He saw the girl come out of the tent when Gus dismounted. She was just a shape in the twilight. Gus said she wouldn’t talk much, not even to him. Call didn’t intend to try her. He loped a mile or two to the west and put the mare on her lead rope. The sky overhead was still light and there was a little fingernail moon.JAKE SPENT MOST of his days in a place called Bill’s Saloon, a little clapboard place on the Trinity River bluffs. It was a two- story building. The whores took the top story and the gamblers and cowboys used the bottom. From the top floor there were usually cattle in sight trailing north, small herds and large. Once in a while a foreman came in for liquor and met Jake. When they found out he had been north to Montana, some tried to hire him, but Jake just laughed at them. The week after he left, the Hat Creek herd had been a good week. He couldn’t draw a bad card, and by the time the week was over he had a stake enough to last him a month or two.
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“Thanks for the company,” he said. “I think we better go look for my deputy.” “There’s a perfectly straight trail from Fort Smith into Texas,” Wilbarger said. “Captain Marcy laid it out. If that deputy can’t even stay in a road, I expect you ought to fire him.” Then he loped away without saying goodbye. Joe wished they were going with him. In only a few hours the man had paid him several compliments and had offered to hire him. He found himself feeling resentful both of July and Roscoe. Julydidn’t seem to know what he wanted to do, and as for Roscoe, if he couldn’t stay in a road, then he deserved to be lost.
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“No,” the cook said. “I’m planning to marry and settle down here in north Texas.” “I hope you marry somebody who can cook,” Wilbarger said. “If you do, let me know. When she gets ready to leave you, I’ll hire her.” He looked around at Joe. “Need a job, son?” he asked. “We need a boy that don’t ask questions and is handy with an ax. I don’t know about your chopping skills, but you ain’t asked a question yet.” Wilbarger seemed serious, and July was tempted to let Joe do it. Going north with a herd would be good experience for him. The main advantage, though, was that he himself could then travel alone, with just his thoughts. Without Joe to look after, he could better accomplish the main task ahead, which was to find Elmira.
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“Woodrow, you go,” Augustus said. “I ain’t in the mood for city life just now. I’ll stay here and play cards with Lorie until that scamp shows up.” Call was very annoyed. One of Gus’s worst traits was an inability to stick to a plan. Call might spend all night working out a strategy, and Augustus might go along with it for ten minutes and then lose patience and just do whatever came into hismind. Of course, going into town to hire a cook was no great project, but it was still irritating that Gus would just drop off.
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“Pea, I don’t know what keeps you from riding off a cliff,” Augustus responded. “If we get closer the animal will just get farther.” “Let’s hire Lorie to cook,” Augustus said.
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“They wouldn’t want you,” Augustus said. “They don’t bother with crazies.” “I wisht we’d get a cook,” Jasper said. “I’m dern tired of eating slop.” It was a common complaint. Since Bolivar’s departure the food had been uneven, various men trying their hand at cooking. Call had ridden into several settlements, hoping to find someone they could hire as cook, but he had had no luck.
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“Besides the liquor, I think we’ll require a little respect,” he said. “I’m Captain McCrae and this is Captain Call. If you care to turn around, you can see our pictures when we was younger. Among the things we don’t put up with is dawdlingservice. I’m surprised Willie would hire a surly young idler like you.” The cardplayers were watching the proceedings with interest, but the young bartender was too surprised at having suddenly had his nose broken to say anything at all. He held his towel to his nose, which was still pouring blood. Augustus calmly walked around the bar and got the picture he had referred to, which was propped up by the mirror with three or four others of the same vintage. He laid the picture on the bar, took the glass the young bartender had just polished, slinging it lazily into the air back in the general direction of the cardplayers, and then the roar of the big Colt filled the saloon.
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“To help judge the new chef,” Augustus said. “You’d eat a fried stove lid if you was hungry. I’m interested in the finer points of cooking, myself. I’d like to give the man a tryout before we hire him.” “I don’t see why. He won’t have nothing much tenderer than a stove lid to cook around this outfit anyway,” Jasper said.
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“I guess I’ll go into San Antonio,” Call said. “Maybe I can hire a cook and buy a new wagon.” “Fine, I’ll join you,” Augustus said.
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“Where we’re going is a sight farther,” he said.“WELL, I’M GOING TO MISS WANZ,” Augustus said, as he and Call were eating their bacon in the faint morning light. “Plus I already miss my Dutch ovens. You would want to move just as my sourdough got right at its prime.” “I’d like to think there’s a better reason for living in a place than you being able to cook biscuits,” Call said. “Though I admit they’re good biscuits.” “You ought to admit it, you’ve et enough of them,” Augustus said. “I still think we ought to just hire the town and take it with us. Then we’d have a good barkeep and someone to play the pianer.” With Call suddenly determined to leave that very day, Augustus found himself regretful, nostalgic already for things he hadn’t particularly cared for but hated to think of losing.
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You wouldn’t even know how to have fun with it. You’d probably use it to buy gravestones for old bandits you happened to like.” “If you drown in the Republican River, I’ll give your part to Jake,” Call said. “I guess he’d know how to spend it.’” With that he mounted and rode off, meaning to find Jasper Fant and hire him, if he really wanted to work.BY THE TIME Jake Spoon had been in Lonesome Dove ten days, Lorena knew she had a job to do—namely the job of holding him to his word and making sure he took her to San Francisco as he had promised to do.
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Call finally asked if he could hire a couple of the boys. Maude sighed, and looked down her double row of children. “I’d rather sell pigs than hire out boys,” she said, “but I guess they’ve got to go see the world sometime.” “What’s the pay?” Joe asked, always the practical man.
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“He can hire me, if he wants to, when he gets back,” Jasper said.
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“Oh, I was just resting,” Dish said. “I’m helping their darky guard some stock.” “Guard it from what?” “From the Mexicans we stole it from,” Dish said. “The Captain went off to hire a crew.” “Hell,” Jasper said. “If the Mexicans knew the Captain was gone they’d come and take back Texas.” “I reckon not,” Dish said. He felt the remark was slightly insulting. The Captain was not the only man in Texas who could fight.
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“I think so,” Dish said. “I’m working for these Hat Creek boys right now. They’re thinking of getting up a drive.” “You mean they hire you to play cards?” Jasper asked. He fancied himself a joker.
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“You’ve got to learn sometime,” he said. “If you can learn to ride and shoot before Captain Call gets back, he might hire you.” The O’Brien boys were so awed to find themselves with deadly weapons in their hands that they immediately forgot to be nervous about their horses. Sean had never held a gun before, and the flat crack of the bullet when he shot at the cactus was frightening. It occurred to him that if they were expected to shoot, they could also expect to be shot at—an unappealing thought.
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“His horse is here,” Call said. “I guess he probably come with it. Do you think he’ll work, once we start?” “No, and I won’t, either,” Augustus said. “You better hire these Irish boys while you got the chance.” “It’s work we’re looking for,” Allen said. “What we don’t know we’ll gladly learn.” Call refrained from comment. Men who didn’t know how to get on and off a horse would not be much use around a cow outfit.
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“I’m going to go see if I can hire some hands,” Call said. “You better move them horses this afternoon.” “Move ’em where?” Augustus asked.
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“No, son, you’ve overshot the snow,” Augustus said. “What we have down here is sand.” Call felt his impatience rising. The night had been far more successful than he could have hoped. They could keep the best horses and sell the rest—the profits would easily enable them to hire a crew and outfit a wagon for the trip north. Then all they would have to do would be gather the cattle and brand them. If everyone would work like they should, it could all be accomplished in three weeks, and they could be on the trail by the first of April—none too soon, considering the distance they had to go. The problem would be getting everyone to work like they should. Jake was already off with his whore, and Augustus hadn’t had breakfast.
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“Running off Mexican horses isn’t a job,” Wilbarger said. “It’s merely a gamble. You’ve the look of a cowboy, and I’m about to start up the trail with three thousand head.” “So are we,” Call said, amused that the man would try to hire a hand out from under him with him sitting there.
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“Yeah, and you’re as fond of risk as Jake is of women,” Augustus said. “Suppose we get away with the horses. What then?” “Sell Wilbarger forty and keep the rest,” Call said. “Pick up some cattle and head north.” “Head north who with?” Augustus asked. “We don’t exactly add up to a cattle crew.” “We can hire cowboys,” Call said. “There’s plenty of young cowhands around here.” Augustus sighed again and stood up. It looked like the easy life was over for a while. Call had idled too long, and now he was ready to make up for it by working six times as hard as a human should work.
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“If we go they won’t be far behind,” Augustus said. “The first ones that get there will hire you to go hang all the horsethieves and bring in whichever Indians have got the most fight left, and you’ll do it and the place will be civilized.
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Dish Boggett felt somewhat at a loss. He had been all ready to hire on, and then this new man rode up and everyone hadsort of forgotten him. Captain Call, a man known for being all business, seemed a little distracted. He and Gus just stood there as if they expected a posse despite what Jake Spoon had said.
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“Oh, no, I ain’t signed on,” Dish said. “But I’ve gone before, and I imagine Mr. Pierce will hire me again—or if not him someone else.” “We might give you work right here,” Call said.
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“Nobody would be loony enough to hire you to cook, Woodrow,” Augustus said. “The cap is supposed to keep the cook’s old greasy hairs from falling into the food. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of Bol’s hairs have found their way into this sow bosom.” Newt looked at Bolivar, sitting over by the stove in his dirty serape. Bolivar’s hair looked like it had had a can of secondhand lard poured over it. Once every few months Bol would change clothes and go visit his wife, but his efforts at improving his appearance never went much higher than his mustache, which he occasionally tried to wax with grease of some kind.
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