词汇:settler

n. 移居者;殖民者

相关场景

“Much obliged,” Call said. “I’ve only a short way to go.” The young settlers moved down the ridge toward San Antonio. Call walked down to the little pool, meaning to rest a few minutes. He fell into a heavy sleep and didn’t wake until dawn. The business of the sign worried him, one more evidence of Augustus’s ability to vex well beyond the grave. If one young man supposed it meant there was a livery stable nearby, others would do the same. People might be inconvenienced for days, wandering through the limestone hills, trying to find a company who were mostly ghosts.
“非常感谢,”Call说。“我只有很短的路要走。”年轻的定居者沿着山脊向圣安东尼奥移动。Call走到小池边,打算休息几分钟。他沉沉地睡着了,直到天亮才醒来。这个标志的生意让他很担心,这再次证明奥古斯都有能力在坟墓之外制造麻烦。如果一个年轻人认为这意味着附近有一个制服马厩,其他人也会这么做。人们可能会在石灰岩山上徘徊数天,试图找到一个主要是鬼魂的公司。
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“There,” he said. “This will teach me to be more careful about what I promise.” He used the plank with “Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium” on it as a crossbar, tying it to a long mesquite stick, which he drove into the ground with a big rock. While he was tying the crossbar tight with two saddle strings, a wagon with settlers in it came along the ridge. They were a young couple, with two or three children peeking shyly around them, narrow-faced as young possums. The young man was fair and the sun had blistered him beet-red; his young wife had a bonnet pulled close about her face. It was clear that the grave marker puzzled them. The young man stopped the wagon and stared at it. Not having seen him put Augustus under, they were not sure whether they were looking at a grave, or just a sign.“Where is this Hat Creek outfit, mister?” the young man asked.
“在那里,”他说。“这会让我对自己的承诺更加小心。”他用那块上面写着“帽溪牛公司和Livery Emporium”的木板作为横杆,把它绑在一根长的豆科木棍上,然后用一块大石头把它压到地上。当他用两根马鞍绳把横杆系紧时,一辆载有定居者的马车沿着山脊驶来。他们是一对年轻夫妇,有两三个孩子害羞地在他们周围偷看,脸像小负鼠一样窄。这个年轻人很漂亮,太阳把他晒得通红;他年轻的妻子把一顶帽子紧紧地戴在脸上。很明显,墓碑让他们很困惑。年轻人停下马车,盯着它看。没有看到他把奥古斯都放在下面,他们不确定自己是在看坟墓,还是只是在看一个标志。“先生,帽子溪的衣服在哪里?”年轻人问。
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Any approaching rider was something to pay attention to in that country. In the first years the sight of any rider scared her and made her look to see where Bob was, or be sure a rifle was handy. Indians had been known to dress in white men’s clothes to disarm unwary settlers, and there were plenty of white men in the Territory who were just as dangerous as Indians. If she was alone, the sight of any rider caused her a moment of terror.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Dee shrugged again. “It was a settler’s boy,” he said. “Some cowmen hired me to run the settlers out. Most of them will run if you shoot over their heads a time or two. This one just moved the wrong way.” “We’ll get you out,” Elmira said. “Zwey and Luke will help me.” Dee looked at the big man holding Ellie. He did look big enough to pull the little jail apart—but of course he couldn’t do it while he was holding a sick woman.“I’m due to hang next Friday, but they may come lynch me first,” Dee said.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“The Captain would hang you, if he caught you with a stolen horse,” Pea Eye said. “So would Gus.” A few hours later they came upon the dead settlers, still hanging, shreds of charred clothes clinging to their bodies. A coyote was tugging at the foot of one of them, trying to pull the body down. It ran when the party approached. Newt wanted to be sick again, but had nothing in his stomach. He had never expected to see anything more awful than the buzzard-torn bodies they had buried that morning, and yet it was still the same day and already there was a worse sight.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“They didn’t have nothing,” he said. “I don’t know why you even bothered to kill them.” “It was their unlucky day, same as it was Frog’s,” Dan said. “We’ll miss Frog, the man could shoot. I wish I had that damn Wilbarger here, I’d cook him good.” After drinking some more coffee, Dan Suggs mounted up. The two farmers, the trunks of their bodies blackened, still hung from the tree.“Don’t you intend to bury them?” Jake asked. “Somebody’s gonna find them, you know, and it could be the law.” Dan Suggs just laughed. “I’d like to see the law that could take me,” he said. “No man in Kansas could manage it, and anyway I fancy seeing Nebraska.” He turned to his brothers, who were dispiritedly raking through the settlers’ clothes, still hoping to find something worth taking.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
With his mind made up, he felt cheerful—it always gave a man a lift to escape death. It was a beautiful sunny day and he was alive to see it. With any luck at all, he had seen the end of the trouble.His good mood lasted two hours, and then something occurred which turned it sour. It seemed as if the world was deserted except for them and the horses, and then to his surprise he saw a tent. It was staked under a single tree, directly ahead of them. Near the tent, two men were plowing with four mules. Dan Suggs was riding ahead of the horse herd, and Jake saw him lope off toward the settlers. He didn’t think much about it—he was watching the tent to see if any women were around. Then he heard the faint pop of a shot and looked up to see one of the settlers fall. The other man was standing there, no gun in his hand, nothing. He stood as if paralyzed, and in a second Dan Suggs shot him too. Then he trotted over to the tent, got off his horse and went inside.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“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.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“I thought we was gonna regulate the settlers,” Roy said one night. “What are we waiting for?” “A nester that’s got something besides a milk cow and a pile of buffalo chips,” Dan Suggs said. “I’m looking for a rich one.” “If one was rich, he wouldn’t be living in a hole dug out of a hill up here in Kansas,” Jake said. “I slept in one of those soddies once—so much dirt leaked out of the roof during the night that I woke up dern near buried.” “That don’t mean some of them couldn’t have some gold,” little Eddie said. “I’d like to practice regulating a little so I’d have the hang of it when we do strike the rich ones.” “All we aim to let you do is watch, anyway,” Dan said. “It don’t take no practice to watch.” “I’ve shot a nester,” little Eddie reminded him. “Shot two. If they don’t pay up, I might make it three.” “The object is to scare them out of their money, not shoot them,” Dan said. “You shoot too many and pretty soon you’ve got the law after you. We want to get rich, not get hung.” “He’s too young to know what he’s talking about,” Roy said.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
When they got up into Kansas they began to see the occasional settler, sod-house nesters, mostly. Jake hardly thought any of them could have enough money to be worth the trouble of robbing, but the younger Suggs brothers were all for trying them.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“My notion was that most cowboys can’t fight,” Dan said. “Hell, they’re just boys. Them settlers up there can’t fight, neither. A lot of them might pay us to keep the beeves out of their corn patches.” “They might, but it sounds like you’re speculating,” Jake said. “Before I leave this here easy life to go and get shot at I’d like a little better prospect to think about.” “How about robbing banks, if the regulating don’t work out?” Dan asked bluntly. “You got any objections to robbing banks?” “It would depend on the bank,” Jake said. “I wouldn’t enjoy it if there was too much law stacked up against me. I’d think you’d want to pick small towns.” They talked for several hours, Roy Suggs resolutely spitting tobacco on the floor. Dan Suggs pointed out that all the money seemed to be in Kansas. If they went up there and weren’t too particular about what they did they ought to be able to latch onto some of it.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
ONCE THEY HIT the Territory, Newt began to worry about Indians. He was not alone in his worrying. The Irishman had heard so much about scalping that he often tugged at his own hair as if to reassure himself that it wouldn’t come off easily. Pea Eye, who spent most of his time sharpening his knife or making sure he had enough ammunition, was astonished that the Irishman had never seen a scalped person. During Pea’s years as a Ranger they were always finding scalped settlers, and, for that matter, several of his friends had been scalped.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
ONCE THEY HIT the Territory, Newt began to worry about Indians. He was not alone in his worrying. The Irishman had heard so much about scalping that he often tugged at his own hair as if to reassure himself that it wouldn’t come off easily. Pea Eye, who spent most of his time sharpening his knife or making sure he had enough ammunition, was astonished that the Irishman had never seen a scalped person. During Pea’s years as a Ranger they were always finding scalped settlers, and, for that matter, several of his friends had been scalped.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“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.
>> 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
“Pack up, Lorie,” Augustus said. “You best stay near us for a night or two.” “Who is he?” she asked.“One we ought to have hung ten years ago,” Augustus said. “Couldn’t catch him. He’s a Comanchero. He’s got a greasy bunch of murderers and child-stealers. He used to work the Red River country from New Mexico all the way across to Arkansas, hitting settlers. They’d butcher the grownups and take the horses and kids.” “Why couldn’t you catch him?” she asked.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
When he started out, he supposed that the easiest way to find Texas would be just to ask the settlers he encountered, but the settlers proved a remarkably ignorant lot. Most of them seemed never to have been more than a few hundred feet from the place they happened to be settled. Many were unable to give directions to the next settlement, much less to a place as remote as Texas. Some were able to point in the general direction of Texas, but after riding a few miles, dodging thickets and looking for suitable crossings on the many creeks, Roscoe could not be sure he was still proceeding in that direction.
>> 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
“Not to mention women and children,” Call said. “Not to mention plain settlers.” “Why, women and children and settlers are just cannon fodder for lawyers and bankers,” Augustus said. “They’re part of the scheme. After the Indians wipe out enough of them you get your public outcry, and we go chouse the Indians out of the way. If they keep coming back then the Army takes over and chouses them worse. Finally the Army will manage to whip ’em down to where they can be squeezed onto some reservation, so the lawyers and bankers can come in and getcivilization started. Every bank in Texas ought to pay us a commission for the work we done. If we hadn’t done it, all the bankers would still be back in Georgia, living on poke salad and turnip greens.” “I don’t know why you stuck with it, if that’s the way you think,” Call said. “You should have gone home and taught school.” “Hell, no,” Augustus said. “I wanted a look at it before the bankers and lawyers get it.” “Well, they ain’t got to Montana,” Call said.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
Indeed, it seemed to Augustus that that was what both of them had always expected would happen. They were not of the settled fraternity, he and Call. From time to time they talked of going west of the Pecos, perhaps rangering out there; but so far only the rare settler had cared to challenge the Apache, so there was no need for Rangers.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“Why, I don’t know,” Augustus said. “I’ve never given the matter no thought, and so far as I know you haven’t either. I do think we’re a shade old to do much Indian fighting.” “There won’t be much,” Call said. “You heard Jake. It’s the same up there as it is down here. The Indians will soon be whipped. And Jake does know good country when he sees it. It sounds like a cattleman’s paradise.” “No, it sounds like a goddamn wilderness,” Augustus said. “Why, there ain’t even a house to go to. I’ve slept on the ground enough for one life. Now I’m in the mood for a little civilization. I don’t have to have oprys and streetcars, but I do enjoy a decent bed and a roof to keep out the weather.” “He said there were fortunes to be made,” Call said. “It stands to reason he’s right. Somebody’s gonna settle it up and get that land. Suppose we got there first. We could buy you forty beds.” The surprising thing to Augustus was not just what Call was suggesting but how he sounded. For years Call had looked at life as if it were essentially over. Call had never been a man who could think of much reason for acting happy, but then he had always been one who knew his purpose. His purpose was to get done what needed to be done, and what needed to be done was simple, if not easy. The settlers of Texas needed protection, from Indians on the north and bandits on the south. As a Ranger, Call had had a job that fit him, and he had gone about the work with a vigor that would have passed for happiness in another man.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
“We found that coat in an abandoned cabin up on the Brazos,” Augustus said. “I guess the settlers that run out decided it was too heavy to carry. It weighed as much as a good-sized sheep, which is why Call gave it to Deets. He was the only one of us stout enough to carry it all day. Don’t you remember that, Jake? It was the time we had that scrape up by Fort Phantom Hill.” “I remember a scrape, but the rest is kinda cloudy,” Jake said. “I guess all you boys have got to do is sit around and talk about old times. I’m young yet, Gus. I got a living to make.” In fact, what he did remember was being scared every time they crossed the Brazos, since it would just be ten or twelve of them and no reason not to think they would run into a hundred Comanches or Kiowas. He would have been glad to quit rangering if he could have thought of a way to do it that wouldn’t look bad, but there was no way. In the end he came through twelve Indian fights and many scrapes with bandits only to get in real trouble in Fort Smith, Arkansas, as safe a town as you could find.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇
He burned their homes and villages, and in violation of treaties, he then sold that land at bargain-basement prices to white settlers in exchange for their votes.
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