Elmira didn’t answer. She had no breath to answer with, she was so tired. Walking downstairs and out to the wagon had taken all her strength. Zwey had to lift her into the wagon, at that, and she sat propped against the buffalo skins, too tired even to care about the smell. She was so tired that she felt like she wasn’t there. She couldn’t even tell Zwey to start—Luke had to do it.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“He’s alive—life don’t always smell nice,” Clara said. “Go make us some breakfast and take some to those men. They must be hungry.” A few minutes later, Elmira fainted again.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“But he’s sick—he smells bad,” Sally repeated. Her eyes were fearful.
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“Momma, Daddy’s sick, he smells bad,” Sally said, peeking for a moment into the sickroom. The girls had slept downstairs on pallets, so as to be farther from the screams.
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“I can’t just order men around,” Clara said. “Anyway, you’ve met buffalo hunters before. Smelled them too. These don’t smell much different from any of the others.” “One of them’s big,” Betsey observed. “Is he the lady’s husband?” “I don’t think so, and don’t be a busybody,” Clara said. “She’s worn out. Maybe tomorrow she’ll feel like talking.” But the girls were to hear Elmira’s voice long before morning. The men sitting in the wagon heard it too—long screams that raked the prairie night for hours.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

In the mornings she lay wrapped in a quilt until the smell of Cholo’s coffee waked her. She had fallen into the habit of letting Cholo make the coffee, mainly because he was better at it than she was. She would lie in her quilt, watching the mists float over the Platte, until one or both of the girls tiptoed out. They always tiptoed, as if they might wake their father, though his eyes were as wide open as ever.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Often she lay awake, listening, half expecting Bob to come back to himself and call her. More often what happened was that he fouled himself; and instead of hearing him she would smell him. Even so, she was glad it happened at night so she could change him without the girls seeing.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“They’re close,” he said. “Stopped at a creek.” “Probably stopped to baptize one another,” Augustus said. “Did you see ’em, or just smell ’em?” “I seen ’em,” Deets said. “Four men.” “What about Jake?” Call asked.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“You like to eat, see how you like being eaten,” he said to the dead buzzards. “There’s that bad black man. Wilbarger did get him.” The smell suddenly got to Newt—he dismounted and was sick. Pea Eye dug a shallow grave with a little shovel they had brought. They rolled the remains in the grave and covered them, while the buzzards watched. Many stood on the prairie, like a black army, while others circled in the sky. Deets went off to study the thieves’ tracks. Newt had vomited so hard that he felt lightheaded, but even so, he noticed that Deets didn’t look happy when he returned.
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“I guess the buzzards outnumber the coyotes in these parts,” Augustus said. “Usually the buzzards have to wait until they get through.” When they rode up on the knoll, the smell hit them. A few of the buzzards flew off, but many stood their ground defiantly, even continuing to feed. Captain Call drew rein, but Augustus rode up to them and shot two with his pistol. The rest reluctantly flew off.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“You’re supposed to be able to smell Indians,” he said to Augustus, “Do you smell any?” “No,” Augustus said. “I just smell a lot of cowshit. I expect my smeller will be ruined forever before this trip is over by smelling so much cowshit.” “It don’t mention buffalo in the Bible,” Augustus remarked.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“My goodness, Lorie, you smell fresh as dew,” he said, sniffing her hair. “It’s a miracle you can keep fresh out in these raw parts.” One button had come off his shirt, and a few tufts of the white hair on his chest were sticking out. She wanted to say something, but she was afraid to. She tried to poke the little white chest hairs back under his shirt.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

The next morning, before good light, she woke up gagging at the blood smell and looked up to see Luke sitting astraddle of her. He was rubbing his bloody hands over her bosom. Her stomach heaved from the smell.
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Elmira was apprehensive, fearing a fight then and there, but Zwey seemed to have forgotten the whole business. About the time Luke rode up they spotted two or three buffalo and immediately rode off to shoot them, leaving Elmira to drive the wagon. They came back after dark with three fresh hides, and seemed in good spirits. Luke scarcely looked at her. He and Zwey sat up late, cooking slices of buffalo liver. They were both as bloody as if they’d been skinned. Elmira hated the smell of blood and kept away from them as best she could.
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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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Call let the men camp—they had had a rough twenty-four hours. A big steer had crippled itself crossing the river. Bert roped it and Po Campo killed it efficiently with a sharp blow of an ax. He butchered it just as efficiently and soon had beefsteaks cooking. The smell reminded the men that they were famished—they went at the meat like wolves.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

It was a desperate trick, but the only one he could think of that increased his chances—most horses shied from the smell of fresh blood. He needed the horse for a breastworks anyway and could have shot him, but he had saved a bullet, and the blood smell might work for him.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

That day the men killed twenty buffalo. Elmira had to wait in the sun all day while they skinned them out. Finally she got down and sat under the wagon, which provided a little shade. The men piled the bloody, smelly hides into the wagon, which didn’t suit the mules. They hated the smell of hides as much as she did.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“You get where you don’t smell ’em after a while,” he said. “I don’t hardly even notice it, I’ve smelled ’em so much.” Luke had a little quirt and was always nervously popping himself on the leg with it. “You skeert of Indians?” he asked.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Zwey went to buy some mules,” he said. “We got two horses but they won’t do for the wagon. Anyway, we might get some hides while you’re driving the wagon.” “I don’t like the smell of hides,” she said pointedly, but not pointedly enough for Luke to get the message.
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“He’ll take you to Ogallala, if you’ll do it,” Fowler said. “You might think about it. He ain’t as bad as some.” “How would you know?” she asked. “You ain’t been married to him.” Fowler shrugged. “He might be your best bet,” he said. “I’m going back downriver next week. A couple of hide haulers are taking a load to Kansas, and they might take you, but it’d be a hard trip. You’d have to smell them stinkin’ hides all the way. Anyway, the hide haulers are rough,” he said. “I think Zwey would treat you all right.” “I don’t want to go to Kansas,” she said. “I been to Kansas.” What ruined that was that she was pregnant, and showing. Some of the saloons weren’t particular, but it was always harder to get work if you were pregnant. Besides, she didn’t want to work, she wanted Dee, who wouldn’t mind that she was pregnant.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Fowler did his best for Elmira. He got the traders to let her have a little room—just a tiny, dirty closet, really. It was next to a warehouse where piles of buffalo skins were stored. The smell of the skins was worse than anything that had happened on the river. Her room was full of fleas that had escaped from the skins. She spent much of her time scratching.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

She heard the leader speak to Blue Duck and then felt their horses crowd around her. Several hands reached out to feel and pull her hair. She could smell the men and feel them, but she didn’t look up. She didn’t want to see them. Their rank, sweaty smell was almost enough to make her sick. One of them, amused by her hair, pulled it till her scalp stung, and he laughed a strange, jerky laugh. They crowded so close around her on their hot horses that for a moment she felt she might faint. She had never been in such a hard place, not even when Mosby’s sisters locked her in the basement.
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“Reckon he don’t like the way we smell?” Bert Borum asked.
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“I gave twenty-eight skunk hides for her,” the old man said suddenly. “You got any whiskey?” In fact, Roscoe did have a bottle that he had bought off the soldiers. He could already smell frying meat—the possum, no doubt—and his appetite came back. He had nothing in his stomach and could think of little he would rather eat than a nice piece of fried possum. Around Fort Smith the Negroes kept the possums thinned out; they were seldom available on the tables of white folks.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇