Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

Monkey John was too drunk to listen. He charged Dog Face and swung the stick at him but Dog Face wasn't as drunk. He hit Monkey John with the barrel of his rifle. The old man went loop-legged and dropped his stick. Then he dropped, too, falling on the stick.

"I'd have let him beat her," Blue Duck said.

"I ain't you," Dog Face said.

In the night Lorena tried to sort it out in her mind. She had been hungry so much, tired so much, scared so much, that her mind didn't work well anymore. Sometimes she would try to remember something and couldn't-it was as if her mind and memory had gone and hidden somewhere until things were better. Dog Face had given her an old blanket; otherwise she would have had to sleep on the ground in what was left of her clothes. She wrapped the blanket around her and tried to think back over the talk. It meant Gus was coming-it was Gus Blue Duck wanted the Kiowas to kill. She had almost forgotten be was following her, life had gotten so hard. The Kiowas had been sent to kill him, so Gus might never arrive. It was hard to believe that Gus would get her out-the times when she had known him had been so different from the hard times. She didn't think she would ever get out. Blue Duck was too bad. Dog Face was her only chance, and Dog Face was scared of Blue Duck. Sooner or later Blue Duck would give her to Ermoke or someone just as hard. If that was going to happen it was better that her mind had gone to hide.

In the gray dawn she saw the Kiowas leave. Blue Duck talked to them in Indian talk and gave them some bullets to kill Gus with. He woke Dog Face and shook Monkey John more or less awake. "If he gets past Ermoke, you two kill him," he said. Then he left.

Monkey John looked awful. He had a bloody lump on his head, and a hangover. He had slept with his face in the dirt all night and an ant had stung him several times, leaving one eye swollen nearly shut. He got to his feet but he could hardly stand.

"How's he think I can shoot?" he asked Dog Face. "I can't see but from one eye, and it's the wrong eye."

"Put some mud on it, it's just ant bites," Dog Face said. He was cleaning his gun.

AUGUSTUS WAS A LITTLE put out with himself for doing such a poor job of tracking. He had gambled on Blue Duck heading west, when in fact he had crossed the Red and gone straight north. It was the kind of gamble Call would never take. Call would have tracked all the way, or let Deets track.

The country near the Canadian was rough and broken, and he dropped south to where the plains flattened out. He wanted to spare his horse as much as possible.

He rode east all morning, a bad feeling in his heart. He had meant to catch Blue Duck within a day, but he hadn't. The renegade had out-traveled him. It would have been rough on Lorie, such traveling. He should have borrowed Call's mare, but the thought hadn't occurred to him until too late. By this time Lorie could be dead, or ruined. He had helped recover several captives from the Comanches in his rangering days, and often the recovery came too late if the captives were women. Usually their minds were gone and they were only interested in dying, which they mostly did once they got back to people who would let them die.

He was thinking about Lorie when the Indians broke for him. Where they had hidden he didn't know, for he was in the center of a level plain. He first heard a little cutting sound as bullets zipped into the grass, ten yards from his horse. Later, the sound of bullets cutting grass was more distinct in his memory than the sounds of shots. Before he really heard the shots he had his horse in a dead run, heading south. It seemed to him there were ten or twelve Indians, but he was more concerned with outrunning them than with getting a count. But within minutes he knew he wasn't going to be able to outrun them. He had pushed his horse too hard and soon was steadily losing ground.

There was plenty of ground to lose, too. He had hoped for a creek or a bank or a gully-something he could get down into and make his stand-but he was on the flat prairie as far as the eye could see. He contemplated turning and trying to charge through them; if he killed three or four they might get discouraged. But if there was even one man among them with any sense they'd just shoot the horse, and there he'd be.

He glimpsed something white on the prairie slightly to the east and headed for it-it turned out just to be more buffalo bones, another place where a sizable herd of animals had been slaughtered. As Augustus raced through the bones he saw a wallow, a place where many buffalo had laid down and rolled in the dirt. It was only a slight depression on the plain, not more than a foot deep, but he decided it was the best he was going to get. The Indians were barely a minute behind him. He jumped down, pulled his rifle and cartridge rolls clear of the horse and dropped them in the buffalo wallow. Then he drew his knife, wrapped the bridle reins tightly around one hand, and jabbed the knife into the horse's neck, slashing the jugular vein. Blood poured out and the horse leaped and plunged desperately but Augustus held on, though sprayed with blood. When the horse fell, he managed to turn him so that the horse lay across one end of the wallow, his blood pumping out into the dust. Once the horse tried to rise, but Augustus jerked him back and he didn't try again.

It was a desperate trick, but the only one he could think of that increased his chances-most horses shied from the smell of fresh blood. He needed the horse for a breastworks anyway and could have shot him, but he had saved a bullet, and the blood smell might work for him.

As soon as he was sure the horse was beyond rising, he picked up his rifle. The Indians were shooting, though still far out of effective range. Again he heard the zing of bullets cutting the prairie grass. Augustus rested the rifle barrel across the dying horse's withers and waited. The Indians were yelling as they raced down on him-one or two carried lances, but those were mainly for show, or to puncture him with if they caught him alive.

Sure enough, when they were fifty or sixty yards away, their horses caught the first whiffs of fresh blood, still pumping from the torn throat of the dying horse. They slowed and began to rear and shy, and as they did, Augustus started shooting. The Indians were dismayed; they flailed at the horses with their rifles, but the horses were spooked. Two stopped dead and Augustus immediately shot their riders. He could have asked for no better target than an Indian stopped fifty yards away on a horse that wouldn't move. The two men dropped and lay still. Augustus replaced the two cartridges and wiped the sweat out of his eyes. The blood had bought him a chance-without it he would have been overrun and killed, no matter how fast or well he had shot. Now the Indians were trying to force their horses into a charge, but it wasn't working-the horses kept swerving and shying. Some tried to circle to the south, and when they turned, Augustus shot two more.Then one Indian did a gallant thing-he threw a blanket over his horse's head and got the confused horse to charge blind. The man seemed to be the leader; at least he carried the longest lance. He charged at the wallow, rifle in one hand, lance in the other, though when he tried to lever the rifle with one hand he dropped it. Augustus almost laughed, but the Indian kept up the charge with only a lance, a brave thing. Augustus shot him when he was no more than thirty feet away; he let him get that close in hopes of grabbing his horse. The Indian fell dead, but the horse shied away and Augustus didn't feel he could afford to chase him.

The remaining Indians were discouraged. Five Indians were dead, and the battle not five minutes old. Augustus replaced his cartridges and killed a sixth as the Indians were retreating. He might have got one or two more, but decided against risking long shots when his situation was so chancy. There might be more Indians available nearby, though he considered it unlikely. Probably they had charged with all they had-in which case he had killed half of them.