“Goddamn the old son of a bitch,” Dan said. “I guess he’s killed Frog. Go get Eddie, Roy.” “You told him to come, I guess he’ll come,” Roy said.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Where’s that goddamn kid?” Dan asked. “I told him to bring them horses. Old Wilbarger’s getting away. Where’d you get hit, Frog?” Frog Lip didn’t answer.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Jake didn’t answer. He was just glad he had not been forced to shoot anybody. It seemed ridiculous, attacking men in the dark. Even Indians waited until sunup. He took some hope from the fact that Frog Lip claimed to have been hit, though how anybody knew where to shoot was a mystery to him.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Frog, did you get him?” he heard Dan Suggs ask.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

When the first shot came, he didn’t know who fired it, though he saw a flash from a rifle barrel. It seemed so far away that he almost felt it must be another battle. Then gunfire flared just in front of him, too much to be produced by three men, it seemed. So much shooting panicked him for a second and he fired twice into the darkness, with no idea of whathe might be shooting at. He heard gunfire behind him—it was Frog Lip shooting. He began to sense running figures, although it was not clear to him who they were. Then there were five or six shots close together, like sudden thunder, and the sound of a running horse. Jake could see almost nothing—once in a while he would think he saw a man, but he couldn’t be sure.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Hell, Roy couldn’t hit his foot if it was nailed to a tree,” Dan said. “Anyway, we’re gonna let Jake shoot them—he’s the man with the reputation.” He took the rifle and walked off. Jake and the others followed. There was no sign of a campfire, no sign of anything but plains and darkness. Though Frog Lip had said the men were close, it seemed to Jake they walked a long time. He didn’t see the horses until he almost bumped into one. For a moment he thought of trying to grab a horse and run away bareback. The commotion would warn Wilbarger, and maybe one or two of the Suggs boys would get shot. But the horse quickly stepped away from him and the moment passed. He drew his pistol, not knowing what else to do. They had found the horses, but he didn’t know where the camp was. Frog Lip was near him, watching, Jake supposed.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Hell, no, don’t shoot,” Dan said. “Do you think I’d ride all this way and swim a river just to miss the fun? Come on back when you find ’em.” Frog Lip was back in a few minutes.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Go find them, Frog,” he said. “I doubt they’re far.” “Do I shoot or not?” the black man asked.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Late in the afternoon Dan Suggs got up and took a piss by the spring. Then he lay down on his belly and had a long drink of water. When he got up, he mounted his horse and rode off, without a word to anyone. His brothers quickly mounted and followed him, and Jake had no choice but to do the same. Frog Lip, as usual, brought up the rear.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Jake knew he was trapped. He could not fight four men. The Suggs brothers all took naps, but Frog Lip sat by the spring all afternoon, cleaning his guns.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Frog Lip just looked at him, neither smiling nor frowning. The insolence of the look was so great that for a moment Jake contemplated gunplay. He wanted to shoot the look off the black man’s face. But instead he touched his horse lightly with the spurs and followed the Suggs brothers across the plain. He felt angry—the barber and the whore he had been looking forward to had been put off. Soon he heard the black man’s horse fall in behind him.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“He is, but so am I,” Dan Suggs said. “I never liked the man. I see no reason why we shouldn’t have them horses.” Roy Suggs was not greatly pleased by his brother’s behavior. “Have ’em and do what with ’em?” he asked. “We can’t sell ’em in Dodge if Wilbarger’s just been there.” “Dodge ain’t the only town in Kansas,” Dan said. “We can sell ’em in Abilene.” With no further discussion, he turned and rode southwest at a slow trot. His brothers followed. Jake sat for a moment, his lucky feeling gone and a sense of dread in its place. He thought maybe the Suggs brothers would forget him and he could ride on to Dodge, but then he saw Frog Lip looking at him. The black man was impassive.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

It was a sunny day, and Jake rode along happily. Sometimes he got a lucky feeling—the feeling that he was meant for riches and beautiful women and that nothing could keep him down for long. The lucky feeling came to him as he rode, and the main part of it was his sense that he was about to get free of the Suggs brothers. They were hard men, and he had made a bad choice in riding with them, but nothing very terrible had come of it, and they were almost to Dodge. It seemed to him he had slid into bad luck in Arkansas the day he accidentally shot the dentist, and now he was about to slide out of it in Kansas and resume the kind of enjoyable life he felt he deserved. Frog Lip was riding just in front of him, and he felt how nice it would be not to have to consort with such a man again. Frog Lip rode along silently, as he had the whole trip, but there was menace in his silence, and Jake was ready for lighter company—a whore, particularly. There were sure to be plenty of them in Dodge.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“I wonder if them soddies will get that roof fixed before the next rain?” Dan Suggs said. “If they had had a little more cash, Frog might have left them alone.” Frog Lip didn’t comment.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Well, it was your idea,” Dan said. “You wanted the practice, and you got it.” “He’s mad because he didn’t get to shoot nobody,” Roy said. “He thinks he’s a shooter.” “Well, this is a gun outfit, ain’t it?” little Eddie said. “We ain’t cowboys, so what are we then?” “Travelers,” Dan said. “Right now we’re traveling to Kansas, looking for what we can find.” Frog Lip rejoined them as silently as he had left. Despite himself Jake could not conquer his fear of the man. Frog Lip hadnever said anything hostile to him, or even looked his way on the whole trip, and yet Jake felt a sort of apprehension whenever he even rode close to the man. In all his travels in the west he had met few men who gave off such a sense of danger. Even Indians didn’t—although of course there had been few occasions when he had ridden close to an Indian.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“That Frog,” Dan Suggs said. “I guess he just wanted to ventilate the house a little.” “All we got was four dollars,” little Eddie said.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Frog Lip rode up beside the cows and fired a couple of shots into the air. When the cows started a lumbering run, he skillfully turned them up the slope and chased them right onto the roof of the sod house. The sod on the roof had grass still on it and looked not unlike the prairie. The cows took a few steps onto the roof and then their forequarters disappeared, as if they had fallen into a hole. Then their hindquarters disappeared too. Frog Lip reined in his horse and watched as both cows fell through the roof of the sod house. A minute later one came squeezing out the small door, and the other followed. Both cows trotted back to where they had been grazing.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“What’s he aim to do, shoot the milk cows?” little Eddie asked; for Frog Lip had his pistol in his hand.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Jake was glad to see it come to no worse than that, but as they were riding away Frog Lip turned and loped over to the milk cows.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Go with him and see what you can find, boys,” Dan said. “Me and Jake can ride herd on the family, I guess. They don’t look too violent.” Ten minutes later the boy came racing back, crying again, and Frog Lip and the two younger Suggses followed. They had an old leather wallet with them, which Roy Suggs threw to Dan. It had two small gold pieces in it.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Maybe this old Dutchman married an American gal.” Frog Lip loped over and drove the woman and the boy near the farmer; he rode so close to them that if they had fallen his horse would have stepped on them. He had taken the pistol out of his belt, but he didn’t need it. The woman and the boy were terrified, and the fanner too. He put his arms around his wife and child, and they all stood there, crying.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Oh, hell, a damn German,” Dan said. “I figured this was a waste of time. Round up the woman and the sprout, Frog.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“They usually hide their money in the chimney,” he said. “Either that or they bury it in the orchard, though I don’t see no orchard.” Frog Lip kept an extra pistol in his saddlebags. As they approached the fanner he got it out and stuck it in his belt.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“No, that’s Frog Lip’s job, scaring them punkin’-eaters,” Dan said. “He’ll scare them a sight worse than you will.” The next day Frog Lip got his chance. They saw a man plowing beside a team of big horses. A woman and a small boy were carrying buffalo chips in a wheelbarrow and piling them beside a low sod house that was dug into a slope. Two milk cows grazed nearby.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

The Suggs brothers kept plenty of whiskey on hand, and Jake began to avail himself of it. He stayed half drunk most of the time as they rode north. Even though he had killed a man in plain sight of them, the Suggses didn’t treat him with any new respect. Of course, they didn’t offer one another much respect either. Dan and Roy both poured scorn on little Eddie if he slipped up in his chores or made a remark they disagreed with. The only man of the company who escaped their scorn was Frog Lip—they seldom spoke to him, and he seldom spoke, but everyone knew he was there.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇