“There’s a bunch you missed,” Augustus said, pointing to the northwest. Deets looked, nodded, and rode away. Jasper Fant looked and saw nothing but heat waves and blue sky. “I guess I need spectacles,” he said. “I can’t see nothing but nothing.” “Weak brains breed weak eyesight,” Augustus said.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Though confident that he had done the right thing in leaving Lorena, Augustus soon found that he missed her more than he had expected to. He missed Clara, too, and for a few days was in a surly mood. He had grown accustomed to sleeping late and sitting outside the tent with Lorena in the mornings. Alone on the long plain, with no cowboys to disturb her, she was a beautiful companion, whereas the cowboys who gathered around Po Campo’s cookfire every morning were far from beautiful, in his view.
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Newt was happy with his new horse, which he named Candy. It was the first real gift he had ever been given in his life, and he talked to anyone who would listen of the wonderful woman on the Platte who knew how to break horses and conduct picnics too. His enthusiasm soon caused the other hands to be jealous, for they had accomplished nothing except a drunk in Ogallala, and had missed the nice picnic and the girls.
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“He’s been that way two months,” she said. “I guess he sees some, but I don’t think he hears.” “It reminds me of old Tom Mustard,” Augustus said. “He rangered with us when we started the troop. His horse went over a cutbank on the salt fork of the Brazos one night and fell on him. Broke his back. Tom never moved a muscle after that, but his eyes were open when we found him. We started back to Austin with Tom on a travois, but he died a week later. He never closed his eyes in all that time, that I know of.” “I wish Bob would go,” Clara said. “He’s no use to himself like this. All Bob liked to do was work, and now he can’t.” They walked out on the little upper porch, where it was cooler. “Why’d you come up here, Gus?” she asked. “You ain’t a cowboy.” “The truth is, I was hoping to find you a widow,” he said. “I didn’t miss by much, either.” Clara was amused that her old beau would be so blunt. “You missed by years,” she said. “I’m a bony old woman now and you’re a deceiving man, anyway. You always were a deceiving man. I think the best thing would be for you to leave me your bride to be and I’ll see if I can give her some polish.” “I never meant to get in the position I’m in, to be truthful,” Augustus said.
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“Ain’t priced none lately,” Pea Eye said. It irked him that he had gone to the barbershop at the wrong time and missed the fight.
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“Was it me?” Newt asked, feeling that maybe he should have managed things better. “Was it just that he was quirting me?” “That was part of it,” Augustus said. “Call don’t know himself what the rest of it was.”“Why, he’d have killed that man, if you hadn’t roped him,” Dish said. “He would have killed anybody. Anybody!” Augustus, eating his candy, did not dispute it.IT WAS BECAUSE of the fight that the boys ended up amid the whores. Dish saddled and left, and Augustus finished loading the wagon and started out of town. When he turned the wagon around, Newt and the Raineys were talking to Pea Eye, who had been up the street getting barbered and had missed the fight. Pea Eye had so much toilet water on that Augustus could smell him from ten feet away. He and the boys were standing around the bloody anvil and the boys were explaining the matter to him. Pea didn’t seem particularly surprised.
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But then he knew he could not simply ride by Clara, whatever the threat of turmoil or disappointment. Of all the women he knew, she had meant the most; and was the one person in his life he felt he had missed, in some ways.
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Buried him in Boot Hill. It’s a good joke on him, since his name was Boot. He killed a nine-year-old boy, he won’t be missed around here.” Elmira shut her eyes, hoping she could be dead. From then on she spat out her medicine, letting it dribble onto the gown the doctor had given her. He didn’t understand at first.
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“You’ve missed your calling, Jasper,” Augustus said, highly amused by this display. “You ought to try dancing in whorehouses—you might pick up a favor or two that you otherwise couldn’t afford.” “Reckon the Captain will let us go to town once we get to Nebraska?” Needle asked. “It seems like a long time since there’s been a town.”“If he don’t, I think I’ll marry a heifer,” Bert said.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

July felt sad when she left. He had the feeling that an opportunity had been missed, though he didn’t know what kind of opportunity. The streets were full of cowboys going from one saloon to the next. There were horses tied to every hitch rail.
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“Oh, the closest one to Dodge,” Dan said. “Find some herd that’s just about there and steal it, maybe a day or two shy of the towns. Then we could just drive it in and sell it and be gone. We’d get all the money and none of the work.” “What about the boys who drove it all that way?” Jake asked. “They might not want to give up their profits that easy.” “We’d plant ’em,” Dan said. “Shoot them and sell their cattle, and be long gone before anyone ever missed them.” “What if one run off and didn’t get planted?” Roy said. “It don’t take but one to tell the story, and then we’d have a posse to fight.” “Frog’s got a fast horse,” Dan said. “He could run down any man who escaped.” “I’d rather rob banks, myself,” little Eddie said. “Then you got the money right in your hands. You don’t have to sell no cows.” “Well, you’re lazy, Ed,” Dan said, looking at his brother as if he were mad enough to shoot him. In fact, the Suggs brothers seemed to live on the edge of fratricidal warfare.
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It was two weeks before Luke could get out of the wagon. All that time Elmira brought him his food and coaxed him to eat it. All the passion seemed to have been beaten out of him. But he did say once, watching Zwey, “I’ll kill him someday.” “You shouldn’t have missed that shot you had,” Elmira said, thinking to tease him.
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“I wonder why he shot the turkey,” Zwey said. “It was done dead.” “He didn’t shoot the turkey, he missed you,” Elmira suggested.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

The next morning he started walking, but he didn’t feel the same. He felt like he no longer belonged to life. It would not have surprised him to see a cloud of buzzards circling over him. In spirit he had gone to visit Roscoe. He finished his water that night, having walked all day through the brown wavy grass. He tried a long shot at a deer but missed. The next morning he was awakened by the cawing of crows. He looked up to see several of them flapping overhead in the early grayness. He was tired from his long day’s walk and didn’t get up immediately. There was nothing to get up for but the bright sun and the shimmering plains. But he kept hearing the crows, cawing and quarreling not far away. When he stood up, he saw a little grove of low trees not two hundred yards away—they weren’t much, but they were trees, and the crows were resting in them.
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“Dern, I missed listening to you, Gus,” Pea Eye said as Augustus was mounting to leave.
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“This is like living in a hotel, Lorie,” Augustus said. “We got people toting us meals as fast as we can eat them.” At that point the cook got careless and the little pack mule took a kick at him which barely missed.
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“Jasper missed the cobbler, that’s the laugh,” Allen O’Brien said, not feeling too frisky himself. “I used to be better at hangovers, back in Ireland. Of course, then I had one every day,” he reflected. “I had more practice.” When Jasper realized he had missed a dewberry cobbler, one of his favorite dishes, he threatened to quit the outfit, since they were so ungrateful. But he was too weak to carry out his threat. Po Campo forced him to eat a big spoonful of molasses as a headache cure, while the rest of the crew got the herd on the move.
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“I miss Gus,” Pea Eye said. “I get to expecting to hear him talk and he ain’t here. My ears sort of get empty.” Call had to admit that he missed him too, and that he was worried. He had had at least one disagreement a day with Gus for as many years as he could remember. Gus never answered any question directly, but it was possible to test an opinion against him, if you went about it right. More and more Call felt his absence, though fortunately they were having uneventful times—the cattle were fairly well trail-broken and weren’t giving any trouble. The crew for the most part had been well behaved, no more irritable or contrary than any other group of men. The weather had been ideal, water plentiful, and the spring grass excellent for grazing.
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Lorena saw that, and just as she saw it the two horses raced right over Monkey John without touching him and were into the Kiowas. One Kiowa screamed, a sound more hopeless and frightening even than the scream of Dog Face. Before she thought about it being Gus, she saw him yank his horse almost down right in the middle of the Kiowas. He shot the one that screamed and then the two that held the knives, shooting from his horse right into their chests. Another Kiowa grabbed the lance with Dog Face’s scalp on it, but Gus shot him before he could lift it. He shot another just as the man was picking up his rifle. The last Kiowa fled into the darkness, and Gus turned his horse after him. “Finish any that ain’t finished,” he said to the other man. But that man had barely dismounted before there was a shot in the darkness. He stood by his horse listening. There was another shot, and then the sound of a horse loping back. Lorena thought it was over but Monkey John shot with his pistol at the man standing by the fire. He missed completely and the man slowly raised his own pistol, but before he could fire Gus rode back into the firelight and shot with his rifle, knocking Monkey John back into the pack.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“By God, that’s a good one,” Augustus said. “We were expecting you down in Lonesome Dove, and here you are practically in Kansas. If you’re still after Jake Spoon, you’ve missed him by about three hundred miles.” “I have more urgent business,” July said rather solemnly.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

The shot missed the white man but wounded one of the Indian horses. The horse’s scream unnerved the shooter, who moved his tripod back another fifty yards. Augustus kept low and waited for darkness, which was only another hour away.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Unless there were more Indians, Augustus didn’t consider that he was in a particularly serious situation. It was hot and the blowflies were already buzzing over the horse blood, but those were trivial discomforts. He had filled his canteen that morning, and the Canadian was no more than ten miles to the north. More than likely the Indians would decide they had missed their big chance and go away. They might try to get him at night, but he didn’t plan to be there. Come dark he would head for the river.
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“Could have wasted a shell,” he said, if someone pointed this out to him. It was true that when he did shoot he rarely missed, but that was because he rarely shot at anything over thirty yards away.
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Hutto had two shotgun shells in his hand but he didn’t try to shove them in the shotgun. “I’ve had bad luck before, but nothing to top this,” he said, ignoring July and looking at Roscoe. “Can’t you at least make that gal stop throwing rocks?” Roscoe was having trouble believing what he saw. He felt he had missed a step or two in the proceedings somehow.
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“This beats all I ever heard of,” Hutto said. “Here we are in a rock fight with a girl no bigger than a minute, and she’s winning. If news of this gets out we’ll have to retire.” He looked at Roscoe, who was standing stock-still. One of the rocks had just missed him—he didn’t want to move and risk interfering with Janey’s aim.“By God, when I get her she’ll wish she’d kept a-running,” Jim said, cocking his gun. A second later a rock hit him on the shoulder and the gun went off. Furious, he fired into the darkness until the pistol was empty.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇