词汇：snake

n. 蛇；阴险的人

相关场景

“Now if them snakes had come at Bol, he would have had a chance,” Augustus said. “He has his ten-gauge.” “The storm stirred’ them up,” Deets said again. He felt guilty, for he had chosen the crossing in preference to one up the river, and now a boy was dead.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Newt held his reins, still crying, and let Mouse do the work. He remembered Sean’s screams, and how much the snakes had looked like giant wiggly worms. When at last the cattle were started back toward the main herd the Captain put his horse back into the river, which startled Newt. He didn’t see how anybody could just ride back into a river that could suddenly be filled with snakes, but this time no snakes appeared. Newt saw that Mr. Gus and Deets had not moved, and wondered if Sean was dead yet. He kept feeling he ought to leave the cattle and go talk to Sean, even if it was too late for Sean to answer, but he was afraid to. He didn’t know what to do, and he sat on his horse and cried until he started vomiting. He had to lean over and vomit beneath his horse’s neck.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“Are you snake-bit, Pea?” he asked, for in the confusion a man could get wounds he wasn’t aware of. He had known more than one man to take bullets without noticing it; one Ranger had been so frightened when his wound was pointed out to him that he died of fright, not the bullet.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Pea, who had been the first to the rescue, swimming his mount right into the midst of the snakes, suddenly felt so weakhe thought he would fall off his horse. He dismounted, clinging to the horn in case his legs gave out.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
He had seen the occasional snake in rivers along the coast but never more than one or two together; there had been at least twenty, probably more, around the boy. On the south bank, the horse he had ridden was rolling over and over in the mud, ignored by the frightened cowboys. Maybe the horse was bitten too.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Call knelt by the boy, helpless to do one thing for him. It was the worst luck—to come all the way from Ireland and then ride into a swarm of water moccasins. He remembered, years before, in a hot droughty summer, stopping to water his horse in a drying lake far up the Brazos—he had ridden his horse in so he could drink and had happened to look down and see that the muddy shallows of the lake were alive with cottonmouths. The puddles were like nests, filled with wiggling snakes, as brown as chocolate. Fortunately he had not ridden into such a puddle. The sight unnerved him so that he shot a snake on reflex—a useless act, to shoot one where there were hundreds.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“It was his bad luck to strike a nest of them, I guess,” Augustus said. “I never seen a nest of snakes in this river before and I’ve crossed it a hundred times. I never seen that many snakes in any river.” “The storm got ’em stirred up,” Deets said.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“That don’t count the legs,” Augustus said. “There ain’t no point in counting the legs.” “What done it?” Dish asked. He had seen the snakes plainly and had even wanted to shoot them, but he couldn’t believe it or understand it.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Twice more he shot and two more snakes disappeared. The Captain rode close to Pea and helped him support Sean’s body.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Pea Eye and the Captain were beating about themselves with their coiled ropes. Newt saw Sean come to the surface downstream, but he wasn’t screaming any more. Pea leaned far off his horse and managed to catch Sean’s arm, but then his horse got frightened of the snakes and Pea lost his hold. Deets was close by. When Sean came up again Pea got him by the collar and held on. Sean was silent, though Newt could see that his mouth was open. Deets got Pea’s horse by the bridle and kept it still. Pea managed to get his hands under Sean’s arms and drag him across the saddle. The snakes had scattered, but several could be seen on the surface of the river. Dish Boggett had his rifle drawn but was too shaken by the sight to shoot. Deets waved him back. Suddenly there was a loud crack—Mr. Gus had shot a snake with his big Colt.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Then the screams stopped abruptly as Sean slipped under the water—his voice was replaced almost at once by the frenzied neighing of the horse, which began to thrash in the water and soon turned back toward the far bank. As he gained a footing and rose out of the water he shook three snakes from his body, one slithering off his neck.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
They both had coiled ropes in their hands as they raced their horses back into the water—Newt wondered what they meant to do with the ropes. Then his eyes found Sean, who was screaming again and again, in a way that made Newt want to cover his ears. He saw that Sean was barely clinging to his horse, and that a lot of brown things were wiggling around him and over him. At first, with the screaming going on, Newt couldn’t figure out what the brown things were—they seemed like giant worms. His mind took a moment to work out what his eyes were seeing. The giant worms were snakes—water moccasins. Even as the realization struck him, Mr. Gus and Deets went into the river behind Pea Eye and the Captain. How they all got there so fast he couldn’t say, for the screams had started just as Mouse and the steer reached the top of the bank, so close that Newt could see the droplets of water on the steer’s horns.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
But as the lightning came closer thunder came with it—the sound seemed to roll over them like giant boulders. Mouse flinched, and Newt began to flinch too. Then, instead of running across the horizon like snakes’ tongues, the lightning began to drive into the earth, with streaks thick as poles, and with terrible cracks.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Now his thumb was swollen to twice its size, for a green mesquite thorn was only slightly less poisonous than a rattlesnake. Besides, he had slept badly on the stony ground, and Lorie had refused him again, when all he wanted was a little pleasure to take his mind off his throbbing thumb. They were camped only two miles from town and could easily have ridden back and slept comfortably in the Dry Bean, but when he suggested it Lorie showed her stubborn streak and refused. He could go back if he cared to—she wasn’t. So he had stayed and slept poorly, worrying most of the night about snakes. As much camping as he had done, it was a fear that never left him.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“You’ll have to pardon the grub,” Augustus said. “Bol has learned to season but he forgot to learn to cook.” Bolivar was resting comfortably against a wagon wheel and ignored the sally. He was wavering in his mind whether to stay or go. He did not like travel—the thought of it made him unhappy. And yet, when he went home to Mexico he felt unhappy too, for his wife was disappointed in him and let him know it every day. He had never been sure what she wanted—after all, their children were beautiful—but whatever it was, he had not been able to give it to her. His daughters were his delight, but they would soon all marry and be gone, leaving him no protection from his wife. Probably he would shoot his wife if he went home. He had shot an irritating horse, right out from under himself. A man’s patience sometimes simply snapped. He had shot the horse right between the ears and then found it difficult to get the saddle off,once the horse fell. Probably he would shoot his wife in the same way, if he went home. Many times he had been tempted to shoot one or another of the members of the Hat Creek outfit, but of course if he did that he would be immediately shot in return. Every day he thought he might go home, but he didn’t. It was easier to stay and cut up a few snakes into the cook pot than to listen to his wife complain.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“You boys must have been raised on satin pillows,” he said. “If you’d rangered you’d have got a taste for snake long ago.” He then proceeded to give them a lecture on the culinary properties of rattlesnake—a lecture that Jasper, for one, received rather stiffly. It might be superior to chicken, rabbit and possum, as Gus claimed, but that didn’t mean he wanted to eat it. His visits to the stewpot became a source of irritation to everyone; he would fish around in the pot for several minutes, seeking portions of meat that he could feel confident hadn’t come from a snake. Such delicacy exacerbated the rest of the crew, who were usually so hungry by suppertime that they could ill abide waits.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Then one day Jasper Fant caught Bolivar skinning a rattlesnake. He assumed Bolivar was merely going to make himself a rattlesnake belt, but he happened to turn around as Bol sliced the snake right into the stewpot, a sight which agitated him greatly. He had heard that people ate snake but had never expected to do so himself. When he told the other hands what he had seen they were so aroused that they wanted to hang Bolivar on the spot, or at least rope him and drag him through the prickly pear to improve his manners. But when they approached Augustus with the information about the snake, he laughed at them.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Deets had had such restlessness once, and had had no woman to cure it, but years and hard work had worn the edge off it, and he could relax and enjoy the quiet of the night, if he was let alone. He liked sitting with his back against the water trough, listening to the horses settling themselves. From time to time one would come to the trough and drink, sucking the water into its mouth in long draughts. Across the pen two horses were stamping and snorting nervously, but Deets didn’t get up to go look. Probably it was just a snake that had snaked too close to the pen. A snake wasn’t going to fool with horses if it could help it.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
What would you do with a pig once you rented it?” “Why, there’s plenty of useful tasks pigs can do,” Augustus said. “They could clean the snakes out of a cellar, if a man had a cellar. Or they can soak up mud puddles. Stick a few pigs in a mud puddle and pretty soon the puddle’s gone.” It was a burning day, and Call was sweated down. “If I could find anything as cool as a mud puddle I’d soak it up myself,” he said.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“Call ain’t never been my boss,” Augustus said. “It’s no say-so of his when I drink.” Jake looked off across the scrubby pastures. There were tufts of grass here and there, but mostly the ground looked hard as flint. Heat waves were rising off it like fumes off kerosene. Something moved in his line of vision, and for a moment he thought he saw some strange brown animal under a chaparral bush. Looking more closely he saw that it was the old Mexican’s bare backside.“Hell, why’d he take a rope if all he meant to do was shit?” he asked. “Where’d you get the greasy old bastard?” “We’re running a charitable home for retired criminals,” Augustus said. “If you’d just retire you’d qualify.” “Dern, I forgot how ugly this country is,” Jake said. “I guess if there was a market for snake meat, this would be the place to get rich.” With that he put his hat over his face, and within no more than two minutes began a gentle snoring. Augustus returned the jug to the springhouse. It occurred to him that while Jake was napping he might pay a visit to Lorie; once she fell under Jake’s spell he would probably require her to suspend professional activities for a while.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Augustus was not particularly nervous, but even so he had hardly started down the street before he got a scare: a little ball of shadow ran right at his feet. He jumped sideways, fearing snakebite, although his brain knew snakes didn’t roll like balls. Then he saw an armadillo hustle past his feet. Once he saw what it was, he tried to give it a kick to teach it not to walk in the street scaring people, but the armadillo hurried right along as if it had as much right to the street as a banker.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
After supper, when Call left for the river, Augustus, Pea Eye, Newt, Bolivar and the pigs repaired to the porch. The pigs nosed around in the yard, occasionally catching a lizard or a grasshopper, a rat snake or an unwary locust. Bolivar brought out a whetstone and spent twenty minutes or so sharpening the fine bone-handled knife that he wore at his belt. The handle was made from the horn of a mule deer and the thin blade flashed in the moonlight as Bolivar carefully drew it back and forth across the whetstone, spitting on the stone now and then to dampen its surface.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Pea Eye wasn’t spitting out any mash whiskey. He had a skinny neck—his Adam’s apple bulged so when he drank that it reminded Augustus of a snake with a frog stuck in its gullet.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“Git from here, shoat,” Augustus said. “If you’re that hungry go hunt up another snake.” It occurred to him that a leather belt couldn’t be much tougher or less palatable than the fried goat Bolivar served up three or four times a week. The old man had been a competent Mexican bandit before he ran out of steam and crossed the river. Since then he had led a quiet life, but it was a fact that goat kept turning up on the table. The Hat Creek Cattle Company didn’t trade in them, and it was unlikely that Bolivar was buying them out of his own pocket—stealing goats was probably his way of keeping up his old skills. His old skills did not include cooking. The goat meat tasted like it had been fried in tar, but Augustus was the only member of the establishment sensitive enough to raise a complaint. “Bol, where’d you get the tar you fried this goat in?” he asked regularly, his quiet attempt at wit falling as usual on deaf ears. Bolivar ignored all queries, direct or indirect.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
The two pigs had quietly disregarded Augustus’s orders to go to the creek, and were under one of the wagons, eating the snake. That made good sense, for the creek was just as dry as the wagon yard, and farther off. Fifty weeks out of the year Hat Creek was nothing but a sandy ditch, and the fact that the two pigs didn’t regard it as a fit wallow was a credit to their intelligence. Augustus often praised the pigs’ intelligence in a running argument he had been having with Call for the last few years. Augustus maintained that pigs were smarter than all horses and most people, a claim that galled Call severely.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇