To Call’s great relief, the storm blew itself out in three hours. The wind gradually died and the sand lay under their feetagain instead of peppering them. The moon was soon visible, and the sky filled with bright stars. It would not be possible to judge how many cattle had strayed until the morning, but at least the main herd was still under their control.
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“I thought you, went to her,” she said. “I didn’t believe you went to town.” “Ain’t the moon beautiful?” he said. “These plains seem like fine country under a full moon.” Lorena didn’t look up. She wasn’t interested in the moon. She only wanted it to be settled about the woman. If Gus was going to leave, she wanted to know it, although she couldn’t imagine a life if that happened.
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The moon was full and the prairie shadowy. Pea Eye was attempting to sing to the cattle, but his voice was nothing to compare to the Irishman’s.
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“Did she ask any questions about it at all?” “No,” July admitted. “She never said a word.” The baby had stopped crying. They heard a horse splash out of the river—Cholo was coming in late. Even with no moon they could see his white hair as he trotted to the corrals.
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Gus was staring at the moon and scratching himself. “I keep thinking we’ll see the mountains,” he said. “I grew up in mountains, you know. Tennessee. I hear them Rockies are a lot higher than the Smokies. They say they have snow on top of them the year round, which you won’t find in Tennessee.” He sat down in the grass. “Let’s sit out,” he said. “We can nap in the morning. It will scandalize Call.”“Why does he go off at night?” Lorena asked.
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They soon struck Wilbarger’s trail and followed it west through the sunset and the long dusk. The trail led northwest toward the Arkansas, easy to follow even in the twilight. Dan Suggs never slowed. They struck the river and swam it by moonlight. Jake hated to ride sopping wet, but was offered no choice, for Dan Suggs didn’t pause. Nobody said a word when they came to the river; nobody said one afterward. The moon was well over in the west before Dan Suggs drew rein.
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July sat where he was until the afterglow was just a pale line on the western horizon. The white moon shone on the railroad ties that snaked out of town to the east. He felt too weak to stand up, and he sat listening to the sounds of laughter that came from the saloon behind him.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

But once he was mounted, July felt a sense of hurry seize him. He ate with them, thanked them again, and left under a rising moon. Four days later, sore from riding bareback on the little sharp-spined bay, he trotted into Dodge City.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Now, as he sat and watched the moon, killing himself merely seemed sensible. His life had been ruined—surprisingly, inexplicably, swiftly, but ruined for sure. He had made wrong choices all along, and it had cost three lives. Killing himself would put him at one with Roscoe, Janey, Joe—and the horse. They had started traveling together; it would be fitting that they all ended in the same place.
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He walked all day, hoping to cross a creek but finding none. He had a half canteen of water—not enough to get him back to the Cimarron. And he had nothing to eat. He made a dry camp and sat all night on his blanket, so wakeful he thought he would never sleep again. He sat for hours, watching the moon climb high amid the bright stars. He remembered the cold nights in their Arkansas cabin when he was a boy—how his mother piled quilts on top of him and his brothers, how peaceful it seemed under the quilts. Then it seemed like sleep was one of the most wonderful things in life.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

He saw the girl come out of the tent when Gus dismounted. She was just a shape in the twilight. Gus said she wouldn’t talk much, not even to him. Call didn’t intend to try her. He loped a mile or two to the west and put the mare on her lead rope. The sky overhead was still light and there was a little fingernail moon.JAKE SPENT MOST of his days in a place called Bill’s Saloon, a little clapboard place on the Trinity River bluffs. It was a two- story building. The whores took the top story and the gamblers and cowboys used the bottom. From the top floor there were usually cattle in sight trailing north, small herds and large. Once in a while a foreman came in for liquor and met Jake. When they found out he had been north to Montana, some tried to hire him, but Jake just laughed at them. The week after he left, the Hat Creek herd had been a good week. He couldn’t draw a bad card, and by the time the week was over he had a stake enough to last him a month or two.
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The third time he stopped, he thought he heard voices. They were faint, but they were white, an encouraging sign. Hewent cautiously toward them, trying to make as little noise as possible. It was hard to carry a saddle without it creaking some, but he was afraid to put it down for fear he could not find his way back to it in the dark. Then he heard a horse snort and another horse jingle his bit. He was getting close. He stopped to wait for the moon to rise. When it did, he moved a little closer, hoping to see something. Instead he heard what sounded like a subdued argument.
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Deep in the night a sound disturbed him, and he came awake and drew his pistol. It was well on toward morning—he could tell that by the moon—but the sound was new to him.Cautiously he turned over, only to see at once that the source of the sound was Aus Frank. He had risen in the night and collected another load of buffalo bones. Now he was heaving them up on the pyramid. The sound that had awakened Augustus was the sound of bones, clicking and rattling as they slid down the sides of the pyramid.
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“No, a beaver would be foolish to be in this river,” Augustus said. “There ain’t a tree within twenty miles, and beavers like to gnaw trees. You should have stayed up north if you like beavers.” “I’d rather gather these bones,” the old man said. “You don’t have to get your feet wet.” “Did you get to Montana when you was a beaverman?” Augustus waited several minutes for a reply, but the old man never answered. When the moon came up, Augustus saw that he had fallen asleep sitting on his wheelbarrow, his head fallen over in his arms.
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“I’ll tell you, Jim,” he said, “you just keep sitting there drawing her fire. I’ll load up with some buckshot. Maybe if she don’t brain you before the moon rises, I can catch the angle and shoot her. Or at least chase her out of chunkin’ range.” He reached into the pocket of his buckskin coat for some shells, and as he did, a miracle happened—for in Roscoe’s mind a miracle it was. He stood there, naked and wet, sure to be murdered within a few minutes unless a slip of a girl, armed only with rocks, could defeat two grown men armed with guns. He himself was so sure of being killed that he felt rather detached from what was happening, and invested only faint hope in Janey’s chances of saving him.
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“Okay, Ermoke,” he said. “Go on and have a taste. We’ll stop until the moon rises.” Before he had finished speaking, the men had cut her ankles free and were dragging her off the horse. They didn’t even wait to tie their horses. When Lorena would open her eyes for a second she saw the darkening sky through the legs of the waiting horses. The man with the jerky laugh had a bugle and also less lust than the rest. After covering her once, he sat in the grass playing bugle calls. Now and then, watching what was happening, he would laugh the jerky laugh. Lorena had expected death, but it wasn’t death she got—just the four men. Ermoke, the leader, wouldn’t leave her. The other men began to complain. When she opened her eyes, she looked for the moon. But the moon was late and she only saw the horses, still standing over her. Blue Duck had gone away, and when he returned Ermoke was with her again.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Then, without her hearing a step or feeling any danger, Blue Duck was standing in front of her, the rifle still held in his big hand like a toy. She saw his legs and the rifle when she looked up, but a cloud had passed over the moon and she couldn’t see his face—not at first.
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But it was such a beautiful, peaceful night, the moon new and high, that Newt decided to chance it. Lorena might already be asleep, it was so peaceful. On such a night it would be little risk to tie Mouse for a few hours. He looped his rein over a tree limb and went walking back toward Lorena’s. He stopped at a little stand of live oak about a hundred yards from the camp, sat down with his back against a tree and drew his pistol. Just holding it made him feel ready for anything.Resting with his back against the tree, Newt let himself drift back into the old familiar daydreams in which he got better and better as a cowboy until even the Captain had to recognize that he was a top hand. His prowess was not lost on Lorena, either. He didn’t exactly dream that they got married, but she did ask him to get off his horse and talk for a while.
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Sitting on the low bluff, watching the moon climb the dark sky, he felt the old sadness again. He felt, almost, that hedidn’t belong with the very men he was leading, and that he ought to just leave: ride west, let the herd go, let Montana go, be done with the whole business of leading men. It was peculiar to seem so infallible in their eyes and yet feel so empty and sad when he thought of himself.
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“Well, go get some grub,” Call said to Deets. “I’m going over to them bluffs. He might have a gang or he might not. You get between our camp and Jake’s camp so you can help if he comes for the girl. Be watchful.” He loped over to the bluffs, nearly a mile away, picked his way to the top and spread his bedroll on the bluff’s edge. In the clear night, with the huge moon, he could see far across the bedded herd, see the bright wick of the campfire, blocked occasionally when someone led a horse across in front of it.
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Deets shook his head. “Don’t think so, Captain,” he said. “We better watch the horses.” “Dern,” Call said. “I thought we might have a peaceful night for once.” “Full moon coming,” Deets said. “We can spot him if he bothers us tonight.” They sat together and watched the moon rise. Soon it shed a pale, cool light over the bed-grounds. The Texas bull began to low. He was across the herd, in the shadows, but in the still air his lowing carried far across the little valley, echoing off the limestone bluffs to the west.
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“He’s young and innocent,” Augustus said. “That’s why I picked him. He’ll just moon over her a little. If I’d sent one of the full-grown rowdies, Jake might have come back and shot him. I doubt he’d shoot Newt.” “I doubt he’ll even come back, myself,” Call said. “That girl ought to have stayed in Lonesome Dove.” “If you was a young girl, with life before you, would you want to settle in Lonesome Dove?” Augustus asked. “Maggie done it, and look how long she lasted.” “She might have died anyplace,” Call said. “I’ll die someplace, and so will you—it might not be no better place than Lonesome Dove.” “It ain’t dying I’m talking about, it’s living,” Augustus said. “I doubt it matters where you die, but it matters where you live.” Call got up and went to catch his night horse. Without thinking, he caught the Hell Bitch again, though he had just turned her loose. One of the Spettle boys looked at him curiously and said nothing. Call saddled the Hell Bitch anyway and rode around the herd to see that all was in place. The cattle were calm, most of them already bedded down. Needle Nelson, perennially sleepy, dozed in his saddle.
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When it became plain he was not going to be invited for supper, Roscoe ate the two biscuits he had saved. He felt badly treated, but there was little he could do about it. When he finished the biscuits he pitched his bedroll up against the side of the cabin. As soon as he stretched out, the moon came up and lit the little clearing so brightly it made it hard to sleep.
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Tobe Walker looked wistful when they told him they were taking a herd to Montana. “If I hadn’t married, I bet I’d go with you,” he said. “I imagine there’s some fair pastures up there. Being a lawman these days is mostly a matter of collaring drunks, and it does get tiresome.” When they left, he went off dutifully to make his rounds. Augustus hitched the new mules to the new wagon. The streets of San Antonio were silent and empty as they left. The moon was high and a couple of stray goats nosed around the walls of the old Alamo, hoping to find a blade of grass. When they had first come to Texas in the Forties people had talked of nothing but Travis and his gallant losing battle, but the battle had mostly been forgotten and the building neglected.
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In fact they rode so hard that Joe soon stopped missing the talk. Although still curious, he discovered that travel was harder than he had expected it to be. Besides hating to talk, July also seemed to hate to stop. When they came to a creek he would let the horses water, and now and then he got down to relieve himself; otherwise they rode from first light until it was too dark to see. On nights when there was a moon they rode well into the night.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇