At night, alone, he grew bitter at himself for indulging in such pointless thoughts. It was like the business with Maggie that Gus harped on so. His mind tried to change it, have it different, but those too were pointless thoughts. Things thought and things said didn’t make much difference and with Gus spending all his time with the woman there was very little said anyway. Sometimes Gus would come over and ride with him for a few miles, but they didn’t discuss Jake Spoon. As such things went, it had been simple. He could remember hangings that had been harder: once they had to hang a boy for something his father had made him do.
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Not only had no one talked at the hanging, no one had talked since, either. Captain Call kept well to himself, riding far from the herd all day and sleeping apart at night. Mr. Gus stayed back with Lorena, only showing up at mealtimes. Deets was very quiet when he was around, and he wasn’t around much—he spent his days scouting far ahead of the herd, which was traveling easily. The Texas bull had assumed the lead position, passing Old Dog almost every day and only giving up the lead to go snort around the tails of whatever cows interested him. He had lost none of his belligerence. Dish, who rode the point, had come to hate him even more than Needle Nelson did.
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“If they did they’re lucky,” Augustus said. “They won’t get too many chances to see such beauties as us.” He laughed and got up to make the coffee.NEWT COULDN’T GET JAKE out of his mind—how he had smiled at the end and given him his horse. He rode the horse every third day and liked his gait so much that he soon became his favorite horse. Jake hadn’t told him what the horse’s name was, which worried Newt. A horse needed a name. Jake’s hanging had happened so quickly that it was hard to remember—it was like a terrible dream, of the kind you can only remember parts of. He remembered the shock it had been to see Jake with his hands tied, sitting on his horse with a noose around his neck. He remembered how tired Jake looked, too tired even to care that he was going to be hung. Also, nobody talked much. There should have been some discussion, it seemed to Newt. Jake might have had a good excuse for being there, but nobody even asked him for it.
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“If you’d like a wash first, I’ll have the girls draw some water,” Clara said. “I didn’t get your name.” “I’m July Johnson,” July said. “I come from Arkansas.” Clara almost dropped the poker. The girls had told her the little scarfaced man had said the woman they were with was married to a sheriff named Johnson, from Arkansas. She hadn’t given the story much credence—the woman didn’t strike her as the marrying type. Besides, the little man had whispered something to the effect that the big buffalo hunter considered himself married to her. The girls thought it mighty exciting, having a woman in the house who was married to two men. And if that wasn’t complicated enough, the woman herself claimed to be married to Dee Boot, the gunfighter they had hung last week. Cholo had been in town when the hanging took place and reported that the hanging had gone smoothly.
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“They’re gonna hang me, Ellie,” he said. “That’s why I jumped up—I been expecting lynchers.” Elmira couldn’t believe it. Dee had never done anything wrong—not wrong enough to make people hang him. He gambled and flirted, but those weren’t hanging crimes.
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Dan Suggs they left hanging. Augustus took one of the circulars and wrote “Dan Suggs, Man Burner and Horse Thief on the back of it. He rode over and pinned the sign to Dan Suggs’s shirt.
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“I wouldn’t relish hanging him,” Call said. “But there he is.” He walked back and explained the situation to Pea Eye and Newt. There was nothing they need do except bring the horses fast when they heard shooting.
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“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.
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“Dan, you beat all,” he said. “I never heard of hanging dead men.” Nonetheless Dan meant it. He put ropes around both the dead men’s necks and had his brothers drag them to the tree and hoist them up. It was not a large tree, and the dead men’s feet were only a few inches off the ground. Jake was not called on to help, and he didn’t.
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“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.
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“Well, that old cook of Call’s that likes to fry bugs will be happy, at least,” he said. “He can fry up a damn wagonful tonight.” When the cloud of grasshoppers hit the Hat Greek outfit, they were on a totally open plain and could do nothing but watch it come, in terror and astonishment. Lippy sat on the wagon seat, his mouth hanging open.
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“Get in the tent,” Augustus said. He was holding the terrified horses. “Get in and pile whatever you can around the bottom to keep ’em out.” Lorena ran in, and before Augustus could follow, grasshoppers covered the canvas, every inch. Augustus had fifty on his hat, though he tried to knock them off outside the tent, and more on his clothes. He backed in, hanging to the lead ropes as the horses tried to break free.
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Actually, Jake couldn’t fairly be blamed for any of the deaths, though he could be blamed for Lorena’s troubles, which were worth a hanging by Augustus’s reckoning.
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“He ought to have taken his hanging,” Augustus said out loud.
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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.
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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.
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“He’s a haughty son of a bitch,” Bert Borum said. “He acted like he never knowed a one of us.” “He tolt me I smelled like cowshit,” Needle said. “He was sitting there gambling and had some whore hanging over him.” “I wouldn’t say he misses that one that got took,” Soupy said.
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“It ought to be a hanging crime for the post office to work so slow,” the impatient fellow said. “I could have carried this letter by hand in less time than this.” Just as he said it, the old man found July’s letter under a mail bag. “Some fool set a mailbag on it,” he said, handing it to July.
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Finally he had to slow down. His legs refused to keep up the speed and he trotted the last two hundred yards to where he had tied Mouse. But the horse wasn’t there! Newt looked around to be sure he had the right place. He had used a boulder as a landmark, and the boulder was where it should be—but not the horse. Newt knew the stampede might have scared him and caused him to break the rein, but there was no broken rein hanging from the tree where Mouse had been tied.
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Suddenly a big bullfrog jumped off the bank. While the frog was in the air, the girl hit it with the stick and knocked it far up the bank. She scrambled up after it, and Roscoe stood up to watch, although he had only one eye to watch with. She had knocked the frog into some weeds, which slowed its hopping some. The frog cleared the weeds once, but it couldn’t jump far, and the girl was soon on it with her stick. A moment later she came down the bank holding the squashed frog by the legs. Its pink tongue was hanging out.
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“I’ve seen many a hanging,” Jake said. “We hung plenty of Mexicans when we were Rangers. Call never wasted no time when it came to hangings.” “He wouldn’t, I guess,” Lorena said.
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“Have you ever been to a hanging?” he asked.
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Roscoe noted that Joe was bareheaded, another sign of July’s recklessness. It occurred to him that he had an old black felt hat. It was hanging on a peg, and he went back in and got it for the boy.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Well, last time I seen Jake he had a thorn in his hand,” Augustus said. “He was wishing he’d stayed in Arkansas and taken his hanging.” They rode up on a little knobby hill and stopped for a moment to watch the cattle. The late sun shone through the dust cloud, making the white dust rosy. The riders to each side of the herd were spread wide, giving the cattle lots of room.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

As they rode out of town the widow Cole was hanging out her washing. Hot as the sun was, it seemed to Augustus it would be dry before she got it on the line. She kept a few goats, one of which was nibbling on the rope handle of her laundry basket. She was an imposing woman, and he felt a pang of regret that he and she had not got on better, but the truth was they fell straight into argument even if they only happened to meet in the street. Probably her husband, Joe Cole, had bored her for twenty years, leaving her with a taste for argument. He himself enjoyed argument, but not with a woman who had been bored all her life. It could lead to a strenuous existence.As they passed out of town, Lippy suddenly turned sentimental. Under the blazing sun the town looked white—the only things active in it were the widow and her goats. There were only about ten buildings, hardly enough to make a town, but Lippy got sentimental anyway. He remembered when there had been another saloon, one that kept five Mexican whores.
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