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.
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Soon they heard the faint talk of the men—they were still lounging on their saddle blankets.
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“They’re camped,” Deets said. “They killed somebody in a wagon and he had whiskey.” “More work for the gravediggers,” Augustus said, checking his rifle. “We better go challenge them before they wipe out Kansas.” Pea Eye and Newt were left with the horses. Deets led Call and Augustus on foot for a mile. They crept up the crest of a ridge and saw Wilbarger’s horses grazing three or four miles away on the rolling prairie. Between them and the horse herd was a steep banked creek. A small wagon was stopped on the near bank, and four men were lounging on their saddle blankets. One of the men was Jake Spoon. The corpse of the man who had been driving the wagon lay some fifty yards away. The men on the blankets were amusing themselves by shooting their pistols at the buzzards that attempted to approach the corpse. One man, annoyed at missing with his pistol, picked up a rifle and knocked over a buzzard.
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“Well, they’re horsethieves and murderers,” Augustus reminded them. “They could have stolen Jake’s horse—they could have even murdered him for it.” Deets was silent. They could speculate all they wanted—he knew. A different man would have resulted in a different track. Mr. Jake tended to ride slightly sideways in the saddle, which the track showed. It was not just his horse—it was him.
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He lay awake all night with his head on his saddle, thinking of Lorie—not sleeping, nor even wanting to.
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She had unsaddled, and she sat by her saddle in the grass. It pained him to see her look so alone and so tired. He tried to think of something to say that might cheer her up, but words had deserted him again. They always seemed to desert him just when he needed them most.
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Lorena sat on her saddle and ate. It took Dish only a few minutes to roll up the tent and carry it to the wagon. Then he came back and saddled her horse for her.
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Dish unsaddled his horse and got his bedroll. He lay on the blanket all night, his head on his saddle, thinking of Lorie, wondering if his chance with her would ever come.
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DEETS FOUND WILBARGER by backtracking his horse. The horse, with dried blood on the saddle and crusted in its mane, was waiting for them on the north bank of the Arkansas. Several times, as they were bringing the cattle to the crossing, the horse started to swim over to them, but turned back. Deets crossed first, ahead of Old Dog, and recognized the horse even before he hit the bank. It was the big bay Wilbarger had ridden into Lonesome Dove several months before.
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“I’ve got so I like this looking far,” she said. Augustus handed her a cup of coffee and she held it in both hands, the smoke drifting in front of her face. Newt was sure he had never seen anyone as beautiful as her—that he was getting to share breakfast with her was like a miracle. Dish or any of the other boys would give their spurs and saddles to be doing what he was doing.
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“Well, you better put him down,” Call said, looking at Newt. “He’s finished.” Newt was about to take the reins when Dish Boggett intervened. “Oh, now, Captain,” he said quietly, “a feller oughtn’t to have to shoot his own horse when there’s others around that can do it as well.” And without another word he led the bleeding horse a hundred yards away and shot him. He came back, carrying the saddle. Newt was very grateful—he knew he would have had a hard time shooting Mouse.
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Then Mouse began to buck and twist, trying to rid himself of some of the grasshoppers, and almost ridding himself of Newt in the process. Newt clung to the saddle horn, afraid that if he were thrown the grasshoppers would smother him.
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“More likely they ate the Indians,” Call said. “The Indians and everything else.” Newt’s first fear when the cloud hit was that he would suffocate. In a second the grasshoppers covered every inch of his hands, his face, his clothes, his saddle. A hundred were stuck in Mouse’s mane. Newt was afraid to draw breath for fear he’d suck them into his mouth and nose. The air was so dense with them that he couldn’t see the cattle and could barely see the ground. At every step Mouse crunched them underfoot. The whirring they made was so loud he felt he could have screamed and not been heard, although Pea Eye and Ben Rainey were both within yards. Newt ducked his head into the crook of his arm for protection. Mouse Suddenly broke into a run, which meant the cattle were running, but Newt didn’t look up. He feared to look, afraid the grasshoppers would scratch his eyes. As he and Mouse raced, he felt the insects beating against him. It was a relief to find he could breathe.
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Augustus stroked her hair as she lay against him. He was thinking how strange life was, that he and Lorena were sitting on a saddle blanket on the south edge of Kansas, watching Call’s cattle herd disappear to the north.
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In the dawn the Blue Mounds shimmered to the north. Augustus usually came out of the tent early so he could see the sunrise. Lorena had stopped having so many nightmares and she slept heavily, so heavily that it was hard to get her awake in the mornings. Augustus never rushed her. She had regained her appetite and put on flesh, and it seemed to him her sleeping late was healthy. The grass was wet with dew, so he sat on his saddle blanket watching Dish Boggett point the cattle into the blue distances. Dish always swung the point as close to the tent as he dared, hoping for a glimpse of Lorena, but it was a hope seldom rewarded.
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By the time it registered that they were really Indians, they had already cut off the steer and were driving it away, as the Captain sat and watched. Newt was almost afraid to look at them, but when he did he was surprised at how thin and poor they looked. The old man who was their leader was just skin and bones. He rode near enough for Newt to see that one of his eyes was milky white. The other Indians were young. Their ponies were as thin as they were. They had no saddles, just saddle blankets, and only one had a gun, an old carbine. The Indians boxed the steer out of the herd as skillfully as any cowboys and soon had him headed across the empty plain. The old man raised his hand to the Captain as they left, and the Captain returned the gesture.
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“Did you come from California, or where?” the trail boss asked. He was an old white-mustached man named Johns, suspicious at first. Not many men came walking out of Texas. But July soon persuaded the old man to sell him a horse. It was the worst horse in the remuda, but it was a horse. July gave forty dollars for it. The Johns outfit had no saddle to spare, but they did give him directions. They tried to get him to stay the night with them—they had been on the trail six weeks and a stranger was a welcome novelty.
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Finally, sadly feeling that he was parting with his last companion in life, July unsaddled the horse and shot him. He left his saddle but took his rifle and started walking east. The next day, from a ridge, he saw a great cloud of buzzards over the place where the horse lay. The sight made him cry.
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“Maybe, but you won’t teach them,” Jake said. “You’d be sitting dead in your saddle if you tried it.” Though he was annoyed with Call and Gus, it amused him that three scraggly bandits thought they could beat them.
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Newt saw that the cattle had crossed the wild Canadian, the river that had scared everybody, without much help from the cowboys, who were scattered here and there, naked, crouched under their saddles or, in some cases, their horses. It was a funny sight; Newt was so glad to be alive that suddenly he felt like laughing. Funniest of all was Pea Eye, who stood not thirty yards away, up to his neck in the river, with his hat on. He was just standing there calmly, waiting for the hail to stop.
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Newt looked around for the wagon, but couldn’t see it, the hail was so thick. Then he couldn’t see Needle, either. He spurred hard and raced for the river, though he didn’t know what he was supposed to do once he got there. As he ran for the river, he almost trampled Jasper, who had dismounted and made a kind of tent of his slicker and saddle—he was crouching under it in the mud.
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“Get under your horse if it gets worse,” he said. “Use your saddle for cover.” “This horse would kick me to death, if I was to try that,” Dish said. He quickly unsaddled and used his saddle blanket for immediate shelter.
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Hailstones were hitting all around him, bouncing off his arms, his saddle, his horse—and they were getting larger by the minute. Dish came riding over, still naked, trying to shelter his face and head with one arm. Hailstones were falling everywhere, splashing into the river, bouncing off the backs of the cattle and plunking into the muddy banks.
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But by the time he and Dish hit the north shore and regained their wet saddles, he realized it was more than a squall.
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“Good lord, we’re a bunch of beauties,” Dish said, surveying the crew. “Deets is the best-looking of the lot, at least he’s one color. The rest of us is kind of brindled.” Nobody expected weather conditions to get worse, but it seemed that in plains weather there was always room for surprises. A squall blew up as they were starting the cattle into the water, and by the time Old Dog was across the twenty yards of swimming water, Dish on one side of him and Call on the other, the gray sky suddenly began to spit out littlewhite pellets. Dish, who was out of the saddle, hanging onto his saddle strings as his horse swam, saw the first pellets plunking into the water and jerked with fear, for he assumed they were bullets. It was only when he looked up and had a small hailstone peck at his cheek that he realized what was happening.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇