They had stopped the cattle at the last stream that Deets had found, and now Call walked down it a way to think things over. He saw a gray wolf. It seemed to him to be the same wolf they had seen in Nebraska, after the picnic, but he told himself that was foolish speculation. A gray wolf wouldn’t follow a cattle herd.
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All day he rode west, and the country around him grew more bleak. Not fit for sheep, Call thought. Not hardly fit for lizards—in fact, a small gray lizard was the only life he saw all day. That night he made a dry camp in sandy country where the dirt was light-colored, almost white. He supposed he had come some sixty miles and could not imagine that the herd would make it that far, although the Hell Bitch seemed unaffected. He slept for a few hours and went on, arriving just after sunup on the banks of Salt Creek. It was not running, but there was adequate water in scattered shallow pools. The water was not good, but it was water. The trouble was, the herd was nearly eighty miles back—a four-day drive under normal conditions; and in this case the miles were entirely waterless, which wouldn’t make for normal conditions.
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A big gray wolf loped up out of the riverbed, looked at them for a moment, and loped on.
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“Yes, today we feast,” Clara said. “I asked Cholo to hitch the little wagon. One of you go change that baby, he’s rather fragrant.” “I’ll help,” Lorena said. It surprised Augustus, but she went off upstairs with the girls. Clara stood listening as their footsteps went up the stairs. Then she turned her deep-gray eyes on Augustus.
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“’I god, this is a hardheaded lot,” Augustus said, walking over to Ben Rainey. He took the candy sack and helped himself to a piece. “Hardly a one of you will take good advice.” Call mounted the Hell Bitch, slowly re-coiling his rope. Several townspeople had witnessed the fight. Most were still standing there, watching the man on the gray mare.
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The leader of the troop was a small man with a gray mustache, who wore a Captain’s bars. He seemed irritated at the sight of the herd. It was soon plain that he was drunk.
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“If that woman was your wife, I guess this child is yours,” Clara said. “She had it the night she was here. Then she left. She was very anxious to get to town. I don’t believe she realized what a fine boy she had. We all took to him right away around this place.” July had not really looked at the baby. He had supposed it belonged to Clara—she had said her name was Clara. She was watching him closely with her kind gray eyes. But what she said seemed so unlikely that he couldn’t really credit it. Elmira had said nothing to him about wanting a baby, or planning to have one, or anything. To him, so tired he could hardly sit straight, it just meant another mystery. Maybe it explained why Elmira ran away—though it didn’t to him. As for the little boy, wiggling in Clara’s lap, he didn’t know what to think. The notion that he had a son was too big a notion. His mind wouldn’t really approach it. The thought made him feel lost again, as he had felt out on the plains.
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“Well, is it the first one you’ve ever seen?” the woman asked. “You’ll have more to worry about than grasshoppers if you wake this baby again.” The woman was rather thin, but anger put color in her cheeks. The girls finally were subdued and the woman looked up and saw him, lifting her chin with a bit of belligerence, as though she might have to tie into him too. Then she saw his discolored leg, and her look changed. She had gray eyes and she turned them on him with sudden gravity.
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As the two men rode up, a woman appeared on the back steps of the house. She wore a gray smock and an apron and had an infant in her arms. She was clearly out of temper, for she yelled something at the two girls, who stopped their shrieking, looked at one another and slowly approached the house. The infant the woman held was crying fretfully, though, at that, making less noise than the girls. The woman addressed herself to the older girl, who made some excuse, and the younger girl, in her own defense, pointed back toward the shed. The woman listened a minute and began to talk rapidly, giving her daughters what for, July supposed.
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Clara had lived, and stayed, though she had a look in her gray eyes that frightened Bob every time he saw it. He didn’t really know what the look meant, but to him it meant she might leave if he didn’t watch out. When they first came to Nebraska, he had had the drinking habit. Ogallala was hardly even a town then; there were few neighbors, and almost no socials. The Indians were a dire threat, though Clara didn’t seem to fear them. If they had company, it was usually soldiers—the soldiers drank, and so did he. Clara didn’t like it. One night he got pretty drunk, and when he got up in the morning she had that look in her eye. She made him breakfast, but then she looked at him coldly and lay down a threat. “I want you to stop drinking,” she said. “You’ve been drunk three times this week. I won’t live here and get dirt in my hair for the love of a drunkard.” It was the only threat she ever had to make. Bob spent the day worrying, looking at the bleak plains and wondering what he would do in such a place without her. He never touched whiskey again. The jug he had been working on sat in the cupboard for years, until Clara finally mixed it with sorghum molasses and used it for cough medicine.
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“He never needed to hit me,” Jake said to the girl. He expected her to scream, but she didn’t. The shooting seemed not to have registered with her yet. Jake glanced at the nester and saw that he was stone dead, a big bloodstain on his gray work shirt. A line of blood ran down the stock of the shotgun he lay across.
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He kept going north, reminding himself that it was a long way to any towns; but soon the unvarying emptiness of the country began to disturb him, and he was already disturbed enough by the deaths of the three people buried on the Canadian. He thought of them more or less all day. Waking in the gray dawn, he would have Roscoe’s face in his mind; when he dreamed, it was of Roscoe and Joe and the young girl. Several times he cried at the thought of the finality of it.
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“Good lord, we’re a bunch of beauties,” Dish said, surveying the crew. “Deets is the best-looking of the lot, at least he’s one color. The rest of us is kind of brindled.” Nobody expected weather conditions to get worse, but it seemed that in plains weather there was always room for surprises. A squall blew up as they were starting the cattle into the water, and by the time Old Dog was across the twenty yards of swimming water, Dish on one side of him and Call on the other, the gray sky suddenly began to spit out littlewhite pellets. Dish, who was out of the saddle, hanging onto his saddle strings as his horse swam, saw the first pellets plunking into the water and jerked with fear, for he assumed they were bullets. It was only when he looked up and had a small hailstone peck at his cheek that he realized what was happening.
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A day and a half before they reached the Canadian the rains started again. At the sight of the great gray clouds forming in the west, morale immediately sank and the men untied their slickers, resigned to a long, cold, dangerous night.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Good lord, we’re a bunch of beauties,” Dish said, surveying the crew. “Deets is the best-looking of the lot, at least he’s one color. The rest of us is kind of brindled.” Nobody expected weather conditions to get worse, but it seemed that in plains weather there was always room for surprises. A squall blew up as they were starting the cattle into the water, and by the time Old Dog was across the twenty yards of swimming water, Dish on one side of him and Call on the other, the gray sky suddenly began to spit out littlewhite pellets. Dish, who was out of the saddle, hanging onto his saddle strings as his horse swam, saw the first pellets plunking into the water and jerked with fear, for he assumed they were bullets. It was only when he looked up and had a small hailstone peck at his cheek that he realized what was happening.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

A day and a half before they reached the Canadian the rains started again. At the sight of the great gray clouds forming in the west, morale immediately sank and the men untied their slickers, resigned to a long, cold, dangerous night.
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In the gray dawn she saw the Kiowas leave. Blue Duck talked to them in Indian talk and gave them some bullets to kill Gus with. He woke Dog Face and shook Monkey John more or less awake. “If he gets past Ermoke, you two kill him,” he said.
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The light was just coming, the plains black in the distance, the sky gray where it met the land. Though dawn was his favorite hour, it was also an hour at which Augustus most keenly felt himself to be a fool. What was it but folly to be riding along the Canadian River alone, easy pickings for an outlaw gang, and hungry to boot? A chain of follies had put him
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They rode all night, and when the plains got gray they were no more than five miles from Fort Worth. He glanced back at the prisoners and was startled to see the girl, riding behind Roscoe. She looked very young. Her bare legs were as thin as a bird’s. Roscoe was slumped over the horn, asleep, and the girl held the reins. She was also watching the two prisoners, both of whom were plenty wide-awake. July got down and checked Hutto’s knots, which indeed were slipping.
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“Got a rabbit and a frog,” she said. “You want ’em fried up?” “I never et no frog,” Roscoe said. “Who eats frogs?” “You just eat the legs,” the girl said. “Gimme your knife.” Roscoe handed it over. The girl rapidly skinned the cottontail, which was indeed plump. Then she whacked the knife into the frog, threw the top half into the creek and peeled the skin off the legs with her teeth. Roscoe had a few simple utensils in his saddlebag, which she got without a word from him. Roscoe assumed the stings must be affecting him because he felt like he was in a dream. He wasn’t asleep, but he felt no inclination to move. The top half of the frog, its dangling guts pale in the water, drifted over to shore. Two gray turtles surfaced and began to nibble at the guts. Roscoe mainly watched the turtles while the girl made a little fire and cooked the rabbit and the frog legs. To his surprise, the frog legs kept hopping out of the pan as if the frog was still alive.
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“What’s the snake population?” Augustus asked. It was another gray wet day and he was wearing his big yellow slicker.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

At night many sounds came from the banks, the most frequent being the thin howling of coyotes. From time to time during the day they would see a coyote or a gray wolf on the bank, and the hunters would sharpen their aim by shooting at the animals. They seldom killed one, for the river was still too wide; sometimes Elmira would see the bullets kick mud.
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Soon the skies above the river got wider and wider as the river wound out of the trees and cut through the plains. The nights were cool, the mornings warming quickly, so that when Elmira woke the river behind her would be covered with a frosting of mist, and the boat would be lost in the mist completely, until the sun could break through. Several times ducks and geese, taking off in the mist, almost flew into her as she stood at the rear of the boat wrapped in the buffalo robe.When the mist was heavy the splash of birds or the jumping of fish startled her; once she was frightened by the heavy beat of wings as one of the huge gray cranes flew low over the boat. As the mist thinned she would see the cranes standing solemnly in the shallows, ignoring the strings of ducks that swam nearby. Pockets of mist would linger on the water for an hour or more after the sun had risen and the sky turned a clear blue.
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Augustus waited for Allen O’Brien, who was the last to mount. He was so weak from shock, it seemed he might not be able to, but he finally got on his horse and rode off, looking back until the grave was hidden by the tall gray grass. “It seems too quick,” he said. “It seems very quick, just to ride off and leave the boy. He was the babe of our family,” he added.
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