The Lonesome Dove Chronicles (1-4)

by Larry McMurtry

  Soupy, a short man, came walking over with Pea Eye.

  “Look what rode up,” Pea Eye said. “I near mistook him for a bandit since it was pitch-dark.”

  “ ’I god, Soupy, you should have waited till we lit the lanterns,” Augustus said, standing up to shake hands. “A sharp bunch of gun hands like us, you’re lucky not to be shot.”

  “Aw, Gus,” Soupy said, not knowing what else to say. He had always been nonplused by Gus’s witticisms.

  “Morning, Captain,” he said, as Call shook his hand.

  “Have some grub,” Call said. He had always been fond of the man, despite his unwillingness to dismount if there was something to do on the ground.

  “Where’d you come from, Soupy?” Augustus asked. “Didn’t we hear you was mayor of someplace. Or was it governor?”

  “I was just in Bastrop, Gus,” Soupy said. “Bastrop don’t have no mayor, or governor either. It’s barely a town.”

  “Well, we’re barely an outfit,” Augustus said, “though we got two fine pigs that just joined us last night. Are you looking for employment?”

  “Yes, my wife died,” Soupy said. “She was never strong,” he added, in the silence that followed the remark.

  “Well, you’re hired, at least,” Call said.

  “I lost two wives myself,” Augustus remarked.

  “I heard Jake was around but I don’t see him,” Soupy said. He and Jake had been close buddies once, and it was partly curiosity about him that made Soupy want to rejoin the Hat Creek outfit.

  “Well, he is,” Call said, not anxious to have to explain the situation.

  “Jake won’t camp with us old cobs,” Augustus said. “He’s traveling with a valet, if you know what that is.”

  “No, but if it’s traveling with Jake I bet it wears skirts,” Soupy said—a remark which for some reason seemed to catch everybody wrong. Or everybody but Gus, who laughed long and hard. Feeling a little confused, but happy to have been hired, Soupy went off with Pea Eye to get breakfast.

  “I’m going in and pry up that sign I wrote so we can take it with us,” Augustus said. “I may pry up one of my Dutch ovens and bring it too.”

  “Bol ain’t said that he’s going,” Call said. It was a mild anxiety. If Bol quit and they had to depend on Gus to do the cooking, the whole trip would be in jeopardy. Apart from biscuits, his cooking was of the sort that caused tempers to flare.

  In fact, Bolivar was standing by the cook fire, staring into it with an expression of deep gloom. If he heard the remark he gave no sign.

  “Oh, Bol’s got the adventurer’s spirit,” Augustus said. “He’ll go. If he don’t, he’ll just have to go home and whet his wife more often than he cares to.”

  With that he went and got the two mules that constituted their wagon team. The bigger mule, a gray, was named Greasy, and the smaller, a bay, they called Kick Boy, out of respect for his lightning rear hooves. They had not been worked very much, there seldom having been a need to take the wagon anywhere. It was theoretically for rent, but rarely got rented more than once a year. Greasy and Kick Boy were an odd-looking team, the former being nearly four hands higher than the latter. Augustus hitched them to the wagon while Call went to inspect the remuda, meaning to weed out any horses that looked sickly.

  “Don’t weed out too many,” Augustus said. “We might need to eat ’em.”

  Dish Boggett, who had had little sleep and had not enjoyed the little, found the remark irritating.

  “Why would we need to eat the dern horses, with three thousand cattle right in front of us?” he asked. He had spent hours riding around the herd, with a tight wad of anger in his breast.

  “I can’t say, Dish,” Augustus said. “We might want to change our fare, for all I know. Or the Sioux Indians might run off the cattle. Of course, they might run off the horses too.”

  “Happened to us in that Stone House fight,” Pea remarked. “They set fire to the grass and I couldn’t see a dern thing.”

  “Well, I ain’t you,” Dish informed him. “I bet I could see my own horse, fire or no fire.”

  “I’m going to town,” Augustus said. “You boys will stand and jabber all day. Any of you want anything brought? It has to be something that will fit in this wagon.”

  “Bring me five hundred dollars, that’ll fit,” Jasper said.

  There was general laughter, which Augustus ignored. “What I ought to bring is a few coffins,” he said. “Most of you boys will probably be drownt before we hit the Powder River.”

  “Bring a few jugs, if you see any,” Jasper said. The fear of drowning was strong in him, and Gus’s remark spoiled his mood.

  “Jasper, I’ll bring a boat if I notice one,” Augustus said. He caught Bolivar staring at him malevolently.

  “Come on, if you’re coming, Bol,” he said. “No reason for you to go north and drown.”

  Bol was indeed feeling terrible. They only talked of going, not of coming back. It might be he would never see Mexico again, or his lovely daughters, if he left. And yet, when he looked across the river and thought of his village, he just felt tired. He was too tired to deal with a disappointed woman, and much too tired to be a bandit.

  Instead of climbing in the wagon, he turned away and sat down near the pigs. They had found a cool spot where the water barrel had dripped, and were lying on their stomachs, watching the proceedings alertly.

  “If I ain’t back in a month, you girls feel free to start without me,” Augustus said. Then he drove off, amused that Dish Boggett looked so out of sorts just from being in love with a woman who didn’t want him. It was a peril too common to take seriously.

  A half mile from the main camp he came upon the very woman who had given Dish the pain. She was attempting to cook some fryback, and was getting no help from Jake Spoon, who hadn’t even provided her with a good fire. Jake was sitting on his bedding, his hair sticking up in back, trying to dig a thorn out of his hand with a pocketknife.

  Augustus stopped the team and got down to chat a minute.

  “Jake, you look like you slept standing on your head,” he said. “Is that a bullet you’re digging out? Has she shot you already?”

  “Who invited you to breakfast?” Jake said.

  “I’ve et,” Augustus said. “I just stopped by to set the table, so you two could dine in style.”

  “Hello, Gus,” Lorie said.

  “Don’t start no conversation, else he’ll stay all day,” Jake said. “I’d forgotten what a pest you are, Gus.”

  He had got the thorn in his thumb hobbling the horses the night before, and had been unable to get it out in the dark. Now his thumb was swollen to twice its size, for a green mesquite thorn was only slightly less poisonous than a rattlesnake. Besides, he had slept badly on the stony ground, and Lorie had refused him again, when all he wanted was a little pleasure to take his mind off his throbbing thumb. They were camped only two miles from town and could easily have ridden back and slept comfortably in the Dry Bean, but when he suggested it Lorie showed her stubborn streak and refused. He could go back if he cared to—she wasn’t. So he had stayed and slept poorly, worrying most of the night about snakes. As much camping as he had done, it was a fear that never left him.

  “It’s a wonder you ain’t froze to death years ago, if that’s the best fire you can make,” Augustus said. He began to gather sticks.

  “You don’t need to bother,” Lorena said. “I’ve already burned the meat.” It was good Gus had stopped, for Jake was in a temper already, just because she had turned away from him the night before. He had a quick pride; any refusal made him angry. As for sleeping on the ground, she didn’t mind. It was at least fairly cool.

  “I never expected to find you to be still in bed at this hour, Jake,” Augustus said. “You’ll have a time keeping up with us if you don’t improve your habits. By the way, Soupy hired on this morning. He inquired about you.”

  “There goes the easy money,” Jake said. “Soupy will win ever cent you boys can
earn in the next ten years. He’s been known to win from me, and that ain’t easy.”

  “Well, I’m going to town,” Augustus said. “Want me to pick you up a Bible or a few hymnbooks?”

  “Nope, we’re leaving,” Jake said. “Soon as we pack.”

  “That won’t be soon,” Augustus said. “You’ve scattered stuff over three acres just making this one little camp.”

  That was true. They had unpacked in the dark and made a mess of it. Jake was looking for a whiskey bottle that wasn’t where he thought he’d put it. It was plain camping wasn’t a neat way of life. There was no place to wash, and they were carrying very little water, which was the main reason she had refused Jake. She liked a wash and felt he could wait until they camped near a river and could splash a little of the dust off before bedding down.

  Augustus watched them eat the poor burned breakfast. It was eternally amusing, the flow of human behavior. Who could have predicted Jake would be the one to take Lorena out of Lonesome Dove? She had been meaning to leave since the day she arrived, and now Jake, who had slipped from the grasp of every woman who had known him, was firmly caught by a young whore from Alabama.

  The quality of determination had always intrigued him. Lorie had it, and Jake didn’t. Hers was nothing compared to W. F. Call’s, but hers would probably be sufficient to get her to San Francisco, where no doubt she would end up a respectable woman.

  After accepting a cup of coffee from Lorie, he took a look at Jake’s thumb, which was swollen and turning white.

  “You better be sure you got all that thorn out,” Gus said. “If you didn’t you’ll probably lose the hand, and maybe the arm that goes with it.”

  “I won’t lose no arm, and if I did I could still beat you dealing one-handed,” Jake said. “I hope you invite us to breakfast one of these days, to repay the favor.”

  When Augustus reached Lonesome Dove, the one street was still and empty, with only one horse twitching its tail in front of the Pumphreys’ store. The dust his wagon stirred hung straight as a column before settling back into the street. Augustus stopped in front of the deserted blacksmith shop. The blacksmith, an uncommunicative man named Roy Royce, had ridden out of town some months before and had not come back.

  Augustus found a small crowbar among the tools the man had cavalierly abandoned, and rode up the street to the Hat Creek corrals, where he easily pried his sign off the fence. The Dutch ovens were more resistant. They showed signs of crumbling, so he left them. There would be no time for leisurely biscuit making on the trail anyway.

  He walked through the house and had a look at the roofless barn, amused at how little trace remained of their ten years’ residence. They had lived the whole time as if they might leave at any minute, and now that was exactly what they had done. The barn would stay roofless, the well only partially dug. The rattlesnakes could take the spring-house, for all he cared—he had already removed his whiskey jug. It would be a while before he had such a good shady porch to sit on, drinking the afternoon out. In Texas he had drunk to take his mind off the heat; in Montana, no doubt, it would be to take his mind off the cold. He didn’t feel sad. The one thing he knew about Texas was that he was lucky to be leaving it alive—and, in fact, he had a long way to go before he could be sure of accomplishing that much.

  He drove down to the saloon for a last word with Xavier. At first he thought the saloon was empty, but then he saw Xavier sitting at a little table near the shadowy end of the bar. He had not bothered to shave for two days, a sign of profound demoralization.

  “Dern, Wanz, you look poorly,” Augustus said. “I see the morning rush ain’t started yet.”

  “It will never start,” Xavier said in a desperate voice.

  “Just because you lost your whore don’t mean the sun won’t rise again,” Augustus assured him. “Take a trip to San Antonio and recruit another whore.”

  “I would have married her,” Xavier said, feeling too hopeless even to conceal that he was hopeless.

  “I ain’t surprised,” Augustus said gently. It was one thing to make light of a young man’s sorrows in love, but another to do it when the sorrower was Xavier’s age. There were men who didn’t get over women. He himself, fortunately, was not one of them, though he had felt fairly black for a year after Clara married. It was curious, for Xavier had had stuff enough to survive a hellion like Therese, but was devastated by the departure of Lorena, who could hardly, with reason, have been expected to stay in one room over a saloon all her life.

  “I would have taken her to San Francisco,” Xavier said. “I would have given her money, bought her clothes.”

  “In my opinion the woman made a poor bargain,” Augustus said. “I seen her not an hour ago, trying to cook over a dern smoky fire. But then we don’t look at life like women do, Wanz. They don’t always appreciate convenience.”

  Xavier shrugged. Gus often talked about women, but he had never listened and didn’t intend to start. It wouldn’t bring Lorena back, or make him feel less hopeless. It had seemed a miracle, the day she walked in the door, with nothing but her beauty. From the first he had planned to marry her someday. It didn’t matter that she was a whore. She had intelligence, and he felt sure her intelligence would one day guide her to him. She would see, in time, how much kinder he was than other men; she would recognize that he treated her better, loved her more.

  Yet it hadn’t worked. She went with him willingly enough when he requested it, but no more willingly than she went with other men. Then Jake had come and taken her, just taken her, as easily as picking a hat off a rack. Often Xavier had passed the boring hours by dreaming of how happy Lorie would be when he made his proposal, offering to free her from whoring and every form of drudgery. But when he offered, she had merely shaken her head, and now his dreams were ruined.

  He remembered that when he declared his love her eyes hadn’t changed at all—it was as if he had suggested she sweep out the bar. She had only tolerated him to avoid a scene with Jake, and had seemed scarcely aware that he had given her nearly two hundred dollars, four times as much as Gus. It was enough to buy her passage to San Francisco. But she had merely taken it and shut the door. It was cruel, love.

  “Well, it’s too bad you ain’t a cowboy,” Augustus said. “You look like you could use a change of air. Where’s Lippy?”

  Xavier shrugged. The last thing that would interest him was the whereabouts of Lippy.

  Augustus drank a glass but said no more. He knew he could not talk Xavier out of his depression.

  “If Jake gets killed, tell her I will come,” Xavier said—there was always that prospect. After all, he had only met Therese because her first husband had fallen off a roof and broken his neck. A man like Jake, a traveler and a gambler, might meet a violent end at any time.

  “I doubt it’ll happen,” Augustus said, not wishing to encourage faint hopes.

  When he went out he found Lippy sitting in the wagon with his bowler on his head.

  “How’d you get in my wagon?” Augustus asked.

  “Jumped off the roof and this is where I landed,” Lippy said. He liked to joke.

  “Jump back on the roof then,” Augustus said. “I’m going to Montana.”

  “I’m hiring on,” Lippy said. “The pianer playin’s over around here. Wanz won’t feed me and I can’t cook. I’ll starve to death.”

  “It might beat drowning in the Republican River,” Augustus said. Lippy had a little bag packed and sitting between his feet. It was clear he was packed and ready.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Well, we got two Irishmen, I guess we can always use a man with a hole in his stomach,” Augustus said. Lippy had been a fair horseman once. Maybe Call would let him look after the remuda.

  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. He had gone there often and had great fun in the days before he got the wound in his belly. He had never forgotten the merry whores—they were always sitting on his lap. One of them, a girl named Maria, would sleep with him merely because she liked the way he played the piano. Those had been the years.

  At the thought of them his eyes teared up, making his last look at Lonesome Dove a watery one. The dusty street wavered in his vision as if under a heavy rain.

  Augustus happened to notice that Lippy was crying, tears running down both sides of his nose into the floppy pocket of his lip. Lippy normally cried when he got drunk, so the sight was nothing new, except that he didn’t seem drunk. “If you’re sick you can’t go,” he said sternly. “We don’t want no sickly hands.”

  “I ain’t sick, Gus,” Lippy said, a little embarrassed by his tears. Soon he felt a little better. Lonesome Dove was hidden—he could barely see the top of the little church house across the chaparral flats.

  “It’s funny, leaving a place, ain’t it?” he said. “You never do know when you’ll get back.”

  24.

  ALTHOUGH HE KNEW they wouldn’t leave until the heat of the day was over, Newt felt so excited that he didn’t miss sleep and could hardly eat. The Captain had made it final: they were leaving that day. He had told all the hands that they ought to see to their equipment; once they got on the trail, opportunities for repair work might be scarce.