Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

He lived in the tent all winter, keeping the men working but taking little interest in the result. Sometimes he hunted, taking the Hell Bitch and riding off onto the plains. He always killed game but was not much interested in the hunt. He went because he no longer felt comfortable around the men. The Indians had not bothered them, and the men did well enough by themselves. Soupy Jones had assumed the top-hand role, once Dish left, and flourished in it. The other men did well too, although there was some grumbling and many small disputes. Hugh Auld and Po Campo became friends and often tramped off together for a day or two so Hugh could show Po Campo some pond where there were still beaver, or some other interesting place he knew about. Lippy, starved for music, played the accordion and spent nearly the whole winter trying to make a fiddle from a shoebox. The instrument yielded a powerful screeching sound, but none of the cowboys were ready to admit that the sound was music.

他整个冬天都住在帐篷里，让工人们继续工作，但对结果不感兴趣。有时他会狩猎，带走地狱婊子，然后骑到平原上。他总是杀死猎物，但对狩猎不太感兴趣。他去了，因为他不再觉得和那些人在一起很舒服。印第安人没有打扰他们，他们自己也做得很好。迪什离开后，Soupy Jones担任了首席执行官，并在其中大放异彩。其他人也做得很好，尽管有一些抱怨和许多小纠纷。休·奥尔德（Hugh Auld）和波坎波（Po Campo）成了朋友，经常一起徒步一两天，这样休就可以带波坎波去看一个仍然有海狸的池塘，或者他知道的其他有趣的地方。渴望音乐的利皮演奏手风琴，几乎整个冬天都在用鞋盒制作小提琴。乐器发出强烈的尖叫声，但没有一个牛仔愿意承认这是音乐。

At Christmas, hungering for pork, they killed Gus’s pigs. The most surprising development was that Jasper Fant learned to cook. He took it up mainly out of boredom, but, tutored by Po Campo, his progress was so rapid that when Po Campo went off with Old Hugh the cuisine didn’t suffer.

In the early spring, while the weather was still chancy, fifteen horses disappeared one night. It was only by luck that the theft was discovered, for in such a place at such a time horsethieves were the last thing they were expecting. Call had taken the precaution of going with Old Hugh to two or three of the nearest Indian camps to meet the chiefs and do the usual diplomacy, in the hope of preventing the sort of surprise encounter that had proven deadly for Gus. The visits made him sad, for the Indians were not belligerent and it was apparent that Gus had merely struck the wrong bunch at the wrong time, in the wrong manner. It was a depressing irony, for Gus had always been one to preach diplomacy with the red man and over the years had engaged in many councils that Call himself thought pointless. Gus had talked to many a warrior that Call would merely have shot, and yet had got killed in a place where most of the Indians were happy to talk, particularly to a man who owned an endless supply of beef.

But Call noticed on the visits that, in the main, the Indians had better horses than he did, and he had even arranged a trade with the Blackfeet: fifty beeves for ten horses. The negotiations had required Old Hugh to talk for two days and had left him hoarse.

Thus, when the Spettle boy came in to report the horses gone, Call was surprised. Where would a horsethief come from, and where would one go?

Still, a fact was a fact: the horses were gone. Call took Pea, Newt, Needle Nelson, and Old Hugh, and went in pursuit. He soon ruled out Indians, for the thieves were traveling too slow, and had even stopped to camp not thirty miles from their headquarters, which Indians with stolen horses would never have been foolish enough to do. It was soon plain that they were only chasing two men. They crossed into Canada on the second day and caught the thieves on the third, surprising them at breakfast. They were a shaky old man with a dirty gray beard and a strapping boy about Newt’s age. The old man had a single-shot buffalo gun, and the boy a cap-and-ball pistol. The boy was cooking venison and the old man propped against his saddle muttering over a Bible when Call walked in with his pistol drawn. The boy, though big as an ox, began to tremble when he saw the five men with guns.

尽管如此，事实就是事实：马不见了。Call带走了Pea、Newt、Needle Nelson和Old Hugh，继续追赶。他很快就把印第安人排除在外，因为小偷走得太慢了，甚至停下来在离他们总部不到三十英里的地方扎营，而那些偷了马的印第安人绝对不会愚蠢到这样做。很快就清楚了，他们只追了两个人。他们第二天越境进入加拿大，第三天抓住了小偷，早餐时让他们大吃一惊。他们是一个摇摇晃晃的老人，留着脏兮兮的灰胡子，还有一个和纽特差不多大的魁梧男孩。老人有一把单枪水牛枪，男孩有一把鸭舌帽手枪。当Call拔出手枪走进来时，男孩正在煮鹿肉，老人靠在马鞍上喃喃自语地读着《圣经》。这个男孩虽然像牛一样大，但当他看到那五个人拿着枪时，他开始发抖。

“I tolt you, Pa,” he said. “Now we’re caught.” The old man, who had a jug beside his saddle, was clearly drunk, and seemed scarcely conscious of what was occurring.

“Why, I’m a minister of the Lord,” he said. “Don’t point your dern guns at me, we’re just having breakfast. This is my boy, Tom.” Call disarmed the two, which only took a second. The fifteen horses were grazing in plain sight not a hundred yards from the camp.

“We didn’t know they were your horses,” the boy said, quivering with fright. “We thought they were Indian horses.” “They’re all branded,” Call said. “You could see that, unless you’re blind.” “Not blind and not sinners, either,” the old man said, getting to his feet. He was so drunk he couldn’t walk straight.

“Well, you’re horsethieves, and that’s a sin in my book,” Call said. “Where do you people come from?”“From God, man,” the old fellow said.

“Where on earth, I meant,” Call said, feeling weary. He wondered what had possessed a minister and a boy to run off their horses, each plainly branded. It struck him as a stupid and pointless crime, for they were driving the horses north, where there were no towns and no ranches. It was clear the two were poor, and the old man out of his head. Call could tell the hands were glum at the prospect of hanging such a pair, and he himself didn’t relish it, but they were horse- thieves and he felt he had no choice. His own distaste for the prospect caused him to make a mistake,he didn’t immediately tie the old man, who seemed so weak he could hardly stand. He was not too weak, though, to snatch up a hatchet and strike a blow at Needle that would have killed him had not Needle jerked back as it was, the blade of the hatchet tore a bad cut in his arm. Call shot the old man before he could strike again. The boy took off running across the open prairie. He was easily caught, of course, but by the time he was tied and led back the old man was dead. The boy sat down in the thin snow and wept.

“我的意思是，在地球上的什么地方，”Call疲惫地说。他想知道是什么驱使一个牧师和一个男孩从他们的马上跑下来的，每个人都有明显的烙印。他觉得这是一种愚蠢而毫无意义的罪行，因为他们正把马向北赶，那里没有城镇，也没有牧场。很明显，这两个人都很穷，老人也疯了。Call可以看出他们的手对挂这样一双感到沮丧，他自己也不喜欢，但他们是偷马贼，他觉得自己别无选择。他自己对前景的厌恶导致了他犯了一个错误，他没有立即绑住那个看起来虚弱得几乎站不住的老人。不过，他还不至于太虚弱，就可以拿起一把斧头向Needle打一拳，如果不是Needle猛地后退，斧头的刀刃在他的手臂上划出了一道严重的伤口，那他早就没命了。那个老人还没来得及再动手，Call就开枪打死了他。男孩跑过开阔的草原，很容易就被抓住了，但当他被绑起来并被带回来时，老人已经死了。男孩在薄雪中坐下哭泣。

“He was all right until Ma died and Sister died,” he said. “We were in a wagon train. Then he just went daft and said we had to go off by ourselves. I didn’t want to.” “I wish he hadn’t taken our horses,” Call said.

The boy was trembling and crying. “Don’t hang me, mister,” he said. “I never stole in my life. I told him to leave them horses, but he said they were horses the Indians had already stole.

“I’ll work for you,” the boy added. “I can blacksmith. I worked two years at a forge back in Missouri, before we left.” Call knew there was not a decent tree in miles. It would be a hardship on them to ride along with the boy for a day in order to hang him. Besides, they needed a blacksmith. As for the boy’s story, maybe it was true and maybe it wasn’t. The old man had appeared to be mad, but Call had seen many thieves act that way in hopes that it would save them.

“Pa said he’d shoot me if I didn’t help,” the boy said.

Call didn’t believe him. He had been about to cut the boy loose, but he didn’t. He put him on one of the stolen horses, and they started back.

Newt felt sick at the thought of what would happen. He didn’t want to see another person hang.

“You ask him,” he said to Pea.

“Ask him what?” Pea said.

“Not to hang him,” Newt said.

“He’ll hang him,” Pea said. “He hung Jake, didn’t he?” “His pa made him do it,” Newt said.

“Maybe,” Pea said. “And maybe he’s just a dern horse-thief.” When they came to a good tree, Call rode on, all the way to the Hat Creek headquarters. Once there, he cut the boy loose.

“也许吧，”豌豆说。“也许他只是个偷马贼。”当他们来到一棵好树旁时，Call骑着马继续前行，一路来到帽溪总部。一到那里，他就把男孩放生了。

“You can work,” he said.

For ten days the big boy was the friendliest person in the outfit. He shoed all the horses, cut wood, did every chore he was asked to do and some that he wasn’t. He chattered constantly and tried his best to be friendly, and yet no one really liked him. Even Newt didn’t really like him. Tom stood too close to him, when he talked, and he talked all the time. His large face was always sweaty, even on the coldest days. Even Po Campo didn’t like him, and gave him food grudgingly.

Then, before dawn one morning Call caught Big Tom, as they called him, saddling a horse and preparing to ride off. He had four of the men’s wallets on him, stolen so smoothly that none of the men had even missed them. He had also taken the best saddle in the outfit, which belonged to Bert Borum.