Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

by Lonesome Dove

  "I'm sorry to interrupt you," July said.

  "Are you a lawman?" Wilbarger asked in his impatient way.

  "I am," July said.

  "Then you're going to have to listen to some complaints about the law in this state," Wilbarger said.

  "I've never seen a place with less law. The farther south you go, the worse the horse thieves get. Along that border they're thicker than ticks." "Well, I ain't from Texas, I'm from Arkansas," July said.

  "It's a weak excuse," Wilbarger said, marking his place with a grass blade and standing up.

  "I didn't notice much law in Arkansas either. There's law of sorts in New Orleans, but out here it's every man for himself." "Well, there's Texas Rangers but I guess they mostly fight the Indians," July said, wondering where the conversation would end.

  "Yes, I met a couple," Wilbarger said.

  "They were excellent horse thieves themselves. They stole my remuda back from some sly Mexicans. Are you looking for a killer or what?" "Yes, a man named Jake Spoon," July said. "He killed a dentist in Fort Smith." Wilbarger tucked his book carefully into his bedroll and tossed the bedroll in the back of the wagon.

  "You've overshot Mr. Spoon," he said.

  "He was recently seen in the town of Lonesome Dove, where he won twenty dollars from a hand of mine. However, he's headed this way. He partnered up with the gentlemen who got my horses back.

  If I were you I'd camp here and put this boy in school. They'll be along in two or three weeks." "I thank you for the information," July said. "I don't suppose you've run across a man named Roscoe Brown along the trail." "Nope, who'd he kill?" Wilbarger asked.

  "Nobody," July said. "He's my deputy. It may be that he's lost." "The name Roscoe don't inspire confidence," Wilbarger said. "People named Roscoe ought to stick to clerking. However, it's summertime. At least your man won't freeze to death. Any more people you're looking for?" "No, just them two," July said, refraining from mentioning Elmira.

  Wilbarger mounted. "I hope you hang Spoon promptly," he said. "I expect he's a card cheat, and card cheats undermine society faster than anything. If you find your deputy, see if you can't steer him into clerking." With that he trotted over to the cook. "Are you coming with us, Bob?" he asked.

  "No," the cook said. "I'm planning to marry and settle down here in north Texas." "I hope you marry somebody who can cook," Wilbarger said. "If you do, let me know. When she gets ready to leave you, I'll hire her." He looked around at Joe. "Need a job, son?" he asked. "We need a boy that don't ask questions and is handy with an ax. I don't know about your chopping skills, but you ain't asked a question yet." Wilbarger seemed serious, and July was tempted to let Joe do it. Going north with a herd would be good experience for him. The main advantage, though, was that he himself could then travel alone, with just his thoughts. Without Joe to look after, he could better accomplish the main task ahead, which was to find Elmira.

  Joe was startled. He had never expected to be offered a job with a cow outfit, and hearing the words was a thrill. But of course he couldn't take it--he had been assigned to July.

  "Much obliged," he said. "I reckon I can't." "Well, the job's open," Wilbarger said.

  "We may meet again. I've got to lope up to the Red River to see if I think the water's fresh enough for my stock." "What'll you do if it ain't?" Joe asked.

  He had never known anyone who just said one unusual thing after another, as Wilbarger did.

  How could the water in a river not be fresh enough for cows?

  "Well, I could piss in it to show it what I thought of it," Wilbarger said.

  "Could you use any company?" July asked.

  "We're going up that way." "Oh, I can always use good conversation, when I can get it," Wilbarger said. "I was brought up to expect good conversation, but then I run off to the wilderness and it's been spotty ever since. Why are you going north when the man you want is to the south?" "I've got other business as well," July said. He didn't want to describe it though.

  He hadn't meant to ask Wilbarger if they could ride along. He wouldn't ordinarily have done it, but then his life was no longer ordinary. His wife was lost, and his deputy also. He felt more confused than he ever had in his life, whereas Wilbarger was a man who seemed far less confused than most.

  He seemed to know his mind immediately, whatever the question put to him.

  Wilbarger started at once and loped several miles without speaking. Joe loped with him. The country was open, lightly spotted with elm and post oak. They came to a fair-sized stream and Wilbarger stopped to water his horse.

  "Have you been to Colorado?" July asked.

  "Yes, once," Wilbarger said. "Denver's no worse than most towns out here. I intend to avoid that country, though. The Indians in those parts ain't entirely reformed, and the outlaws are meaner than the Indians, with less excuse." It was not comforting talk when one's wife was said to be on a whiskey boat going up the Arkansas.

  "Planning a trip to Colorado?" Wilbarger asked.

  "I don't know," July said. "Maybe." "Well, if you go up on the plains and get scalped, there'll be that much less law in Arkansas," Wilbarger said. "But then there might not be that much crime in Arkansas now. I guess most of the crime's moved to Texas." July wasn't listening. He was trying to convince himself that Peach was wrong--that Elmira had just gone wandering for a few days. When Wilbarger started to move on, July did not.

  "Thanks for the company," he said. "I think we better go look for my deputy." "There's a perfectly straight trail from Fort Smith into Texas," Wilbarger said. "Captain Marcy laid it out. If that deputy can't even stay in a road, I expect you ought to fire him." Then he loped away without saying goodbye.

  Joe wished they were going with him. In only a few hours the man had paid him several compliments and had offered to hire him. He found himself feeling resentful both of July and Roscoe. July didn't seem to know what he wanted to do, and as for Roscoe, if he couldn't stay in a road, then he deserved to be lost. He wished he had spoken up and grabbed the job when Wilbarger offered it.

  But the moment had been missed--Wilbarger was already out of sight, and they were still sitting there. July looked depressed, as he had ever since they had left Fort Smith. Finally, without a word, he turned east, back toward Arkansas. Joe wished he was old enough to point out to July that nothing he was doing made any sense. But he knew July probably wouldn't even hear him in the state he was in. Joe felt annoyed, but he kept quiet and followed along.

  The amazing thing about Janey, in Roscoe's view, was that she knew her way. Almost as amazing was that she liked to walk. The first day or two it felt a little wrong that he was riding and she was walking, but she was just a slip of a girl, and he was a grown man and a deputy besides. He pointed out to her that she was welcome to ride--she weighed practically nothing, and anyway they weren't traveling fast enough to tire a horse.

  But Janey didn't want to ride. "I'll walk and all you have to do is keep up," she said.

  Of course it was no trouble for a man on horseback to keep up with a girl on foot, and Roscoe began to relax and even to enjoy the trip a little. It was pretty weather. All he had to do was trot along and think. What he mostly thought about was how surprised July would be when they showed up and told him the news.

  Not only could Janey keep them on the trail but she was also extremely useful when it came to rounding up grub. Once they got settled in a camp at night she would disappear and come back five minutes later with a rabbit or a possum or a couple of squirrels. She could even catch birds. Once she came back with a fat brownish bird of a sort Roscoe had never seen.

  "Now what bird is that?" he asked.

  "Prairie chicken," Janey said. "There was two but one got away." They ate the prairie chicken and it was as good as any regular chicken Roscoe had ever had.

  Janey cracked open the bones with her teeth and sucked out the marrow.

  The only problem with her at all, from Roscoe's point of view, was that she was tormented by bad dreams and whi
mpered at night. Roscoe loaned her a blanket, thinking she might be cold, but that wasn't it. Even wrapped in a blanket she still whimpered, and because of that didn't sleep much. He would awake in the grayness just before dawn and see Janey sitting up, stirring the little campfire and scratching her ankles. She was barefoot, of course, and her ankles and shins were scratched by the rough grass she went through each day.

  "Did you never have any shoes?" he asked once.

  "Never did," Janey said, as if it didn't matter.

  The only times she would consent to crawl up on the horse was when they had a sizable creek to cross. She didn't like wading in deep water.

  "'Fraid of them snappers," she said. "If one of them was to bite me I'd die." "They're mighty slow," Roscoe said.

  "It's easy to outrun 'em." "I dream about them," Janey said, not reassured. "They just keep coming, and I can't run." Except for snapping turtles and sleep, she seemed to fear nothing. Many times coiled rattlers would sing at them as they traveled, and Janey would never give the snakes a glance. Old Memphis was more nervous about snakes than she was, and Roscoe more nervous than either one of them.

  He had once heard of a man being bitten by a rattlesnake that had gotten up in a tree.

  According to the story, the snake had dropped right off a limb and onto the man and had bitten him in the neck. Roscoe imagined how unpleasant it could be to have a snake drop on one's neck--he took care to ride under as few limbs as possible and was glad to see the trees thinning out as they rode west.

  It seemed they were on a fairly good trail, for every day they encountered three or four travelers, sometimes more. Once they caught up with a family plodding along in a wagon. It was such a large family that it looked like a small town on the move, particularly if you wanted to count the livestock. The old man of the family, who was driving the team, didn't seem talkative, but his wife was.

  "We're from Missouri," she said. "We're going west and I guess we'll stop when we feel like it. We've got fourteen young 'uns and are hoping to establish a farm." Eight or nine of the young ones were riding in the wagon. They stared at Roscoe and Janey, as silent as owls.

  Several times they met soldiers going east toward Fort Smith. The soldiers were a taciturn lot and passed without much talk.

  Roscoe attempted to inquire about July, but the soldiers made it clear that they had better things to do than keep a lookout for Arkansas sheriffs.

  Janey was shy of people. She had keen eyesight and would usually see other travelers before Roscoe did. Often when she saw one she disappeared, darting off the trail and hiding in weeds and tall grass until the stranger passed.

  "What are you hiding for?" Roscoe asked.

  "Them soldiers ain't after you." "Bill might be with them," Janey said.

  "Bill who?" "Bill," she repeated. "He gave me to old Sam. I ain't going with Bill again." She continued to hide at the approach of strangers, and once in a while Roscoe had to admit that it was well she did. There were some rough customers traveling the trail. One day they met two dirty-looking men with greasy beards and six or seven guns between them. Roscoe had an anxious moment, for the men stopped him and asked to borrow tobacco. The fact that he was traveling without any didn't sit well with them, and they looked as if they might contest the issue.

  "I reckon you're lying," one said. He was a small fellow but had mean little eyes and was generally more frightening than his companion, a man the size of an ox, who seemed to take no interest in the conversation.

  "Why would a man travel without nothing to smoke?" the little one asked.

  "It never agreed with me," Roscoe explained. "I had to give it up." "If you was more dried up I guess we could smoke you," the little one said, with mean intent.

  But the men rode on, and Roscoe soon forgot about them and began to feel drowsy. The day was muggy, and occasionally he would see lightning flicker in the west.

  After a while it struck him that something was missing, and he figured out that it was Janey.

  Usually, once the travelers were out of sight, she reappeared. Memphis had come to trust her and would follow her like a pet goat.

  Only this time she wasn't there to follow.

  Roscoe looked all around and there wasn't a soul in sight, though the plain stretched out and he could see for miles. He was alone, and by no means sure of his direction. It scared him. He had come to depend on the girl, even though she was a loud sleeper. He yelled a time or two, but got no response. The fact that he could see so far scared him a little. He had been raised in a land of trees and was not used to country that looked so long and empty. How he could have lost Janey in such an open place was a mystery to him. He sat still for a while, hoping she would pop up, but she didn't, and finally he rode on at a slow walk.

  An hour passed, and then another, and Roscoe was forced to consider the possibility that he might have lost the girl. One of the snakes she took so little notice of could have bitten her. She could be dying somewhere back along the trail.

  If she wasn't going to reappear it was his duty to go back and find her, and, as sunset was not far off, and it looked like thunderstorms were on the way, he had better hurry.

  He turned and started back at a trot, but had not gone twenty paces before Janey popped up from behind a bush and jumped right up on Memphis.

  "They're followin'," she said. "I been watching. I guess they want to kill you." "Well, they won't find no tobacco, even if they do," Roscoe said.

  Still, the little one had had a bad pair of eyes, and he could easily believe they meant to harm him.

  He wheeled the horse around and started to put him into a run, but Janey jerked on the reins.

  "They're in front of us," she said. "They got around you while you was poking along." Roscoe had never felt so at a loss. There was not so much as a tree in sight, and it was a long way back to Fort Smith. He didn't see how the men could expect to ambush him in the open plain.

  "Dern," he said, feeling hopeless. "I can't figure which way to run." Janey pointed north. "Up that way," she said. "There's a gully." Roscoe couldn't see what good a gully would do but he took her advice, and they set off north at a dead run. Memphis was shocked to be spurred into a run, but once he got started he ran with a will.

  Once again, Janey was right. They had only been running half a mile when they struck a big gully. Roscoe stopped and looked around.

  Not a soul was in sight, which made him feel silly. What were they to do next?

  "Can you shoot?" Janey asked, jumping down.

  "Well, I have shot," Roscoe said. "There ain't been nobody much to shoot at in Fort Smith. Sometimes July and I shoot at pumpkins, or bottles and things.

  July's a good shot, but I'm just fair. I expect I could hit that big fellow but I don't know about the little one." "Gimme the pistol, I'll shoot 'em for you," Janey said.

  "What'd you ever shoot?" he asked, surprised.

  "Give it to me," Janey said, and when he slowly handed it over, she hopped off the horse, climbed out of the gully and disappeared.

  Five minutes later, before he could even untie his tarp, it began to rain. Lightning started hitting the ground, and it rained torrents.

  Roscoe got totally soaked. In ten minutes there was a little river running down the middle of the gully, though the gully had been bone-dry when they rode up. The thunder crashed and it grew dark.

  Roscoe felt that he had never hated travel so much, not even when the pigs chased him. He was alone and likely either to be drowned or shot before the night was over, or even well begun.

  He remembered how snug and secure the jail was, back in Fort Smith, how nice it was to come in slightly drunk and have a comfortable couch to lie on. It was a life he fervently wished he had never left.

  The rain increased until it seemed to Roscoe it was raining as hard as it could possibly rain.

  He didn't try to seek shelter, for there was none. It was uncomfortable to be so soaked, but since the water was probably all that was keeping him from
being murdered by the little man with the mean eyes, it was silly to complain. Roscoe just sat, hoping that the little creek that filled the gully wouldn't rise enough to drown him.

  The storm turned out to be just a heavy shower. In ten minutes the rain lightened, and soon it was barely sprinkling. The sun had set, but to the west there was a clear band of sky under the clouds, and the clouds were thinning. The band of sky became red with afterglow. Above it, as the clouds thinned, there was a band of white, and then a deep blue, with the evening star in it. Roscoe dismounted and stood there dripping, aware that he ought to be planning some form of defense but unable to think of any. It seemed to him the storm might have discouraged the two men-- maybe one of them had even been struck by lightning.