Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

by Lonesome Dove

  He didn't see where the rock went, but Janey suddenly dropped to her knees. She looked around at him. "Shoot at him," she said. Roscoe remembered the pistol, which was cocked, but before he could raise it, the big shadow that Janey had thrown the rock at slid close to him and shoved him--not a hard shove, but it made him drop the pistol. He knew he was awake and not dreaming, but he didn't have any more strength than he would have had in a dream in terms of moving quick. He saw the big shadow standing by him but he had felt no fear, and the shadow didn't shove him again.

  Roscoe felt warm and sleepy and sat back down. It was like he was in a warm bath. He hadn't had too many warm baths in his life, but he felt like he was in one and was ready for a long snooze. Janey was crawling, though-- crawling right over his legs. "Now what are you doing?" he said, before he saw that her eyes were fixed on the pistol he had dropped. She wanted the pistol, and for some reason crawled right over his legs to get to it. But before she got to it the shadow came back. "Why, you're a fighter, ain't you?" the shadow man said. "If I wasn't in such a hurry I'd show you a trick or two." Then he raised his arms and struck down at her; Roscoe couldn't see if it was with an ax or what, but the sound was like an ax striking wood, and Janey stopped moving and lay across his legs. "Joe?" Roscoe said; he had just remembered that he had made Joe stop cocking and uncocking his rifle so he could get to sleep.

  "Was that his name?" the shadow man said.

  Roscoe knew it must be a man, for he had a heavy voice. But he couldn't see the man's face. He just seemed to be a big shadow, and anyway Roscoe couldn't get his mind fixed on it, or on where Joe was or when July would be back, or on anything much, he felt so warm and tired. The big shadow stood astraddle of him and reached down for his belt but Roscoe had let go all concern, he felt so tired. He felt everything would have to stop for a while; it was as if the darkness itself was pushing his eyelids down. Then the warm sleep took him.

  July found them an hour later, already stiff in death. He had raced as fast as he could over the rough country, not wanting to take the time to follow the river itself but too unsure of his position to go very far from it. From time to time he stopped, listening for shots, but the dark plains were quiet and peaceful, though it was on them that he had just seen the most violent and terrible things he had ever witnessed in his life. The only sound he heard was the wind singing over the empty miles of grass; in the spring night the wind sang gently.

  July had never felt so inadequate. He was not even sure he could find his way back to where they had left the others. He was a sheriff, paid to fight when necessary, but nothing in his experience had prepared him for the slaughter he had just witnessed.

  Captain McCrae had killed six men, whereas he had not even fired his gun when the old bandit was aiming at him. It had all seemed so rapid, all those deaths in a minute or two. Captain McCrae had not seemed disturbed, whereas he felt such confusion he could scarcely think. He had met rough men in Arkansas and backed several of them down and arrested them, but this was different: the dying buffalo hunter had had nothing but a patch of blood between his legs. Death and worse happened on the plains.

  When he saw the canyon where he had left his party he stopped to listen but heard nothing. It made him fearful, for Joe's horse would always whinny at his. But this time there was no whinny and he saw no horses. He dismounted and walked slowly down the canyon. Maybe they had forgotten to hobble the horses and they had grazed away.

  Roscoe was forgetful in such matters.

  "Roscoe?" he said, when he came in sight of the camp.

  He could see the three forms on the ground as if asleep, but he knew they weren't asleep because Janey lay across Roscoe's legs.

  The only sound in the camp was the sound of flies buzzing on blood.

  July didn't want to see it. He knew he had to, but he didn't want to.

  He felt a terrible need to turn things back, all the way back to the time when he and Roscoe and Joe and Elmira had all been in Arkansas.

  He knew it could never be. Something had happened which he would never be free of. He had even lost the chance to stay and die with his people, though Captain McCrae had offered him that chance. "I'd feel better in my mind if you'd stay with your party," he had said.

  He had not stayed, but when he had gone, he hadn't fought, either. He had done nothing but ride twice over the same stretch of prairie, while death had come to both camps. He had no doubt that if he had stayed with Roscoe and the children, it would have come to him too. The man who had killed them must be a fighter on the order of Captain McCrae.

  For a time, July did not go into the camp. He couldn't. He stood and listened to the flies buzz over them. He didn't want to see what had been done to them. Now, when he did find Elmira, it would only be to tell her that her son was dead. And if he lived to return to Fort Smith it would be without Roscoe Brown, a loyal man who had never asked for much.

  The strange girl who could catch rabbits would catch no more rabbits.

  After a time, July took his knife and began to dig graves. He climbed out of the canyon and dug them on the plain. Digging with a knife was slow work, but it was the only digging tool he had. The loose dirt he threw out with his hands. He was still digging at sunup, yet the graves were pitifully shallow affairs. He would have to do better than that, or the coyotes would get the corpses. Once in a while he looked down at the bodies. Joe lay apart from the other two, sprawled on his blanket as if asleep.

  July began to gather rocks to pile on the graves. There were plenty along the canyon, though some had to be pried out of the dirt. While he was carrying one, he saw two riders far across the plain, black dots in the bright sunlight. His horse whinnied, eager for company.

  When Augustus rode up with Lorena, the Arkansas sheriff was still digging. Augustus rode over to the canyon edge and looked down.

  "More dead to tidy up," he said, dismounting. He had given Lorena Roscoe's horse, which had an easy gait, and was riding on the best of the Indian ponies, a skinny paint.

  "It's my fault," July said. "If I'd done what you said, maybe they'd be alive." "And maybe you'd be dead and I'd have had to tidy you up," Augustus said. "Don't be reviling yourself. None of us is such fine judges of what to do." "You told me to stay," July said.

  "I know I did, son," Augustus said.

  "I'm sure you wish you had. But yesterday's gone on down the river and you can't get it back. Go on with your digging and I'll tidy up." He turned to Lorena and helped her down.

  "You stay here, darling," he said.

  But when he started down the canyon, Lorena followed him. She didn't want Gus to be far away.

  "No, I don't want you to go down there and see this mess," Augustus said. "Sit right here, where you can watch me. I won't be out of sight." He turned to July. "Sit with her," he said. "She don't have much to say right now. Just sit with her, Mr. Johnson." July stopped his work. The woman didn't look at him. Her sad eyes were fixed on Captain McCrae as he made his way down the canyon. Her legs were black and blue and there was a yellowing bruise on one cheek. She didn't turn her head or look at him at all.

  "My name is July Johnson," he said, to be polite, but the woman didn't appear to hear.

  Augustus went quickly to the camp and tied each body in a blanket. Blue Duck had been so confident of his victims that he hadn't even bothered to shoot. The deputy and the girl had been knifed, ripped open from navel to breastbone.

  Evidently it hadn't been enough for the girl, because her head had been smashed in too. So had the boy's, probably with the butt of the rifle Gus had given him. The deputy had been castrated as well.

  Using saddle strings, Gus tied the blankets as tightly around them as he could. It was strange that three such people had been on the Canadian, but then, that was the frontier--people were always wandering where they had no business being. He himself had done it and got away with it--had been a Ranger in Texas rather than a lawyer in Tennessee. The three torn specimens he was tying into their shrouds had
not been so lucky.

  He carried the bodies up to the prairie, laid them in their shallow graves and helped July pile rocks on the graves, a pitiful expedient that wouldn't deter the varmints for long.

  In the other camp he had merely laid the buffalo hunters and the dead Kiowas in a line and left them.

  "I guess he took Joe's horse," July said.

  "Yes, and his life," Augustus said. "I'm sure he had more interest in the horse." "If you're going after him I'd like to try and help," July said.

  "I got nothing to go after him on," Augustus said. "He's better mounted than us, and this ain't no place to go chasing a man who's got you out-horsed. He's headed for the Purgatory this time, I bet." "The what?" July asked.

  "It's a river up in Colorado," Augustus said. "He's probably got another gang there. We best let him go this time." "I hate to," July said. He had begun to imagine confronting the man and shooting him down.

  "Son, this is a sad thing," Augustus said.

  "Loss of life always is. But the life is lost for good. Don't you go attempting vengeance.

  You've got more urgent business. If I ever run into Blue Duck I'll kill him.

  But if I don't, somebody else will. He's big and mean, but sooner or later he'll meet somebody bigger and meaner. Or a snake will bite him or a horse will fall on him, or he'll get hung, or one of his renegades will shoot him in the back. Or he'll just get old and die." He went over and tightened the girth on his saddle.

  "Don't be trying to give back pain for pain," he said. "You can't get even measures in business like this. You best go find your wife." July looked across the river at the unending prairie. If I find her she'll hate me worse now, he thought.

  Augustus watched him mount, thinking how young he looked. He couldn't be much over twenty. But he was old enough to have found a wife and lost her--not that it took long to lose one, necessarily.

  "Where is this Adobe Walls place?" July asked.

  "It ain't far down the river," Augustus said, "but I'd pass it by if I were you. Your wife ain't there. If she went up the Arkansas I'd imagine she's up in Kansas, in one of the towns." "I would hate to miss her," July said.

  If she's at Adobe Walls, you'd do better to miss her, Augustus thought, but he didn't say it. He shook hands with the young sheriff and watched him mount and ride across the river.

  Soon he dipped out of sight, in the rough breaks to the north. When he reappeared on the vast plain, he was only a tiny speck.

  Augustus went to Lorena. He had spent most of the night simply holding her in his arms, hoping that body heat would finally help her stop trembling and shaking. She had not said a word so far, but she would look him in the face, which was a good sign. He had seen women captives too broken even to raise their eyes.

  "Come on, Lorie," he said. "Let's take a little ride." She stood up obediently, like a child.

  "We'll just ride over east a ways and see if we can find us some shade," Augustus said.

  "Then we'll loll around for a couple of weeks and let Call and the boys catch up with us. They'll be coming with the cattle pretty soon. By then I expect you'll be feeling better." Lorena didn't answer, but she mounted without help and rode beside him all day.

  Call expected Gus to be back in a day or two. Maybe he'd have the girl and maybe he wouldn't, but it was not likely he'd be gone long. Gus was a hard traveler and usually overtook whoever he was after promptly, arrested them or dispatched them, and got back.

  For a day or two he didn't give Gus's absence much thought. He was irritated with Jake Spoon for having been so troublesome and undependable, but then, he partly had himself to blame for that. He should have set Jake straight before they left Lonesome Dove--informed him in no uncertain terms that the girl wasn't coming.

  When the third day passed and Gus wasn't back, Call began to be uneasy. Augustus had survived so much that Call didn't give his safety much thought. Even men accustomed all their lives to sudden death didn't expect it to happen to Gus McCrae. The rest of them might fall by the wayside, their mortality taking gentle or cruel forms, but Gus would just go on talking.

  Yet five days passed, and then a week, and he didn't return. The herd crossed the Brazos without incident, and then the Trinity, and there was still no Gus.

  They camped west of Fort Worth and Call allowed the men to go into town. It would be the last town they would see until they hit Ogallala, and it might be that some of them wouldn't live to hit Ogallala. He let them go carouse, keeping just the boys, to help him hold the herd. Dish Boggett volunteered to stay, too--he still had his thoughts on Lorena and was not about to leave camp while there was a chance that Gus would bring her back.

  "Dern, he's behaving like a deacon," Soupy said. "I expect to hear him preach a sermon any day." Needle Nelson took a more charitable view.

  "He's just in love," he said. "He don't want to go trashing around with us." "By God, he'll wish he had before we hit Nebraska," Jasper Fant said. "You don't see me waiting. I'd like to drink a couple of more bottles of good whiskey before I have to cross any more of them cold rivers. They got real cold rivers up north, I hear. Some of them even got ice in them, I guess." "If I was to see a chunk of ice in a river, I'd rope it and we could use it to water our drinks," Bert Borum said.

  Bert was inordinately proud of his skill with a rope, the men thought. He was indeed quick and accurate, but the men were tired of hearing him brag on himself and were constantly on the lookout for things he could rope that might cause him to miss.

  Once Bert had silenced them for a whole day by roping a coyote on the first throw, but they were not the sort of men to keep silent long.

  "Go rope that dern bull, if you're so good at roping," Needle Nelson said, referring to the Texas bull. The bull seemed to resent it when the cowboys sat in groups--he would position himself fifty yards away and paw the earth and bellow.

  Needle was in favor of shooting him but Call wouldn't allow it.

  "I can rope the son of a bitch fast enough," Bert said. "Getting the rope off would be the problem." "Getting you buried would be the problem if you was to rope that bull," Dish said. The fact that he chose to restrain himself and not get drunk in Fort Worth increased his sense of superiority somewhat, and many of the crew had had about all of Dish's sense of superiority as they could take, particularly since he was restraining himself for love of a young woman who clearly didn't give a hoot about him.

  "If you're so in love, why didn't you go bring her back and leave Gus here?" Jasper asked. "Gus is a damn sight more entertaining than you are, Dish." At that Dish turned and jumped him but Call soon broke it up. "If you want to fight, collect your wages first," he said.

  The Rainey boys were feeling grown-up and wanted Newt to talk the Captain into letting them go to town. "I wanta try a whore," Ben Rainey said.

  Newt declined to make the request.

  "Just ask him," Ben said.

  "I'll ask him when we get to Nebraska," Newt said.

  "Yeah, and if I drown in the Red River I won't ever get to try no whore," Ben said.

  Call began to be very worried about Gus. It was unusual for him to be gone so long with only one man to chase. Of course, Blue Duck might have had a gang waiting, and Gus might have ridden into an ambush. He had not done any serious fighting in years. Even Pea Eye had begun to worry about him.

  "Here we are all the way to Fort Worth and Gus still ain't back," Pea Eye said.

  Po Campo didn't go to Fort Worth either.

  He sat with his back to one of the wheels of the wagon, whittling one of the little female figures he liked to carve. As he walked along during the day he kept his eye out for promising chunks of wood and, if he saw one, would pitch it in the wagon. Then at night he whittled. He would start with a fairly big chunk, and after a week or so would have it whittled into a little wooden woman about two inches high.

  "I hope he comes back," Po Campo said. "I enjoy his acquaintance, although he doesn't like my cooking." "Well, we wasn't used to eating
bugs and such when you first came," Pea Eye said. "I expect he'll work up a taste for it when he comes back. It never used to take him so long to catch a bandit." "He won't catch Blue Duck," Po Campo said.

  "Why, do you know the man?" Call asked, surprised.

  "I know him," Po Campo said. "There is no worse man. Only the devil is worse and the devil won't bother us on this trip." That was surprising talk. Call looked at the old man closely, but Po Campo was just sitting by the wagon wheel, wood shavings all over his short legs. He noticed Call's look and smiled.