Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

"Are there any more trees, or does this plain just go on to Canady?" Bert Borum asked.

"I wouldn't bet on trees for the next few months," Augustus said.

The men wondered about Lorena. Many still held her beauty in their minds. What had happened to her? What did she look like now? Hers was the most beauty many of them had seen, and now that she was near it shone fresh in memory and made them all the more anxious to see her.

Dish, especially, could not keep his eyes off the little tent. He longed for a glimpse of her and kept imagining that any minute she would step out of the tent and look his way. Surely she remembered him; perhaps she would even wave, and call him over.

Lorena knew the cowboys were near, but she didn't look out of the tent. Gus had assured her he would be back soon, and she trusted him-though sometimes when he was gone for an hour looking for game, she still got the shakes. Blue Duck wasn't dead. He might come back and get her again, if Gus didn't watch close. She remembered his face and the way he smiled when he kicked her. Gus was the only thing that kept the memories away, and sometimes they were so fresh and frightening that she wished she had died so her brain would stop working and just leave her in the quiet. But her brain wouldn't stop-only Gus could distract it with talk and card games. Only his presence relaxed her enough that she could sleep.

Now and then she peeped out and saw the wagon, with Gus standing by it. He was easy to spot because of his white hair. As long as she could spot him she didn't feel worried.

Call let the men camp-they had had a rough twenty-four hours. A big steer had crippled itself crossing the river. Bert roped it and Po Campo killed it efficiently with a sharp blow of an ax. He butchered it just as efficiently and soon had beefsteaks cooking. The smell reminded the men that they were famished-they went at the meat like wolves.

"A cow don't go far with this bunch," Augustus observed. "If you boys don't learn to curb your appetites you'll have eaten the whole dern herd before we strike the Powder River. It'll be a big joke on you, Call," he added.

"What will?" Call asked. His mind had been on Blue Duck.

"Think of it," Augustus said. "You start off to Montana with a bunch of cattle and some hungry hands. By the time you get there the hands will have et the cattle and you're back at nothing. Then the Cheyenne or the Sioux will wipe out the hands, and that'll leave you."

"What about yourself?" Call asked. "You're along."

"I'll have stopped and got married, probably," Augustus said. "It's time I started my family."

"Are you marrying Lorie, then, Gus?" Dish asked, in sudden panic. He was aware that Gus had saved Lorena from a bad fate and supposed she might be going to marry him in gratitude.

"No, Dish, I've someone else in mind," Augustus said. "Don't run your hopes up no flagpole, though. Lorie's apt to be skittish of men for the next few years."

"Hell, she always was," Needle observed. "I offered her good money twice and she looked right through me like I was a glass window or something."

"Well, you are skinny," Augustus said. "Plus you're too tall to suit a woman. Women would rather have runts, on the whole."

The remark struck the company as odd-why would women rather have runts? And how did Gus know such a thing? But then, it was a comforting remark too, for it was like Gus to say something none of them expected to hear. Those that had night guard would be able to amuse themselves with the remark for hours, considering the pros and cons of it and debating among themselves whether it could be true.

"Dern, I missed listening to you, Gus," Pea Eye said as Augustus was mounting to leave.

Call rode a little way out of camp with Augustus. A flock of cranes came in and settled on the banks of the river.

"This trip is hard on boys," Augustus said. "We've lost two already, and the young sheriff lost a boy and a girl."

They stopped for a smoke. In the distance the night guard was just going out to the herd.

"We should have stayed lawmen and left these boys at home," Augustus said. "Half of 'em will get drowned or hit by lightning before we hit Montana. We should have just gone ourselves and found some rough old town and civilized it. That's the way to make a reputation these days."

"I don't want a reputation," Call said. "I've had enough outlaws shoot at me. I'd rather have a ranch."

"Well, I got to admit I still like a fight," Augustus said. "They sharpen the wits. The only other thing that does that is talking to women, which is usually more dangerous."

"Now you've ended up the caretaker of that girl," Call said. "She ain't the woman you're after."

"Nope, she ain't," Augustus said. He had been pondering that point himself. Of course, for all he knew Clara was still a happily married woman and all his thinking about her no more than idle daydreams. He had long wanted to marry her, and yet life was continually slipping other women between her and him. It had happened with his wives, earlier.

"I wish you'd been married," he said to Call.

"Why?" Call asked.

"I'd like your thoughts on the subject, that's why," Augustus said. "Only you ain't got no experience, so you can't be no help."

"Well, I never come close," Call said. "I don't know why."

"No interest," Augustus said. "Also, you ain't never figured yourself out, and you don't like to take chances."

"I could argue that," Call said. "I've taken my share of chances, I guess."

"In battle, not in love," Augustus said. "Unless you want to call what you done with Maggie taking a chance."

"Why do you always want to talk about that?" Call said.

"Because it was as close as you ever came to doing something normal," Augustus said. "It's all I've got to work with. Here you've brought these cattle all this way, with all this inconvenience to me and everybody else, and you don't have no reason in this world to be doing it."

Call didn't answer. He sat smoking. The Irishman had begun to sing to the herd.

"Since you know so much about me, have you got any suggestions?" he asked.

"Certainly have," Augustus said. "Take these cattle over to the nearest cow town and sell 'em. Pay off whatever boys is still alive."

"Then what?"

"I'll go deal with the ladies for a while," Augustus said. "You take Pea and Deets and ride up the Purgatory River until you find Blue Duck. Then either you'll kill him or he'll kill all of you."

"What about the boy?" Call asked.

"Newt can go with me and learn to be a ladies' man," Augustus said. "You won't claim him anyway, and the last boy that got near Blue Duck had his head smashed in with a rifle butt."

"Nope," Call said. "I'm primed to see Montana. If we're the first ones there we can take our pick of the land."

"You take your pick," Augustus said. "I'm in the mood to travel. Once you boys get settled I may go to China, for all you know."

And with that he rode off. Call smoked a while, feeling odd and a little sad. Jake had proved a coward and would never be part of the old crew again. Of course, he hadn't been for ten years-the old crew was mostly a memory, though Pea and Deets were still there, and Gus, in his strange way. But it was all changing.

He saw the girl come out of the tent when Gus dismounted. She was just a shape in the twilight. Gus said she wouldn't talk much, not even to him. Call didn't intend to try her. He loped a mile or two to the west and put the mare on her lead rope. The sky overhead was still light and there was a little fingernail moon.

JAKE SPENT MOST of his days in a place called Bill's Saloon, a little clapboard place on the Trinity River bluffs. It was a two-story building. The whores took the top story and the gamblers and cowboys used the bottom. From the top floor there were usually cattle in sight trailing north, small herds and large. Once in a while a foreman came in for liquor and met Jake. When they found out he had been north to Montana, some tried to hire him, but Jake just laughed at them. The week after he left the Hat Creek herd had been a good week. He couldn't draw a bad card, and by the time the week was over he had a stake enough to last him a month or two.