词汇：Mexican

adj. 墨西哥的；墨西哥人的

相关场景

“Back to town,” Augustus said. “Be the safest place for the good stock, I figure.” “Why, damn,” Jake said, plainly chagrined. “You could have sent me back. I’m the one that’s worn to a frazzle.” “Somebody’s got to help me protect these boys,” Augustus said. “As I recall, you made a name for yourself by shooting Mexican bandits—I thought you’d welcome the chance to polish your reputation a little.” “I’d rather shoot you,” Jake said, pretty grumpily. “You’ve caused me more hell than all the bandits in Mexico.” “Now Jake, be fair,” Augustus said. “You was just hoping to go back and get your bean in that girl again. I feel young Dish should have his shot before you ruin her completely.” Jake snorted. The young cowboy was the least of his worries.>>完整场景

“Why, Jake, you could buy a bath from the Mexican barber for ten cents,” Lippy pointed out.>>完整场景

“Get down, boys,” he said to the Irishmen. “You’re safe now, as long as you don’t eat the cooking. This is what we callhome.” Allen O’Brien had both hands around the big Mexican saddle horn. He had been holding it so tightly for the last two hours that he was not sure he could turn it loose. He looked down with apprehension.>>完整场景

Newt felt a little sorry for the two of them, but he had to admit they were a comical sight. The Mexican saddles were all clearly meant for men with longer legs. Their feet did not come anywhere near the stirrups. Even so, the Irishmen seemed disinclined to dismount.>>完整场景

Instead of being bareback the Irishmen were riding big silver-studded Mexican saddles and driving eight or ten skinny horses before them. When they reached the porch they just sat on their horses, looking unhappy.>>完整场景

Overhearing that snatch of conversation was an accident Pea was slow to forget. For a month or two after it happened he went around feeling nervous, expecting life to change in some bold way. And yet nothing changed at all. They all soon went up the river to try and catch some bandits raiding out of Chihuahua, and the Captain, so far as he could tell, was the same old Captain. By the time they came back, Maggie had had her child, and soon after, Jake Spoon moved in with her for a while. Then he left and Maggie died and Gus went down one day and got Newt from the Mexican family that had taken him upon Maggie’s death.>>完整场景

“Running off Mexican horses isn’t a job,” Wilbarger said. “It’s merely a gamble. You’ve the look of a cowboy, and I’m about to start up the trail with three thousand head.” “So are we,” Call said, amused that the man would try to hire a hand out from under him with him sitting there.>>完整场景

Call knew that it had been rare luck, running into the four Mexican horsethieves and getting most of the horses they had just brought over from Texas. The Mexicans had thought they had run into an army—who but an army would have somany horses?—and had not really stayed to make a fight, though he had had to scare off one vaquero who kept trying to turn the herd.>>完整场景

Newt didn’t really feel that what they were doing was wrong—if it had been wrong, the Captain wouldn’t have done it.But the thought hit him that under Mexican law what they were doing might be a hanging offense. It put a different slant on the game. In imagining what it would be like to go to Mexico, he had always supposed the main danger would come in the form of bullets, but he was no longer so sure. On the ride down he hadn’t been worried, because he had a whole company around him.>>完整场景

“I guess we’ll just go for home,” Call said. “If we wake ’em up we wake ’em up.” He looked at the boy. “You take the left point,” he said. “Pea will be on the right, and I’ll be behind. If trouble comes, it’ll come from behind, and I’ll notice it first. If they get after us hot and heavy we can always drop off thirty or forty horses and hope that satisfies them.” They circled the herd and quietly started it moving to the northwest, waving a rope now and then to get the horses in motion but saying as little as possible. Newt could not help feeling a little odd about it all, since he had somehow had it in his mind that they were coming to Mexico to buy horses, not steal them. It was puzzling that such a muddy little river like the Rio Grande should make such a difference in terms of what was lawful and what not. On the Texas side, horse stealing was a hanging crime, and many of those hung for it were Mexican cowboys who came across the river to do pretty much what they themselves were doing. The Captain was known for his sternness where horsethieves were concerned, and yet, here they were, running off a whole herd. Evidently if you crossed the river to do it, it stopped being a crime and became a game.>>完整场景

In the present case he had found two destitute travelers and a herd of recently stolen horses. But it was still four hours till sunup and he was reluctant to abandon his original ambition, which was to return with a hundred Mexican horses. It was still possible, if he acted decisively.>>完整场景

He could hear the singing plainly, which only increased his puzzlement. The voices weren’t Mexican, nor were they Texan.>>完整场景

Augustus dismounted and tightened his cinch a notch. “I hope we don’t strike too many gullies,” he said. “I dislike jumping gullies in the dark.” Newt’s heart gave a little jump when he realized the Captain meant to keep him with him. It must mean the Captain thought he was worth something, after all, though he had no idea how to catch a wrangler, Mexican or otherwise.>>完整场景

Dish Boggett had ridden off the worst of his drunk, though there were moments when he still felt queasy. Dish had spent most of his life on a horse and could ride in any condition short of paralysis; he had no trouble keeping his place in the group. In time his head quit throbbing and he felt well enough to take an interest in the proceedings at hand. He was not troubled by any sense of being lost, or any apprehension about Mexican bandits. He was confident of his mount and prepared to outrun any trouble that couldn’t be otherwise handled. His main trouble was that he was riding just behind Jake Spoon and thus was reminded of what had happened in the saloon every time he looked up. He knew he had become a poor second in Lorena’s affections to the man just in front of him, and the knowledge rankled. The one consoling thought was that there might be gunplay before the night was over—Dish had never been in a gun battle but he reasoned that if bullets flew thick and fast Jake might stop one of them, which could change the whole situation. It wasn’t exactly that Dish hoped he’d be killed outright—maybe just wounded enough that they’d have to leave him someplace downriver where there might be a doctor.>>完整场景

“In fact some dern Mexicans stole our horses,” he added. “I had heard you men hung all the Mexican horsethieves when you was Rangers, but I guess you missed a few.” “Why, hell, we hung ever one of ’em,” Augustus said, glad to see that their visitor was of an argumentative temper. “It must be the new generation that stole your nags. We ain’t responsible for them.”“This is idle talk,” Wilbarger said. “I happen to be responsible for three thousand cattle and eleven men. If I could buy forty horses, good horses, I’d feel happier. Can you oblige me?” “We expect to have a hundred head available at sunup tomorrow,” Call said. Gus’s talkativeness had one advantage—it often gained him a minute or two in which to formulate plans.>>完整场景

Behind the general store, an old Mexican saddlemaker was cutting a steerhide into strips from which to make a rope. It occurred to Dish that he might be more presentable if he walked down to the river and washed off some of the sweat that had dried on him during the day, but walking to the river meant losing time and he decided to let that notion slide.>>完整场景

Nonetheless, he had chanced to look up one morning as they were trailing a herd of Mexican cattle through Lonesome Dove. He had seen a yellow-haired girl looking out an open window at them. Her shoulders were bare, which startled him so that he dropped a rein. He had not forgotten the girl, and he occasionally stole a glance at the window if he happened to be riding by. It was a surprise to think she might have been Dish’s sister.>>完整场景

“Now who would that be?” Pea asked. “It’s an odd time of day to visit.” “Well, if it ain’t old Juan Cortinas it’s probably just a couple of bank robbers,” Dish said, referring to a Mexican cattle thief who was hailed, south of the river, as a great hero due to the success of his raids against the Texans.>>完整场景

Augustus had not expected that Call would be satisfied just to rustle Mexican cattle forever, but neither had he expected him to suddenly decide to strike out for Montana. Yet it was obvious the idea had taken hold of the man.>>完整场景

But it was Jake’s luck that most of the men who saw him make the shot were raw boys too, with not enough judgment to appreciate how lucky a thing it was. Those that survived and grew up told the story all across the West, so there was hardly a man from the Mexican border to Canada who hadn’t heard what a dead pistol shot Jake Spoon was, though any man who had fought with him through the years would know he was no shot at all with a pistol and only a fair shot with a rifle.>>完整场景

“Yeah, but I’m just a gambler,” Jake said. “They all like to think they’re respectable back in Arkansas. Besides, the dentist’s brother was the sheriff, and somebody told him I was a gunfighter. He invited me to leave town a week before it happened.” Call sighed. All the gunfighter business went back to one lucky shot Jake had made when he was a mere boy starting out in the Rangers. It was funny how one shot could make a man’s reputation like that. It was a hip shot Jake made because he was scared, and it killed a Mexican bandit who was riding toward them on a dead run. It was Call’s opinion, and Augustus’s too, that Jake hadn’t even been shooting at the bandit—he was probably shooting in hopes of bringing downthe horse, which might have fallen on the bandit and crippled him a little. But Jake shot blind from the hip, with the sun in his eyes to boot, and hit the bandit right in the Adam’s apple, a thing not likely to occur more than once in a lifetime, if that often.>>完整场景

“A man that sleeps all night wastes too much of life,” he often said. “As I see it the days was made for looking and the nights for sport.” Since sport was what he had been brooding about when he got home, it was still in his thoughts when he arose, which he did about 4 A.M., to see to the breakfast—in his view too important a meal to entrust to a Mexican bandit. The heart of his breakfast was a plenitude of sourdough biscuits, which he cooked in a Dutch oven out in the backyard. His pot dough had been perking along happily for over ten years, and the first thing he did upon rising was check it out. The rest of the breakfast was secondary, just a matter of whacking off a few slabs of bacon and frying a panful of pullet eggs. Bolivar could generally be trusted to deal with the coffee.>>完整场景

“Xavier, I’ll make you a deal,” Augustus said. “Loan Dish here two dollars so we can get a little game going, and I’ll rake that hat into a towsack and carry it home to my pigs. It’s the only way you’ll ever get rid of it.” “If you wear it again I will burn it,” Xavier said, still inflamed. “I will burn the whole place. Then where will you go?” “If you was to burn that pianer you best have a swift mule waiting,” Lippy said, his lip undulating as he spoke. “The church folks won’t like it.” Dish found the conversation a burden to listen to. He had delivered a small horse herd in Matamoros and had ridden nearly a hundred miles upriver with Lorie in mind. It was funny he would do it, since the thought of her scared him, but he had just kept riding and here he was. He mainly did his sporting with Mexican whores, but now and then he found he wanted a change from small brown women. Lorena was so much of a change that at the thought of her his throat clogged up and he lost his ability to talk. He had already been with her four times and had a vivid memory of how white she was: moon-pale and touched with shadows, like the night outside. Only not like the night, exactly—he could ride through the night peacefully, and a ride with Lorena was not peaceful. She used some cheap powder, a souvenir of her city living, and the smell of it seemed to follow Dish for weeks. He didn’t like just paying her, though—it seemed to him it would be better if he brought her a fine present from Abilene or Dodge. He could get away with that with the señoritas—they liked the idea of presents to look forward to, and Dish was careful never to renege. He always came back from Dodge with ribbons and combs.>>完整场景

“I don’t know where you keep finding these Mexican strawberries,” he said, referring to the beans. Bolivar managed to find them three hundred and sixty-five days a year, mixing them with so many red chilies that a spoonful of beans was more or less as hot as a spoonful of red ants. Newt had come to think that only two things were certain if you worked for the Hat Creek Cattle Company. One was that Captain Call would think of more things to do than he and Pea Eye and Deets could get done, and the other was that beans would be available at all meals. The only man in the outfit who didn’t fart frequently was old Bolivar himself—he never touched beans and lived mainly on sourdough biscuits and chickory coffee, or rather cups of brown sugar with little puddles of coffee floating on top. Sugar cost money, too, and it irked the Captain to spend it, but Bolivar could not be made to break a habit. Augustus claimed the old man’s droppings were so sugary that the blue shoat had taken to stalking him every time he went to shit, which might have been true. Newt had all he could do to keep clear of the shoat, and his own droppings were mostly bean.>>完整场景

Newt had more imagination. He turned and looked across the river, where a big darkness was about to settle. Every now and then, about sundown, the Captain and Augustus and Pea and Deets would strap on guns and ride off into that darkness, into Mexico, to return about sunup with thirty or forty horses or perhaps a hundred skinny cattle. It was the way the stock business seemed to work along the border, the Mexican ranchers raiding north while the Texans raided south. Some of the skinny cattle spent their lives being chased back and forth across the Rio Grande. Newt’s fondest hope was to get old enough to be taken along on the raids. Many a night he lay in his hot little bunk, listening to old Bolivar shore and mumble below him, peering out the window toward Mexico, imagining the wild doings that must be going on.>>完整场景