“I don’t intend to,” Augustus said. “But some of the men might. That Irishman is delirious. He ain’t used to such dry country.” Indeed the terrible heat had driven Allen O’Brien out of his head. Now and then he would try to sing, though his tongue was swollen and his lips cracked.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

She stood at the window a minute studying him. To her he seemed not much older. His hair had already turned white when he was young. He had always made her feel keen, Gus—his appetite for talk matched hers. She stood for a moment in the kitchen doorway, a smile on her lips. Just seeing him made her feel keen. She was in the shadows and he had not seen her. Then she took a step or two and Augustus looked around. Their eyes met and he smiled.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Where’s Dee?” she whispered, when her voice came back a little. The doctor didn’t hear her, she said it so faint, but he happened to notice her lips move. She had to say it again.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Thin milk, Clara thought—and no wonder, for the woman probably hadn’t eaten a decent meal in months. She refused to look at the baby, even when it took her breast. Clara had to hold it and encourage it, rubbing its little lips with milk.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

He resolved to bend his wits to getting out while the getting was possible. The death of Frog Lip made the task easier, for, as Dan said, Frog Lip was the only tracker in the crowd. If he could just manage to get a good jump, somehow, he might get away. And if he did he wouldn’t stop until he hit the Mississippi.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Well, damn,” little Eddie said. “Nobody’s much help.” He shrugged, drew his gun, and without another word walked over and shot Frog Lip in the head. The body jerked, and that was that.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Would you like to shoot him, Jake?” little Eddie asked. “I’ve known him all my life.” “I wouldn’t care to,” Jake said. He remembered how insolent Frog Lip had been only the day before, and how he had wanted to shoot him then. It had been a rapid turnabout. The man lay on the ground, dying of a cruel wound, and none of the men he rode with even wanted to put him out of his misery.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Frog, I guess this was your unlucky day,” he said. “I guess we better just shoot you.” Frog Lip didn’t answer. He didn’t move or even blink his eyes.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“You boys ought to go home and teach school,” he said. “It’s all you’re good for.”“What did you expect me to do?” Roy asked. “I can’t see in the dark.” Dan walked over and looked down at Frog Lip. He ignored his brothers. He knelt down and pulled the Negro’s bloodstained shirt loose from his pants, exposing the wound. After a second he stood up.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Why, that damn Wilbarger, who else?” Dan said. He had no more than glanced at Frog Lip—he was scanning the plains with his spyglass, hoping to catch a glimpse of the cowman. But the plains were empty.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“I know I put three into him,” Dan Suggs said. “He must have slept with the damn reins in his hand or he’d have never got to His horse.” Frog Lip lay on the ground, still gripping his rifle. His eyes were wide open and he was breathing as heavily as a horse after a long run. His wound was in the groin—his pants were wet with blood. The rising sun shone in his face, which was bearded with sweat.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“No, mostly girls here tonight,” Dan said. “Are you waiting for election day or what? Bring the goddamn horses.” Little Eddie brought them. The dawn was behind him, very faint but coming. Soon it was possible to make out the results of the battle. Wilbarger’s two men were dead, still in their blankets. One was Chick, the little weasel Jake remembered seeing the morning they brought the horses in from Mexico. He had been hit in the neck by a rifle bullet, Frog Lip’s, Dan said. The bullet had practically torn his head loose from his body—the corpse reminded Jake of a dead rabbit, perhaps because Chick had rabbitlike teeth, exposed now in a stiff grimace.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Where’s that goddamn kid?” Dan asked. “I told him to bring them horses. Old Wilbarger’s getting away. Where’d you get hit, Frog?” Frog Lip didn’t answer.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Jake didn’t answer. He was just glad he had not been forced to shoot anybody. It seemed ridiculous, attacking men in the dark. Even Indians waited until sunup. He took some hope from the fact that Frog Lip claimed to have been hit, though how anybody knew where to shoot was a mystery to him.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

When the first shot came, he didn’t know who fired it, though he saw a flash from a rifle barrel. It seemed so far away that he almost felt it must be another battle. Then gunfire flared just in front of him, too much to be produced by three men, it seemed. So much shooting panicked him for a second and he fired twice into the darkness, with no idea of whathe might be shooting at. He heard gunfire behind him—it was Frog Lip shooting. He began to sense running figures, although it was not clear to him who they were. Then there were five or six shots close together, like sudden thunder, and the sound of a running horse. Jake could see almost nothing—once in a while he would think he saw a man, but he couldn’t be sure.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Hell, Roy couldn’t hit his foot if it was nailed to a tree,” Dan said. “Anyway, we’re gonna let Jake shoot them—he’s the man with the reputation.” He took the rifle and walked off. Jake and the others followed. There was no sign of a campfire, no sign of anything but plains and darkness. Though Frog Lip had said the men were close, it seemed to Jake they walked a long time. He didn’t see the horses until he almost bumped into one. For a moment he thought of trying to grab a horse and run away bareback. The commotion would warn Wilbarger, and maybe one or two of the Suggs boys would get shot. But the horse quickly stepped away from him and the moment passed. He drew his pistol, not knowing what else to do. They had found the horses, but he didn’t know where the camp was. Frog Lip was near him, watching, Jake supposed.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Hell, no, don’t shoot,” Dan said. “Do you think I’d ride all this way and swim a river just to miss the fun? Come on back when you find ’em.” Frog Lip was back in a few minutes.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Late in the afternoon Dan Suggs got up and took a piss by the spring. Then he lay down on his belly and had a long drink of water. When he got up, he mounted his horse and rode off, without a word to anyone. His brothers quickly mounted and followed him, and Jake had no choice but to do the same. Frog Lip, as usual, brought up the rear.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Jake knew he was trapped. He could not fight four men. The Suggs brothers all took naps, but Frog Lip sat by the spring all afternoon, cleaning his guns.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Frog Lip just looked at him, neither smiling nor frowning. The insolence of the look was so great that for a moment Jake contemplated gunplay. He wanted to shoot the look off the black man’s face. But instead he touched his horse lightly with the spurs and followed the Suggs brothers across the plain. He felt angry—the barber and the whore he had been looking forward to had been put off. Soon he heard the black man’s horse fall in behind him.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“He is, but so am I,” Dan Suggs said. “I never liked the man. I see no reason why we shouldn’t have them horses.” Roy Suggs was not greatly pleased by his brother’s behavior. “Have ’em and do what with ’em?” he asked. “We can’t sell ’em in Dodge if Wilbarger’s just been there.” “Dodge ain’t the only town in Kansas,” Dan said. “We can sell ’em in Abilene.” With no further discussion, he turned and rode southwest at a slow trot. His brothers followed. Jake sat for a moment, his lucky feeling gone and a sense of dread in its place. He thought maybe the Suggs brothers would forget him and he could ride on to Dodge, but then he saw Frog Lip looking at him. The black man was impassive.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

It was a sunny day, and Jake rode along happily. Sometimes he got a lucky feeling—the feeling that he was meant for riches and beautiful women and that nothing could keep him down for long. The lucky feeling came to him as he rode, and the main part of it was his sense that he was about to get free of the Suggs brothers. They were hard men, and he had made a bad choice in riding with them, but nothing very terrible had come of it, and they were almost to Dodge. It seemed to him he had slid into bad luck in Arkansas the day he accidentally shot the dentist, and now he was about to slide out of it in Kansas and resume the kind of enjoyable life he felt he deserved. Frog Lip was riding just in front of him, and he felt how nice it would be not to have to consort with such a man again. Frog Lip rode along silently, as he had the whole trip, but there was menace in his silence, and Jake was ready for lighter company—a whore, particularly. There were sure to be plenty of them in Dodge.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“I wonder if them soddies will get that roof fixed before the next rain?” Dan Suggs said. “If they had had a little more cash, Frog might have left them alone.” Frog Lip didn’t comment.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Well, it was your idea,” Dan said. “You wanted the practice, and you got it.” “He’s mad because he didn’t get to shoot nobody,” Roy said. “He thinks he’s a shooter.” “Well, this is a gun outfit, ain’t it?” little Eddie said. “We ain’t cowboys, so what are we then?” “Travelers,” Dan said. “Right now we’re traveling to Kansas, looking for what we can find.” Frog Lip rejoined them as silently as he had left. Despite himself Jake could not conquer his fear of the man. Frog Lip hadnever said anything hostile to him, or even looked his way on the whole trip, and yet Jake felt a sort of apprehension whenever he even rode close to the man. In all his travels in the west he had met few men who gave off such a sense of danger. Even Indians didn’t—although of course there had been few occasions when he had ridden close to an Indian.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Frog Lip rode up beside the cows and fired a couple of shots into the air. When the cows started a lumbering run, he skillfully turned them up the slope and chased them right onto the roof of the sod house. The sod on the roof had grass still on it and looked not unlike the prairie. The cows took a few steps onto the roof and then their forequarters disappeared, as if they had fallen into a hole. Then their hindquarters disappeared too. Frog Lip reined in his horse and watched as both cows fell through the roof of the sod house. A minute later one came squeezing out the small door, and the other followed. Both cows trotted back to where they had been grazing.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇