词汇：line

n. 绳；排；路线，航线

相关场景

He stumbled on, feeling that the sun would burn off what skin he had left. Several times during the afternoon he fell. He grew lightheaded and felt as if he were floating. Then his swollen feet would refuse to work, and instead of floating he would fall. Once he came to lying flat on his back in the grass, the sun burning into his eyes. He scrambled up and looked around, feeling that the herd might have walked right past him when he slept. He tried very hard to walk a straight line south, but his legs were so weak that he kept wobbling off course.>>完整场景

The third morning he could barely make himself move. His feet were worse than ever, the plains ahead still endless and empty. His eyes ached from looking so hard for the line of the Yellowstone, but he still couldn’t see it.>>完整场景

“Just because it’s all you know don’t mean it’s all you’d enjoy,” Augustus said. “You had a chance at a fine widow right there in Lonesome Dove, as I recall.” Pea Eye was sorry the subject of widows had come up. He had nearly forgotten the Widow Cole and the day he had helped her take the washing off the line. He didn’t know why he hadn’t forgotten it completely—he surely had forgotten more important things. Yet there it was, and from time to time it shoved into his brain. If he had married some widow his brain would probably have been so full of such things that he would have no time to think, or even to keep his knife sharp.“Ever meet any of the mountain men?” Augustus asked. “They got up in here and took the beavers.” “Well, I met old Kit,” Pea Eye said. “You ought to remember. You was there.” “Yes, I remember,” Augustus said. “I never thought much of Kit Carson.” “Why, what was wrong with Kit Carson?” Pea Eye asked. “They say he could track anything.” “Kit was vain,” Augustus said. “I won’t tolerate vanity in a man, though I will in a woman. If I had gone north in my youth I might have got to be a mountain man, but I took to riverboating instead. The whores on them riverboats in my day barely wore enough clothes to pad a crutch.” As they rode north they saw more buffalo, mostly small bunches of twenty or thirty. The third day north of the Yellowstone they killed a crippled buffalo calf and dined on its liver. In the morning, when they left, there were a number of buzzards and two or three prairie wolves hanging around, waiting for them to leave the carcass.>>完整场景

Call drew his rifle and tried to urge the Hell Bitch a little closer, but had no luck. She moved, but she moved sideways, always keeping her eyes fixed on the bear, though it was a good hundred and fifty yards away. No matter how he spurred her, the mare sidestepped, as if there were an invisible line on the prairie that she would not cross.>>完整场景

“Have you cheered up because I left Lorie behind?” Augustus asked as they were riding together one morning. Far to the south they saw a black line of mountains. To the north there was only the dusty plain.>>完整场景

“You ain’t women yet,” Clara said. “I’m the only one around here, and he better spruce up if he wants to keep on my good side.” July soon returned to work, but his demeanor had not greatly improved. He had little humor in him and could not be teased successfully, which was an irritant to Clara. She had always loved to tease and considered it an irony of her life that she was often drawn to men who didn’t recognize teasing even when she was inflicting it on them. Bob had never responded to teasing, or even noticed it, and her powers in that line had slowly rusted from lack of practice. Of course she teased the girls, but it was not the same as having a grown man to work on—she had often felt like pinching Bob for being so stolid. July was no better—in fact, he and Bob were cut from the same mold, a strong but unimaginative mold.>>完整场景

She led Newt into a small room with nothing much in it but an iron bedstead and a small washbasin on a tiny stand. A small unlit coal-oil lamp with no shade over the wick sat on a windowsill. The window was open and the rim of the prairie still red, as if a line of coals had been spread along it.>>完整场景

“Yeah, but do you just ask?” he inquired. “We don’t know how much it costs.”“Oh, that varies from gal to gal, or madam to madam,” Lippy said. “Gus gave Lorena fifty dollars once, but that price is way out of line.” Then he realized he had just revealed something he was not supposed to tell, and to boys too. Boys were not reliable when it came to keeping secrets.>>完整场景

She had fat legs, but she was always friendly, Maggie. Of all the whores he had known, she was the easiest to get along with. The thought crossed his mind that he ought to have married her and not gone rambling. If he had, he wouldn’t be in such a fix. But he felt little fear; just an overpowering fatigue. Life had slipped out of line. It was unfair, it was too bad, but he couldn’t find the energy to fight it any longer.>>完整场景

“I never seen no line, Gus,” he said. “I was just trying to get to Kansas without getting scalped.” Newt had saddled the men’s horses. Call came back and took the ropes off the four saddles.>>完整场景

“Ride with an outlaw, die with him,” he added. “I admit it’s a harsh code. But you rode on the other side long enough to know how it works. I’m sorry you crossed the line, though.” Jake’s momentary optimism had passed, and he felt tired and despairing. He would have liked a good bed in a whorehouse and a nice night’s sleep.>>完整场景

They crossed a little creek about noon. There were a few scraggly bushes growing along the line of the creek. Lorena didn’t pay them much attention, but Po Campo did. When the herd had moved on, he came walking over to her, his sack half full of wild plums.>>完整场景

Gus had set up the tent before he left, but it was supper time, so Dish got a plate of beef for Lorena’s supper. He took his responsibilities so seriously that he had tried to pick out the best piece, in the process holding up the line and irritating the crew, none of whom were the least impressed with his responsibilities.>>完整场景

The trouble opened a gap in the line of cowboys and some three hundred cattle veered off and began to swim straight downstream. The line of cattle broke, and in no time there were pockets of cattle here and there, swimming down the Arkansas, paying no attention to the riders who tried to turn them. Newt got caught beside such a bunch, and after swimming two hundred yards downstream with them, ended up on the same bank he had started out on.>>完整场景

“Hell, I thought we come up here to rob banks and regulate settlers,” Jake said. “I don’t remember hiring on to steal horses. Stealing horses is a hanging crime, as I recall.” “I never seen such a bunch of young ladies,” Dan said. “Everything’s a hanging crime up here in Kansas. They ain’t got around to making too many laws.” “That may be,” Jake said. “Horse stealing don’t happen to be my line of work.” “You’re young, you can learn a new line of work,” Dan said, raising up on an elbow. “And if you’d rather not learn, we can leave you here dead on the ground. I won’t tolerate a shirker.” With that he put his hat back over his face and went to sleep.>>完整场景

ONCE THEY GOT WEST, beyond the line of the grasshopper plague, the herd found good grass, the skies stayed clear for nearly two weeks, and the drive went the smoothest it had gone. The cattle settled down and moved north toward the Arkansas without stampedes or other incidents, except for one—a freak accident that cost Newt his favorite horse, Mouse.>>完整场景

“What about the fun?” she said. “You lost out this afternoon.” “Oh,” July said, “I’m not much fun.” “I guess you wouldn’t be, after vomiting up your stomach,” Jennie said. “I can’t wait, though, mister. Three herds came in today, and there’s a line of cowboys waiting to fall in love with me.” She looked down the stairs; the noise from the saloon was loud.>>完整场景

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.>>完整场景

“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.>>完整场景

Newt spurred and tried to reach the head of the herd, which was nearer him than anyone. He saw a long line of lightning curl down and strike, but the cattle didn’t stop. He heard the clicking of thousands of horns as the cattle bumped one another. Again he saw the bluish light rolling on the tips of the cattle’s horns, and was glad when the wall of rain came.>>完整场景

Newt spurred and tried to reach the head of the herd, which was nearer him than anyone. He saw a long line of lightning curl down and strike, but the cattle didn’t stop. He heard the clicking of thousands of horns as the cattle bumped one another. Again he saw the bluish light rolling on the tips of the cattle’s horns, and was glad when the wall of rain came.>>完整场景

“Let her rain, we’re ready,” Augustus said, taking the box of buttons from his saddlebag. “I guess it won’t stop us from playing cards.” Wilbarger had thoughtfully let them have some coffee and a side of bacon, and with those provisions and the tent and the buttons, they passed a week. A little of the hollowness left Lorena’s cheeks, and her bruises healed. She still slept close to Augustus at night and her eyes still followed him when he went out to move the horses or do some errand. Once or twice on pretty evenings they rode over to the river. Augustus had rigged a fishing line out of some coarse thread they had found in Adobe Walls. He bent a needle for a hook and used tadpoles for bait. But he caught no fish. Whenever he went to the river, he stripped off and bathed.>>完整场景

He carried the bodies up to the prairie, laid them in their shallow graves and helped July pile rocks on the graves, a pitiful expedient that wouldn’t deter the varmints for long. In the other camp he had merely laid the buffalo hunters and the dead Kiowas in a line and left them.>>完整场景

“You better be glad of that,” he said. “If it had been an Indian you’d have got scalped.” “Reckon they’ve had the fight yet?” Joe asked. “I’ll be glad when they get back.” “It might be morning before they get back,” Roscoe said. “We better just rest. The minute July gets back he’ll wanta go on looking for your mother.” “I guess she’s found Dee,” Joe said. “She likes Dee.” “Then how come she married July, dern it?” Roscoe asked. “It was the start of all this, you know. We’d be back in Arkansas playing dominoes if she hadn’t married July.” Every time Roscoe tried to think back along the line of events that had led to his being in a place where there was no trees to lean against, he strayed off the line and soon got all tangled up in his thinking. It was probably better not to try and think back down the line of life.>>完整场景

“There’s got to be water out there,” Call said. “They cross it, and they can’t drink dirt.” “Yes, but they know where it is and we don’t,” Augustus pointed out. “They can kill their horses getting to it—they got more horses. But if we kill ours it’s a dern long walk back to San Antonio.” That afternoon he crossed the Clear Fork of the Brazos and passed a half-built cabin, abandoned and empty. It was a vivid enough reminder of the power of the Comanches—their massacres caused plenty of settlers to retreat while they still had legs to retreat on. Call and he had watched through the Fifties as the line of the frontier advanced only to collapse soon after. The men and women who came up the Trinity and the Brazos were no strangers to hardship—but hardship was one thing, terror another. The land was spacious and theirs for the taking, but land couldn’t cancel out fear—a fact that Call never understood. It annoyed him that the whites gave up and retreated.>>完整场景