“What’s he aim to do, shoot the milk cows?” little Eddie asked; for Frog Lip had his pistol in his hand.
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Jake was glad to see it come to no worse than that, but as they were riding away Frog Lip turned and loped over to the milk cows.
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“Go with him and see what you can find, boys,” Dan said. “Me and Jake can ride herd on the family, I guess. They don’t look too violent.” Ten minutes later the boy came racing back, crying again, and Frog Lip and the two younger Suggses followed. They had an old leather wallet with them, which Roy Suggs threw to Dan. It had two small gold pieces in it.
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Maybe this old Dutchman married an American gal.” Frog Lip loped over and drove the woman and the boy near the farmer; he rode so close to them that if they had fallen his horse would have stepped on them. He had taken the pistol out of his belt, but he didn’t need it. The woman and the boy were terrified, and the fanner too. He put his arms around his wife and child, and they all stood there, crying.
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“They usually hide their money in the chimney,” he said. “Either that or they bury it in the orchard, though I don’t see no orchard.” Frog Lip kept an extra pistol in his saddlebags. As they approached the fanner he got it out and stuck it in his belt.
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“No, that’s Frog Lip’s job, scaring them punkin’-eaters,” Dan said. “He’ll scare them a sight worse than you will.” The next day Frog Lip got his chance. They saw a man plowing beside a team of big horses. A woman and a small boy were carrying buffalo chips in a wheelbarrow and piling them beside a low sod house that was dug into a slope. Two milk cows grazed nearby.
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The Suggs brothers kept plenty of whiskey on hand, and Jake began to avail himself of it. He stayed half drunk most of the time as they rode north. Even though he had killed a man in plain sight of them, the Suggses didn’t treat him with any new respect. Of course, they didn’t offer one another much respect either. Dan and Roy both poured scorn on little Eddie if he slipped up in his chores or made a remark they disagreed with. The only man of the company who escaped their scorn was Frog Lip—they seldom spoke to him, and he seldom spoke, but everyone knew he was there.
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When Jake spoke, the old man hesitated a second—he even glanced at the girl on the wagon seat. But at the sight of her he drew back his lips in a snarl and raised the shotgun again.
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“My name’s Jake Spoon,” he said. “What’s yours?” “Lou,” she said, not much more than whispering the information. He did like the way her upper lip curved, and was about to say more, but before he could get the words out something slammed him in the back and his face was in the dirt. He hit the ground so hard he busted his lip.
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At close range she looked younger, perhaps only fifteen or sixteen. Probably she had scarcely even had beaux, or if she had, they would only have been farm boys with no knowledge of the world. She had a curling upper lip, which he liked—it indicated she had some spirit. If she had been a whore, he would have contracted with her for a week, just on the strength of that lip and the curve of her bosom. But she was just a barefoot girl sitting on a wagon, with dust on her bare feet.
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“We know to let him be,” Dan said. “Frog don’t care for him.” “Why not?” “Stole my horse,” Frog Lip said. He didn’t elaborate. They were passing a whiskey bottle around and he took his turn as if he were a white man. Whiskey had no effect on any of them except little Eddie, who turned red-eyed and wobbly after five or six turns.
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“I’d like to see her throw rocks better than Frog can shoot,” Roy Suggs said. “I guess Frog could cool her off.” Frog Lip didn’t say much. He was a black man, but Jake didn’t notice anyone giving him many orders. Little Eddie Suggs cooked the supper, such as it was, while Frog Lip sat idle, not even chopping wood for the fire. The horse he rode was the best in the group, a white gelding. It was unusual to see a bandit who used a white horse, for it made him stand out in a group. Frog Lip evidently didn’t care.
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“He just keeps wanting to marry you,” Zwey said. “Looks like he’d quit it.” Luke did quit, at that point. He lay in the wagon for four days, trying to get his breath through his broken nose. One of his ears had been nearly scraped off on the wheel; his lips were smashed and several of his teeth broken. His face swelled tosuch a point that they couldn’t tell at first if his jaw was broken, but it turned out it wasn’t. The first day, he could barely mumble, but he did persuade Elmira to try and sew his ear back on. Zwey was for cutting it off, since it just hung by a bit of skin, but Elmira took pity on Luke and sewed on the ear. She made a bad job of it, mainly because Luke yelped and jerked every time she touched him with the needle. When she finished, the ear wasn’t quite in its right place; it set a little lower than the other and she had pulled the threads a little too tight, so that it didn’t have quite the right shape. But at least it was on his head.
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Frog Lip owned five guns of various calibers, and spent most of his time cleaning them. He was a fine marksman. The first day out he brought down a deer at a distance Jake would have considered impossible. Frog Lip seemed to take the shot for granted. Jake had the strong feeling that the black man’s guns would soon be pointed at something besides deer, but he himself didn’t plan to be around to see it.
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Roy and Ed almost got into a gunfight over a hand of cards. He offered to get them whores, for he had stayed friendly with several of the girls who had come over from Fort Worth, but the Suggs brothers weren’t interested. Drinking and card playing appealed to them more.Had it not been for the threat of July Johnson somewhere around, he would have let the Suggs brothers head for Kansas without him. He was comfortable where he was, and had no appetite for hard riding and gunfighting. But Dallas wasn’t far from Fort Smith, and July Johnson might arrive any time. That was an uncomfortable thought, so uncomfortable that three days later Jake found himself riding north with the three Suggs boys and a tall black man they called Frog Lip. Jake equipped himself with a new rifle before they left. He had made the Suggs brothers no promises, and as soon as he found a nice saloon in Kansas, he meant to let them go their way.
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“He bragged and they hung him from a tree,” Sally said. “Wrong thing to brag about in Georgia. Some of them wanted to hang me but they didn’t have the guts to hang a woman. I just got run out of town.” That night there was trouble. A young foreman gave Sally some lip when she tried to rush him off, and she shot him in the shoulder with a derringer she kept under her pillow. He wasn’t hurt much, but he complained, and the sheriff took Sally to jail and kept her. Jake tried to bail her out but the sheriff wouldn’t take his money. “Leave her sit,” he said. Only Sally did more than sit. She bribed one of the deputies into bringing her some powders. She looked a mess, but somehow it was the mess about her that men couldn’t resist. Jake couldn’t, himself—somehow she could bring him to it despite her teeth and her oniony smells and the rest. She brought the deputy to it, too, and then tried to grab his gun and break jail, although if she had waited, the sheriff would have let her out in a day or two. Somehow, in fighting over the one gun, she and the deputy managed to shoot each other fatally. They died together on the cell floor in a pool of blood, both half naked.
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Sometimes in the evening, when he brought her her food, Fowler would sit and talk with her a bit. He had a scar which ran over his nose and down across his lips into his beard. He had a rough look, but his eyes were dreamy.
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“You watch this one and I’ll go catch her,” Jim said. “I bet once I do she won’t get away for a while.” “Why, Jim, you can’t catch her,” Hutto said. “In this dark? Remember how she ambushed us? If she was a better shot we’d both be corpses, and if she’s got a rifle hid out there somewhere we may be corpses yet.” “I ain’t scared of her,” Jim said. “Dern her, I should have cracked her with a gun barrel a time or two.” “You should have shot her,” Hutto said. “I know you expected to amuse yourself, but look how it turned out. The girl got away and the deputy only had thirty dollars and some dirty underwear.” “She can’t be far,” Jim said. “Let’s camp and look for her in the morning.” “Well, you can, but I’m going,” Hutto said. “A girl that size ain’t worth tracking.” Just as he said it, a good-sized rock came flying through the air and hit him right in the mouth. He was so surprised he slipped and sat down. The rock had smashed his lips; blood poured down his chin. A second later another hit Jim in the ribs. Jim drew a pistol and fired several times in the direction the rocks came from.
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They rode at a steady trot. In time she regretted, too, that she had not relieved herself—she had been too scared. Hours passed and they crossed creek after creek, but the man didn’t stop again. He just kept riding. The need to relieve herself became an agony—it was mixed with thirst and fatigue, until she didn’t know which was worse. Then she realized that her pants were wet and her thighs stinging—she had gone while she was dozing. Soon her thighs felt scalded from the urine and the constant rubbing of the saddle. The pain was minor compared to her thirst. During the afternoon, with thesun beating down so hot that her shirt was as wet from sweat as if she had swum a river in it, she thought she was going to break down, that she would have to beg the man for water. Her lips were cracked and the sweat off her face ran into the cracks and stung her, but she licked at it. At least it was wet and even a second of wetness on her tongue felt good.
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“What became of Bol?” Pea asked. “Wasn’t he driving the wagon?” Lippy was sitting up, wiping mud off his head. He ran one finger under his loose lip as if he expected to find a tadpole or a small fish, but all he found was mud. About that time the Spettle boys rode up, and crossed the horse herd.
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“I hope none don’t crawl in this wagon,” Lippy said, his lip quivering with apprehension.
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At the head of the main bunch of cattle, Call surveyed the situation without too much apprehension. Unless there was a lightning victim somewhere, they had come through the storm well. The cattle had walked themselves out and were docile for the time being. Deets had been to look, and Soupy, Jasper and Needle had the rest of the herd a mile or two east. The wagon was stuck in a gully, but when the hands gathered they soon had enough ropes on it to pull it out. Bol refused to budge from the wagon seat while the pullout took place. Lippy had got out to help push and consequently was covered in mud practically up to his lip.
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Almost before the last of the sand had stung his eyes, it seemed, the rain began, pelting down in big scattered drops that felt good after all the grit. But the drops got thicker and less scattered and soon the rain fell in sheets, blown this way and that at first by the fitful wind. Then the world simply turned to water. In a bright flash of lightning Newt saw a wet, frightened coyote run across a few feet in front of Mouse. After that he saw nothing. The water beat down more heavily even than the wind and the sand: it pounded him and ran in streams off his hat brim. Once again he gave up and simply sat and let Mouse do what he wanted. As far as he knew, he was completely lost, for he had moved away from the cattle in order to escape the lightning and had no sense that he was anywhere near the herd. The rain was so heavy that at moments he felt it might drown him right on his horse. It blew in his face and poured into his lip from his hat brim. He had always heard that cowboying involved considerable weather, but had never expected so many different kinds to happen in one night. An hour before, he had been so hot he thought he would never be cool again, but the drenching water had already made him cold.Mouse was just as dejected and confused as he was. The ground was covered with water—there was nothing to do but splash along. To make matters worse they hit another thicket and had to back out, for the wet mesquite had become quite impenetrable. When they finally got around it the rain had increased in force. Mouse stopped and Newt let him—there was no use proceeding when they didn’t know where they needed to proceed. The water pouring off his hat brim was an awkward thing—one stream in front, one stream behind. A stream of water poured right in front of his nose while another sluiced down his back.
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“Wipe your lip, July,” she said. “I wish you’d ever learn, or else stop drinking that buttermilk.” Embarrassed, he wiped it. When Elmira was annoyed she made him so nervous that he couldn’t really remember whether he had eaten, or what.
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July was sitting in the dark, buttermilk on his lip, looking at her as patiently as if he were a calf. The very look of him, so patient, made her want to torment him any way she could.
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