Augustus followed. Lippy, who had not cried all day, suddenly began to sob, tears running into his loose lip.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

They expected to start the herd that day, as Captain Call had never been known to linger. But this time he did. He came back from the grave, got a big hammer and knocked a board loose from the side of the wagon. He didn’t explain what he was doing to anyone, and the look on his face discouraged anyone from asking. He took the board and carried it down to the grave. The rest of the day he sat alone by Deets’s grave, carving something into it with his knife. The sun flashed on his knife, and the cowhands watched in puzzlement. They just didn’t know what it could be that would take the Captain so long.
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Augustus kept one eye on his cards and one eye on the bull, keeping a loose count of his winnings and of the bull’s.
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“No, sir,” Newt said. “He just quirted me a little. I wasn’t gonna let him have Dish’s horse.” “Well, you can let her go now,” Dish said. “He’s gone. I’m much obliged to you for what you did, Newt.” Newt had gripped the bit so tightly that it was painful to let go. It had cut deep creases in his palms, and he seemed to have squeezed the blood out of his fingers. But he turned the mare loose. Dish took the reins and patted her on the neck.
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Augustus trotted the few steps to the blacksmith shop and dropped a loop over Call’s shoulders. Then he turned the horse away, took a wrap around the saddle horn, and began to ride up the street. Call wouldn’t turn loose of Dixon at first. He hung on and dragged him a few feet from the anvil. But Augustus kept the rope tight and held the horse in a walk. Finally Call let the man drop, though he turned with a black, wild look and started for whoever had roped him, not realizing who the man was. The skin was torn completely off his knuckles from the blows he had dealt Dixon, but he was lost in his anger and his only thought was to get the next assailant. It was in him to kill—he didn’t know if Dixon was dead, but he would make sure of the next man.
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Pete Spettle, anger in his face, leaped in and tried to get the quirt, but Dixon backhanded him and Pete went down—it turned out his nose was broken.Newt tried to hunker close to the mare. At first Dixon was mainly quirting his hands, to make him turn loose, but when that was unsuccessful he began to hit Newt wherever he could catch him. One whistling blow cut his ear. He tried to duck his head, but Sugar was scared and kept turning, exposing him to the quirt. Dixon began to whip him on the neck and shoulders. Newt shut his eyes and clung to the bit. Once he glanced at Dixon and saw the man smiling—he had cruel eyes, like a boar pig’s. Then he ducked, for Dixon attempted to cut him across the face. The blow hit Sugar instead, causing the horse to rear and squeal.
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Dixon tried to jerk the horse loose, but Newt had both hands on the bit now and wouldn’t let go.
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As he stooped, Dixon leaned over him and spat a stream of tobacco juice on the back of Dish’s neck. The brown juice hit Dish at the hairline and dripped down under the collar of his loose shirt.
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“You’re worrying yourself into a sweat for nothing,” he said. “Clara’s husband will probably live to be ninety-six, and anyway she and I probably ain’t got no use for one another now. I ain’t got the energy for Clara. I doubt I ever did.” At night, when she finally slept, he would sit in the tent, pondering it all. He could see the campfire. Whatever boys weren’t night herding would be standing around it, swapping jokes. Probably all of them envied him, for he had a woman and they didn’t. He envied them back, for they were carefree and he wasn’t. Once started, love couldn’t easily be stopped. He had started it with Lorie, and it might never be stopped. He would be lucky to get again such easy pleasures as the men enjoyed, sitting around a campfire swapping jokes. Though he felt deeply fond of Lorena, he could also feel a yearning to be loose again and have nothing to do but win at cards.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

To see a woman so suddenly, after so much time alone, made him very nervous—particularly since the woman was so out of temper. But as they drew closer he found that, out of temper or not, he couldn’t stop looking at her. Her eyes flashed as she lectured her daughters, neither of whom was taking the lecture silently—both were trying to talk back but the mother didn’t pause to listen. She had abundant brown hair tucked into a bun at the back of her neck, though the bun had partly come loose.
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“Sobriety, if you guzzle enough of it,” Augustus said. “I expect it’s just whiskey and syrup.” The wagon itself was in such poor repair that they decided to leave it sit. Call broke up the tailgate and made a little marker for Jake’s grave, scratching his name on it with a pocketknife by the light of the old man’s lantern. He hammered the marker into the loose-packed dirt with the blunt side of a hatchet they had found in the wagon. Augustus trotted over, bringing Call his mare.
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“Good lord,” Augustus said, as Deets came up leading the bay. “Where’s Mister Wilbarger, that he could afford to let his horse run loose?” “Dead, I fear,” Call said. “Look at the blood on that horse’s mane.” “Hell, I liked Wilbarger,” Augustus said. “I’d be right sorry if he’s dead. I’ll go have a look.” “Who’ll watch the girl while you’re gone?” Call asked.
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“You boys ought to go home and teach school,” he said. “It’s all you’re good for.”“What did you expect me to do?” Roy asked. “I can’t see in the dark.” Dan walked over and looked down at Frog Lip. He ignored his brothers. He knelt down and pulled the Negro’s bloodstained shirt loose from his pants, exposing the wound. After a second he stood up.
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“No, mostly girls here tonight,” Dan said. “Are you waiting for election day or what? Bring the goddamn horses.” Little Eddie brought them. The dawn was behind him, very faint but coming. Soon it was possible to make out the results of the battle. Wilbarger’s two men were dead, still in their blankets. One was Chick, the little weasel Jake remembered seeing the morning they brought the horses in from Mexico. He had been hit in the neck by a rifle bullet, Frog Lip’s, Dan said. The bullet had practically torn his head loose from his body—the corpse reminded Jake of a dead rabbit, perhaps because Chick had rabbitlike teeth, exposed now in a stiff grimace.
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“I’LL BE GLAD to get to Dodge,” Jake said. “I’d like a bath and a whore. And a good barber to shave me. There’s a barber there named Sandy that I fancy, if nobody ain’t shot him.” “You’ll know tomorrow, I guess,” Dan Suggs said. “I’ve never liked barbers myself.” “Dan don’t even like whores,” Roy Suggs said. “Dan’s hard to please.” Jake was cheered by the thought that Dodge was so close. He was tired of the empty prairie and the sullen Suggses, and was looking forward to jolly company and some good card games. He had every intention of wiggling loose from the Suggses in Dodge. Gambling might be his ticket. He could win a lot of money and tell them he’d had enough of the roving life. They didn’t own him, after all.
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But the sun came up beautifully, and he knew he would have to go into breakfast. He rubbed the tear streaks off his face as best he could and was about to head for the wagon when he saw Mr. Gus standing outside his little tent, waving at him. Newt rode over. As he passed the open flap of the tent he saw Lorena sitting on a pallet just inside. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and she looked very beautiful.
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“That’s Webster Witter,” Jennie said. “He keeps up with Dee Boot. I used to but I quit.” “Why?” July asked. He sensed that it was a rather loose-tongued question, but the fact was, his tongue was out of control and behaving ever more loosely.
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Wilbarger was as surprised as Augustus. He had seen two riders and supposed they were scouts for yet another herd. “By God, McCrae, you’re a surprise,” he said. “I thought you was three weeks behind me, and here you are attacking from the west. How far back is your herd, or do you have one?” “As you can see, I ain’t brought a cow,” Augustus said. “Call may still have a herd of them if he ain’t lost them or just turned them loose.” “If he would do that he’s a fool, and he didn’t act like a fool,” Wilbarger said. “He wouldn’t trade me that mare.” He tipped his hat to Lorena. “I don’t believe I’ve met the young lady,” he said.
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“We might not last long if we did,” Augustus said. “Every mangy renegade that’s left loose knows about this place. If a bunch of them showed up at once we’d be in trouble.” Lorena understood that, but she didn’t want to go. Lying on the pallet and playing cards for buttons was fine, so long as it was just Gus who was there. She didn’t want to see other men, for any reason at all. She didn’t want them to see her.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

They found a room whose roof was more-or-less intact, and whose fireplace even worked once Augustus poked loose an owl’s nest. He broke up the remains of an old wagon to make a fire.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

But no one heard him except the Hell Bitch, who grazed at the end of a long rope. Every night he slipped one end of the rope beneath his belt and then looped it around his wrist, so there would be no chance of her taking fright and suddenly jerking loose from him. Call had become so sensitive to her movements that if she even raised her head to sniff the air he would wake up. Usually it was no more than a deer, or a passing wolf. But the mare noticed, and Call rested better, knowing she would watch.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

The thought that Gus was dead began to weigh on Call. It came to him several times a day, at moments, and made him feel empty and strange. They had not had much of a talk before Gus left. Nothing much had been said. He began to wish that somehow things could have been rounded off a little better. Of course he knew death was no respecter. People just dropped when they dropped, whether they had rounded things off or not. Still, it haunted him that Gus had just ridden off and might not ride back. He would look over the cattle herd strung out across the prairie and feel it was all worthless, and a little absurd. Some days he almost felt like turning the cattle loose and paying off the crew. He could take Pea and Deets and maybe the boy, and they would look for Gus until they found him.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

The strange girl who could catch rabbits would catch no more rabbits.After a time, July took his knife and began to dig graves. He climbed out of the canyon and dug them on the plain. Digging with a knife was slow work, but it was the only digging tool he had. The loose dirt he threw out with his hands. He was still digging at sunup, yet the graves were pitifully shallow affairs. He would have to do better than that, or the coyotes would get the corpses. Once in a while he looked down at the bodies. Joe lay apart from the other two, sprawled on his blanket as if asleep.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Yes,” Augustus said. “A man can’t outrun a horse. You get along. There’s a dangerous man loose along this river and I doubt that deputy of yours can handle him.” What if I can’t, either? July thought, looking down at Dog Face. He had managed to pull his genitals out of his mouth, and still lay breathing. Looking at the pool of blood he lay in, July felt his stomach start to come up. He turned away to keep from vomiting.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

The shooter kept him pinned until full dark—but as soon as it was too dark to shoot, Augustus yanked his saddle loose from the dead mount and walked west, stopping to take what bullets he could salvage from the men he had killed. None had many, but one had a fairly good rifle, and Augustus took it as insurance. He hated carrying the saddle, but it was a shield of sorts; if he got caught in open country it might be the only cover he would have.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇