Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

The cattle ran for many miles, but soon the storm was to the east of them and he had only the rain and darkness to contend with. As he had done before, he plodded along much of the night beside the cattle. Occasionally he would hear the shout of another cowboy, but it was too dark and rainy to see anything. The length of such nights was a torment. A hundred times, or a thousand, he would look in what he thought was an easterly direction, hoping to see the grayness that meant dawn. But all directions were equally black for what seemed like twenty hours.

When dawn did come, it was a low and gloomy one, the sky heavily overcast. Newt, with Dish, the Irishman and Needle Nelson, was with a large portion of the herd, perhaps a thousand cattle. No one was quite sure where the rest of the herd was. The cattle were too tired to be troublesome, so Dish loped off to look and was gone what seemed like half a day. When he finally came back, Deets was with him. The main herd was six or seven miles east.

"How many did the lightning hit?" Newt asked, remembering the sight of the cattle falling dead.

"Thirteen," Dish said. "That ain't the worst, though. It kilt Bill Spettle. Knocked him right off his horse. They're burying him now."

Newt had been feeling very hungry, but the news took his appetite. He had been chatting with Bill Spettle not two hours before the storm began. Bill was beginning to be rather talkative, after hundreds of miles of silence.

"They say it turned him black," Dish remarked. "I didn't see it."

Newt was never to see where Bill Spettle was buried. When they rejoined the main herd it was on the move, the grave somewhere behind on the muddy plain. No one knew quite what to say to Pete Spettle, who had somehow held the remuda together all night. He was holding it together still, though he looked weary and stunned.

The men were all starving, so Call allowed them to stop for a quick feed, but only a quick one. It was looking like rain again. He knew the Canadian was near and he wanted to cross it before more rains came; otherwise they might be trapped for a week.

"Ain't we gonna rest?" Jasper asked, appalled that they were required to keep driving after such a night.

"We'll rest north of the river," Call said.

Deets had been sent to find a crossing, but came back almost before he had left. The Canadian was only four miles away, and there was a crossing that had obviously been used by many herds.

"We all gonna have to swim," he said, to Jasper's consternation.

"I just hope we don't have to swim it in a dern rainstorm," Dish said, looking at the heavy clouds.

"I don't see what difference it makes," Needle said. "It can get just so wet, and if you're swimming you're bound to be wet."

"It oughta quit raining, it's rained enough," Pea Eye said, but the heavens ignored him.

Call was more worried than he let on. They had already lost a boy that day-another boy hastily buried, who would never see his home again. He had no wish to risk any more, and yet the river had to be crossed. He loped up to look at the crossing and satisfied himself that it was safe. The river was high, but it wasn't a wide river-they wouldn't need to swim far.

He rode back to the herd. Many of the men had changed into their dry clothes while he was gone, a wasteful effort, with the river coming up.

"You best strip off when we get to the river or you'll just get those clothes wet too," Call said. "Wrap your clothes up good in your slickers so you'll have something dry to put on when we get across."

"Ride naked?" Jasper asked, shocked that such a thing would be required of him. Northern travel was proving even worse than he had thought it would be. Bill Spettle had been so stiffened when they found him that they had not been able to straighten him out properly-they had just wrapped him in a bedroll and stuck him in a hole.

"Well, I'd rather be naked a spell than to have to travel in wet duds, like we done all last night," Pea Eye said.

When they approached the river, the herd was held up so the men could strip off. It was so chilly that Newt got goosebumps all over his body when he undressed. He wrapped his clothes and tied them high on his saddle, even his boots. The sight of all the men riding naked would have been amusing if he hadn't been so tired and nervous about the crossing. Everyone looked white as a fish belly, except their hands and faces, which were brown.

"Good lord, we're a bunch of beauties," Dish said, surveying the crew. "Deets is the best-looking of the lot, at least he's one color. The rest of us is kind of brindled."

Nobody expected weather conditions to get worse, but it seemed that in plains weather there was always room for surprises. A squall blew up as they were starting the cattle into the water, and by the time Old Dog was across the twenty yards of swimming water, Dish on one side of him and Call on the other, the gray sky suddenly began to spit out little white pellets. Dish, who was out of the saddle, hanging onto his saddle strings as his horse swam, saw the first pellets plunking into the water and jerked with fear, for he assumed they were bullets. It was only when he looked up and had a small hailstone peck at his cheek that he realized what was happening.

Call, too, saw the hail begin to pepper the river. At first the stones were small, and he wasn't too worried, for he had seen fleeting hail squalls pass in five minutes.

But by the time he and Dish hit the north shore and regained their wet saddles, he realized it was more than a squall. Hailstones were hitting all around him, bouncing off his arms, his saddle, his horse-and they were getting larger by the minute. Dish came riding over, still naked, trying to shelter his face and head with one arm. Hailstones were falling everywhere, splashing into the river, bouncing off the backs of the cattle and plunking into the muddy banks.

"What will we do, Captain?" Dish asked. "They're getting bigger. Reckon they'll beat us to death?"

Call had never heard of anyone being killed by hailstones, but he had just taken a hard crack behind the ear from a stone the size of a pullet egg. Yet they couldn't stop. Two of the boys were in the river, swimming, and the cattle were still crossing.

"Get under your horse if it gets worse," he said. "Use your saddle for cover."

"This horse would kick me to death, if I was to try that," Dish said. He quickly unsaddled and used his saddle blanket for immediate shelter.

Newt didn't know what was happening when the first hailstones hit. When he saw the tiny white pellets bouncing on the grass he assumed he was at last seeing snow.

"Look, it's snowing," he said excitedly to Needle Nelson, who was near him.

"It ain't snow, it's hail," Needle said.

"I thought snow was white," Newt said, disappointed.

"They're both white," Needle said. "The difference is, hail is harder."

Within a few minutes, Newt was to find out just how hard. The sky began to rain balls of ice-small at first, but then not so small.

"By God, we better get in that river," Needle said. He had a large hat and was trying to hide under it, but the hailstones pounded his body.

Newt looked around for the wagon, but couldn't see it, the hail was so thick. Then he couldn't see Needle, either. He spurred hard and raced for the river, though he didn't know what he was supposed to do once he got there. As he ran for the river, he almost trampled Jasper, who had dismounted and made a kind of tent of his slicker and saddle-he was crouching under it in the mud.

It was hailing so thickly that when they did reach the river Mouse jumped off a six-foot bank, throwing Newt. Again, he managed to hang onto his reins, but he was naked, and hailstones were pounding all around him. When he stood up he happened to notice that Mouse made a kind of wall. By crouching close under him Newt avoided most of the hailstones-Mouse absorbed them. Mouse wasn't happy about it, but since he had taken it upon himself to jump off the bank, Newt didn't feel very sorry for him.