Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

by Lonesome Dove

  But probably he wasn't there. Probably he had sold the woman and left, sending a few Kiowas down the trail to take care of whoever came along. It would likely just be a matter of shooting down two or three renegade buffalo hunters who had been too lazy to find honest work once the herds petered out.

  Augustus was undecided as to whether he would be better off by himself or with a country sheriff from Arkansas. All he knew about the sheriff was that Jake Spoon had run from him, which wasn't much to go on. The young man had had no experience with plains fighting and perhaps not much with any fighting.

  There was no telling if he could even take care of himself in a scrape. If he couldn't, he would be better left--but then, who would know until the fighting started?

  "What happens to us if you two both get kilt?" Roscoe asked. It was a question that loomed large in his mind.

  "Head back southeast as fast as you can," Augustus said. "Once you make it down below the Red River you'll probably be all right. If you go east a ways you ought to run into some herds." "Why, we'll be back," July said. "I ought to go help Captain McCrae, but we'll be back." Augustus didn't feel right about it, but he made no further effort to stop July Johnson. They let the horses rest for an hour, then put Augustus's saddle on Roscoe's big gelding, and left. When they rode up on the ridge above the river they saw again the little spark of light to the east, and made for it.

  "If it ain't prying, what is this urgent business you're on?" Augustus asked.

  July was hesitant about answering. Roscoe and Joe had both looked at him strangely as he left, and the look bothered him. It was as if both of them were his children--both looked to him for care.

  Only Janey seemed comfortable being left on the Canadian.

  "Well, sir, it's my wife," July said.

  "She's gone from home. It might be that she got stolen too." Augustus felt that was interesting. They were both chasing women across the plains. He said no more. A man whose wife had left was apt to be sore about it and touchy. He changed the subject at once.

  "It was your brother Jake shot?" he asked.

  "Yes," July said. "I guess it was accidental, but I've got to take him back.

  Only I'd like to find Elmira first." They rode in silence for seven or eight miles over broken country. Augustus was thinking what a curious man Jake Spoon was, that he would let a woman be stolen and just go on playing cards, or whatever he was doing.

  Every time they topped a ridge and saw the tiny flame of the campfire, July tried to calm himself, tried to remind himself that it would be almost a miracle if Elmira were there. Yet he couldn't help hoping. Sometimes he felt so bad about things that he didn't know if he could keep going much longer without knowing where she was.

  Finally, with the camp not more than a mile away, Augustus drew rein. He dismounted to listen. In the still night, on the open plain, voices could carry a ways, and he might be able to get a sense of how many they were up against.

  July dismounted, too, and waited for Augustus to tell him what the plan was. They were only a hundred yards from the river, and while they were listening they heard something splash through the water downstream from where they stood.

  "It could be a buffalo," July whispered.

  "We seen a few." "More likely a horse," Augustus said.

  "Buffalo wouldn't cross that close to camp." He looked at the young man, worried by the nervousness in his voice. "Have you done much of this kind of thing, Mr. Johnson?" he asked.

  "No," July admitted. "I ain't done none. About the worst we get in Arkansas are robbers." "Let's walk our horses a little closer," Augustus said. "Don't let 'em whinny. If we can get within a hundred yards of their camp we're in good shape. Then I favor charging right into them. They'll hear us before they see us, which will scare them, and we'll be on them before they have time to think. Use your handgun and save your rifle-- this'll be close-range work. If there's any left, we'll turn and make a second run at them." "We mustn't trample the women," July said.

  "We won't," Augustus said. "Have you ever killed?" "No," July said. "I've never had to." I wish you'd stayed with your party, Augustus thought, but he didn't say it.

  Dog Face was dying, and he knew it. A bullet had hit a rib and turned downward into his gut. The bullet hadn't come out, and nobody was trying to get it out, either. He lay on a saddle blanket in his death sweat, and all Blue Duck wanted to know was how many men there had been in the party that shot him.

  "Three horses," one of the Kiowas said, but Dog Face couldn't remember if it had been two or three.

  "It was gettin' dark," he said. One whole side of his body was wet with blood. He wanted to see the girl, but Blue Duck squatted by his side, blocking his view.

  "You never hit McCrae?" he asked.

  "He forted up behind his horse," Dog Face said. "I might have put one in him. I don't know." "We'll kill him tomorrow," Monkey John said. "He ain't got no horse and maybe he's crippled." "I doubt it," Blue Duck said. "I expect tomorrow he'll walk in and finish the rest of you, unless he does it tonight." "I hurt bad," Dog Face said. "Go on and shoot me." Blue Duck laughed. "You won't catch me wasting a bullet on you," he said. "Monkey can cut your damn throat if he wants to." But Monkey wouldn't come near him. Monkey John was worried, and so were the Kiowas. They all kept cocking and uncocking their pistols.

  They asked for whiskey, but Blue Duck wouldn't give them any.

  Dog Face looked at the girl. She sat with her arms wrapped around her knees. Blue Duck went and saddled his horse. When he came back to the fire he kicked the girl. He kicked her several times, until she fell over and lay curled up.

  "What'd she do?" Dog Face asked.

  Blue Duck walked over and kicked him in the side, causing him to scream with pain and roll off the blanket.

  "Mind your own goddamn business," Blue Duck said.

  "You gonna leave?" Monkey John asked nervously.

  "That's right," Blue Duck said. "I aim to look for a better crew. The whole bunch of you couldn't kill one man. You never even attacked that second bunch. It was probably just a cowboy or two." Dog Face tried to roll back on his blanket, but his strength was gone. The Kiowas had already taken his gun and divided his ammunition among themselves, so he couldn't even shoot himself.

  He had a razor in his pack and might have managed to cut his own throat, but his pack was on the other side of the fire and he knew he would never be able to crawl to it.

  Blue Duck kicked Lorena twice more.

  "You ain't worth selling," Blue Duck said.

  "The Kiowas can have you." "What about me?" Monkey John asked.

  "What about my half-interest?" "I won back your half-interest," Blue Duck said. "I won the Kiowas' half too." "Then how come you're giving her to the goddamn Kiowas?" Monkey John said. "Give her to me." "No, I want them to carve her up," Blue Duck said. "It might put some spirit in them, so they can go out tomorrow and run that old Ranger to ground." "Hell, I'm as mean as they are," Monkey John said. "I can finish him, if he comes around here." Blue Duck mounted. "You ain't half as mean as they are," he said. "And if McCrae comes around here you better step quick or you'll be plugged. He got Ermoke, and Ermoke was three times the fighter you are." He opened his pack, took out a bottle of whiskey and pitched it to the Indians. Then he said something to them in their language and rode away toward the river.

  Lorena lay where she had fallen, listening to Dog Face moan. With each breath he let out a throaty moan. His wound had bloody bubbles on it. Lorena got up on her hands and knees and vomited from fear. The Kiowas were all looking at her as they drank. She wanted to run but felt too weak. Anyway, they would soon catch her if she ran. She crawled away from the vomit and sank back, too tired and scared to move. Monkey John sat back from the fire, clutching his rifle. He didn't even look at her--he wouldn't help her.

  She was just in for it.

  "Help her, Monkey," Dog Face said weakly.

  "Hell, I can't help her," Monkey John said. "You heard him. He gave her to them
." One of the Kiowas understood the talk and was angered. He pulled his knife and stood over Dog Face threateningly. Dog Face continued to moan. Then the Kiowa sat on his chest and Dog Face screamed, a weak scream. The rest of the Indians jumped for him. He was too weak even to lift a hand. One Kiowa cut his belt and two more pulled his pants off. Before Lorena could even turn her head, they castrated him. Another slashed a knife across his forehead and began to rip off his hair. Dog Face screamed again, but it was soon muffled as the Kiowas held his head and stuffed his own bloody organs into his mouth, shoving them down his throat with the handle of a knife.

  His hair was soon ripped off and the Kiowa took the scalp and tied it to his lance. Dog Face struggled for breath, a pool of blood beneath his legs. Yet he wasn't dead. Lorena had her face in her arms, but she could still hear him moan and gurgle for breath. She wished he would die--it shouldn't take so long just to die.

  She expected any minute they would fall on her, but they didn't. What they had done to Dog Face put them in a good mood, and they passed around the whiskey bottle.

  Monkey John was probably as scared as she was. He sat silently by the fire, his rifle in his hands, pulling at his dirty beard. Once in a while the Kiowas would jabber at him in their own language, but he didn't answer.

  Lying with her face almost on the ground, she was the first to hear the horses--only she didn't really know what it was, or take any hope from it. It was something running--maybe Blue Duck was coming back to reclaim her.

  The Kiowas, singing and drinking, two with bloody knives still in their hands, didn't hear the running, but Monkey John suddenly heard it. He jumped to his feet and raised his rifle, but before he could fire she heard a gun go off in the darkness and Monkey John dropped the rifle and slumped to a sitting position, his mouth open as if he were about to say something.

  Lorena saw that, and just as she saw it the two horses raced right over Monkey John without touching him and were into the Kiowas. One Kiowa screamed, a sound more hopeless and frightening even than the scream of Dog Face. Before she thought about it being Gus, she saw him yank his horse almost down right in the middle of the Kiowas. He shot the one that screamed and then the two that held the knives, shooting from his horse right into their chests.

  Another Kiowa grabbed the lance with Dog Face's scalp on it, but Gus shot him before he could lift it. He shot another just as the man was picking up his rifle. The last Kiowa fled into the darkness, and Gus turned his horse after him.

  "Finish any that ain't finished," he said to the other man. But that man had barely dismounted before there was a shot in the darkness. He stood by his horse listening. There was another shot, and then the sound of a horse loping back. Lorena thought it was over but Monkey John shot with his pistol at the man standing by the fire. He missed completely and the man slowly raised his own pistol, but before he could fire Gus rode back into the firelight and shot with his rifle, knocking Monkey John back into the pack.

  Then Gus turned her over and was holding her in his arms, his rifle still in one hand.

  "Where's Blue Duck, Lorie?" he asked. "Was he here tonight?" Lorena had a hard struggle to get her mind back to Blue Duck. She had stopped talking, and though she wanted to talk, the words wouldn't come.

  She stared at Gus and began to cry but she couldn't get out an answer to the question.

  "Was he here tonight?" Gus asked again. "Just answer that and I won't bother you no more until you feel better." Lorena nodded. Blue Duck had been there.

  It was all she could do.

  Gus stood up. "Go back to your party," Gus said to the other man. "Go now." "I didn't shoot a one," the other man said.

  "You shot the whole bunch." "It ain't important," Augustus said.

  "I can't leave this girl and she ain't in shape to travel fast. Go back to your party. If Lorie can ride we'll come when we can." "Did you kill the one that ran off?" July asked.

  "Yes," Augustus said. "A man can't outrun a horse. You get along.

  There's a dangerous man loose along this river and I doubt that deputy of yours can handle him." What if I can't, either? July thought, looking down at Dog Face. He had managed to pull his genitals out of his mouth, and still lay breathing.

  Looking at the pool of blood he lay in, July felt his stomach start to come up. He turned away to keep from vomiting.

  "I'll tidy up these dead," Augustus said.

  "I know this is a shock to you, Mr. Johnson.

  It's different from a barroom scrape in Arkansas. But you got to choke it down and get back to your people." "Are you going to kill him?" July asked, referring to Dog Face.

  "Yes, if he don't travel soon," Augustus said.

  Before July was over the second ridge, he heard the gun again.

  "Reckon we'll hear it when they fight?" Joe asked.

  "We won't hear it much," Roscoe said.

  "That campfire was way off. Anyway, maybe it's just cowboys and there won't be no fight." "But we saw Indians," Joe said. "I bet it's them." "It might be them," Roscoe admitted. "But maybe they just kept running." "I hope they didn't run this direction," Joe said. He hated to admit how scared he was, but he was a good deal more scared than he could remember being before in his life. Usually when they camped he was so glad to be stopped he just unrolled his blanket and went to sleep, but though he unrolled his blanket as usual, he didn't go to sleep. It was the first time he had been separated from July on the whole trip, and he was surprised at how much scarier it felt.

  They had been forbidden to build a fire, so all they could do was sit in the dark. Of course it wasn't cold, but a fire would have made things more cheerful.

  "I guess July will kill 'em," he said several times.

  "That Texas Ranger done killed six," Roscoe said. "Maybe he'll kill 'em and July can save his ammunition." Joe held his new rifle. Several times he cocked the hammer and then eased it back down.

  If the Indians came, he hoped they'd wait for daylight, so he'd have a better chance for a shot.

  Janey sat off by herself. She had seen the Indians first and had run back to tell July.

  Roscoe hadn't believed her at first, but July had. He had got off several shots once the Indians started firing.

  Roscoe felt bothered by the fact that there were no more trees. All his life he had lived amid trees and had given little thought to what a comfort they were. Trees had been so common that it was a shock to ride out on the plains and discover that there was a part of earth where there weren't any. Occasionally they might see a few along the rivers, but not many, and those were more bushes than trees. You couldn't lean against them, which was a thing he liked to do. He had got so he could even sleep pretty well leaning against a tree.

  But now July had left him on a river where there wasn't even a bush. He would have to sleep flat out on the ground or else sit up all night. The sky was pale with moonlight, but it didn't provide enough light to see well by.

  Soon Roscoe began to get very nervous.

  Everywhere he looked he began to see things that could have been Indians. He decided to cock his pistol, in case some of the things were Indians.

  When he cocked his pistol, Joe cocked his rifle. "Did you see one?" he asked.

  "It might have been one," Roscoe said.

  "Where?" Janey asked.

  When Roscoe pointed, she immediately went running off toward it. Roscoe could hardly believe his eyes--but she had always been a wild girl.

  "It was just a bush," Janey said, when she came back.

  "You better be glad of that," he said. "If it had been an Indian you'd have got scalped." "Reckon they've had the fight yet?" Joe asked. "I'll be glad when they get back." "It might be morning before they get back," Roscoe said. "We better just rest. The minute July gets back he'll wanna go on looking for your mother." "I guess she's found Dee," Joe said.

  "She likes Dee." "Then how come she married July, dern it?" Roscoe asked. "It was the start of all this, you know. We'd be back in Arkansas playing dominoes if
she hadn't married July." Every time Roscoe tried to think back along the line of events that had led to his being in a place where there was no trees to lean against, he strayed off the line and soon got all tangled up in his thinking. It was probably better not to try and think back down the line of life.

  "I can't get to sleep for nothin'," Joe said.

  Roscoe was glad he hadn't had to go with the other men. He remembered how weak he had felt that afternoon when he realized it was bullets that were hitting in the grass around him. It had sounded like bees sounded in the leaves, but of course it was bullets.

  While he was thinking about it he nodded for a few minutes--it seemed like a few minutes--asleep with his gun cocked. He had a little dream about the wild pigs, not too frightening. The pigs were not as wild as they had been in real life. They were just rooting around a cabin and not trying to harm him, yet he woke in a terrible fright and saw something incomprehensible. Janey was standing a few feet in front of him, with a big rock raised over her head. She was holding it with both hands--why would she do such a thing at that time of night? She wasn't making a sound; she just stood in front of him holding the rock. It was not until she flung it that he realized someone else was there. But someone was: someone big. In his surprise, Roscoe forgot he had a pistol. He quickly stood up.