“I’ll send the cook over with some breakfast,” he said. “By the way, you didn’t cross the path of a young sheriff from Arkansas, did you? He’s up this way somewhere, and I’ve been worried about him.” “You must be referring to July Johnson,” Augustus said. “We left him four days ago. He was headed on north.” “Well, he had a funny crew with him. I was just a little uneasy,” Wilbarger said. “I found him a likable man, but inexperienced.” “He’s got more experience now,” Augustus said. “Blue Duck killed his crew.” “Killed all three of them?” Wilbarger asked, startled. “I even offered that young boy a job.” “He should have took it,” Augustus said. “We buried them west of here.” “That Duck must be a hard son of a bitch,” Wilbarger said.He sat on his horse a moment, looking into the night. “I had a feeling young Johnson was inexperienced,” he said, and trotted off.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

AUGUSTUS FIGURED THAT two or three days’ ride east would put them in the path of the herds, but on the second day the rains struck, making travel unpleasant. He cut Lorena a crude poncho out of a tarp he had picked up at the buffalo hunter’s camp, but even so it was bad traveling. The rains were chill and it looked like they might last, so he decided to risk Adobe Walls—the old fort offered the only promise of shelter.
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He felt a terrible need to turn things back, all the way back to the time when he and Roscoe and Joe and Elmira had all been in Arkansas. He knew it could never be. Something had happened which he would never be free of. He had even lost the chance to stay and die with his people, though Captain McCrae had offered him that chance. “I’d feel better in my mind if you’d stay with your party,” he had said.
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Alone with the two men, in the middle of the great, empty prairie, she felt apprehensive. In the cow towns there had been lots of girls around—if a man got mean, she could yell. On the boat it hadn’t seemed as dangerous, because the men were always fighting and gambling among themselves. But at night on the prairie there were only the three of them, and nothing much to keep anyone busy. Big Zwey sat and looked at her through the campfire, and Luke looked, too, while he talked. She didn’t know if Big Zwey considered that in some way he had married her already. She worried that he might suddenly come over and want the marriage to begin, though so far he had been too shy even to speak to her much. For all she knew he might expect her to be married to Luke, too, and she didn’t want that. The thought made her so nervous that she couldn’t eat the buffalo meat they offered her—anyway, it was tougher than any meat she had ever tried to chew. She chewed on one bite until her jaws got tired and then spat it out.
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“This whiskey-hauling business has about petered out,” he said one evening. “Indians kept the trade going. Now they’ve about got them all penned up, down in these parts. I may go up north.” “Are there many towns up north?” she asked, remembering that Dee had mentioned going north. Dee liked his comforts—hotels and barbershops and such. Once she had offered to cut his hair and had made a mess of it. Dee had been good-natured about it, but he did remark that it paid to stick to professionals. He was vain about his looks.
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“I guess you might break them clothes in by Christmas,” the livery-stable woman said, laughing. “You look like you’re wearing stovepipes.” “I can’t help it if they’re black,” Roscoe said. “It was all they had that fit.” He felt sorry about leaving Janey. What if old Sam got well and tracked them to Fort Worth and found her? He offered her two dollars in case she had expenses, but Janey just shook her head. When they rode off, she was still sitting on the big washtub.
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The woman offered to take Joe, too, and board him free if he would help out around the livery stable. July was tempted, but Joe looked so unhappy that he relented and decided to let him stay with them. Then Roscoe showed up, in clothes that looked so stiff it was a wonder he could even walk in them.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Roscoe’s clothes were practically in ribbons, so much so that the woman laughed when she saw him. She offered to mend his clothes for another fifty cents, but Roscoe had to decline, since he had nothing to wear while the work was being done.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Janey had acted like she wanted to bolt when they came into town—the sight of so many wagons and people clearly upset her—but she held on. July found a livery stable, for it would be necessary to rest the horses for a while. It was run by a woman, who kindly offered to scrape up a little breakfast for the youngsters. It consisted of corn bread and bacon, which they ate sitting on big washtubs outside the woman’s house.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

He wished he had spoken up and grabbed the job when Wilbarger offered it.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“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.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Joe was startled. He had never expected to be offered a job with a cow outfit, and hearing the words was a thrill. But of course he couldn’t take it—he had been assigned to July.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

After he had eaten three or four he offered one to Newt, who covered it liberally with molasses. To his surprise, it tasted fine, though mostly what tasted was the molasses. The grasshopper itself just tasted crunchy, like the tailbones of a catfish.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“You best come for a day or two,” he said. “Maybe we can find you someplace better than where you left. I’d hate for you to have to go back.” “I ain’t going back,” the girl said. “Old Sam would kill me.” When Roscoe offered her a stirrup up, she looked at him strangely.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Since there was no likelihood he would be offered breakfast, Roscoe mounted and rode off, feeling pretty sorry for thegirl. The old man was a rascal who had not even thanked him for the whiskey. If Texans were all going to be like him, it could only be a sorry trip.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“I got a bottle in my bag,” Roscoe said. “You’re welcome to share it.” He assumed that such an offer would assure him a place at the table, but the assumption was wrong. The old man took the whiskey bottle when he offered it, and then sat right on the stump and drank nearly all of it. Then he got up without a word and disappeared into the dark cabin. He did not reappear. Roscoe sat on the stump—the only place there was to sit—and the darkness got deeper and deeper until he could barely see the cabin fifteen feet away. Evidently the old man and the girl had no light, for the cabin was pitch-dark.
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“Why wouldn’t they?” Call asked. “We ain’t been around.” “That ain’t the reason—the reason is we didn’t die,” Augustus said. “Now Travis lost his fight, and he’ll get in the history books when someone writes up this place. If a thousand Comanches had cornered us in some gully and wiped us out, like the Sioux just done Custer, they’d write songs about us for a hundred years.” It struck Call as a foolish remark. “I doubt there was ever a thousand Comanches in one bunch,” he said. “If there had been they would have taken Washington, D.C.” But the more Augustus thought about the insults they had been offered in the bar—a bar where once they had been hailed as heroes—the more it bothered him.
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Then one of them shot off a gun for no reason. Then they pistol-whipped the bartender. I offered them a chance to leave, but since they haven’t, I’m a notion to file charges and let the law take its course.” He said his little say so pompously that it struck the three of them as funny. Augustus laughed out loud, Call and Tobe smiled, and even Ned Tym chimed in with a chuckle.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Jake offered her the bottle and she took another swallow.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

He offered Lorena the bottle again, but she just lay there.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Roscoe knew it had to be Texas, but it was not so simple a matter to think out as it had been before Louisa came out and sat down on him. For one thing, he had no desire to go to Texas; he felt his chances of finding July to be very slim, and July’s of finding Elmira completely hopeless. In the meantime it had become clear to him that Louisa had her charms, and that the fact that they were being offered him on a trial basis was a considerable enticement. He was beginning to feel that Louisa was right: he had mostly been wasted, and might have more feistiness in him than anyone, himself included, had suspected. There was no likelihood of his getting to use much of this capacity in Texas, either.
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“Well, we ain’t much acquainted,” he said. “How do you know we’d get along?” “I don’t,” Louisa said. “That’s why I offered just to give it a tryout. If you don’t like it you can leave, and if I can’t put up with you I expect I could soon run you off. But you ain’t even got the gumption to try. I’d say you’re scared of women.” Roscoe had to admit that was true, except for a whore now and then. But he only admitted it to himself, not to Louisa.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Mainly Fowler talked of Indians, for whom he had a pure hatred. He had been a buffalo hunter and had had many run-ins with them. When the buffalo ran out he began to traffic in whiskey. So far neither he nor any of his men had offered Elmira the slightest offense. It surprised her. They were a rough-looking bunch, and she had taken a big gamble in getting on the boat. No one in Fort Smith had seen her leave, as far as she knew, and the boatmen could have killed her and thrown her to the turtles without anyone’s being the wiser. The first few nights in her cubbyhole she had been wakeful and a little frightened, expecting one of the men to stumble in and fall on her. She waited, thinking it would happen—if it did, she would only have her old life back, which had been part of the point of leaving. She would stop being July Johnson’s wife, at least. It might be rough for a while, but eventually she would find Dee and life would improve.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

It was a good thing Deets had offered to help. Lorena’s mare balked and wouldn’t take the water. She would go in chest- deep and then whirl and climb back up the bank, showing the whites of her eyes and trying to run. Despite herself, Lorena felt her fear rising. Once, already, the mare had nearly fallen. She might really fall, trapping Lorena beneath the green water. She tried to control her fear—she would have to get across many rivers if she was to get to San Francisco—but the mare kept flouncing and trying to turn and Lorena couldn’t help being afraid. She could see Jake on the other bank. He didn’t look very concerned.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“I’ll play you right now, Deets,” he said. “You’re the only one in the whole dern outfit with any money.” The black man just grinned and returned the needle to the little packet in his saddlebag. Then he accepted the cup of coffee which Lorie offered.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇