Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

by Lonesome Dove

  He then offered the dipper to Allen O'Brien, who imitated the squishing and spitting, thinking it must be a custom of the new country he found himself in.

  "You took your time, I see," Call said.

  "I was about to start back with a burial party." "Shucks," Augustus said. "Bringing these boys in was such a light task that I went over to Sabinas and stopped off at the whorehouse." "That explains the saddles," Call said.

  "Yes, and the horses too," Augustus said.

  "All the bandits was dead drunk by the time we got there. These Irish boys can't maintain much of a pace riding bareback so we helped ourselves to a few saddles and the best of the nags." "Them horses wouldn't make good soap," Dish said, looking at the horses Augustus had brought back.

  "If I wasn't so hungry I'd argue the point," Augustus said. "Bile them horses for a week or two and they'd produce a fine soap." Young Sean O'Brien could not conceal his disappointment with America.

  "If this is America, where's the snow?" he asked, to everyone's surprise. His image of the new country had been strongly influenced by a scene of Boston Harbor in winter that he had seen in an old magazine. There had been lots of snow, and the hot backyard he found himself in was nothing like what he had expected. Instead of ships with tall masts there was just a low adobe house, with lots of old saddles and pieces of rotting harness piled under a little shed at one corner.

  Worse still, he could not see a spot of green anywhere. The bushes were gray and thorny, and there were no trees at all.

  "No, son, you've overshot the snow," Augustus said. "What we have down here is sand." Call felt his impatience rising.

  The night had been far more successful than he could have hoped. They could keep the best horses and sell the rest--the profits would easily enable them to hire a crew and outfit a wagon for the trip north. Then all they would have to do would be gather the cattle and brand them. If everyone would work like they should, it could all be accomplished in three weeks, and they could be on the trail by the first of April-- none too soon, considering the distance they had to go.

  The problem would be getting everyone to work like they should.

  Jake was already off with his whore, and Augustus hadn't had breakfast.

  "You men go eat," Call said to the Irishmen; having rescued them, he could do no less than feed them.

  Allen O'Brien was looking dejectedly at the few buildings that made up Lonesome Dove.

  "Is this all there is to the town?" he asked.

  "Yes, and it's worse than it looks," Augustus said.

  To the embarrassment of everyone, Sean O'Brien began to cry. It had been an extremely tense night, and he hadn't expected to survive it. All during the ride he had expected to fall off his horse and become paralyzed. He associated paralysis with falls because a cousin of his had fallen off a cottage he was thatching and had been paralyzed ever since. The horse Sean had been given seemed to him at least as tall as a cottage, and he felt he had good reason to worry. He had spent a long boat ride growing more and more homesick for the green land he had left. When they were put ashore at Vera Cruz he had not been too disappointed; it was only Mexico they were in, and no one had ever told him Mexico was green.

  But now they were in America, and all he could see was dust and low bushes with thorns, and almost no grass at all. He had expected coolness and dew and green grass on which to stretch out for a long nap. The bare hot yard was a cruel letdown, and besides, Sean was an easy weeper. Tears ran out of his eyes whenever he thought of anything sad.

  His brother Allen was so embarrassed by the sight of Sean's tears that he walked straight into the house and sat down at the table. They had been asked to eat--if Sean preferred to stand in the yard crying, that was his problem.

  Dish concluded that the young Irishman was probably crazy. Only someone crazy would break out crying in front of several grown men.

  Augustus saved the day by going over and taking Sean by the arm. He spoke kindly to him and led him toward the house. "Let's go eat, son," he said. "It won't look quite so ugly on a full stomach." "But where's the grass?" Sean asked, snuffling.

  Dish Boggett let out a whoop. "I guess he was meaning to graze," he said.

  "Why, no, Dish," Augustus said. "He was just reared in a place where the grass covers the ground--not in no desert, like you." "I was reared on the Matagorda," Dish said. "We got grass knee-high over there." "Gus, we need to talk a minute," Call said.

  But Augustus had already led the boy through the door, and Call had to follow him in.

  A surprised Bolivar watched the Irishmen put away sowbelly and beans. He was so startled by their appearance that he picked up a shotgun that he kept by the cookstove and put it across his lap.

  It was his goat-gun, a rusty .10 gauge, and he liked to have it handy if anything unusual happened.

  "I hope you don't decide to shoot that thing off in here," Augustus said. "It'd take a wall out if you did--not to mention us." "I don't shoot yet," Bol said sullenly, keeping his options open.

  Call waited until Augustus filled his plate, since there would be no getting his attention until he had food before him. The young Irish boy had stopped crying and was putting away beans faster even than Augustus--starvation was probably all that was wrong with him.

  "I'm going to go see if I can hire some hands," Call said. "You better move them horses this afternoon." "Move 'em where?" Augustus asked.

  "Upriver, as far as you want," Call said.

  "These Irishmen have fine voices," Augustus remarked. "It's a pity there ain't two more of 'em--we'd have a barbershop quartet." "It would be a pity if you lost them horses while I'm off hiring the hands, too," Call pointed out.

  "Oh, you mean you want me to sleep out on the ground for several nights just to keep Pedro from stealing these horses back?" Gus asked. "I'm out of practice sleeping on the ground." "What was you planning to sleep on on the way to Montana?" Call asked in turn. "We can't take the house with us, and there ain't many hotels between here and there." "I hadn't been planning on going to Montana," Augustus said. "That's your plan. I may come if I feel like it. Or you may change your mind. I know you never have changed your mind about anything yet, but there's a first time for everything." "You'd argue with a stump," Call said. "Just watch them horses. We may never get that lucky again." Call saw there was no point in losing any more time. If Augustus was not of a mind to be serious, nothing could move him.

  "Jake did come back, didn't he?" Augustus asked.

  "His horse is here," Call said. "I guess he probably come with it. Do you think he'll work, once we start?" "No, and I won't, either," Augustus said.

  "You better hire these Irish boys while you got the chance." "It's work we're looking for," Allen said.

  "What we don't know we'll gladly learn." Call refrained from comment. Men who didn't know how to get on and off a horse would not be much use around a cow outfit.

  "Where you goin' hiring?" Augustus asked.

  "I might go to the Raineys'," Call said.

  "As many boys as they got they ought to be able to spare a few." "I sparked Maude Rainey once upon a time," Augustus said, tilting back his chair.

  "If we hadn't had the Comanches to worry with, I expect I'd have married her. Her name was Grove before she married. She lays them boys like hens lay eggs, don't she?" Call left, to keep from having to talk all day. Deets was catching a short nap on the back porch, but he sat up when Call came out. Dish Boggett and the boy were roping low bushes, Dish teaching the boy a thing or two about the craft of roping. That was good, since nobody around the Hat Creek outfit could rope well enough to teach him anything. Call himself could rope in an emergency, and so could Pea, but neither of them were ropers of the first class.

  "Practice up, boys," he said. "As soon as we gather some cattle there's gonna be a pile of roping to do." Then he caught his second-best horse, a sorrel gelding they called Sunup, and headed northeast toward the brush country.

  Lorena had stopped expecting eve
r to be surprised, least of all by a man, and then Jake Spoon walked in the door and surprised her.

  The surprise started the minute before he even spoke to her. Partly it was that he seemed to know her the minute he saw her.

  She had been sitting at a table expecting Dish Boggett to come back with another two dollars he had borrowed somewhere. It was an expectation that brought her no pleasure. It was clear Dish expected something altogether different from what the two dollars would buy him. That was why, in general, she preferred older men to young ones. The older ones were more likely to be content with what they paid for; the young ones almost always got in love with her, and expected it to make a difference. It got so she never said a word to the young men, thinking that the less she said the less they would expect. Of course they went right on expecting, but at least it saved her having to talk. She could tell Dish Boggett was going to pester her as long as he could afford to, and when she heard boot heels and the jingle of spurs on the porch she assumed it was him, coming back for a second round.

  Instead, Jake had walked in. Lippy gave a whoop, and Xavier was excited enough that he came out from behind the bar and shook Jake's hand.

  Jake was polite and glad to see them, and took the trouble to ask their health and make a few jokes, but even before he had drunk the free drink Xavier offered him he had begun to make a difference in the way she felt. He had big muddy brown eyes and a neat mustache that turned down at the corners, but of course she had seen big eyes and mustaches before. What made the difference was that Jake was so at home and relaxed even after he saw her sitting there. Most men got nervous when they saw her, aware that their wives wouldn't like them being in the same room with her, or else made nervous by the thought of what they wanted from her, which they couldn't get without some awkward formalities of a sort that few of them could handle smoothly.

  But Jake was the opposite of nervous. Before he even spoke to her he smiled at her several times in the most relaxed way--not in the bragging way Tinkersley had when he smiled.

  Tinkersley's smile had said plainly enough that he felt she ought to be grateful for the chance to do whatever he wanted her to do. Of course she was grateful to him for taking her away from Mosby and the smoke pots, but once she had been away for a while she came to hate Tinkersley's smile.

  Lorena felt puzzled for a moment. She didn't ignore the men who walked through the door of the Dry Bean. It didn't do to ignore men.

  The majority of them were harmless, with nothing worse than a low capacity to irritate--they were worse than chiggers but not as bad as bedbugs, in her view. Still, there was no doubt that there were some mean ones who plain had it in for women, and it was best to try and spot those and take precautions. But as far as trusting the general run of men, there was no need, since she had no intention of ever expecting anything from one of them again. She didn't object to sitting in on a card game once in a while-- she even enjoyed it, since making money at cards was considerably easier and more fun than doing it the other way--but a good game of cards once in a while was about as far as her expectations went.

  Immediately Jake Spoon began to change the way her thinking worked. Before he even brought his bottle to the table to sit with her, she began to want him to. If he had taken the bottle and gone to sit by himself, she would have felt disappointed, but of course he didn't. He sat down, asked her if she'd like some refreshments and looked her right in the face for a while in a friendly, easygoing way.

  "My goodness," he said, "I never expected to find nobody like you here. We didn't see much beauty when I lived in these parts. Now if this was San Francisco, I wouldn't be so surprised. I reckon that's where you really belong." It seemed a miracle to Lorie that a man had walked in who could figure that out so quick. In the last year she had begun to doubt her own ability to get to San Francisco and even to doubt that it was as cool and nice as she had been imagining it to be, and yet she didn't want to give up the notion, because she had no other notion to put in its place. It might be silly to even think about it, but it was the best she had.

  Then Jake came along and right away mentioned exactly the right place. Before the afternoon was over she had laid aside her caution and her silence and told Jake more about herself than she had ever told anyone. Lippy and Xavier listened from a distance in astonished silence. Jake said very little, though he patted her hand from time to time and poured her a drink when her glass was empty. Once in a while he would say, "My goodness," or "That damned dog, I ought to go find him and shoot him," but mostly he just looked friendly and confident, sitting there with his hat tipped back.

  When she got through with her story, he explained that he had killed a dentist in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and was a wanted man, but that he had hopes of eluding the law, and if he did, he would certainly try to see that she got to San Francisco, where she belonged. The way he said it made a big impression on Lorie. A sad tone came into his voice from time to time, as if it pained him to have to remember that mortality could prevent him from doing her such a favor. He sounded like he expected to die, and probably soon. It wasn't a whine, either--just a low note off his tongue and a look in his eye; it didn't interrupt for a minute his ability to enjoy the immediate pleasures of life.

  It gave Lorie the shivers when Jake talked like that, and made her feel that she wanted to play a part in keeping him alive. She was used to men thinking they needed her desperately just because they wanted to get their carrots in her, or wanted her to be their girl for a few days or weeks. But Jake wasn't asking for anything like that. He just let her see that he felt rather impermanent and might not be able to carry out all that he wished.

  Lorena wanted to help him. She was surprised, but the feeling was too strong to deny. She didn't understand it, but she felt it. She knew she had a force inside her, but her practice had been to save it entirely for herself. Men were always hoping she would bestow some of it on them, but she never had.

  Then, with little hesitation, she began to offer it to Jake. He was a case. He didn't ask for help, but he knew how to welcome it.

  She was the one who suggested they go upstairs, mainly because she was tired of Lippy and Xavier listening to everything they said. On the way up she noticed that Jake was favoring one foot. It turned out one of his ankles had been broken years before, when a horse fell on him--the ankle was apt to swell if he had to ride hard for long stretches, as he had just done. She helped him ease his boot off and got him some hot water and Epsom salts. After he had soaked his foot for a while he looked amused, as if he had just thought of something pleasant.

  "You know, if there was a tub around here, I'd just have a bath and trim my mustache," he said.

  There was a washtub sitting on the back porch.

  Lorena carried it up when she needed a bath, and the six or eight buckets of water it took to fill it. Xavier used it more often than she did. He could tolerate dirt on his customers, but not on himself. Lippy gave no thought to baths so far as anyone knew.

  Lorena offered to go get the washtub, since Jake had one boot off, but he wouldn't hear of it. He took the other boot off and limped down by himself and got the tub. Then he bribed Lippy to heat up some water. It took a while, since the water had to be heated on the cookstove.

  "Why, Jake, you could buy a bath from the Mexican barber for ten cents," Lippy pointed out.

  "That may be true, but I prefer the company in this establishment," Jake said.

  Lorena thought maybe he would want her to leave the room while he bathed, since so far he had treated her modestly, but he had nothing like that in mind. He latched her door, so Lippy couldn't pop in and catch a glimpse of something it wasn't his business to see.

  "Lippy will eye the girls," Jake said--no news to Lorena.

  "I wisht it was a bigger tub," he said.

  "We could have us a wash together." Lorena had never heard of such a thing. It surprised her how coolly Jake stripped off for his wash. Like all men who weren't pure gamblers, he was burned brown on his
face and neck and hands, and was fish-white on the rest of his body. Most of her customers were brown down to their collar, and white below. The great majority of them were reluctant to show anything of their bodies, though it was bodies they had come to satisfy. Some wouldn't even unbuckle their belts. Lorena often made them wait while she undressed--if she didn't whatever she was wearing got mussed up. Also, she liked undressing in front of men because it scared them. A few would get so scared they had to back out of the whole business-- though they always scrupulously paid her and apologized and made excuses. They came in thinking they wanted to persuade her out of her clothes, but when she matter-of-factly took them off, it often turned the tables.

  Gus was an exception, of course. He liked her naked and he liked her clothed. Seeing one body would remind him of other bodies, and he would sit on the bed and scratch himself and talk about various aspects of women that only he would have had anything to say about: the varieties of bosoms, for example.