As the sun lit the grass, he rode east along the road of buffalo bones.
55.
MONKEY JOHN HATED IT that she wouldn’t talk. “By God, I’ll cut your tongue out if you ain’t gonna use it,” he said once, and he knocked her down and sat on her, his big knife an inch from her face, until Dog Face threatened to shoot him if he didn’t let her be. Lorena expected him to do it. He was the worst man she had ever known, worse even than Ermoke and the Kiowas, though they were bad enough. She shut her eyes, expecting to feel the knife, but Dog Face cocked his pistol and Monkey John didn’t cut her. He continued to sit on her chest though, arguing with Dog Face about her silence.
“What do you care if she talks?” Dog Face said. “I wouldn’t talk to you either, you goddamn old runt.”
“She can talk, goddamn her,” Monkey John said. “Duck said she talked to him.”
“It’s her business if she don’t want to talk,” Dog Face insisted. He was a thin scarecrow of a man, but he had crazy eyes, and Monkey John never pushed him too far.
“By God, we bought her,” Monkey John said. “Give all them hides for her. She oughta do what we say.”
“You get your damn money’s worth,” Dog Face said. “Most of them hides was mine anyway.
“You old runt,” he added.
Monkey John was old and short. His hair was a dirty white and he was under five feet, but that didn’t keep him from being mean. Twice he had grabbed sticks out of the fire and beat her with them. There was nothing she could do but curl up as tight as she could. Her back and legs were soon burned and bruised and she knew Monkey John would do worse than that if he ever got her alone long enough, but Dog Face owned half of her and he stuck close to be sure his investment didn’t get too damaged.
Though she had seen Dog Face and Monkey John give Blue Duck the skins in trade for her, it seemed they weren’t full owners, for whenever the Kiowas showed up, every two or three days, they drug her off to their camp for their share, and the two white men didn’t try to stop them. There was no love lost between the white men and the Kiowas, but both sides were too afraid of Blue Duck to get into it with one another.
Blue Duck was the only man of the bunch who seemed to take no interest in her. He had stolen her to sell, and he had sold her. It was clear that he didn’t care what they did to her. When he was in camp he spent his time cleaning his gun or smoking and seldom even looked her way. Monkey John was bad, but Blue Duck still scared her more. His cold, empty eyes frightened her more than Monkey John’s anger or Dog Face’s craziness. Blue Duck had scared the talk completely out of her. She had never been much for talk, but her silence in the camp was different from her old silence. In Lonesome Dove she had often hidden her words, but she could find them if she needed them; she had brought them out quick enough when Jake came along.
Now speech had left her; fear took its place. The two white men talked constantly of killing. Blue Duck didn’t talk about it, but she knew he could do it whenever it pleased him. She didn’t expect to live to the end of any day—only the fact that the men weren’t tired of her yet kept her alive. When they did tire they would kill her. She thought about how it would happen but couldn’t picture it in her mind. She only hoped it wasn’t Blue Duck that finally did it. She was so dirty and stank so that it seemed strange the men would even want to use her, but of course they were even dirtier and stank worse. They camped not far from a creek, but none of the men ever washed. Monkey John told her several times what he would do to her if she tried to run away—terrible things, on the order of what Blue Duck had threatened, on the morning after he kidnapped her, only worse if possible. He said he would sew her up with rawhide threads so tight she couldn’t make water and then would watch her till she burst.
Lorena tried to shut her mind when he talked like that. She knew the trick of not talking, and was learning not to hear. At night she wondered sometimes if she could just learn to die. She wanted to, and imagined how angry they would be if they woke up one morning and she was dead so they could get no more from her.
But she couldn’t learn that trick. She thought of being dead, but she didn’t die, and she didn’t try to escape either. She didn’t know where she was, for the plains stretched around, empty and bare, as far as she could see. They had horses and they would catch her and do something to her, or else give her to the Kiowas. Monkey John threatened that too, describing what the Kiowas would do if they got the chance. At night that was mostly what the men talked about—what the Indians did to people they caught. She believed it. Often with the Kiowas she felt a deep fright come over her. They did what they wanted with her but it wasn’t enough—she could see them looking at her after they finished, and the looks made her more scared even than the things Monkey John threatened. The Kiowas just looked, but there was something in their looks that made her wish she could be dead and not have to think about it.
Blue Duck came and went. Some days he would be there at the camp, sharpening his knife. Other days he would ride off. Sometimes the Kiowas went with him, other days they sat around their camp doing nothing. Monkey John swore at them, but the Kiowas didn’t listen. They laughed at the old man and gave him looks of the sort they gave Lorena. It wasn’t only women they could do things to.
One day the Kiowas found a crippled cow, left by some herd. The cow had a split hoof and could barely hobble along on three legs. The Kiowas poked it with their lances and got it in sight of camp. Then one hit it in the head with an ax and the cow fell dead. The Kiowas split open the cow’s stomach and began to pull out her guts. They sliced off strips of the white guts and squeezed out what was in them, eating it greedily. That’s what he said he’d do to me, Lorena thought. Pull out my guts like that cow.
“Look at them dern gut eaters,” Dog Face said. “I’d be derned if I’d eat guts raw.”
“You might if you was hungry,” Monkey John said.
“They ain’t hungry, they got the whole cow,” Dog Face pointed out.
If there was hope for her, Lorena knew it lay with Dog Face. He was rough and crazy, but he wasn’t hard like the old man. He might cuff her if she disappointed him, but he didn’t beat her with hot sticks or kick her stomach like the old man did. At times she caught Dog Face looking at her in a friendly way. He was getting so he didn’t like Monkey John to hurt her or even touch her. He was cautious about what he said, for the old man would flare up in an instant, but when Monkey John bothered her, Dog Face got restless and would often take his gun and leave the camp. Monkey John didn’t care—he played with her roughly whether anyone was in camp or not.
One night Blue Duck rode in from one of his mysterious trips with some whiskey, which he dispensed freely both to the two white men and to the Kiowas. Blue Duck drank with them, but not much, whereas in an hour Monkey John, Dog Face and the Kiowas were very drunk. It was a hot night but they built a big campfire and sat around it, passing the bottle from hand to hand.
Lorena began to feel frightened. Blue Duck had not so much as looked at her, but she felt something was about to happen. He had several bottles of whiskey, and as soon as the men finished one he handed them another. Monkey John was particularly sloppy when he drank. The whiskey ran out of the corners of his mouth and into his dirty beard. Once he stood up and made water without even turning his back.
“You could go off aways,” Dog Face said. “I don’t want to sit in your piss.”
The old man continued to make water, most of it hitting the campfire and making a spitting sound, but some splattering on the ground near where Dog Face sat.
“I could but I ain’t about to,” the old man said. “Scoot back if you’re afraid of a little piss.”
Blue Duck spread a blanket near the fire and began to roll dice on it. The Kiowas immediately got excited. Ermoke grabbed the dice and rolled them several times. Each of the Kiowas had a try, but Monkey John scoffed at their efforts.
“Them gut eaters can’t throw dice,” he said.
“You better b
e quiet,” Blue Duck said. “Ermoke wouldn’t mind frying your liver.”
“He tries it and I’ll blow a hole in him you could catch rain water through,” Monkey John said.
“Let’s gamble,” Blue Duck said. “I ain’t had a game in a while.”
“Gamble for what?” Dog Face asked. “All I got is my gun and I’d be in pretty shape without that. Or my horses.”
“Put up your horses then,” Blue Duck said. “You might win.”
Dog Face shook his head.
“I don’t know much,” Dog Face said. “But I know better than to bet my dern horses. There ain’t nowhere to walk to from this Canadian that a man can get to on foot.”
Yet an hour later he lost his horses to Blue Duck. Monkey John lost his on the first roll. Before long Blue Duck had won all the horses, though many of the Indians were so drunk they hardly seemed to know what was happening.
Blue Duck had a heavy, square face—he kept shaking the dice in his big hand. Sometimes he would play with a strand of his shaggy hair, as a girl would. Sometimes Lorena thought maybe she could grab a gun and shoot him—the men left their rifles laying around. But the gun hadn’t worked when she tried to shoot Tinkersley, and if she tried to shoot Blue Duck and didn’t kill him she would be in for it. She might be in for it anyway, though it seemed to her the men were scared of him too. Even Monkey John was cautious when Blue Duck was around. They might be glad to see him dead. She didn’t try it. It was because she was so frightened of him that she wanted to, yet the same fright kept her from it.
“Well, now I’ve won the livestock,” Blue Duck said. “Or most of it.”
“Most of it, hell, you’ve won it all,” Monkey John said. “We’re stuck on this goddamn river.”
“I ain’t won the girl,” Blue Duck said.
“A woman ain’t livestock,” Dog Face said.
“This one is,” Blue Duck said. “I’ve bought and sold better animals than her many times.”
“Well, she’s ours,” Monkey John said.
“She’s just half yours,” Blue Duck reminded him. “Ermoke and his boys own a half-interest.”
“We was aiming to buy them out,” Dog Face said.
Blue Duck laughed his heavy laugh. “By the time you raise the money, there won’t be much left to buy,” he said. “You’d do better to buy a goat.”
“Don’t want no goddamn goat,” Dog Face said. He was nervous about the turn the conversation was taking.
“Let’s gamble some more,” Blue Duck said, shaking the dice at Ermoke. “Bet me your half interest in the woman. If you win I’ll let you have your horses back.”
Ermoke shook his head, looking at Lorena briefly across the campfire.
“No,” he said. “We want the woman.”
“Come on, let’s gamble,” Blue Duck said, a threatening tone in his voice. All the Kiowas looked at him. The two white men kept quiet.
The Kiowas began to argue among themselves. Lorena didn’t understand their gabble, but it was clear some wanted to gamble and some didn’t. Some wanted their horses back. Ermoke finally changed his mind, though he kept looking across the fire at her. It was as if he wanted her to know he had his plans for her, however the game turned out.
All the Kiowas finally agreed to gamble except one, the youngest. He didn’t want it. He was skinny and very young-looking, no more than sixteen, but he was more interested in her than the rest. Sometimes, in the Kiowa camp, he had two turns, or even three. The older men laughed at his appetite and tried to distract him when he covered her, but he ignored them.
Now he balked. He didn’t look up, just kept his eyes down and shook his head. The Kiowas yelled at him but he didn’t respond. He just kept shaking his head. He didn’t want to risk his interest in her.
“That damn chigger’s holding up the game,” Blue Duck said to Ermoke. He stood up and walked a few steps into the darkness. In a minute, they heard him making water. The Kiowas were still drinking whiskey. Now Ermoke was in the mood to gamble, and he reached over and shook the young man, trying to get him to agree, but the young man looked sullenly at the ground.
Suddenly there was a shot, startling them all, and the young man flopped backwards. Blue Duck stepped back into the firelight, a rifle in his hands. The Indians were speechless. Blue Duck sat down, the rifle across his lap, and rattled the dice again. The young Indian’s feet were still in the light, but the feet didn’t move.
“By God, life’s cheap up here on the goddamn Canadian,” Monkey John said.
“Cheap, and it might get cheaper,” Blue Duck said.
Then the gambling started again. The dead boy was ignored. In a few minutes Blue Duck had won her back—not only what the Indians owned but what the white men owned too. Dog Face didn’t want to play, but he also didn’t want to die. He played and lost, and so did Monkey John.
“I think you’re a goddamn cheat,” Monkey John said, drunk enough to be reckless. “I think you cheated me out of our horses, and now you’ve cheated us out of this woman.”
“I don’t want the woman,” Blue Duck said. “You men can have her back as a gift, and your horses too, provided you do me one favor.”
“I bet it’s a hell of a big favor,” Dog Face said. “What do you want us to do, attack a fort?”
Blue Duck chuckled. “There’s an old man following me,” he said. “He went west, but he’ll be coming along one of these days. I want you to kill him.
“Hear that, Ermoke?” he added. “You can have your horses back, and the woman too. Just kill that old man. I hear he’s coming down the river.”
“I’d like to know who you hear it from?” Monkey John asked.
“He’s been following me ever since I stole the woman,” Blue Duck said. “He ain’t no tracker, though. He went off across the Quitaque. But now he’s figured it out and he’ll be coming.”
“By God, he must want her bad, to come all this way,” Monkey John said.
“Kill him tomorrow,” Blue Duck said, looking at Ermoke. “Take some of the horses and go find some help.”
Ermoke was drunk and angry. “We do it,” he said. “Then we take the woman.”
“The hell you will,” Dog Face said. “We’re in on this and she’s half ours, and you ain’t taking her nowhere.”
“You shut up, or I’ll kill you like I killed that chigger,” Blue Duck said.
“You get some help,” he said again, looking at Ermoke. “I doubt you five can kill that old man.”
“Hell, what is he?” Monkey John said. “Five against one’s nice odds.”
“These five can’t shoot,” Blue Duck said. “They can whoop and holler, but they can’t shoot. That old man can.”
“That makes a difference,” Dog Face agreed. “I can shoot. If he gets past Ermoke, I’ll finish him.”
“Somebody better settle him,” Blue Duck said. “Otherwise you’ll all be dead.”
The Kiowas stood up and drug the dead boy away. Lorena heard them arguing in the darkness. Blue Duck sat where he was, his rifle across his lap; he seemed half asleep.
Monkey John got up and came over to her. “Who is this old man?” he asked. “You got a husband?”
Lorena stayed in her silence. It infuriated Monkey John. He grabbed her by the hair and cuffed her, knocking her over. Then he grabbed a stick of wood and was about to beat her with it when Dog Face intervened.
“Put it down,” he said. “You’ve beat her enough.”
“Let her answer me then,” Monkey John said. “She can talk. Duck says so.”
Dog Face picked up his rifle. Monkey John still had the stick.
“You’d pull a gun on me over a whore?” Monkey John said.
“I ain’t gonna shoot you but I’ll break your head if you don’t let her be,” Dog Face said.
Monkey John was too drunk to listen. He charged Dog Face and swung the stick at him but Dog Face wasn’t as drunk. He hit Monkey John with the barrel of his rifle. The old man went loop-legged and dropped his
stick. Then he dropped, too, falling on the stick.
“I’d have let him beat her,” Blue Duck said.
“I ain’t you,” Dog Face said.
In the night Lorena tried to sort it out in her mind. She had been hungry so much, tired so much, scared so much, that her mind didn’t work well anymore. Sometimes she would try to remember something and couldn’t—it was as if her mind and memory had gone and hidden somewhere until things were better. Dog Face had given her an old blanket; otherwise she would have had to sleep on the ground in what was left of her clothes. She wrapped the blanket around her and tried to think back over the talk. It meant Gus was coming—it was Gus Blue Duck wanted the Kiowas to kill. She had almost forgotten he was following her, life had gotten so hard. The Kiowas had been sent to kill him, so Gus might never arrive. It was hard to believe that Gus would get her out—the times when she had known him had been so different from the hard times. She didn’t think she would ever get out. Blue Duck was too bad. Dog Face was her only chance, and Dog Face was scared of Blue Duck. Sooner or later Blue Duck would give her to Ermoke or someone just as hard. If that was going to happen it was better that her mind had gone to hide.
In the gray dawn she saw the Kiowas leave. Blue Duck talked to them in Indian talk and gave them some bullets to kill Gus with. He woke Dog Face and shook Monkey John more or less awake. “If he gets past Ermoke, you two kill him,” he said. Then he left.
The Lonesome Dove Chronicles (1-4) Page 179