Instead, she was driving a mule wagon across northern Kansas. They had been lucky and seen no Indians, but that could always change. Besides, it soon developed that Luke was going to be as much trouble as an Indian. It was something she knew that Zwey hadn’t noticed. Zwey treated her kindly, insofar as he treated her at all. Now that he had got her to come on a trip he seemed well content. She didn’t have to do anything but be there, and he was surprised when she offered to cook, which she mainly did out of boredom and because Zwey and Luke were such dirty cooks she was afraid she would get poisoned if she didn’t take that chore into her own hands. Zwey exhibited no lustful intentions at all—he seemed happy just to rest his eyes on her at the end of the day.
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“If it’s got me in it, it ain’t just a bed,” Sally said. “Besides, you get to sit on the balcony all you want to, unless one of my good sweethearts is in town.” It turned out that Sally Skull had quite a number of good sweethearts, some of them so rank that Jake didn’t see how she could stand them. She didn’t mind mule skinners or buffalo hunters; in fact, she seemed to prefer them.
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“Or it could just be the company he’s tired of,” Augustus suggested. “I’d buy him if he was for sale. I’ve always got along with mules.” “This mule ain’t for sale,” the cook said, looking the camp over. “I wisht all I had to do was live in a tent.” Without further ado, he turned and went back.
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“This is like living in a hotel, Lorie,” Augustus said. “We got people toting us meals as fast as we can eat them.” At that point the cook got careless and the little pack mule took a kick at him which barely missed.
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“We’re about to eat,” he said. “It’s a free country, so my advice to you would be to make camp where you choose. I’ll borrow a pot from our cook and bring you some grub once you get settled.” “I’m much obliged,” Augustus said. “Noticed a tree in these parts?” “No, sir,” Wilbarger said. “If there was a tree in these parts I’d be sitting under it.” They made camp on the plain. Wilbarger was as good as his word. In an hour he returned with a small pack mule. Besides an ample pot of beefsteak and beans he brought a small tent.
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Soon she began to talk to the mules as they plodded along. She didn’t say much, and the mules didn’t answer, but it made the long hot days pass a little faster.
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That day the men killed twenty buffalo. Elmira had to wait in the sun all day while they skinned them out. Finally she got down and sat under the wagon, which provided a little shade. The men piled the bloody, smelly hides into the wagon, which didn’t suit the mules. They hated the smell of hides as much as she did.
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She soon got the hang of driving the mules. There was not much to it, for the mules were content to follow the two men on horseback. It was only when the men loped off to hunt that the mules were likely to balk. On the second day out, with the men gone, she crossed a creek whose banks were so steep and rough that she felt sure the wagon would turn over.
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Big Zwey finally arrived leading two scrawny mules and carrying a harness he had traded for. The harness was in bad repair but there was plenty of rawhide around, and they soon had it tied together fairly well. Luke was quite dexterous with his thumb and little finger. He did better than Zwey, whose hands were too big for harness making.
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“Zwey went to buy some mules,” he said. “We got two horses but they won’t do for the wagon. Anyway, we might get some hides while you’re driving the wagon.” “I don’t like the smell of hides,” she said pointedly, but not pointedly enough for Luke to get the message.
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It was a great relief to him when Mouse nickered and Lorena’s horse nickered back. At least that disgrace had been avoided. He loped on to the little camp, and at first couldn’t see Lorena at all, just the horse and the mule. Then he finally saw her sitting with her back against a tree.
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At times, waiting, she had almost decided just to take the horse and the mule and try to find her way back to Lonesome Dove. Xavier had said he would marry her and take her anywhere she wanted to go. She remembered the day he had come into the room—his wild eyes, his threat to kill Jake. When she had nothing to do but sit around and think about it, her capacity for mistakes discouraged her so that she considered drowning herself in the little pool. But it was a sunny, pretty morning, and when she went into the pool a little later, it was only to wash her hair in the cool water. For a moment she put her head under and opened her eyes, but it felt silly—to die in such an element was only ridiculous. She began to wonder if perhaps she was touched—if that was why she made mistakes. Her mother had been touched. She often babbled of people no one knew. She talked to dead relatives, dead babies, speaking to them as if they were still alive. Lorena wondered if it was mistakes that had made her mother do that. Perhaps, after so many mistakes, your mind finally broke loose and wandered back and forth between past and present.
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“He said he wasn’t coming back,” Lorena said. “He left mad. He’s been mad the whole way up here. He said I could have the horse and the mule and go where I pleased.” “I doubt he meant it,” Augustus said. “What do you think?” “He’ll be back,” Lorena said.
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“No, it’s just Lorie,” Augustus said. “She’s resting by a tree. I bet Jake’s gone to town and left her.” Call looked again, but the camp was a half a mile away and all he could see was the horses and the pack mule.
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Fortunately the problem of direction was finally solved one afternoon when he ran into a little party of soldiers with a mule team. They claimed to be heading for someplace called Buffalo Springs, which was in Texas. There were only four soldiers, two horseback and two in the wagon, and they had relieved the tedium of travel by getting drunk. They were generous men, so generous that Roscoe was soon drunk too. His relief at finding men who knew where Texas was caused him to imbibe freely. He was soon sick to his stomach. The soldiers considerately let him ride in the wagon—not much easier on his stomach, for the wagon had no springs. Roscoe became so violently ill that he was forced to lie flat in the wagon bed with his head sticking out the back end, so that when the heaves hit him he could vomit, or at least spit, without anyone losing time.
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Tobe Walker looked wistful when they told him they were taking a herd to Montana. “If I hadn’t married, I bet I’d go with you,” he said. “I imagine there’s some fair pastures up there. Being a lawman these days is mostly a matter of collaring drunks, and it does get tiresome.” When they left, he went off dutifully to make his rounds. Augustus hitched the new mules to the new wagon. The streets of San Antonio were silent and empty as they left. The moon was high and a couple of stray goats nosed around the walls of the old Alamo, hoping to find a blade of grass. When they had first come to Texas in the Forties people had talked of nothing but Travis and his gallant losing battle, but the battle had mostly been forgotten and the building neglected.
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Fortunately they were able to buy one almost at once from a big livery stable north of the river. It was necessary to buy two more mules to pull the wagon back to the herd. Fortunately the mules were cheap, twenty dollars a head, and the big German who ran the livery stable threw in the harness.
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“You might try to load that gear on them mules,” he said to Pea.
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Riding away, Bolivar too felt very sad. Now that he was going, he was not sure why he had decided to go. Perhaps it was because he didn’t want to face embarrassment. After all, he had fired the shot that caused the mules to run. Also, he didn’t want to get so far north that he couldn’t find his way back to the river. As he rode away he decided he had made another stupid choice. So far, in his opinion, almost every decision of his life had been stupid. He didn’t miss his wife that much—they had lost the habit of one another and might not be able to reacquire it. He felt a little bitter as he rode away.
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He had not seen the wagon go off the creek bank, but he was not surprised that it was broken. The mules were fast. He would probably not have been able to hit one of them even with a rifle, distracted as he was by the dream.
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“I don’t want to go this way,” he said, addressing himself to the Captain. “I am going back.” “Why, Bol, you won’t stand a chance,” Augustus said. “A renowned criminal like you. Some young sheriff out to make a reputation will hang you before you get halfway to the border.” “I don’t care,” Bol said. “I am going back.” In fact, he expected to be fired anyway. He had been dozing on the wagon seat, dreaming about his daughters, and had accidentally fired off the ten-gauge. The recoil had knocked him off the wagon, but even so it had been hard to get free of the dream. It turned into a dream in which his wife was angry, even as he awoke and saw the mules dashing away. The pigs were rooting in a rat’s nest, under a big cactus. Bol was so enraged by the mules’ behavior that he would have shot one of them, only they were already well out of range.
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“I heared a shot,” Lippy said. “About that time them mules took to running. I guess a bandit shot at us.” “No competent bandit would waste a bullet on you or Bol either,” Augustus said. “There ain’t no reward for either of you.” “It sounded like a shotgun,” Bill Spettle volunteered.
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“Well, I ain’t,” Augustus said. “The boys can, their feet are already wet.” It seemed to Newt everyone was being mighty callous about Lippy, who lay on the riverbank. Then, to his surprise, Lippy, whose head was still covered with mud, rolled over and began to belch water. He belched and vomited for several minutes, making a horrible sound, but Newt’s relief that he was not dead was so great that he welcomed the sound and waded out to help the Raineys unhitch the mules.
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“Ain’t nobody gonna unhitch them mules?” he asked. A big sack of flour had been thrown out of the wagon and lay in the river getting ruined. Newt had not noticed it until the Captain pointed at it.
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Strangely, neither Pea nor Mr. Gus was much concerned. The mules had regained their feet and stood in the shallow water, swishing their tails and looking sleepy. Call rode up about that time. He had been at the head of the herd, with Dish Boggett.
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