词汇：mesquite

n. 豆科灌木（产于美国西南部和墨西哥）

相关场景

“There,” he said. “This will teach me to be more careful about what I promise.” He used the plank with “Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium” on it as a crossbar, tying it to a long mesquite stick, which he drove into the ground with a big rock. While he was tying the crossbar tight with two saddle strings, a wagon with settlers in it came along the ridge. They were a young couple, with two or three children peeking shyly around them, narrow-faced as young possums. The young man was fair and the sun had blistered him beet-red; his young wife had a bonnet pulled close about her face. It was clear that the grave marker puzzled them. The young man stopped the wagon and stared at it. Not having seen him put Augustus under, they were not sure whether they were looking at a grave, or just a sign.“Where is this Hat Creek outfit, mister?” the young man asked.>>完整场景

Fortunately, Webster’s neck broke when they whipped the horse out from under him, otherwise he could have stood there and laughed at them, for the limb of the mesquite sagged badly and both his feet drug the ground.>>完整场景

NORTH OF SAN ANTONIO the country finally began to open up, to the relief of everyone. Two weeks of mesquite had tried everyone’s patience. Gradually the mesquite thinned and the country became less heavily wooded. The grass was better and the cattle easier to handle. They grazed their way north so slowly most days that Newt felt it would take forever just to get out of Texas, much less make it to Montana.>>完整场景

Just before the men reached the river they came out into a clearing a mile or more wide. It was a relief, after the constant battle with the mesquite and chaparral. The grass was tall. Call loped through it with Deets, to look at the crossing. Dish trotted over to Augustus on the trim sorrel he called Mustache, a fine cow horse whose eyes were always watching to see that no rebellious cow tried to make a break for freedom. Dish uncoiled his rope and made a few practice throws at a low mesquite seedling. Then he even took a throw, for a joke, at a low-flying buzzard that had just risen off the carcass of an armadillo.>>完整场景

“She won’t go far,” he said, when he got back to Lorie. She was huddled under a blanket, her back against a big mesquite tree and her legs half buried in the sand.>>完整场景

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.>>完整场景

Over the roar of the wind and the running herd he suddenly heard the popping of tree limbs. A second later a mesquite limb hit him in the face and brush tore at him from all sides. He knew they had hit a thicket and assumed it was his end—Mouse faltered and almost went to his knees, but managed to right himself. All Newt could do was duck as low over the horn as possible and hold his arms in front of his face.>>完整场景

Newt had meant to go back to the wagon, but the storm gave him no time. While Soupy was fixing his bandana, they looked around and saw streams of sand like small, low clouds blowing in the dim light through the mesquite just to the south. The little clouds of sand seemed like live things, slipping around the mesquite and by the chaparral as a running wolf might, sliding under the bellies of the cattle and then rising a little, to blow over their backs. But behind the little sand streams came a river, composed not of water but of sand. Newt only glanced once, to get his directions, and the sand filled his eyes so that he was immediately blind.>>完整场景

Had it not been for him she felt sure she would have drowned. Jake by this time had untied his bedroll and thrown it down under a big mesquite. It had been nothing to him, her having to cross the river. Though the fright had begun to relax its grip, Lorena still didn’t feel that she had control of her limbs so that she could simply step off the horse and walk as she had always walked. She felt angry at Jake for taking it all so lightly.>>完整场景

Of course, he only drank because his hand was paining him. Probably he hadn’t gotten all the thorn out—his thumb had turned from white to purple. She was hoping they would strike a town that had a doctor, but there seemed to be nothing in that part of the country but prickly pear and mesquite.>>完整场景

E FIRST GOOD WASH Lorena got was in the Nueces River. They had had a bad day trying to fight their way through mesquite thickets, and when they came to the river she just decided to stop, particularly since she found a shady spot where there wasn’t any mesquite or prickly pear.>>完整场景

Call and Augustus rode along together, some distance from the herd. They were moving through fairly open country, flats of chaparral with only here and there a strand of mesquite. That would soon change: the first challenge would be the brush country, an almost impenetrable band of thick mesquite between them and San Antonio. Only a few of the hands were experienced in the brush, and a bad run of some kind might cost them hundreds of cattle.>>完整场景

About noon, they were resting under a big mesquite tree. Deets was watching a little Texas bull mount a cow not far away. The little bull hadn’t come from Mexico. He had wandered in one morning, unbranded, and had immediately whipped three larger bulls that attempted to challenge him. He was not exactly rainbow-colored, but his hide was mottled to an unusual extent—part brown, part red, part white, and with a touch here and there of yellow and black. He looked a sight, but he was all bull. Much of the night he could be heard baying; the Irishmen had come to hate him, since his baying drowned out their singing.>>完整场景

Now his thumb was swollen to twice its size, for a green mesquite thorn was only slightly less poisonous than a rattlesnake. Besides, he had slept badly on the stony ground, and Lorie had refused him again, when all he wanted was a little pleasure to take his mind off his throbbing thumb. They were camped only two miles from town and could easily have ridden back and slept comfortably in the Dry Bean, but when he suggested it Lorie showed her stubborn streak and refused. He could go back if he cared to—she wasn’t. So he had stayed and slept poorly, worrying most of the night about snakes. As much camping as he had done, it was a fear that never left him.>>完整场景

Lorie didn’t answer. There was nothing to say. He made a second try and she pushed it away again. She knew he hated to be denied but didn’t care. He would have to wait. Listening to his heavy, frustrated breathing, she thought for a while that he might be going to make a fight over it, but he didn’t. His feelings were hurt, but pretty soon he yawned. He kept twisting and turning, hoping she would relent. From time to time he nudged her hip, as if by accident. But he had worked all day; he was tired. Soon he slept. Lorie lay awake, looking out the window, waiting for it to be time to leave.JAKE AWOKE not long after dawn to find Lorena up before him. She sat at the foot of the bed, her face calm, watching the first red light stretch over the mesquite flats. He would have liked to sleep, to hide in sleep for several days, make no decisions, work no cattle, just drowse. But not even sleep was really under his control. The thought that he had to get up and leave town—with Lorie—was in the front of his mind, and it melted his drowsiness. For a minute or two he luxuriated in the fact that he was sleeping on a mattress. It might be a poor one stuffed with corn shucks, but it was better than he would get for the next several months. For months it would just be the ground, with whatever weather they happened to catch.>>完整场景

While he was puzzling about it, he took a bad swing with the ax and a piece of mesquite he was trying to split flew right up and almost hit Deets in the head. It would have, except that Deets had evidently been expecting just such an accident.>>完整场景

“Hell,” Needle said, “there never was but one thing worth doing on this border, and now a man can’t even do that.” “A man can do it plenty over in Mexico,” Bert observed. “Cheaper too.” “That’s what I like about you, Bert,” Augustus said, as he whittled a mesquite twig into a toothpick. “You’re a practical man.” “No, he just likes them brown whores,” Needle said. Needle kept a solemn look on his face at all times, seldom varying his expression.>>完整场景

NEWT’S MIND had begun to dwell on the north for long stretches. Particularly at night, when he had nothing to do but ride slowly around and around the herd, listening to the small noises the bedded cattle made, or the sad singing of the Irishmen, he thought of the north, trying to imagine what it must be like. He had grown up with the sun shining, with mesquite and chaparral, armadillos and coyotes, Mexicans and the shallow Rio Grande. Only once had he been to a city: San Antonio. Deets had taken him on one of his banking trips, and Newt had been in a daze from all there was to see.>>完整场景

He was thinking about the morning, and how nice it would be to cross the river and bring the horses through the town, when the peaceful night suddenly went off like a bomb. They were on the long chaparral plain not far south of the river and were easing the horses around a particularly dense thicket of chaparral, prickly pear and low mesquite when it happened. Newt had dropped off the point a little distance, to allow the horses room to skirt the thicket, when he heard shots from behind him. Before he had time to look around, or even touch his own gun, the horse herd exploded into a dead run and began to spread out. He saw what looked like half the herd charging right at him from the rear; some of the horses nearest him veered and went crashing into the chaparral. Then he heard Pea’s gun sound from the other side of the thicket, and at that point lost all capacity for sorting out what was happening. When the race started, most of the herd was behind him, and the horses ahead of him were at least going in the same direction he was. But in a few seconds, once the whole mass of animals was moving at a dead run over the uncertain terrain, he suddenly noticed a stream of animals coming directly toward him from the right. The new bunch had simply cut around the chaparral thicket from the north and collided with the first herd. Before Newt even had time to consider what was happening, he was engulfed in a mass of animals, a few of which west down when the two herds ran together. Then, over the confused neighing of what seemed like hundreds of horses he began to hear yells and curses—Mexican curses. To his shock he saw a rider engulfed in the mass like himself, and the rider was not the Captain or Pea Eye. He realized then that two horse herds had run together, theirs headed for Texas, the other coming from Texas, both trying to skirt the same thicket, though from opposite directions.>>完整场景

He was in the middle of the company. It was Pea Eye’s traditional job to watch the rear. Newt rode beside Dish Boggett, who had not said one word since leaving and whose state Newt couldn’t judge, though at least he hadn’t fallen off his horse. The thin moon lit the sky but not the ground. The only landmarks were shadows, low shadows, mostly made by chaparral and mesquite. Of course, it was not Newt’s place to worry about the route, but it occurred to him that he had better try to keep some sense of where he was in case he got separated from the outfit and had to find his own way back.>>完整场景

Call stepped close enough to the young cowboy to smell whiskey and realized he was only sick drunk. It was the last thing he had expected, and his immediate impulse was to fire the boy on the spot and send him back to Shanghai Pierce, who was said to be tolerant of the bottle. But before he opened his mouth to do it he happened to note that Gus and Jake were grinning at one another as if it were all a capital joke. To them no doubt it was—jokes had always interested them more than serious business. But since they were so full of this particular joke, it occurred to Call that they had probably tricked Dish somehow and got him drunk on purpose, in which case it was not entirely the boy’s fault. They were wily foxes, and worse about joking when the two of them were together. It was just like them to pull such a stunt at the time when it was least appropriate—just the kind of thing they had done all through their years as Rangers.Dish meanwhile had gained the top of the bank and made it to his feet. When he stood up, his head cleared for a moment and he felt a wild optimism—maybe he was over being drunk. A second later his hopes were shattered. He started to walk off toward the lots to saddle his horse, stubbed his toe on a mesquite root that poked up through the dirt and fell flat on his face.>>完整场景

“I swear, Jake,” Augustus said, looking at the bay horse, “you’ve rode that horse right down to the bone.” “Give him a good feed, Deets,” Call said. “I judge it’s been a while since he’s had one.” Deets led the horses off toward the roofless barn. It was true that he made his pants out of old quilts, for reasons that no one could get him to explain. Colorful as they were, quilts weren’t the best material for riding through mesquite and chaparral. Thorns had snagged the pants in several places, and cotton ticking was sticking out. For headgear Deets wore an old cavalry cap he had found somewhere—it was in nearly as bad shape as Lippy’s bowler.>>完整场景

Augustus molded his biscuits and went out and got a fire going in the Dutch oven while it was still good dark—just enough of a fire to freshen up his bed of mesquite coals. When he judged the oven was ready he brought the biscuits and his Bible out in the backyard. He set the biscuits in the oven, and sat down on a big black kettle that they used on the rare occasions when they rendered lard. The kettle was big enough to hold a small mule, if anybody had wanted to boil one, but for the last few years it had remained upside down, making an ideal seat.>>完整场景

His stubborn partner, Captain W. F. Call, maintained that there was excellent shade as close as Pickles Gap, only twelve miles away, but Augustus wouldn’t allow it. Pickles Gap was if anything a more worthless community than Lonesome Dove. It had only sprung up because a fool from north Georgia named Wesley Pickles had gotten himself and his family lost in the mesquites for about ten days. When he finally found a clearing, he wouldn’t leave it, and Pickles Gap came into being, mainly attracting travelers like its founder, which is to say people too weak-willed to be able to negotiate a few hundred miles of mesquite thicket without losing their nerve.>>完整场景