词汇：cattle

n. [总称]牛；家畜；牲畜（骂人的话）；无价值的人

相关场景

Newt found that he had no urge either to talk or listen, but he did have an urge to stay warm, and he spent as much time by the fire as he honorably could. The only parts of his body that he was still conscious of were his hands, feet and ears, all of which were dreadfully cold. When the storm abated and they rode out to check the cattle he tied an old flannel shirt over his ears and they still felt frozen.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
But nothing like that happened, and when he had settled on a headquarters, he told the men to drive the cattle east for a day and then let them graze at will. The drive was over. The ranch would lie between the Milk and the Missouri. He would file on the land in the spring.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Frequently he gave no orders—merely ate his breakfast and rode off, leaving them with puzzled expressions on their faces. An hour later, when he looked back, he would see that they were following, and that, too, irritated him. Sometimes he felt he would prefer to look back and see the plains empty, all the followers and cattle vanished.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
That night, camping alone, he dreamed of Gus. Frequently he woke up to hear Gus’s voice, so real he looked around expecting to see him. Sometimes he would scarcely fall asleep before he dreamed of Gus, and it was even beginning to happen in the daytime if he rode along not paying much attention to his surroundings. Gus dead invaded his thoughts as readily as he had when he was alive. Usually he came to josh and tease, much as he had in life. “Just because you’ve got to the top of the country, you don’t have to stop,” he said, in one dream. “Turn east and keep going until you hit Chicago.” Call didn’t want to turn east, but neither did he particularly want to stop. Gus’s death, and the ones before it, had caused him to lose his sense of purpose to such an extent that he scarcely cared from one day to the next what he was doing. Hekept on going north because it had become a habit. But they had reached the Milk River and winter was coming, so he had to break the habit or else lose most of the men and probably the cattle too.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
OLD HIGH AULD soon replaced Augustus as the main talker in the Hat Creek outfit. He caught up with the herd, with his wagonload of coats and supplies, near the Missouri, which they crossed near Fort Benton. The soldiers at the tiny outpost were as surprised to see the cowboys as if they were men from another planet. The commander, a lanky major named Court, could scarcely believe his eyes when he looked up and saw the herd spread out over the plain. When told that most of the cattle had been gathered below the Mexican border he was astonished, but not too astonished to buy two hundred head. Buffalo were scarce, and the fort not well provisioned.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
The cattle were spread for three miles over the great plain, grazing peacefully along. No sooner had the hands spotted him than Dish and Needle Nelson came racing over. Both looked scared.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Remember, we stopped by there a minute?” “My God,” Call said, thinking his friend must be delirious. “You want me to haul you to Texas? We just got to Montana.” “I know where you just got,” Augustus said. “My burial can wait a spell. I got nothing against wintering in Montana. Just pack me in salt or charcoal or what you will. I’ll keep well enough and you can make the trip in the spring. You’ll be a rich cattle king by then and might need a restful trip.” Call looked at his friend closely. Augustus looked sober and reasonably serious.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“I’ve funds in a bank in San Antonio,” Augustus said. “Also I own half a cattle herd. It ought to be north of the Yellowstone by now.” “I brought pen and ink,” the doctor said. “If I were you I’d make your will while you’re still sober.” Augustus drank all afternoon and did not use the pen or ink. Once, when the music stopped, he looked out the window and saw a skinny pockmarked girl in a black dress standing in the street looking up at him curiously. He waved but could not be sure she saw him. He took another twenty-dollar gold piece from his pants pocket and sailed it out the window toward her. It landed in the street, to the puzzlement of the girl. She walked over and picked up the gold piece, looking up.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“Looks like you’d be satisfied,” Jasper said. “Ain’t we traveled enough? I’d like to step into a saloon in good old Fort Worth, myself. I’d like to see my home again while my folks are still alive.” “Why, that ain’t the plan,” Augustus said. “We’re up here to start a ranch. Home and hearth don’t interest us. We hired you men for life. You ought to have said goodbye to the old folks before you left.” “What are we going to do, now that we’re here?” Lippy asked. The question was on everyone’s minds. Usually when a cattle drive ended the men just turned around and went back to Texas, but then most drives stopped in Kansas, which seemed close to home compared to where they were now. Many of them harbored secret doubts about their ability to navigate a successful return to Texas. Of course, they knew the direction, but they would have to make the trip in winter, and the Indians that hadn’t been troublesome on the way north might want to fight as they went south.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“But he never interested me, Dad,” he went on. “I lit out from that place when I was thirteen years old, and I ain’t stopped yet. I didn’t care one way or the other for Dad. I just seen that horses and hounds would get boring if you tried to make ’em a life. I ’spect I’d have wrecked every marriage in the county if I’d stayed in Tennessee. Or else have got killed in a duel.” Newt knew Mr. Gus was trying to be kind, but he wasn’t listening. Much of his life he had wondered who his father was and where he might be. He felt it would be a relief to know. But now he knew, and it wasn’t a relief. There was something in it that thrilled him—he was Captain Call’s son—but more that felt sad. He was glad when Mr. Gus put the horses in a lope—he didn’t have to think as much. They loped along over the grassy plains toward the cattle in the far distance. The cattle looked tiny as ants.THE MEN BEGAN TO TALK of the Yellowstone River as if it were the place where the world ended—or, at least, the place where the drive would end. In their thinking it had taken on a magical quality, partly because no one really knew anything about it. Jasper Fant had somehow picked up the rumor that the Yellowstone was the size of the Mississippi, and as deep.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
With Deets dead, Augustus and Call alternated the scouting duties. One day Augustus asked Newt to ride along with him, much to Newt’s surprise. In the morning they saw a grizzly, but the bear was far upwind and didn’t scent them. It was a beautiful day—no clouds in the sky. Augustus rode with his big rifle propped across the saddle—he was in the highest of spirits. They rode ahead of the herd some fifteen miles or more, and yet when they stopped to look back they could still see the cattle, tiny black dots in the middle of the plain, with the southern horizon still far behind them.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“I guess I am now.” “No, you’re a fighter,” Augustus said. “We should have left these damn cows down in Texas. You used them as an excuse to come up here, when you ain’t interested in them and didn’t need an excuse anyway. I think we oughta just give them to the Indians when the Indians show up.” “Give the Indians three thousand cattle?” Call said, amazed at the notions his friend had. “Why do that?” “Because then we’d be shut of them,” Augustus said. “We could follow our noses, for a change, instead of following their asses. Ain’t you bored?” “I don’t think like you do,” Call said. “They’re ours. We got ’em. I don’t plan on giving them to anybody.” “I miss Texas and I miss whiskey,” Augustus said. “Now here we are in Montana and there’s no telling what will become of us.” “Miles City’s up here somewhere,” Call said. “You can buy whiskey.” “Yes, but I’ll have to drink it indoors,” Augustus complained. “It’s cool up here.” As if to confirm his remark, the very next day an early storm blew out of the Bighorns. An icy wind came up and snow fell in the night. The men on night herd wrapped blankets around themselves to keep warm. A thin snow covered the plains in the morning, to the amazement of everyone. The Spettle boy was so astonished to wake and see it that he refused to come out of his blankets at first, afraid of what might happen. He lay wide-eyed, looking at the whiteness. Only when he saw the other hands tramping in it without ill effect did he get up.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
They were happy girls; they laughed often. It pleased Clara to hear them. She wondered if Bob could hear his two lively daughters laughing, as he lay dying. She wondered if it helped, if it made up in any way for her bad tempers and the deaths of the three boys. He had counted so on those boys—they would be his help, boys. Bob had never talked much, but the one thing he did talk about was how much they would get done once the boys got big enough to do their part of the work. Often, just hearing him describe the fences they would build, or the barns, or the cattle they would buy, Clara felt out of sorts—it made her feel very distant from Bob that he saw their boys mainly as hired hands that he wouldn’t have to pay. He sees them different, she thought. For her part, she just liked to have them there. She liked to look at them as they sat around the table, liked to watch them swimming and frolicking in the river, liked to sit by them sometimes when they slept, listening to them breathe. Yet they had died, and both she and Bob lost what they loved—Bob his dreams of future work with his sons, she the immediate pleasure of having sons to look at, to touch, to scold and tease and kiss.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“I didn’t want to either,” Allen O’Brien admitted. “If we had gone in the trees we might not have come out.” The mules had run three miles before stopping, but because the plain was fairly smooth, the wagon was undamaged. The same could not be said for Lippy, who had bounced so hard at one point that he had bitten his tongue nearly in two. The tongue bled for hours, little streams of blood spilling over his long lip. The remuda was eventually rounded up, as well as the cattle.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
To the amazement of all who saw it, the bear batted the Texas bull aside. He rose on his hind legs again, dealt the bull a swipe with his forepaw that knocked the bull off its feet. The bull was up in a second and charged the bear again—this time it seemed the bear almost skinned him. He hit the bull on the shoulder and ripped a capelike piece of skin loose on his back, but despite that, the bull managed to drive into the bear and thrust a horn into his flank. The bear roared and dug his teeth into the bull’s neck, but the bull was still moving, and soon bear and bull were rolling over and over in the dust, the bull’s bellows and the bear’s roar so loud that the cattle did panic and begin to run. The Hell Bitch danced backward, and Augustus’s horse began to pitch again and threw him, though Augustus held the rein and managed to get his rifle out of the scabbard before the horse broke free and fled. Then Call found himself thrown too; the Hell Bitch, catlike, had simply doubled out from under him.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
The bear dropped on all fours, watching the bull. He growled a rough, throaty growl that caused a hundred or so cattle to scatter and run back a short distance. They stopped again to watch. The bull bellowed and slung a string of slobber over his back. He was hot and angry. He pawed the earth again, then lowered his head and charged the bear.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Indeed, the Hat Creek outfit was in disarray, the wagon and the remuda still fleeing south, half the hands thrown and the other half fighting their horses. The cattle hadn’t run yet, but they were nervous. Newt had been thrown sky-high off the sorrel Clara had given him and had landed painfully on his tailbone. He started to limp back to the wagon, only to discover that the wagon was gone. All that was left of it was Po Campo, who looked puzzled. He was too short to see over the cattle and had no idea there was a bear around.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Instead of fleeing, most of the cattle turned and looked at the bear. The Texas bull stood all by himself in front of the herd.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“Reckon that horse ate loco weed or what?” Call asked, spurring up to go help hold the cattle. He almost went over the mare’s neck, for he leaned forward, expecting her to break into a lope, and the mare stopped dead. It was a shock, for she had been quite obedient lately and had tried no tricks.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
The cattle began to turn too, all except the Texas bull, who let out a loud bellow.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“We’re driving three thousand cattle,” Call said. “They’re bound to notice us.” “They ain’t expecting cattle,” Augustus said. “There’s never been cattle here before. They’re probably just out hunting, trying to lay in enough meat to last them the winter.” “I guess we’ll meet soon enough,” Call said.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Finally Call decided to leave the valley of the Powder. He felt the threat of drought was over. The grass was thick and wavy and there were plenty of streams. Not long after leaving the Powder, they crossed Crazy Woman Creek. Every day it seemed there was more snow on the mountains. Traveling became comparatively easy, and the cattle regained most of the flesh they had lost on the hard drive.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“Let’s take him on,” Call said. “The men will want to pay their respects. I imagine we can catch them tonight.” They caught the herd not long before dawn. Dish Boggett was the night herder who saw them coming. He was very relieved, for with both of them gone, the herd had been his responsibility. Since he didn’t know the country, it was a heavy responsibility, and he had been hoping the bosses would get back soon. When he saw them he felt a little proud of himself, for he had kept the cattle on grass and had moved them along nicely.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
All during the night and the next day, cattle straggled into the river, some of them cattle Call had supposed would merely become carcasses, rotting on the trail. Yet a day on the water worked wonders for them. Augustus and Dish made counts, once the stragglers stopped coming, and it appeared they had only lost six head.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Augustus loped up, seemingly fresh. “We better get everybody to the front,” he said. “We’ll need to try and spread them when they hit the water. Otherwise they’ll all pile into the first mudhole and tromple themselves.” Most of the cattle were too weak to run, but they broke into a trot. Call finally shook the sleep off and helped Dish and Deets and Augustus split the herd. They were only partially successful. The cattle were moving like a blind army, the scent of water in their nostrils. Fortunately they hit the river above where Call had hit it, and there was more water. The cattle spread of their own accord.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇