“You should have made a chance a little sooner, Jake,” Augustus said. “A man that will go along with six killings is making his escape a little slow.” “I had to wait for a chance, Gus,” Jake said. “You can’t just trot off from Dan Suggs.” “You shut your damn mouth, Spoon,” Dan Suggs said. “These friends of yours are no more than rank outlaws. I don’t see no badges on them. They got their damn gall, taking us to jail.” Pea Eye and Newt stopped and dismounted. Newt saw that Jake was tied like the rest.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Jake was lying on his saddle blanket feeling drunk and depressed. Dan Suggs had shot the old man driving the wagon at a hundred yards’ distance, without even speaking to him. Dan had been hiding in the trees along the creek, so the old man died without even suspecting that he was in danger. He only had about thirty dollars on him, but he had four jugs of whiskey, and they were divided equally, although Dan claimed he ought to have two for doing the shooting. Jake had been drinking steadily, hoping he would get so drunk the Suggses would just go off and leave him. But he knew they wouldn’t. For one thing, he had eight hundred dollars on him, won in poker games in Fort Worth, and if Dan Suggs didn’t know it, he certainly suspected it. They wouldn’t leave him without robbing him, or rob him without killing him, so for the time being his hope was to ride along and not rile Dan.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Let’s stay the night,” he heard a man say. “I’m too full of liquor to be chousing horses in the dark.” “It’ll sober you up,” another voice said. “It’s cooler traveling at night.” “Why travel?” the first man said. “Some more wagons might come along and we could rob ’em. It’s easier than banks.” “Eddie, you’re as lazy as Jake,” the second voice said. “Neither one of you pulls your weight in this outfit.” “I’d have to be quick to beat you at killing people, Dan.’ little Eddie said.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Jake hardly knew what to think. He had just seen two men shot in the space of seconds. He had no idea why. By the time he got near the tent Dan Suggs had drug a little trunk outside and was rifling it. He pitched the clothes which were in the trunk out on the grass. His brothers rode over to join the fun, and were soon holding up various garments, to see if they fit. Jake rode over too, feeling nervous. Dan Suggs was clearly in a killing mood. Both farmers lay dead on the grass near their mule team, which was quietly grazing. Both had bullet holes in their foreheads. Dan had shot them at point-blank range.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Looking back on it, it seemed to him that he had been remarkably lucky to survive as long as he had in such a rough place, where killing was an everyday affair. No man’s luck lasted forever, and the very fact that he had fallen in with the Suggses suggested that his was about exhausted.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“I couldn’t track an elephant and neither could you,” Dan said. “Frog was our tracker. I shot Wilbarger three times, I expect he’ll die.” “I thought we was going to Abilene,” little Eddie said. “Abilene ain’t this way.” Dan sneered at his brother. “I wish Wilbarger had shot you instead of Frog,” he said. “Frog was a damn sight better hand.” Jake thought maybe he had seen the last of the killing. He felt it could be worse. The shooting had all been in pitch- darkness. Wilbarger hadn’t seen him. He couldn’t be connected with the raid. It was luck, of a sort. If he could just get free of the Suggses, he wouldn’t be in such hopeless trouble.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Dish, the friend who had relieved him of the burden of killing his own horse, was the most curious.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“I wish now we’d never traded,” Ben Rainey said. “I never thought anything would happen.” That night there was much discussion of the dangers of handling cattle. Everyone agreed there were dangers, but no one had ever heard of a small cow hooking a horse under the girth before and killing it. Newt traded shifts with the Irishman and then traded again with his replacement, four hours later. He wanted to be in the dark, where people couldn’t see him cry. Mouse had never behaved like other horses, and now he had even found a unique way to die. Newt had had him for eight years and felt his loss so keenly that for the first time on the drive he wished it wouldn’t get light so soon.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Them punkin’ rollers,” Dan Suggs said contemptuously. “If they was to follow we’d thin them out in a hurry.” Jake fell into a gloom—it seemed he could do nothing right. He hardly asked for more in life than a clean saloon to gamble in and a pretty whore to sleep with, that and a little whiskey to drink. He had no desire to be shooting people—evenduring his years in the Rangers he seldom actually drew aim at anyone, although he cheerfully threw off shots in the direction of the enemy. He certainly didn’t consider himself a killer: in battle, Call and Gus were capable of killing ten to his one.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Jake mounted, but he was reluctant to leave. It occurred to him that if he went back to the nesters he might bluff his way out of it. After all, it had been self-defense—even dirt farmers from Missouri could understand that. The nesters were looking their way, but none of them were offering to fight. If he turned and rode into the Territory, he would be carrying two killings against his name. In neither case had he meant to kill, or even known the man he killed. It was just more bad luck—noticing a pretty girl on a wagon seat was where it started in this case.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Besides that, killing could always work two ways. Gus was fond of saying that even the meanest bad man could always run into someone meaner and quicker. Dan Suggs could easily meet a violent end, in which case the others might not care who stayed or went.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Jake drank liberally, for he felt uncomfortable. He had not meant to slip into such rough company and was worried, for now that he had slipped in, he could see that it wasn’t going to be any too easy to slip back out. After all, he had heard them discuss killing a whole crew of cowboys, calculating the killings as casually as they might pick ticks off a dog. He had been in much questionable company in his life, but the Suggs brothers weren’t questionable. They were just hard.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“We oughta go get them boys out of jail,” Roy Suggs said. “They might make good regulators.” “If a girl and one sheriff can take ’em, I wouldn’t want ’em,” Dan Suggs said. “Besides, I had some trouble with Jim once, myself. I’d go watch him hang, if I had time, damn him.” Their talk, it seemed, was mostly of killing. Even little Eddie, the youngest, claimed to have killed three men, two nesters and a Mexican. The rest of the outfit didn’t mention numbers, but Jake had no doubt that he was riding with accomplished killers. Dan Suggs seemed to hate everybody he knew—he spoke in the vilest language of everyone, but his particular hatred was cowboys. He had trailed a herd once and not done well with it, and it had left him resentful of those with better luck.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

One little shot during a card game in Arkansas had started things happening—things he couldn’t see the end of. The shot had ended up killing more than a dentist. Sean O’Brien, Bill Spettle, and the three people who were traveling with July Johnson had lost their lives so far, and Montana nowhere in sight.
>> 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.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Call was interesting to observe in a battle too. It took a fight to bring out the fighter in him, and a fighter was mostly what he was. Call was a great attacker. Once the enemy was sighted, he liked to go after them, and would often do so in defiance of the odds. He might plan elaborately before a battle, but once it was joined his one desire was to close with the enemy and destroy him. Call had destruction in him and would go on killing when there was no need. Once his blood heated, it was slow to cool. Call himself had never been beaten for good—only death could accomplish that—and he reasoned that if an enemy was alive he wasn’t beaten either—not for good.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Now speech had left her; fear took its place. The two white men talked constantly of killing. Blue Duck didn’t talk about it, but she knew he could do it whenever it pleased him. She didn’t expect to live to the end of any day—only the fact that the men weren’t tired of her yet kept her alive. When they did tire they would kill her. She thought about how it would happen but couldn’t picture it in her mind. She only hoped it wasn’t Blue Duck that finally did it. She was so dirty and stank so that it seemed strange the men would even want to use her, but of course they were even dirtier and stank worse. They camped not far from a creek, but none of the men ever washed. Monkey John told her several times what he would do to her if she tried to run away—terrible things, on the order of what Blue Duck had threatened, on the morning after he kidnapped her, only worse if possible. He said he would sew her up with rawhide threads so tight she couldn’t make water and then would watch her till she burst.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Once the men were handcuffed and tied, July got them onto their horses and tied their feet to the stirrups. Hutto and Jim he knew by reputation, for they had harried the east Texas trails for the last year or two, mostly robbing settlers but occasionally killing those who put up a fight. He had expected to find Roscoe eventually, but not the two bandits. Now something would have to be done with them before he could even ask Roscoe all the questions he wanted to ask about Elmira. Also, there was the rock-thrower—Janey, Roscoe had called her. Why was a Janey traveling with Roscoe? Indeed, where was she? The rock-throwing had stopped but no one had appeared.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Nobody saw July come. Hutto was reaching in his pocket for shells and Jim was trying to fish those he had dropped out of the mud. Roscoe was watching Jim, whom he liked least. He was hoping to see a big rock hit Jim right between the eyes, perhaps cracking his skull. It wouldn’t stop Hutto from killing him, but it would be some consolation if Jim got his skull cracked first.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Roscoe was beginning to feel more hopeful. He was remembering all the varmints Janey had brought into camp—probably she had used them to sharpen her aim. His hope was she’d start throwing for the head before the men got around to killing him.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Dern, I wonder where that greasy bandit was going,” he said. “I’ve heard of him killing in Galveston; maybe that’s where he’s going. I wish now I’d have shot him while he was drinking.” He tried again to get Lorena to come over to the cow camp, but Lorena just shook her head. She wasn’t going anywhere, and what’s more, she was through talking. It did no good, never had.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“I can’t wait all day just for the chance to shoot two worn-out old Rangers.” he said. “There are plenty that need killing besides you two.” “I guess Charlie Goodnight must have run you off,” Augustus said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be off down here in respectable country riding some dead Mexican’s saddle.” The man smiled a hard smile. “If you ever bring that goddamned old tongue of yours north of the Canadian I’ll cut it out and feed it to my wolf pups,” he said. “That and your nuts too.” Without another look he rode past them and on out of the camp.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

It had been taken in the year they chased Kicking Wolf and his band all the way to the Canadian, killing over twenty of them. Kicking Wolf had raided down the Brazos, messing up several families of settlers and scaring people in the little settlements. Driving them back to the Canadian had made the Rangers heroes for a time, though Call had known it was hollow praise. Kicking Wolf hadn’t been taken or killed, and there was nothing to keep him on the Canadian for long. But for a few weeks, everywhere they went there was some photographer with his box, wanting to take their picture. One had cornered them in the Buckhorn and made them stand stiffly while he got his shot.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Well, if you was earning it, the man wouldn’t have got away in the first place,” Peach continued. “You could have shot him down, which would have been no more than he deserved.” Roscoe was uneasily aware that he was held culpable in some quarters for Jake’s escape. The truth was, the killing had confused him, for he had been a good deal fonder of Jake than of Ben. Also it was a shock and a surprise to find Ben lying in the street with a big hole in him. Everyone else had been surprised too—Peach herself had fainted. Half the people in the saloon seemed to think the mule skinner had shot Ben, and by the time Roscoe got their stories sorted out Jake was long gone. Of course it had been mostly an accident, but Peach didn’t see it that way. She wanted nothing less than to see Jake hang, and probably would have if Jake had not had the good sense to leave.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Then Xavier began to pull money out of his pocket. It was hard to say how much he held out to her, but it was a good deal more than fifty dollars. It might even be a hundred dollars. The sight of it made her feel tired. No matter what plans she made or how she tried to live, some man would always be looking at her and holding out money. Without giving it much thought, Mosby had started something that nothing seemed to stop. She thought Jake had stopped it, but he hadn’t. His talk about killing men was just talk. If he had cared that much he would have shot Gus, friend or no friend. It was hard to believe he would even shoot Xavier—probably he would just give her another slap and forget about it.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇