The Lonesome Dove Chronicles (1-4)

by Larry McMurtry

  “Joey Garza shoots a rifle, not a cannon,” he observed. “If he takes your head off, he’ll have to do it with a knife or a saw.”

  Deputy Plunkert ignored the part about the knife and the saw. Captain Call was only joking, probably. So far as he knew, the Garza boy had not cut any heads off, but there were plenty of other, less dramatic injuries to worry about.

  “They say that rifle of his will hit you between the eyes even if you’re a mile away,” the deputy said. Several people he had talked with claimed that Joey Garza made kills at a distance of one mile.

  “Half a mile, about,” Call said. “I doubt the part about hitting between the eyes. If he’s sensible, he’ll shoot for the trunk. It’s a bigger target.”

  “Well, half a mile, then. How do you expect to beat him?” Ted asked.

  “I expect to outlast him,” Call said. “He’s young, and he’s likely impatient. There’s three of us, and he’s alone. He might get impatient, and make a big mistake.”

  “The truth is, he’s killed several passengers at a distance of about five feet, with his pistol,” Brookshire reminded them. “Oh, I’ve no doubt he can shoot the German rifle. But he’s done damage with some short shots, too.”

  “Why, he robs trains and makes people get off and hand over their watches and tiepins,” Ted Plunkert said. “Some of the passengers are armed men. Why don’t one of them try to shoot him? Then, the rest of them could jump him.”

  “I’ve wondered about that myself,” Brookshire said. “You’d think somebody would try him, but they don’t. They just stand there like sheep and let themselves be robbed.”

  “That’s the effect of reputation,” Call said. “Once you get one as big as this boy’s, people think you’re better than you are. They think you can’t be beat, when the fact is, anybody can be beat, or make mistakes. I never met an outlaw who didn’t make mistakes. I guess Blue Duck didn’t make many, but he was exceptional.”

  “Joey Garza hasn’t made any mistakes, not one,” Brookshire said.

  “Why, I’d say he has,” Call said. “He broke the law—your Colonel’s law, particularly. That was his mistake, and now he’s got us hunting him.”

  “I guess I was talking tactics,” Brookshire said. “He just seems to know when to show up, and when not to. If there’s a company of soldiers on the train, he don’t show up.”

  “That’s just common sense,” Call said. “I wouldn’t show up, either, if I saw there was a company of soldiers on the train. That don’t make the boy General Lee.”

  Deputy Plunkert was still thinking about the red bone, sticking out of the dead soldier’s neck. Once he got such a troubling picture in his mind, he sometimes had a hard time making the picture go away. It was as if it got stuck, somewhere in his thinking machine. It might be a good picture that got stuck; several having to do with Doobie’s young body got stuck just before they married.

  But it was the bad pictures that seemed to get stuck the hardest, and stay stuck the longest. Being sucked down into quicksand was one bad picture Ted Plunkert had trouble with. There were patches of quicksand in the Rio Grande, and the deputy had a deadly fear of them. Not being able to breathe because quicksand was filling up your mouth and your nose was a bad picture, but not as bad as the picture of a red bone sticking out of a man’s neck. He wished Brookshire had never told the story. It was just like a Yankee to talk about things civilized people would have the good sense to leave undiscussed.

  “How did General Grant look?” Call asked. He had always had a curiosity about the great soldiers: Grant and Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Sherman.

  “Well, he looked drunk and he was drunk,” Brookshire said. “He won that War, and was drunk the whole time.”

  Call said nothing, but again, he remembered his old partner, Gus McCrae. Gus, too, could fight drunk. Sometimes he had fought better drunk than he had fought sober.

  “I’d feel better if somebody could steal that rifle from that boy,” Deputy Plunkert said. “A mile’s a long way to be killed from.”

  “Half a mile,” Call corrected, again.

  Brookshire was wondering if Katie’s legs would be any fatter when he got home.

  “I’d still like to know who the second robber is,” he said. “The one that struck that train out in New Mexico.”

  “I’d like to know that too,” Call said.

  15.

  IN CROW TOWN, Joey lived with three whores. He didn’t use them for his pleasure—he never used women for his pleasure. The white whore was named Beulah. She had come south from Dodge City with a gambler named Red Foot. The nickname resulted from the fact that another gambler had become enraged and tried to stab Red Foot in the heart. But, being drunk as well as enraged, he took a wild swing, toppled out of his chair, and finally managed to stab Red Foot in his foot. Red Foot was very drunk too, and didn’t notice at first that he had been stabbed completely through his foot. He only noticed the injury when someone pointed out to him that his right boot was full of blood. He looked down, saw that indeed the boot was full of blood, and fainted.

  A few days later, he and Beulah left Dodge City and moved to Crow Town. The place was said to be booming; it was going to be the next Dodge. Red Foot and Beulah planned to open a whorehouse and get rich. But when they arrived, they saw at once that Crow Town was not booming. The rumors they had heard were lies. The population was low, and the few people who lived there were clearly too poor to support a whorehouse, or any other business, except a saloon.

  Unable to face any more travel, Beulah and Red Foot stayed. Red Foot drank too much, and he had a tendency to pass out at inopportune moments. He had even passed out when playing cards, and cards were his profession.

  Joey Garza was a different story. Beulah, twenty-eight years old and well traveled in more ways than one, had never seen a male as beautiful as Joey. His walk, his teeth, his hands were beautiful. Red Foot was aging, and unreliable. Beulah hoped that Joey would take an interest in her, and he did. He asked her to come and live in his house, or a house he had taken as his. In Crow Town, houses often came to belong to the best shot. Joey didn’t have to shoot anyone to acquire his house, though. A killer named Pecos Freddy passed through Crow Town the week before Joey arrived, and he ended up killing three Mexicans—the father, mother, and brother of the two young whores who ended up living with Joey and Beulah. The young whores, Marieta and Gabriela, were so saddened by the deaths that they didn’t care, at first, whether they lived or died. They knew they would die soon, if they continued to live in Crow Town, but they had no money, no means of travel, and no hope.

  When Joey appeared, they simply gave him the house, a two-room hut with low ceilings, and hoped that he would let them stay. He did, and he soon let Beulah stay, too, but he didn’t share his bed, or even his room, with any of them. The three women slept on the floor in the larger room. Even that was better than sleeping with Red Foot, Beulah decided; another of Red Foot’s unreliabilities was that he frequently wet the bed. He said it was because a horse had kicked him once, in a bad place. Beulah didn’t know about that, but she did know that she was tired of waking up in a bed full of piss. The floor in Joey’s house might host an occasional scorpion or centipede, but at least it was dry.

  Joey let the women stay because he needed someone to cook and wash clothes. Beulah cooked, and Marieta and Gabriela kept his clothes clean. Joey Garza was by far the cleanest person in Crow Town. He insisted that his clothes be washed frequently, a difficult demand in a town where there was little water. Every three days, Marieta and Gabriela tied sacks of clothes and bedding onto a small donkey someone had lost. Then they trudged eleven miles through the sandhills, to the Pecos, where they washed the clothes, hung them on chaparral bushes to dry, and took them back to Joey. Often, they had to return to Crow Town by starlight.

  Marieta and Gabriela were chubby girls, and they didn’t expect much. Both had been whores since they were ten. Walking to the Pecos and washing Joey’s clothes was an easier life th
an either had hoped for. It didn’t bother them that Joey didn’t want them. He was a güero, and güeros were often strange.

  Beulah, though, was bothered by Joey’s indifference. In her experience, if men didn’t want you, they left you. Joey was the only person in Crow Town who had money. If he left, what would she do? Red Foot hated her now. He was a jealous man, and he would undoubtedly try to have his revenge the minute Joey Garza left. In his bitterness, he had already told her he would tie her to a tree and leave her tied until the crows pecked out her eyes. Beulah didn’t really believe that crows pecked out people’s eyes, but she didn’t take Red Foot’s threats lightly, either. He was perfectly capable of doing something horrible to her, and he probably would, if he got the chance.

  It occurred to Beulah one day that Joey’s tastes might be complex. She had known men whose tastes were complex; the most common complex taste, in her view, was for extra women in the bed. Maybe that was what Joey would like—all three of them in bed at once.

  If there was even a chance that it might work, Beulah wanted to try. She talked it over with Marieta and Gabriela, both of whom were skeptical.

  “Three women at the same time?” Marieta said. “He don’t even want one woman.”

  “No, but he might like three,” Beulah insisted.

  Gabriela, the youngest, didn’t like the idea at all. Whoring was bad enough. What Beulah suggested only sounded worse. Gabriela had become a whore when she was ten, but she didn’t look at men. Once, her own uncle had forced her to look at him. He twisted her arm and beat her until she looked at him, but usually, she just looked away and pretended she wasn’t there. Sometimes, while she was looking away, the men stole back the money they gave her. Gabriela never got to keep much of the money, anyway. Her father had taken it, while he was alive, and now Marieta took it.

  “If he don’t want us, he won’t feed us,” Beulah said. In her experience, that was how men were.

  Later, the two girls talked it over. They didn’t want to disappoint Beulah, who had been good to them, in their time of grief. The girls didn’t like Crow Town. The wind blew very cold in winter. It was always dusty, and the men were rough. But in Mexico, they had nothing. Neither of them wanted to go back to Mexico.

  “If he don’t want us, he won’t feed us,” Marieta said, echoing Beulah. She was willing to defer to Beulah’s judgment. Beulah was older, and knew more about men.

  The next night, at Beulah’s suggestion, they all got undressed except for nightgowns. The girls’ gowns were only of thin cotton, but Beulah’s was silk. She had bought it long ago, in Kansas City. When they went in to Joey, he was cleaning his fine rifle with a rag. The look in his eyes, when he saw them come in, was not friendly. He didn’t speak.

  “You could have us all three,” Beulah said, timidly. From the look he gave them, she knew that her idea had not been a good one. She had mentioned it to Red Foot, to see what he thought, and Red Foot certainly liked it.

  “I’d take three whores over one whore anytime,” Red Foot said. “I’m a man that likes whores.” That was true. The whores in Dodge City had profited greatly from Red Foot’s interest.

  Joey was different, though. He was a colder article, Beulah thought.

  “I don’t want three fat women,” he said to Beulah. “You cook. Marieta washes clothes. Gabriela don’t have to do nothing.”

  “Well, why don’t she?” Beulah asked, stung. She had already begun to be a little jealous of Gabriela, and now she felt even more jealous.

  “Because she’s pretty,” Joey said, closing the conversation.

  “He’s in love with you,” Marieta said to her sister, later. “He’s rich, too. He has a cave full of money.”

  Joey did like to look at the young whore Gabriela. He liked it that she was so modest. That was the way women should be. But, other than admiring her looks and her modesty, he had no need for her.

  During the day, Joey often sat for a while in the town’s small, dirty saloon. At first, the gamblers who passed through always pestered him. They had heard of his robberies and knew, or thought they knew, of his wealth. They wanted him to go robbing with them, so they could have wealth, too. Joey was successful, far more successful than any of them. He was feared, and they, too, would have liked to be feared. They tried to be friendly with him, to suggest robberies in which he could share. Each of them knew of a bank that would be easy to rob, or a stage office, or something.

  Joey ignored all their offers. He didn’t trust any of the men. Also, he didn’t need them. There was a boy in Crow Town who was slightly lame, but active. His name was Pablo, and he was twelve. Twice Joey took Pablo with him, so he would have someone to hold his horse during the robberies. He didn’t like to tie his horse, and he didn’t trust it to stand, either. If he had to leave in a hurry, having to untie a horse or look for one that had walked off would not be good. Pablo was his solution to the problem of the horse. Pablo liked Joey. Being chosen to go with him was the happiest thing that had happened to Pablo in his life. He did a good job, too, always leading Joey’s horse to the handiest place for him to mount. Pablo thought Joey was the greatest man alive. He would have been proud to give his life for him.

  Except for the services of Pablo and the three whores, Joey wanted nothing from the people of Crow Town. They were a rough lot, and also dumb. In his view, only smart people had a chance in life, and only smart people deserved a chance. Most of the men who stopped in Crow Town stayed drunk the whole time they were there. The cawing of the crows drove them to it. Joey didn’t mind the cawing, for he liked the crows. They were smarter than most people, in his view. Newcomers, maddened by the sound of cawing or the smell of crowshit or the wheeling of the thousands of birds, sometimes went berserk and tried to shoot the crows. They emptied pistols at them, or rifles. They missed, of course. Even when they tried shotguns, they missed. Not once did Joey see a crow fall. They were so smart that they didn’t even lose a feather when the crazy men shot at them.

  When Joey was in the saloon he sat alone, at a small table near the door. He wanted to be able to leave quickly if some of the stupid white men began to stab one another, or fire guns.

  Joey drank coffee, when he sat in the saloon. Occasionally, he would put a spoonful of whiskey in the coffee, on days when the dust made him cough. He had taken a fine fur coat from off the gentleman who had the private car, and when the wind blew cold, or the dust was blowing, he pulled the fur collar of his coat high around him and was warm. Men envied him the coat. If he had not been watchful, one would have killed him for it. But he was watchful, and he liked it that he was envied.

  Besides the coat, he also had a good blanket that had belonged to a cowboy he shot at a great distance. It was the longest shot he had made, since coming back from the City of Mexico with his gun. When Joey rode over to rob the corpse, he measured the distance; it was nearly six hundred yards. It gave him a good feeling, to be able to strike a gringo dead at such a distance. Finding that the cowboy had a fine blanket made him feel even better. The man was not young. He lay with his mouth open, when Joey reached him. Joey noticed that his teeth were false, so he took the false teeth, along with the blanket.

  The cowboy had been about to ride into Presidio when Joey killed him, and the shot was made at the last light of the day. No one in Presidio had noticed that the man was coming, and no one saw him fall. Joey waited until it was dark to measure the distance and rob the man. The bullet had taken off much of the cowboy’s skull. The man wore a large pistol, which Joey used to smash the skull open a little more. Then he took a cup from the dead man’s saddlebags and filled it with his brains. When it was darker still, he walked into town, holding the cup full of brains. He went to the jail and carefully set the cup inside the door. The deputy who had only one ear was there, but he had his boots off and was sleeping soundly. Joey planned to cut the man’s throat, if he woke up, but he didn’t wake up, and on impulse, Joey stole his boots. He left the dead cowboy’s false teeth in the cup of br
ains. Then he rode off happily. What he had done was not as bad as some things he had seen the Apaches do to dead white men. His only nagging worry was that he had seen a cat in the jail. The cat had opened its eyes and looked at him when he set the cup inside. It occurred to him that the cat might eat the brains and spoil the surprise he had planned for the hard sheriff and the one-eared deputy.

  Later, in Crow Town, Joey learned that the cat had not eaten the brains. The one-eared deputy woke up, looked in the cup, and puked on the floor of the jail. Later, in the street, the deputy puked some more. The deputy thought at first that it might be the work of Apaches, but there were no Apaches anymore. The Federales had killed all the Apaches in Mexico, and those in the United States had been removed to Indian territory. Many people on the border had even forgotten Apaches, and what they did to people. When Joey left the dead cowboy’s brains in the jail in Presidio, people began to talk about him as if he were the devil, not just a güero, a Mexican boy who was almost white. Only some of the older men and women remembered the Apaches, and how they cut.

  One day, when Joey had been in Crow Town three weeks, Beulah came in with an antelope haunch she had bought from the old hunter Ben Lily. The old man walked the West endlessly, killing bears and cougars. He had started his lifelong hunt in Louisiana, and was now in West Texas, killing bears and cougars as he went. He ate what he could, and sold the remainder in order to buy cartridges with which to kill more lions and bears. His aim was to kill all the lions and bears between the Gulf Coast and Canada. By his reckoning, he was not yet half done. Thousands of lions and bears still lived, in the great West, and Ben Lily meant to kill them all. Antelope didn’t interest him, but antelope made good eating, and could also be sold profitably in rough villages such as Crow Town.

  Beulah looked scared, when she came in with the haunch. Her hands were shaking as she got ready to fry it.