Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

by Lonesome Dove

  There were only some twenty Indians, mostly women, children and old men. Call saw only two braves who looked to be of fighting age, and they were no more than boys. The Indians had pulled the dead horse's guts out and were hacking them into slices and eating them. Usually there were dogs around an Indian camp, but there were no dogs around this time.

  "I guess these ain't the mighty plains Indians we've been hearing about," Augustus said. The whole little tribe was almost silent, each person concentrating on eating. They were all thin.

  Two old women were cutting meat off the haunch, meaning to dry it, and two young men, probably the ones who had stolen the horses, had caught another and were preparing to cut its throat.

  To prevent this, Call drew his pistol and fired into the air.

  "Oh, let's go," Augustus said. "We don't want to be shooting these people, although it would probably be a mercy. I don't think they even have guns." "I didn't shoot nobody," Call said.

  "But they're our horses." At the shot the whole tribe looked up, stunned. One of the young men grabbed an old single-shot rifle but didn't fire.

  It seemed to be the only firearm the tribe possessed. Call fired in the air again, to scare them away from the horse, and succeeded better than he had expected to. Those who had been eating got to their feet, some with sections of gut still in their hands, and fled toward the four small ragged tepees that stood up the draw. The young man with the gun retreated too, helping one of the older women. She was bloody from the feast.

  "They were just having a picnic," Augustus said. "We had a picnic the other day without nobody shooting at us." "We can leave them two or three horses," Call said. "I just don't want to lose that sorrel they were about to kill." In the tribe's flight a child had been forgotten --a little boy barely old enough to walk. He stood near the neck of the dead horse, crying, trying to find his mother. The tribe huddled in front of the tepees, silent. The only sound, for a moment, was the sound of the child's crying.

  "He blind," Deets said.

  Augustus saw that it was true. The child couldn't see where he was going, and a second later tripped over a pile of bloody horse guts, falling into them.

  Deets, who was closest to the dead horse, walked over and picked the child up. The little blind boy kept wailing.

  "Hush now," Deets said. "You a mess. You done rolled in all that blood." At that moment there was a wild yell from the tepees and Deets looked up to see one of the young braves rushing toward him. He was the one who had picked up the rifle, but he had discarded the rifle and was charging with an old lance, crying his battle cry. Deets held out the baby and smiled--the young man, no older than Newt, didn't need to cry any battle cry. Deets kept holding the baby out toward the tribe and smiling, trusting that the young brave would realize he was friendly. The young man didn't need his lance--he could just take the squalling baby back to its mother.

  Call and Augustus thought too that the young man would probably stop once he saw that Deets meant no harm. If not, Deets could whop him-- Deets was a good hand-to-hand fighter.

  It was only at the last second that they both realized that the Indian wasn't going to stop. His charge was desperate, and he didn't notice that Deets was friendly. He closed at a run.

  "Shoot him, Deets!" Call yelled, raising his own gun.

  Deets saw, too, at the last second, that the boy wasn't going to stop. The young warrior wasn't blind, but the look in his eyes was as unseeing as the baby's. He was still screaming a war cry--it was unnerving in the stillness--and his eyes were filled with hate. The old lance just looked silly. Deets held the baby out again, thinking the boy hadn't understood.

  "Here, take him, I just helping him up," he said. Only then he saw it was too late--the young man couldn't stop coming and couldn't stop hating, either.

  His eyes were wild with hatred. Deets felt a deep regret that he should be hated so by this thin boy when he meant no harm. He tried to sidestep, hoping to gain a moment so he could set the baby down and wrestle with the Indian and maybe calm him.

  But when Deets turned, the boy thrust the lance straight into his side and up into his chest.

  Call and Augustus shot almost at the same time--the boy died with his hands still on the lance. They ran down to Deets, who still had the baby in his hands, although he had over a foot of lance inside him.

  "Would you take him, Captain?" Deets asked, handing Call the child. "I don't want to sit him back in all that blood." Then Deets dropped to his knees. He noticed with surprise that the young Indian was near him, already dead. For a moment he feared that somehow he had killed him, but then he saw that his own gun was still holstered. It must have been the Captain, or Mr. Gus. That was a sad thing, that the boy had had to die just because he couldn't understand that they were friendly. It was one more regret--probably the boy had just been so hungry he couldn't think straight.

  Then he realized that he was on his knees and tried to get up, but Mr. Gus put a hand on his shoulder and asked him to wait.

  "No, you don't have to get up yet, Deets," Augustus said. "Just rest a minute." Deets noticed the handle of the lance protruding from his side. He knew the dead boy had put it there, but he felt nothing. The Captain stood in front of him, awkwardly holding the Indian baby. Deets looked at the Captain sadly. He hoped that now the Captain would see that he had been right to feel worried about leaving Texas. It was a mistake, coming into other people's country. It only disturbed them and led to things like the dead boy. People wouldn't understand, wouldn't know that they were friendly.

  It would have been so much better to stay where they had lived, by the old river. Deets felt a longing to be back, to sit in the corrals at night and wonder about the moon. Many a time he had dozed off, wondering about the moon, whether the Indians had managed to get on it. Sometimes he dreamed he was on it himself--a foolish dream. But the thought made him sleepy, and with one more look of regret at the dead boy who hadn't understood that he meant no harm, he carefully lay down on his side.

  Mr. Gus knelt beside him. For a moment Deets thought he was going to try to pull the lance out, but all he did was steady it so the handle wouldn't quiver.

  "Where's little Newt?" Deets asked.

  "Well, Newt didn't come, Deets," Augustus said. "He's with the boys." Then it seemed to Deets that something was happening to Mr. Gus's head. It had grown larger. He couldn't see it all well. It was as if he were looking through water--as if he had come back to the old river and were lying on the bottom, looking at Mr. Gus through the shallow brown water. Mr.

  Gus's head had grown larger, was floating off.

  It was rising toward the sky like the moon. He could barely see it and then couldn't see it at all, but the waters parted for a moment and he saw a blade or two of grass, close to his eye; then to his relief the brown waters came back and covered him again, deep this time and warm.

  "Can't you take that lance out?" Call asked.

  He didn't know what to do with the baby, and there Deets lay dying.

  "I will in a minute, Call," Augustus said. "Just let him be dead for a minute." "Is he dead already?" Call asked. Though he knew from long experience that such things happened quickly, he could not accept it in Deets's case.

  "I guess it went to the heart," he added pointlessly.

  Augustus didn't answer. He was resting for a moment, wondering if he could get the lance out or if he should just break it off or what. If he pulled it out he might bring half of Deets out with it. Of course Deets was dead-- in a way, it didn't matter. Yet it did-- if there was one thing he didn't want to do, it was tear Deets up.

  "Can't you give that squalling baby to the women?" he asked. "Just set it down over there and maybe they'll come and get it." Call took a few steps toward the huddled Indians, holding out the baby. None of the Indians moved. He went a few more steps and set the baby on the ground. When he turned back he saw Augustus put a foot against Deets's side and try to remove the lance, which did not budge.

  Augustus gave up
and sat down beside the dead man. "I can't do this today, Deets," he said.

  "Somebody else will have to do it if it gets done." Call also knelt down by Deets's body.

  He could not get over his surprise. Though he had seen hundreds of surprising things in battle, this was the most shocking. An Indian boy who probably hadn't been fifteen years old had run up to Deets and killed him.

  It must have shocked Augustus just as much, because he didn't have anything to say.

  "I guess it's our fault," Call said.

  "We should have shot sooner." "I don't want to start thinking about all the things we should have done for this man," Augustus said.

  "If you've got the strength to ride, let's get out of here." They managed to break the lance off so it wouldn't wave in the air, and loaded Deets's body on his horse. While Augustus was tying the body securely, Call rounded up the horses. The Indians watched him silently. He changed his mind and cut off three of the horses that were of little account anyway. He rode over to the Indians.

  "You better tie them three," he said.

  "Otherwise they'll follow us." "I doubt they speak English, Woodrow," Augustus said. "I imagine they speak Ute.

  Anyway, we killed their best warrior; they're done for now unless they find some better country.

  Three horses won't last them through the winter." He looked around at the parched country, the naked ridges where the earth had split from drought.

  The ridges were varicolored, smudged with red and salt-white splotches, as if the fluids of the earth had leaked out through the cracks.

  "Montana better not be nothing like this," he said. "If it is, I'm going back and dig up that goddamn Jake Spoon and scatter his bones." They rode all night, all the next day and into the following night. Augustus just rode, his mind mostly blank, but Call was sick with self-reproach. All his talk of being ready, all his preparation--and then he had just walked up to an Indian camp and let Josh Deets get killed. He had known better. They all knew better. He had known men killed by Indian boys no older than ten, and by old Indian women who looked as if they could barely walk.

  Any Indian might kill you: that was the first law of the Rangers. And yet they had just walked in, and now Josh Deets was gone. He had never called the man by his first name, but now he remembered Gus's foolish sign and how Deets had been troubled by it. Deets had finally concluded that his first name was Josh--that was the way he would think of him from then on, Call decided. He had been Josh Deets. It deepened his sense of reproach that, only a few days before, Josh Deets had been so thoughtful as to lead his horse through the sandstorm, recognizing that he himself was played out.

  Then he had stood there with a rifle in his hands and let the man be killed. They had all concluded the Indians were too starved down to do anything. It was a mistake he would never forgive himself.

  "I think he knowed it was coming," Augustus said, to Call's surprise, as they rode through the cracked valleys toward the Salt Creek.

  "What do you mean, knowed it?" Call asked.

  "He didn't know it. It was just that one boy who showed any fight." "I think he knowed it," Augustus said. "He just stood there waiting." "He had that baby in his hands," Call reminded him.

  "He could have dropped that baby," Augustus said.

  They came back the second night to where the herd had been, only to find it gone. Josh Deets had begun to smell.

  "We could bury him here," Augustus said.

  Call looked around at the empty range.

  "We ain't gonna find no churchyard, if that's what you're looking for," Augustus said.

  "Let's take him on," Call said. "The men will want to pay their respects. I imagine we can catch them tonight." They caught the herd not long before dawn. Dish Boggett was the night herder who saw them coming.

  He was very relieved, forwith both of them gone, the herd had been his responsibility. Since he didn't know the country, it was a heavy responsibility, and he had been hoping the bosses would get back soon. When he saw them he felt a little proud of himself, for he had kept the cattle on grass and had moved them along nicely.

  "Mornin', Captain," he said. Then he noticed that something was wrong. There were three horses, not counting the stolen ones, but only two riders. There was something on the third horse, but it wasn't a rider. It was only a body.

  "Who's that, Gus?" he asked, startled.

  "It's what's left of Deets," Augustus said. "I hope the cook's awake." After feeling nothing for two days, he had begun to feel hungry.

  Newt had taken the middle watch and was sleeping soundly when dawn broke. He was using his saddle for a pillow and had covered himself with a saddle blanket as the nights had begun to be quite cool.

  The sound of voices reached him. One belonged to the Captain, the other to Mr. Gus. Po Campo's voice could be heard, too, and Dish Boggett said something. Newt opened his eyes a moment and saw they were all kneeling by something on the ground. Maybe they had killed an antelope.

  He was very drowsy and wanted to go back to sleep.

  He closed his eyes again, then opened them. It wasn't an antelope. He sat up and saw that Po Campo was kneeling down, twisting on something. Someone had been hurt and Po was trying to pull a stob of some kind out of his body. He was straining hard, but the stob wouldn't come out. He stopped trying, and Dish, who had been holding the wounded man down, turned away suddenly, white and sick.

  When Dish moved, Newt saw Deets. He was in the process of yawning when he saw him.

  Instead of springing up, he lay back down and pulled his blanket tighter. He opened his eyes and looked, and then shut them tightly. He felt angry at the men for having talked so loud that they had awakened him. He wished they would all die, if that was the best they could do. He wanted to go back to sleep. He wanted it to be one of those dreams that you wake up from just as the dream gets bad. He felt that was probably what it was. When he opened his eyes again he wouldn't see Deets's body lying on the wagon sheet a few yards away.

  Yet it didn't work. He couldn't go back to sleep, and when he sat up the body was there-- though if it hadn't been black he might not have known it was Deets.

  He looked and saw that Pea Eye knelt on the other side of the body, looking dazed. Far away, toward the river, he saw the Captain and Lippy, digging. Mr. Gus sat by himself, near the cookfire, eating. The three horses had been unsaddled but no one had returned them to the remuda. They grazed nearby. Most of the hands stood in a group near Deets's feet, just looking as Po Campo worked.

  Finally Po Campo gave up. "Better to bury him with it," he said. "I would have liked to see that boy. The lance went all the way to his collarbone. It went through the heart." Newt sat in his blankets, feeling alone.

  No one noticed him or spoke to him. No one explained Deets's death. Newt began to cry, but no one noticed that either. The sun had risen, and everyone was busy with what they were doing, Mr. Gus eating, the Captain and Lippy digging the grave.

  Soupy Jones was repairing a stirrup and talking in subdued tones to Bert Borum. Newt sat and cried, wondering if Deets knew anything about what was going on. The Irishman and Needle and the Rainey boys held the herd. It was a beautiful morning, too--mountains seemed closer. Newt wondered if Deets knew about any of it. He didn't look at the corpse again, but he wondered if Deets had kept on knowing, somehow.

  He felt he did. He felt that if anyone was taking any notice of him, it was probably Deets, who had always been his friend. It was only the thought that Deets was still knowing him, somehow, that kept him from feeling totally alone.

  Even so, the Deets who had walked around and smiled and been kind to him day after day, through the years--that Deets was dead. Newt sat in his blankets and cried until he was afraid he would never stop. No one seemed to notice. No one said anything to him as preparations for burying Deets went on.

  Pea Eye didn't cry, but he was so shaken he went weak in the legs.

  "Well, my lord," he said, from time to time.

  "My lord
." An Indian boy had killed him, the Captain said. Deets was still wearing a pair of the old patchy quilt pants that he had favored for so long. Pea Eye scarcely knew what to think. He and Deets had been the main hired help on the Hat Creek outfit ever since there had been a Hat Creek outfit.

  Now it was down to him. It would mean a lot more chores for him, undoubtedly, for the Captain only trusted the two of them with certain chores. He remembered that he and Deets had had a pretty good conversation once. He had been vaguely planning to have another one with him if the chance came along. Of course that was off, now. Pea Eye went over and leaned against a wagon wheel, wishing he could stop feeling weak in the legs.

  The other hands were somber. Soupy Jones and Bert Borum, who didn't feel it appropriate for white men to talk much to niggers, exchanged the view that nevertheless this one had been uncommonly decent. Needle Nelson offered to help dig the grave, for Deets had been the man who finally turned the Texas bull the day the bull got after him. Dish Boggett hadn't said much to Deets, either, but he had often been cheered, from his position on the point, to see Deets come riding back through the heat waves. It meant he was on course, and that water was somewhere near. Dish wished he had said more to the man at some point.