Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

by Lonesome Dove

  "Well, you're here," he said. "It won't last long. Pretty soon it'll be nothing but schoolhouses." With that he mounted, tipped his hat to them and turned toward the Platte.

  The two women stood where they were until the sound of hoofbeats faded. Lorena felt wrong. Part of her felt she should have gone with him, to look after him. But she knew that was foolish: Gus, if anyone, could look after himself.

  She was dry-eyed and felt blank, but Clara cried, tears born of vexation, long affection and regret.

  "He was always stubborn like that," she said, attempting to control herself.

  "He left so quick," Lorena said. "Do you think I should have gone? I don't know what's best." "No. I'm glad you stayed," Clara said.

  "You've had enough rough living--not that it can't be rough around here. But it won't be as rough as Montana." She put her arm around the girl as they turned toward the house.

  "Come on in," she said. "I'll show you where to sleep. We've got a nice little room that might suit you."

  When Augustus returned without Lorena, Dish Boggett felt deeply unhappy. It shocked him that Gus would leave her. Though he had been constantly jealous while she was traveling with Gus, at least she was there. In the evening he would often see her sitting outside the tent. He dreamed about her often--once had even dreamed that she was sleeping near him. In the dream she was so beautiful that he ached when he woke up. That Gus had seen fit to leave her on the Platte made him terribly irritable.

  Newt was happy with his new horse, which he named Candy. It was the first real gift he had ever been given in his life, and he talked to anyone who would listen of the wonderful woman on the Platte who knew how to break horses and conduct picnics too. His enthusiasm soon caused the other hands to be jealous, for they had accomplished nothing except a drunk in Ogallala, and had missed the nice picnic and the girls.

  Though confident that he had done the right thing in leaving Lorena, Augustus soon found that he missed her more than he had expected to. He missed Clara, too, and for a few days was in a surly mood. He had grown accustomed to sleeping late and sitting outside the tent with Lorena in the mornings. Alone on the long plain, with no cowboys to disturb her, she was a beautiful companion, whereas the cowboys who gathered around Po Campo's cookfire every morning were far from beautiful, in his view.

  It was high summer, the days blazing hot almost until the sun touched the horizon. The cattle were mulish and hard to move, stopping whenever possible to graze, or simply to stand. For several days they trailed west along the Platte, but when the river curved south, toward Colorado, Call pointed the herd northwest.

  Po Campo hated to leave the river. The morning they left it he lingered behind so long with the wagon that the herd was completely out of sight.

  Lippy, who rode on the wagon, found this fact alarming. After all, they were in Indian country, and there was nothing to keep a few Indians from nipping in and taking their scalps.

  "What are we waiting on?" Lippy asked.

  "We're three miles behind already." Po Campo stood by the water's edge, looking across the Platte to the south. He was thinking of his dead sons, killed by Blue Duck on the Canadian. He didn't think often of his sons, but when he did, a feeling of sadness filled him, a feeling so heavy that it was an effort for him to move. Thinking of them in their graves in New Mexico made him feel disloyal, made him feel that he should have shot himself and been buried with them, for was it not the duty of a parent to stay with the children? But he had left, first to go south and kill his faithless wife, and now to the north, while Blue Duck, the killer, still rode free on the llano--unless someone had killed him, which Po Campo doubted. Lippy's fears about Indians did not move him--the sight of flowing water moved him, stirring feelings in him which, though sad, were deep feelings. They made him want to sing his saddest songs.

  He finally turned and plodded after the herd, Lippy following at a slow walk in the wagon. But Po Campo felt they were wrong to leave the river. He became moody and ceased to have pride in his cooking, and if the cowboys complained he said nothing. Also, he grew stingy with water, which irritated the cowboys, who came in parched and dusty, dying for a drink. Po Campo would only give them a dipperful each.

  "You will wish you had this water when you drink your own piss," he said to Jasper one evening.

  "I ain't planning on drinking my own piss or anybody else's, either," Jasper said.

  "You have not been very thirsty then," Po said. "I once drank the urine of a mule. It kept me alive." "Well, it couldn't taste much worse than that Ogallala beer," Needle observed. "My tongue's been peeling ever since we was there." "It ain't what you drink that causes your tongue to peel," Augustus said. "That's the result of who you bedded down with." The remark caused much apprehension among the men, and they were apprehensive anyway, mainly because everyone they met in Ogallala assured them they were dead men if they tried to go to Montana.

  As they edged into Wyoming the country grew bleaker --the grass was no longer as luxuriant as it had been in Kansas and Nebraska. To the north were sandy slopes where the grass only grew in tufts. Deets ranged far ahead during the day, looking for water. He always found it, but the streams grew smaller and the water more alkaline. "Near as bad as the Pecos," Augustus said.

  Call seemed only mildly concerned about the increasing dryness. Indeed, Call was cheerful, easier on the men than was his wont. He seemed relaxed and almost at ease with himself.

  "Have you cheered up because I left Lorie behind?" Augustus asked as they were riding together one morning. Far to the south they saw a black line of mountains. To the north there was only the dusty plain.

  "That was your business," Call said. "I didn't tell you to leave her behind, though I'm sure it's the best thing." "I think we ought to have listened to our cook," Augustus said. "It's looking droughty to me." "If we can make Powder River I guess we'll be all right," Call said.

  "What if Jake lied to us?" Augustus said. "What if Montana ain't the paradise he said it was? We'll have come a hell of a way for nothing." "I want to see it," Call said. "We'll be the first to graze cattle on it. Don't that interest you?" "Not much," Augustus said. "I've watched these goddamn cattle graze all I want to." The next day Deets came back from his scout looking worried. "Dry as a bone, Captain," he said.

  "How far did you go?" "Twenty miles and more," Deets said.

  The plain ahead was white with heat. Of course, the cattle could make twenty miles, though it would be better to wait a day and drive them at night.

  "I was told if we went straight west we'd strike Salt Creek and could follow it to the Powder," Call said. "It can't be too far." "It don't take much to be too far, in this heat," Augustus said.

  "Try going due north," Call said.

  Deets changed horses and left. It was well after dark when he reappeared. Call stopped the herd, and the men lounged around the wagon, playing cards. While they played, the Texas bull milled through the cows, now and then mounting one.

  Augustus kept one eye on his cards and one eye on the bull, keeping a loose count of his winnings and of the bull's.

  "That's six he's had since we started playing," he said. "That sucker's got more stamina than me." "More opportunity, too," Allen O'Brien observed. He had adjusted quite well to the cowboy life, but he still could not forget Ireland. When he thought of his little wife, he would break into tears of homesickness, and the songs he sang to the cattle would often remind him of her.

  When Deets returned it was to report that there was no water to the north. "No antelope, Captain," he said. The plains of western Nebraska had been spotted with them.

  "I'll have a look in the morning," Call said. "You rest, Deets." He found he couldn't sleep, and rose at three to saddle the Hell Bitch. Po Campo was up, stirring the coals of his cookfire, but Call only took a cup of coffee.

  "Have you been up here before?" he asked. The old cook's wanderings had been a subject of much speculation among the men. Po Campo was always letting slip tantalizing
bits of information.

  Once, for example, he had described the great gorge of the Columbia River. Again, he had casually mentioned Jim Bridger.

  "No," Po Campo said. "I don't know this country. But I'll tell you this, it is dry.

  Water your horse before you leave." Call thought the old man rather patronizing--he knew enough to water a horse before setting off into a desert.

  "Don't wait supper," he said.

  All day he rode west, and the country around him grew more bleak. Not fit for sheep, Call thought.

  Not hardly fit for lizards--in fact, a small gray lizard was the only life he saw all day. That night he made a dry camp in sandy country where the dirt was light-colored, almost white. He supposed he had come some sixty miles and could not imagine that the herd would make it that far, although the Hell Bitch seemed unaffected. He slept for a few hours and went on, arriving just after sunup on the banks of Salt Creek. It was not running, but there was adequate water in scattered shallow pools.

  The water was not good, but it was water. The trouble was, the herd was nearly eighty miles back--a four-day drive under normal conditions; and in this case the miles were entirely waterless, which wouldn't make for normal conditions.

  Call rested the mare and let her have a good roll. Then he started back and rode almost straight through, only stopping once for two hours' rest. He arrived in camp at midmorning to find most of the hands still playing cards.

  When he unsaddled the mare, one of Augustus's pigs grunted at him. Both of them were lying under the wagon, sharing the shade with Lippy, who was sound asleep. The shoat was a large pig now, but travel had kept him thin.

  Call felt it was slightly absurd having pigs along on a cattle drive, but they had proven good foragers as well as good swimmers.

  They got across the rivers without any help.

  Augustus was oiling his rifle. "How far did you ride that horse?" he asked.

  "To the next water and back," Call said.

  "Did you ever see a horse like her?

  She ain't even tired." "How far is it to water?" Augustus asked.

  "About eighty miles," Call said. "What do you think?" "I ain't give it no thought at all, so far," Augustus said.

  "We can't just sit here," Call said.

  "Oh, we could," Augustus said. "We could have stopped pretty much anywhere along the way. It's only your stubbornness kept us going this long. I guess it'll be interesting to see if it can get us the next eighty miles." Call got a plate and ate a big meal.

  He expected Po Campo to say something about their predicament, but the old cook merely dished out the food and said nothing. Deets was helping Pea Eye trim one of his horse's feet, a task Pea Eye had never been good at.

  "Find the water, Captain?" Deets asked, smiling.

  "I found it, 'bout eighty miles away," Call said.

  "That's far," Pea Eye said.

  They had stopped the cattle at the last stream that Deets had found, and now Call walked down it a way to think things over. He saw a gray wolf. It seemed to him to be the same wolf they had seen in Nebraska, after the picnic, but he told himself that was foolish speculation. A gray wolf wouldn't follow a cattle herd.

  Deets finished trimming the horse's hooves and wiped the sweat off his face with his shirtsleeve. Pea Eye stood silently nearby. Though the two of them had soldiered together for most of their lives, they had never really had a conversation. It had seemed unnecessary. They exchanged information, and that was about it. Pea, indeed, had always been a little doubtful of the propriety of talking to Negroes, although he liked and respected Deets and was grateful to him now for trimming the horse's feet. He knew Deets was a great deal more competent than he was in many areas-- tracking, for example. He knew that if it had not been for Deets's skill in finding water they might have all starved years before in campaigns on the llano. He knew, too, that Deets had risked his life a number of times to save his, and yet, standing there side by side, the only thing he could think of to talk about was the Captain's great love for the Hell Bitch.

  "Well, he's mighty fond of that horse," he said. "And she might kill him yet." "She ain't gonna kill the Captain," Deets said. He had the sad sense that things were not right. It seemed they were going to go north forever, and he couldn't think why. Life had been orderly and peaceful in Texas. He himself had particularly enjoyed his periodic trips to San Antonio to deposit money. Texas had always been their country, and it was a puzzle to him why they were going to a country that would probably be so wild there wouldn't even be banks to take money to.

  "We way up here and it ain't our country," he said, looking at Pea. That was the heart of it--best to stay in your own country and not go wandering off where you didn't know the rivers or the water holes.

  "Now up here, it's gonna be cold," he added, as if that were proof enough of the folly of their trip.

  "Well, I hope we get there before the rivers start icing," Pea said. "I always worry about that thin ice." With that he turned away, and the lengthy conversation was over.

  By midafternoon Call came back from his walk and decided they would go ahead. It was go ahead or go back, and he didn't mean to go back. It wasn't rational to think of driving cattle over eighty waterless miles, but he had learned in his years of tracking Indians that things which seemed impossible often weren't. They only became so if one thought about them too much so that fear took over. The thing to do was go. Some of the cattle might not make it, but then, he had never expected to reach Montana with every head.

  He told the cowboys to push the cattle and horses on to water and hold them there.

  Without saying a word, Augustus walked over, took off his clothes, and had a long bath in the little stream. The cowboys holding the herd could see him sitting in the shallow water, now and then splashing some on his long white hair.

  "Sometimes I think Gus is crazy," Soupy Jones said. "Why is he sitting in the water?" "Maybe he's fishing," Dish Boggett said facetiously. He had no opinion of Soupy Jones and saw no reason why Gus shouldn't bathe if he wanted to.

  Augustus came walking back to the wagon with his hair dripping.

  "It looks like sandy times ahead," he said.

  "Call, you got too much of the prophet in you.

  You're always trying to lead us into the deserts." "Well, there's water there," Call said. "I seen it. If we can get them close enough that they can smell it, they'll go. How far do you think a cow can smell water?" "Not no eighty miles," Augustus said.

  They started the herd two hours before sundown and drove all night through the barren country. The hands had made night drives before and were glad to be traveling in the cool. Most of them expected, though, that Call would stop for breakfast, but he didn't. He rode ahead of the herd and kept on going. Some of the hands were beginning to feel empty.

  They kept looking hopefully for a sign that Call might slacken and let Po Campo feed them--but Call didn't slacken. They kept the cattle moving until midday, by which time some of the weaker cattle were already lagging well behind. The leaders were tired and acting fractious.

  Finally Call did stop. "We'll rest a little until it starts to get cool," he said.

  "Then we'll drive all night again. That ought to put us close." He wasn't sure, though. For all their effort, they had covered only some thirty-five or forty miles. It would be touch and go.

  Late that afternoon, while the cowboys were lying around resting, a wind sprang up from the west. From the first, it was as hot as if it were blowing over coals.

  By the time Call was ready to start the herd again, the wind had risen and they faced a full-fledged sandstorm. It blew so hard that the cattle were reluctant to face it.

  Newt, with the Rainey boys, was holding the drags, as usual. The wind howled across the flat plain, and the sand seemed to sing as it skimmed the ground. Newt found that looking into the wind blinded him almost instantly. He mostly ducked his head and kept his eyes shut. The horses didn't like the sand either. They began to duck and
jump around, irritated at being forced into such a wind.

  "This is bad luck," Augustus said to Call. He adjusted his bandana over his nose and he pulled his hat down as far as it would go.

  "We can't stop here," Call said. "We ain't but halfway to water." "Yes, and some of them will still be halfway when this blows itself out," Augustus said.

  Call helped Lippy and the cook tie down everything on the wagon. Lippy, who hated wind, looked frightened; Po Campo said nothing.

  "You better ride tonight," Call said to Po Campo. "If you try to walk you might get lost." "We all might get lost tonight," Po Campo said. He took an old ax handle that he sometimes used as a cane and walked, but at least he consented to walk right with the wagon.

  None of the men--no strangers to sandstorms--could remember such a sunset. The sun was like a dying coal, ringed with black long before it neared the horizon. After it set, the rim of the earth was blood-red for a few minutes, then the red was streaked with black. The afterglow was quickly snuffed out by the sand. Jasper Fant wished for the thousandth time that he had stayed in Texas. Dish Boggett was troubled by the sensation that there was a kind of river of sand flowing above his head. When he looked up in the eerie twilight, he seemed to see it, as if somehow the world had turned over and the road that ought to be beneath his feet was now over his head. If the wind stopped, he felt, the sand river would fall and bury him.