Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

by Lonesome Dove

  Evidently if you crossed the river to do it, it stopped being a crime and became a game.

  Newt didn't really feel that what they were doing was wrong--if it had been wrong, the Captain wouldn't have done it. But the thought hit him that under Mexican law what they were doing might be a hanging offense. It put a different slant on the game. In imagining what it would be like to go to Mexico, he had always supposed the main danger would come in the form of bullets, but he was no longer so sure. On the ride down he hadn't been worried, because he had a whole company around him.

  But once they started back, instead of having a whole company around him, he seemed to have no one.

  Pea was far across the valley, and the Captain was half a mile to the rear. If a bunch of hostile vaqueros sprang up, he might not even be able to find the other two men. Even if he wasn't captured immediately, he could easily get lost. Lonesome Dove might be hard to locate, particularly if he was being chased.

  If caught, he knew he could expect no mercy. The only thing in his favor was that there didn't seem to be any trees around to hang him from. Mr. Gus had once told a story about a horse thief who had to be hung from the rafter of a barn because there were no trees, but so far as Newt could tell there were no barns in Mexico either. The only thing he knew clearly was that he was scared. He rode for several miles, feeling very apprehensive. The thought of hanging--a new thought --wouldn't leave his mind. It became so powerful at one point that he squeezed his throat with one hand, to get a little notion of how it felt not to breathe. It didn't feel so bad when it was just his hand, but he knew a rope would feel a lot worse.

  But the miles passed and no vaqueros appeared. The horses strung out under the moonlight in a long line, trotting easily.

  They were well past the hacienda, and the night seemed so peaceful that Newt began to relax a little. After all, the Captain and Pea and the others had done such things many times. It was just a night's work, and one that would soon be over.

  Newt wasn't tired, and as he became less scared he began to imagine how gratifying it would be to ride into Lonesome Dove with such a large herd of horses. Everyone who saw them ride in would realize that he was now a man--even Lorena might see it if she happened to look out her window at the right time. He and the Captain and Pea were doing an exceptional thing. Deets would be proud of him, and even Bolivar would take notice.

  All went peaceful and steady, and the thin moon hung brightly in the west. It seemed to Newt that it must be one of the longest nights of the year. He kept looking to the east, hoping to see a little redness on the horizon, but the horizon was still black.

  He was thinking about the morning, and how nice it would be to cross the river and bring the horses through the town, when the peaceful night suddenly went off like a bomb. They were on the long chaparral plain not far south of the river and were easing the horses around a particularly dense thicket of chaparral, prickly pear and low mesquite when it happened.

  Newt had dropped off the point a little distance, to allow the horses room to skirt the thicket, when he heard shots from behind him. Before he had time to look around, or even touch his own gun, the horse herd exploded into a dead run and began to spread out. He saw what looked like half the herd charging right at him from the rear; some of the horses nearest him veered and went crashing into the chaparral. Then he heard Pea's gun sound from the other side of the thicket, and at that point lost all capacity for sorting out what was happening. When the race started, most of the herd was behind him, and the horses ahead of him were at least going in the same direction he was. But in a few seconds, once the whole mass of animals was moving at a dead run over the uncertain terrain, he suddenly noticed a stream of animals coming directly toward him from the right.

  The new bunch had simply cut around the chaparral thicket from the north and collided with the first herd. Before Newt even had time to consider what was happening, he was engulfed in a mass of animals, a few of which went down when the two herds ran together. Then, over the confused neighing of what seemed like hundreds of horses he began to hear yells and curses--Mexican curses.

  To his shock he saw a rider engulfed in the mass like himself, and the rider was not the Captain or Pea Eye. He realized then that two horse herds had run together, theirs headed for Texas, the other coming from Texas, both trying to skirt the same thicket, though from opposite directions.

  The realization was unhelpful, though, because the horses behind him had caught up with him and all were struggling for running room. For a second he thought of trying to force his way to the outside, but then he saw two riders already there, struggling to turn the herd. They were not succeeding, but they were not his riders, either, and it struck him that being in the middle of the herd offered a certain safety, at least.

  It quickly became clear that their herd was much the larger, and was forcing the new herd to curve into its flow. Soon all the horses were running northwest, Newt still in the middle of the bunch.

  Once a big wild-eyed gelding nearly knocked Mouse down; then Newt heard shots to his left and ducked, thinking the shots were meant for him. Just as he ducked, Mouse leaped a sizable chaparral bush. With his eyes toward the gunfire Newt was unprepared for the leap, and lost a stirrup and one rein but held on to the saddle horn and kept his seat. From then on he concentrated on riding, though he still occasionally heard shots. He kept low over his horse, an unnecessary precaution, for the running herd threw up so much dust that he could not have seen ten feet in front of him even if it had been daylight. He was grateful for the dust--it was choking him, but it was also keeping him from getting shot, a more important consideration.

  After a few miles the horses were no longer bunched so tightly. It occurred to Newt that he ought to angle out of the herd and not just let himself be carried along like a cow chip on a river, but he didn't know what such a move might mean.

  Would he be required to shoot at the vaqueros if they were still there? He was almost afraid to take his pistol out of its holster for fear Mouse would jump another bush and he'd drop it.

  While he was running along, trying not to fall off and hoping he and the horses wouldn't suddenly go over a cutbank or pile into a deep gully of some kind, he heard a sound that was deeply reassuring: the sound of the Captain's rifle, the big Henry. Newt heard it shoot twice. It had to be the Captain because he was the only man on the border who carried a Henry. Everyone else had already switched to the lighter Winchesters.

  The shots meant the Captain was all right. They came from ahead, which was odd, since the Captain had been behind, but then the vaqueros had been ahead, too. Somehow the Captain had managed to get to the front of the run and deal with them.

  Newt looked back over his shoulder and saw red in the east. It was just a line of red, like somebody had drawn it with a crayon, over the thick black line of the land, but it meant that the night was ending. He didn't know where they were, but they still had a lot of horses. The horses were well spread by then, and he eased out of the herd.

  Despite the red in the east, the land seemed darker than it had all night; he could see nothing and just exerted himself to keep up, hoping they were going in the right direction. It felt a little odd to be alive and unharmed after such a deep scare, and Newt kept looking east, wishing the light would hurry so he could see around him and know whether it was safe to relax. For all he knew, Mexicans with Winchesters could be a hundred yards behind him.

  He wished the Captain would shoot again; he had never been in a situation in which he felt so uncertain about everything. Squint as he could, Newt could see nothing but dark land and white dust.

  Of course the sun would soon solve the problem, but what would he see when he could see? The Captain and Pea could be ten miles away, and he himself could be riding into Mexico with Pedro Flores's vaqueros.

  Then, coming over a little rise in the ground, he saw something that gave him heart: a thin silver ribbon to the northwest that could only be the river. The fading moon hung
just above it. Across it, Texas was in sight, no less dark than Mexico, but there. The deep relief Newt felt at the sight of it washed away most of his fear. He even recognized the curve of the river --it was the old Comanche crossing, only a mile above Lonesome Dove. Whoever he was with had brought him home.

  To his dismay, the sight of such a safe, familiar place made him want to cry. It seemed to him that the night had lasted many days--days during which he had been worried every moment that he would do something wrong and make a mistake that meant he would never come back to Lonesome Dove, or else come back disgraced. Now it was over and he was almost back, and relief seemed to run through him like warm water, some of which leaked out his eyes. It made him glad it was still dark--what would the men think, if they saw him? There was so much dust on his face that when he quickly wiped away the tears of relief his fingers rubbed off moist smears of dirt.

  In a few minutes more, as the herd neared the river, the darkness loosened and began to gray. The red on the eastern horizon was no longer a line but spread upward like an opened fan. Soon Newt could see the horses moving through the first faint gray light--a lot of horses. Then, just as he thought he had brought the flood within himself under control, the darkness loosened its hold yet more and the first sunlight streamed across the plain, filtering through the cloud of dust to touch the coats of the tired horses, most of whom had slowed to a rapid trot. Ahead, waiting on the bank of the river, was Captain Call, the big Henry in the crook of his arm. The Hell Bitch was lathered with sweat, but her head was up and she slung it restlessly as she watched the herd approach--even pointing her keen ears at Mouse for a moment. Neither the Captain nor the gray mare looked in the least affected by the long night or the hard ride, yet Newt found himself so moved by the mere sight of them sitting there that he had to brush away yet another tear and smudge his dusty cheek even worse.

  Down the river aways he could see Pea, sitting on the rangy bay they called Sardine.

  Of the hostile vaqueros they had met there was no sign. There were so many questions Newt wanted to ask about what they had done and where they had been that he hardly knew where to begin; yet, when he rode up to the Captain, keeping Mouse far enough away from the Hell Bitch that she wouldn't try to take a bite out of him, he didn't ask any questions. They would have poured out of him if it had been Mr. Gus or Deets or Pea, but since it was the Captain, the questions just stayed inside. All he said, at the end of the most exciting and important night of his life, was a simple good morning.

  "It is a good one, ain't it?" Call said, as he watched the huge herd of horses--well over a hundred of them--pour over the low banks and spread out down the river to drink. Pea had ridden Sardine into the water stirrup deep to keep the herd from spreading too far south.

  Call knew that it had been rare luck, running into the four Mexican horse thieves and getting most of the horses they had just brought over from Texas. The Mexicans had thought they had run into an army--who but an army would have so many horses?--and had not really stayed to make a fight, though he had had to scare off one vaquero who kept trying to turn the herd.

  As for the boy, it was good that he had picked up a little experience and come through it all with nothing worse than a dirty face.

  They sat together silently as the top half of the sun shot long ribbons of light across the brown river and the drinking horses, some of whom lay down in the shallows and rolled themselves in the cooling mud.

  When the herd began to move in twos and threes up the north bank, Call touched the mare and he and the boy moved out into the water. Call loosened his rein and let the mare drink. He was as pleased with her as he was with the catch. She was surefooted as a cat, and far from used up, though the boy's mount was so done in he would be worthless for a week. Pea's big bay was not much better. Call let the mare drink all she wanted before gathering his rein. Most of the horses had moved to the north bank, and the sun had finished lifting itself clear of the horizon.

  "Let's ease on home," he said to the boy.

  "I hope Wilbarger's got his pockets full of money. We've got horses to sell."

  If Wilbarger was impressed at the sight of so many horses, he gave no sign of it. The small herd had already been penned, and he and Deets and the man called Chick were quietly separating out horses with the H I C brand on them. Dish Boggett worked the gate between the two corrals, letting Wilbarger's horses run through and waving his rope in the face of those he didn't claim. Jake Spoon was nowhere in sight, nor was there any sign of Augustus and the Irishmen.

  The new herd was far too large to pen. Call had always meant to fence a holding pasture for just such an eventuality, but he had never gotten around to it. In the immediate case it didn't matter greatly; the horses were tired from their long run and could be left to graze and rest. After breakfast he would send the boy out to watch them.

  Wilbarger paused from his work a moment to look at the stream of horses trotting past, then went back to his cutting, which was almost done. Since there was already enough help in the pen, there was nothing for Newt to do but stand by the fence and watch. Pea had already climbed up on what they called the "opry seat" --the top rail of the corral--to watch the proceedings. His bay and Newt's Mouse, just unsaddled, took a few steps and then lay down and rolled themselves in the dust.

  Call was not quite ready to rest the mare. When Wilbarger finished his sorting and came over to the fence, it was her, not the Captain, that he had his eye on.

  "Good morning," he said. "Let's trade.

  You keep them thirty-eight splendid horses I just sorted out and I'll take that mean creature you're astraddle of. Thirty-eight for one is generous terms, in my book." "Keep your book," Call said, not surprised at the offer.

  Pea Eye was so startled by what he was hearing that he almost fell off the fence.

  "You mean you'd give up all them horses for the chance of having a hunk bit out of you?" he asked.

  He knew men fancied the Captain's mare, but that anyone would fancy her to that extent was almost more than he could credit.

  Dish Boggett walked over, slapping the dust off his chaps with a coiled rope.

  "Is that your last word on the subject?" Wilbarger asked. "I'm offering thirty-eight for one. You won't get a chance like that every day of your life." Dish snorted. He fancied the gray mare himself. "It'd be like tradin' a fifty-dollar gold piece for thirty-eight nickels," he said. He was in a foul temper anyway. The minute they had the horses penned, Jake Spoon had unsaddled and walked straight to the Dry Bean, as if that were where he lived.

  Wilbarger ignored him too. "This outfit is full of opinion," he said. "If opinions was money you'd all be rich." He looked at Call.

  "I won't trade this mare," Call said.

  "And that ain't an opinion." "No, it's more like a damn hard fact," Wilbarger said. "I live on a horse and yet I ain't had but two good ones my whole life." "This is my third," Call said.

  Wilbarger nodded. "Well, sir," he said, "I'm obliged to you for getting here on time. It's plain the man you deal with knows where there's a den of thieves." "A big den," Call said.

  "Well, let's go, Chick," Wilbarger said. "We won't get home unless we start." "You might as well stay for breakfast," Call said. "A couple more of your horses are on their way." "What are they doing, traveling on three legs?" Wilbarger asked.

  "They're with Mr. McCrae," Call said.

  "He travels at his own pace." "Talks at it, too," Wilbarger said. "I don't think we'll wait. Keep them two horses for your trouble." "We brought in some nice stock," Call said.

  "You're welcome to look it over, if you're still short." "Not interested," Wilbarger said. "You won't rent pigs and you won't trade that mare, so I might as well be on my way." Then he turned to Dish Boggett. "Want a job, son?" he asked. "You look all right to me." "I got a job," Dish said.

  "Running off Mexican horses isn't a job," Wilbarger said. "It's merely a gamble.

  You've the look of a cowboy, and I'm about to start up the trai
l with three thousand head." "So are we," Call said, amused that the man would try to hire a hand out from under him with him sitting there.

  "Going where?" Wilbarger asked.

  "Going to Montana," Call said.

  "I wouldn't," Wilbarger said. He rode over to the gate, leaned over to open it, and rode out, leaving the gate for Chick to close. When Chick tried to lean down and shut the gate his hat fell off. Nobody walked over to pick it up for him, either--he was forced to dismount, which embarrassed him greatly. Wilbarger waited, but he looked impatient.