Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

And yet, Call remembered, that very day he had seen Gus McCrae cry over a woman who had been gone fifteen years and more: Gus, of all men he knew, the most nonchalant.

Finally he felt a little better, as he always did if he stayed alone long enough. The breeze flickered over the little bluff. Occasionally the Hell Bitch pawed the ground. At night he let her graze on the end of a long rope, but this time he carefully wrapped the end of the rope around his waist before lying back against his saddle to sleep. If Blue Duck was really in the vicinity a little extra caution might pay.

AS NEWT RODE through the dusk, he felt so anxious that he began to get a headache. Often that would happen when he felt a lot was expected of him. By the time he had ridden a couple of miles he began to have strong apprehensions. What if he missed Lorena's camp? Mn. Gus had said it was due east, but Newt couldn't be sure he was traveling due east. If he missed the camp there was no doubt in his mind that he would be disgraced. It would make him a permanent laughingstock, and Dish Boggett would probably refuse to have anything more to do with him-it was widely known that Dish was partial to Lorena.

It was a great relief to him when Mouse nickened and Lorena's horse nickered back. At least that disgrace had been avoided. He loped on to the little camp, and at first couldn't see Lorena at all, just the horse and the mule. Then he finally saw her sitting with her back against a tree.

He had spent most of the ride rehearsing things he might say to her, but at the sight of her he completely forgot them all. He slowed Mouse to a walk in hope of thinking up something to say before he had to speak, but for some reason his mind wouldn't work. He also found that he couldn't breathe easily.

Lorena looked up when she saw him coming, but she didn't rise. She sat with her back against the tree and waited for him to explain himself. Newt could see her pale face, but it was too dank to tell anything about her expression.

"It's just me," Newt managed to say. "My name's Newt," he added, realizing that Lorena probably didn't know it.

Lorena didn't speak. Newt remembered having heard men comment on the fact that she didn't talk much. Well, they were right. The only sound from the camp was the sound of crickets. His pride at having been given such an important errand began to fade.

"Mr. Gus said to come," he pointed out.

Lorena was sorry Gus had sent him. The bandit hadn't returned and she didn't feel in danger. She had a feeling Jake would be coming-even angry, he wouldn't want to do without her three nights in a row. She didn't want the boy around. The alone feeling had come back, the feeling that had been with her most of her life. In a way she was glad it had. Being alone was easier and more restful than having to talk to a boy. Anyway, why send a boy? He wouldn't be able to stand up to a bandit.

"You go on back," she said. It tired her to think of having the boy around all night.

Newt's spirits fell. It was just what he had feared she would say. He had been ordered to come and look after her, and he couldn't just blithely disobey an order. But neither did he want to disobey Lorena. He sat where he was, on Mouse, in the grip of terrible indecision. He almost wished something would happen-a sudden attack of Mexicans or something. He might be killed, but at least he wouldn't have to make a choice between disobeying Mr. Gus and disobeying Lorena.

"Mr. Gus said I was to stay," he said nervously.

"Gus can lump it," Lorena said. "You go on back."

"I guess I'll just tell him you said you were all right," Newt said, feeling hopeless.

"How old are you?" Lorena asked suddenly, to his immense surprise.

"I'm seventeen," Newt said. "I knew Jake when I was real little."

"Well, you ride on back," she said. "I don't need looking after."

She said it with more friendliness in her voice, but it didn't make it easier to do. He could see her plainly in the white night. She sat with her knees drawn up.

"Well, goodbye, then," he said. Lorena didn't answer. He turned back toward the herd, feeling a worse failure than ever.

Then it occurred to Newt that he would just have to trick her. He could watch without her knowing it. That way he wouldn't have to go back to camp and admit that Lorena didn't want him in camp with her. If he did that, the cowboys would make jokes about it all the way to Montana, making out that he had tried to do things he hadn't tried to do. He wasn't even sure what you were supposed to try to do. He had a sort of cloudy sense, but that was all.

He trotted what he judged to be about a half a mile from Lorena's camp before stopping and dismounting. His new plan for watching Lorena involved leaving Mouse-if he tried to sneak back on Mouse, Lorena's mare might nicker. He would have to tie Mouse and sneak back on foot, a violation of a major rule of cowboying. You were never supposed to be separated from your horse. The rule probably had to do with Indian fighting, Newt supposed: you would obviously be done for if the Indians caught you on foot.

But it was such a beautiful, peaceful night, the moon new and high, that Newt decided to chance it. Lorena might already be asleep, it was so peaceful. On such a night it would be little risk to tie Mouse for a few hours. He looped his rein over a tree limb and went walking back toward Lorena's. He stopped at a little stand of live oak about a hundred yards from the camp, sat down with his back against a tree and drew his pistol. Just holding it made him feel ready for anything.

Resting with his back against the tree, Newt let himself drift back into the old familiar daydreams in which he got better and better as a cowboy until even the Captain had to recognize that he was a top hand. His prowess was not lost on Lorena, either. He didn't exactly dream that they got married, but she did ask him to get off his horse and talk for a while.

But while they were talking he began to feel that something was wrong. Lorena's face was there and then it wasn't. Somehow the daydream had become a night dream, and the night dream was ending. He woke up very frightened, though at first he didn't know why he was frightened. He just knew that something was wrong. He still sat under the tree, the gun in his hand, only there was a sound that was wrong, a sound like drumming. For a second it confused him-then he realized what it was: the cattle were running. Instantly he was running too, running for Mouse. He wasn't sure how close the cattle were on whether they were running in his direction, but he didn't stop to listen. He knew he had to get to Mouse and then ride back to Lorena, to help her in case the cattle swerved her way. He began to hear men yelling to the west, obviously the boys trying to turn the cattle. Then suddenly a bunch of running cattle appeared night in front of him, fifty on sixty of them. They ran right past him and on toward the bluffs.

Newt ran as hard as he could, not because he was afraid of being trampled but because he had to get Mouse and try to be some help. He kept running until he was covered with sweat and could barely get breath into his lungs. He was hoping none of the cowboys saw him afoot. He held onto the gun as he ran.

Finally he had to slow down. His legs refused to keep up the speed and he trotted the last two hundred yards to where he had tied Mouse. But the horse wasn't there! Newt looked around to be sure he had the right place. He had used a boulder as a landmark, and the boulder was where it should be-but not the horse. Newt knew the stampede might have scared him and caused him to break the rein, but there was no broken rein hanging from the tree where Mouse had been tied.

Before he could stop himself, Newt began to cry. He had lost the Mouse, an unforgivable thing, and all because he thought he had conceived a good plan for watching Lorena. He hated to think what the Captain would say when he had to confess. He ran one way and then the other for a while, thinking there might be two identical boulders-that the horse might still be there. But it wasn't true. The horse was just gone. He sat down under the tree where Mouse should have been, sure that he was ruined as a cowboy unless a miracle happened. He didn't think one would.