Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

by Lonesome Dove

  They were swimming. She heard the black man's voice talking soothingly to the mare. The water lapped at her waist, but it came no higher; after a moment she opened her eyes. They were nearly across the river. The black man was looking back watchfully, lifting her reins a bit so as to keep the horse's head out of the water.

  Then there was the suck of the water against her legs as they started to climb out of the river. With a smile, the black man handed her back her wet reins. She was gripping the mane so tightly it took an act of will to turn her hands loose.

  "Why, she's a fine swimmer," Deets said.

  "You be fine on this horse, Miss." Lorena had clenched her teeth so tightly she couldn't even speak to thank the man, though she felt a flush of gratitude. Had it not been for him she felt sure she would have drowned. Jake by this time had untied his bedroll and thrown it down under a big mesquite. It had been nothing to him, her having to cross the river. Though the fright had begun to relax its grip, Lorena still didn't feel that she had control of her limbs so that she could simply step off the horse and walk as she had always walked. She felt angry at Jake for taking it all so lightly.

  Deets smiled at Lorena tolerantly and turned his own horse back toward the river.

  "Make your fire and do your cooking now," he said. "Then blow out the fire. It's gonna come a bad wind. If the fire gets loose you might have trouble." He glanced south, at the sky.

  "The wind's gonna come about sundown," he said. "First it will be sand and then lightning. Don't tie the horses to no big trees." Despite herself, Lorena felt her spirits sinking. She had always feared lightning above all things, and here she was without even a house to hide in. She saw it was going to be harder than she had imagined. Here it was only the second day and she had already had a fright like death. Now lightning was coming. For a moment it all felt hopeless--better she had just sat in the Dry Bean for life, or married Xavier. She had gone over to Jake in a minute, and yet, the truth was Xavier would probably have taken care of her better. It was all foolish, her dream of San Francisco.

  She looked again at the black man, meaning to try and thank him for helping her across the river, but he was looking at her kindly, and she didn't say anything.

  "I got to go lead the Captain to the crossing," he said.

  Lorena nodded. "Tell Gus hello," she said.

  "I'll tell him," Deets said, and rode into the Nueces for the third time.

  "Well, here's where we all find out if we was meant to be cowboys," Augustus said--for he had no doubt that Deets would soon be proved right about the coming storm. "Too bad it couldn't wait a day or two until some of you boys had more practice," he added. "I expect half of you will get trampled before the night is over, leaving me no way to collect my just debts." "We have to expect it," Call said. "It's the stormy time of the year." Still, a sandstorm at night, with a herd that wasn't trail-broken and a green crew of men, was not going to be anything to look forward to.

  "You reckon we could make it across the river before it hits?" he asked, but Deets shook his head. They were several miles from the Nueces and the sun was low.

  "It's a steep crossing," Deets said. "You don't want to hit it in the dark." Newt had just come off the drags for a drink of water, and the first thing he heard was talk of sandstorm. It didn't seem to him that it would make much difference; his world was mostly sand anyway. He had to rinse his mouth five or six times before he could even eat a plate of beans without swallowing grit with them.

  Call felt uncertain. He had never had to plan for a storm in brushy country, with a fresh herd of cattle. There were so many factors to consider that he felt passive for a moment--an old feeling he knew well from his years of rangering. Often, in a tight situation, his mind would seem to grow tired from so much hard thinking. He would sink for a time into a blankness, only to come out of it in the midst of an action he had not planned.

  He was never conscious of the trigger that set him back in motion, but something always pulled it, and he would find himself moving before he was conscious that it was time to move.

  Already he could feel a change in the wind. The day had been still, but there was a hot breath against his cheek, coming from the south. He had waited out many such winds in Lonesome Dove, with the sand whirling up from Mexico so fast it felt like birdshot when it hit the skin. The Hell Bitch looked around restlessly, well aware of what was coming.

  "It's gonna be a muddy sundown, boys," Augustus said.

  In fact, the sun was barely visible, only its edges showing yellow and the disc itself dark as if in an eclipse. To the west and south the sand was rising in the clear sky like a brown curtain, though far above it the evening star was still bright.

  Bolivar stopped the wagon and went back to dig around in the piles of bedrolls, looking for his serape.

  "Go tell Dish and Soupy to hold up the cattle," Call said to Newt. The boy felt proud to have been given a commission and loped around the herd until he came to the point. The cattle were behaving quietly, just walking along, grazing when there was anything to graze on. Dish was slouched at ease in his saddle.

  "I guess this means you've been promoted," he said, when Newt rode up. "Or else I been demoted." "We're getting a storm," Newt said. "The Captain says to hold 'em up." Dish looked at the sky and loosened his bandana. "I wish the dern storms would learn to get here in the daytime," he said with a grin. "I don't know why, but they generally strike just when I'm ready to catch a nap." His attitude toward the storm was contemptuous, as befitted a top hand. Newt tried to imitate his manner but couldn't bring it off. He had never been out in a sandstorm at night, with thousands of cattle to control, and was not looking forward to the experience, which began almost immediately. Before he could get around the herd to Soupy, the sand was blowing. The sun disappeared as if someone had popped a lid over it, and a heavy half-light filled the plains for a few minutes.

  "By God, it looks like a good one comin'," Soupy said, adjusting his bandana over his nose and pulling his hat down tight on his head. The loss of hats due to sudden gusts of wind had become a larger problem than Newt would have thought it could be.

  They were always blowing off, spooking the horses or cattle or both. He was grateful to Deets for having fixed a little rawhide string onto his so that he had been spared the embarrassment of losing it at crucial times.

  Newt had meant to go back to the wagon, but the storm gave him no time. While Soupy was fixing his bandana, they looked around and saw streams of sand like small, low clouds blowing in the dim light through the mesquite just to the south.

  The little clouds of sand seemed like live things, slipping around the mesquite and by the chaparral as a running wolf might, sliding under the bellies of the cattle and then rising a little, to blow over their backs. But behind the little sand streams came a river, composed not of water but of sand. Newt only glanced once, to get his directions, and the sand filled his eyes so that he was immediately blind.

  It was in his first moment of blindness that the cattle began to run, as if pushed into motion by the river of sand. Newt heard Soupy's horse break into a run, and Mouse instantly was running too, but running where, Newt had no idea. He dug a finger into his eyes, hoping to get the sand out, but it was like grinding them with sandpaper. Tears flowed, but the sand turned them to mud on his lashes. Now and then he could get a blurred glimpse out of one eye, and at the first glimpse was horrified to discover that he was in among the cattle. A horn nudged his leg, but Mouse swerved and nothing more happened.

  Newt stopped worrying about seeing and concentrated on keeping his seat. He knew Mouse could leap any bush not higher than his head. He felt a horrible sense of failure, for surely he had not done his job. The Captain had not meant for him to stay near the head of the herd; he was there because he had not moved quick enough, and it was his fault if he was doomed, as he assumed he was. Once he thought he heard a whoop and was encouraged, but the sound was instantly sucked away by the wind--the wind keened like a cry, its to
ne rising over the lower tone of the pounding hooves. When Newt began to be able to see again, it did him little good, for it was then almost pitch-dark.

  Over the roar of the wind and the running herd he suddenly heard the popping of tree limbs. A second later a mesquite limb hit him in the face and brush tore at him from all sides.

  He knew they had hit a thicket and assumed it was his end--Mouse faltered and almost went to his knees, but managed to right himself. All Newt could do was duck as low over the horn as possible and hold his arms in front of his face.

  To his great relief the running cattle soon slowed. The brush was so thick it checked them as a herd, though the same thicket soon divided them into several groups. The bunch Newt was with soon slowed to a trot and then a walk.

  Mouse's sides were slick with sweat. Newt felt it was a miracle that he was still alive. Then he heard pistol shots ahead and to his right--a string of cracks, the sound instantly taken by the wind. The wind seemed to be increasing. When he tried to straighten up in the saddle, it was like pushing with his back against a heavy door. He tried to turn Mouse, because he still hoped to get back to the rear, where he belonged, but Mouse wouldn't turn.

  It angered Newt--he was supposed to be making the decisions, not Mouse. The horse would circle, but he wouldn't go into the wind, and Newt finally gave up, aware that he probably couldn't find the wagon or the main herd anyway.

  In the short lulls in the wind he could hear the clicking of long horns, as the cattle bumped into one another in the darkness. They were walking slowly, and Newt let Mouse walk along beside them. He had worried as much as he could, and he simply rode, his mind blank. It seemed like he had been riding long enough for the night to be over, but it wasn't, and the sand still stung his skin. He was surprised suddenly by a flicker of light to the west--so quick and so soon lost that he didn't at first recognize it as lightning. But it flickered again and soon was almost constant, though still far away.

  At first Newt welcomed it--it enabled him to see that he was still with the several hundred cattle, and also helped him avoid thickets.

  But as the lightning came closer thunder came with it--the sound seemed to roll over them like giant boulders. Mouse flinched, and Newt began to flinch too. Then, instead of running across the horizon like snakes' tongues, the lightning began to drive into the earth, with streaks thick as poles, and with terrible cracks.

  In one of the flashes Newt saw Dish Boggett, not thirty yards away. Dish saw him, too, and came toward him. In the next flash Newt saw Dish pulling on a yellow slicker.

  "Where's Soupy?" Dish asked. Newt had no idea.

  "He must have got turned wrong," Dish said.

  "We've got most of the cattle. You should have brought a slicker. We're going to get some rain." As the flashes continued, Newt strained his eyes to keep Dish in sight, but soon lost him. To his amazement he saw that the cattle seemed to have caught the lightning--little blue balls of it rolled along their horns.

  While he was watching the strange sight, a horse bumped his. It was Deets.

  "Ride off the cattle," he said. "Don't get close to them when they got the lightning on their horns. Get away from 'em." Newt needed no urging, for the sight was scary and he remembered Dish describing how lightning had hit a cowboy he knew and turned him black.

  He wanted to ask Deets some questions, but between one flash and another Deets vanished.

  The wind had become fitful, gusting and then dying, and instead of beating steadily at his back, the sand was fitful too, swirling around him one moment and gone the next. In the flashes of lightning he could see that the sky was clearing high to the east, but a wall of clouds loomed to the west, the lightning darting underneath them.

  Almost before the last of the sand had stung his eyes, it seemed, the rain began, pelting down in big scattered drops that felt good after all the grit.

  But the drops got thicker and less scattered and soon the rain fell in sheets, blown this way and that at first by the fitful wind. Then the world simply turned to water. In a bright flash of lightning Newt saw a wet, frightened coyote run across a few feet in front of Mouse. After that he saw nothing. The water beat down more heavily even than the wind and the sand: it pounded him and ran in streams off his hat brim. Once again he gave up and simply sat and let Mouse do what he wanted. As far as he knew, he was completely lost, for he had moved away from the cattle in order to escape the lightning and had no sense that he was anywhere near the herd. The rain was so heavy that at moments he felt it might drown him right on his horse. It blew in his face and poured into his lip from his hat brim. He had always heard that cowboying involved considerable weather, but had never expected so many different kinds to happen in one night. An hour before, he had been so hot he thought he would never be cool again, but the drenching water had already made him cold.

  Mouse was just as dejected and confused as he was. The ground was covered with water--there was nothing to do but splash along. To make matters worse they hit another thicket and had to back out, for the wet mesquite had become quite impenetrable. When they finally got around it, the rain had increased in force. Mouse stopped and Newt let him--there was no use proceeding when they didn't know where they needed to proceed. The water pouring off his hat brim was an awkward thing --one stream in front, one stream behind. A stream of water poured right in front of his nose while another sluiced down his back.

  Then Mouse began to move again and Newt heard the splashing of a horse ahead. He didn't know if it carried a friendly rider, but Mouse seemed to think so, for he was trotting through the hock-high water, trying to locate the other horse. In one of the weakening flashes of lightning Newt saw cattle trotting along, fifty yards to his right. Suddenly, with no warning, Mouse began to slide. His back feet almost went out from under him --they had struck a gully, and Newt felt water rising up his legs. Fortunately it wasn't a deep gully; Mouse regained his balance and struggled through it, as scared as Newt.

  There was nothing to do but plod on. Newt remembered how happy he had been when dawn finally came after the night they had gone to Mexico. If he could just see such a dawn again he would know how to appreciate it. He was so wet it didn't seem as if he could ever be dry, or that he could do such a simple thing as sit in the bright sun again feeling hot, or stretch out on the grass and sleep. As it was, he couldn't even yawn without water blowing in his mouth.

  Soon he got too tired to think and could only hope that it would finally be morning. But the night went on and on. The lightning died and the hard rain stopped, but a drizzle continued; they hit intermittent patches of thick brush and had to back and turn and go on as best they could. When he had crossed the gully, one boot had filled with water. Newt wanted to stop and empty it--but what if he dropped it and couldn't find it in the dark? Or got it off and couldn't get it back on? A fine sight he would make, if he ever saw camp again, riding in with one boot in his hand.

  Thinking about the ridicule that would involve, he decided just to let the boot squish.

  All the same, he felt proud of Mouse, for many horses would have fallen, sliding into a gully.

  "Good horse," he said. "If we just keep going maybe it'll get light." Mouse swung his head to get his wet forelock out of his eyes, and kept on plodding through the mud.

  Jake had forgotten to hobble the horses--he remembered it when the first lightning struck and Lorena's young mare suddenly snapped her rein and ran off. It was dark and the sand was still blowing. He managed to get the hobbles on his own horse and the pack mule, but had to let the mare go.

  "She won't go far," he said, when he got back to Lorie. She was huddled under a blanket, her back against a big mesquite tree and her legs half buried in the sand.

  "No better than she likes to swim. I expect we'll find her on this side of the river," Jake said.

  Lorena didn't answer. The lightning filled her with such tension that she didn't think she could endure it. If it went on much longer she felt it would twist her like a wire.r />
  She held the blanket around her as tightly as she could, and her teeth were clenched as they had been when she crossed the river. She kept trying to think about something besides the lightning, but she couldn't.

  She kept thinking of how it would feel if it hit her--it was said to be like a burn, but how could a burn travel through your body in an instant?

  Then the lightning began to strike in the trees nearby, with cracks so loud that it made her head ring. She didn't mind the wet. Jake had tried to rig a tarp, but it wasn't big enough.

  A bolt hit just behind them, with a sound so loud that it took her breath. I want to go back, she thought. When she got her breath back she was crying, the tears mingling with the rain on her face.

  "We got to get out from under this dern tree," Jake yelled.

  Lorena didn't move. He was crazy. The tree was all that was keeping them from death. Out in the open the lightning would immediately strike them.

  But Jake began to pull at her. "Come on," he said. "We'll get under the bank. It might strike the tree." The lightning had become constant--she could see every whisker on Jake's face in the glare. He looked old. But he wouldn't leave her under the tree. In the flashes she could see the river. The river had almost got her and now he wanted her to go back to it. When he pulled, she fought. The tree was the only protection she had and she didn't want to leave it.