be worse afoot. He began to hope that maybe the rainhad discouraged the Indians, but that hope only lasted an hour. Three times during the day the Indians fired on them.

They shot from downriver, and Gus opened up on them at once. They were so respectful of his gun that their bullets only splattered uselessly in the mud, or else hit the water and ricocheted off with a whine. Gus looked so weak and shaky that Pea Eye wondered if he could still shoot accurately, but the question was answered later in the day when an Indian tried to shoot them from the opposite bank, using a little rain squall as cover. He got off his shot, which hit one of the saddles; then Gus shot him as he turned to crawl away. The shot caused the Indian to straighten up, and Gus shot him again. The second bullet seemed to suck the Indian backward—he toppled off the bank and rolled into the water. He was not dead; he tried to swim, so Gus shot him again. A minute or two later he floated past them face down.