Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

"If a woman ever stumbled onto this outfit at this hour of the day she'd screech and poke out her eyes," Augustus said.

At that point someone did stumble onto it, but only Dish Boggett, who had always been responsive to the smell of frying bacon.

It was a surprise to Newt, who immediately snapped awake and tried to get his cowlick to lay down. Dish Boggett was one of his heroes, a real cowboy who had been up the trail all the way to Dodge City more than once. It was Newt's great ambition: to go up the trail with a herd of cattle. The sight of Dish gave him hope, for Dish wasn't somebody totally out of reach, like the Captain. Newt didn't imagine that he could ever be what the Captain was, but Dish seemed not that much different from himself. He was known to be a top hand, and Newt welcomed every chance to be around him; he liked to study the way Dish did things.

"Morning, Dish," he said.

"Why, howdy there," Dish said, and went to stand beside Pea Eye and attend to the same business.

It perked Newt up that Dish didn't treat him like a kid. Someday, if he was lucky, maybe he and Dish would be cowboys together. Newt could imagine nothing better.

Augustus had fried the eggs hard as marbles to compensate for the coffee grains, and when they looked done to him he poured the grease into the big three-gallon syrup can they used for a grease bucket.

"It's poor table manners to piss in hearing of those at the table," he said, directing his remarks to the gentlemen on the porch. "You two are grown men. What would your mothers think?"

Dish looked a little sheepish, whereas Pea was merely confused by the question. His mother had passed away in Georgia when he was only six. She had not had time to give him much training before she died, and he had no idea what she might think of such an action. However, he was sure she would not have wanted him to go in his pants.

"I had to hurry," he said.

"Howdy, Captain," Dish said.

Call nodded. In the morning he had the advantage of Gus, since Gus had to cook. With Gus cooking, he got his choice of the eggs and bacon, and a little food always brought him to life and made him consider all the things that ought to be done during the day. The Hat Creek outfit was just a small operation, with just enough land under lease to graze small lots of cattle and horses until buyers could be found. It amazed Call that such a small operation could keep three grown men and a boy occupied from sunup until dark, day after day, but such was the case. The barn and corrals had been in such poor shape when he and Gus bought the place that it took constant work just to keep them from total collapse. There was nothing important to do in Lonesome Dove, but that didn't mean there was enough time to keep up with the little things that needed doing. They had been six weeks sinking a new well and were still far from deep enough.

When Call raked the eggs and bacon onto his plate, such a crowd of possible tasks rushed into his mind that he was a minute responding to Dish's greetings.

"Oh, hello, Dish," he said, finally. "Have some bacon."

"Dish is planning to shave his mustache right after breakfast," Augustus said. "He's getting tired of livin' without women."

In fact, with the aid of Gus's two dollars, Dish had been able to prevail on Lorena. He had awakened on the porch with a clear head, but when Augustus mentioned women he remembered it all and suddenly felt weak with love. He had been keenly hungry when he sat down at the table, his mouth watering for the eggs and fryback, but the thought of Lorena's white body, or the portion of it he had got to see when she lifted her nightgown, made him almost dizzy for a moment. He continued to eat, but the food had lost its taste.

The blue shoat came to the door and looked in at the people, to Augustus's amusement. "Look at that," he said. "A pig watching a bunch of human pigs." Though he had been outpositioned at the frying pan, he was in prime shape to secure his share of the biscuits, half a dozen of which he had already sopped in honey and consumed.

"Throw that pig them eggshells," he said to Bolivar. "He's starving."

"I don't care," Bolivar said, sucking coffee-colored sugar out of a big spoon. "I feel sick."

"You're repeating yourself, Bol," Augustus said. "If you're planning on dying today I hope you dig your grave first."

Bolivar looked at him sorrowfully. So much talk in the morning gave him a headache to go with his shakes. "If I dig a grave it will be yours," he said simply.

"Going up the trail, Dish?" Newt asked, hoping to turn the conversation to more cheerful matters.

"I hope to," Dish said.

"It would take a hacksaw to cut these eggs," Call said. "I've seen bricks that was softer."

"Well, Bol spilled coffee in them," Augustus said, "I expect it was hard coffee."

Call finished the rocklike eggs and gave Dish the once-over. He was a lank fellow, loose-built, and a good rider. Five or six more like him and they could make up a herd themselves and drive it north. The idea had been in his mind for a year or more. He had even mentioned it to Augustus, but Augustus merely laughed at him.

"We're too old, Call," he said. "We've forgot everything we need to know."

"You may have," Call said. "I ain't."

Seeing Dish put Call in mind of his idea again. He was not eager to spend the rest of his life on well-digging or barn repair. If they made up a fair herd and did well with it, they would make enough to buy some good land north of the brush country.

"Are you signed to go with someone then?" he asked Dish.

"Oh, no, I ain't signed on," Dish said. "But I've gone before, and I imagine Mr. Pierce will hire me again-or if not him someone else."

"We might give you work right here," Call said.

That got Augustus's attention. "Give him work doing what?" he asked. "Dish here's a top hand. He don't cotton to work that requires walking, do you, Dish?"

"I don't, for a fact," Dish said, looking at the Captain but seeing Lorena. I ye done a mess of it though. What did you have in mind?

"Well, we're going down to Mexico tonight," Call said. "Going to see what we can raise. We might make up a herd ourselves, if you wanted to wait a day or two while we look it over."

"That mare bite's drove you crazy," Augustus said. "Make up a herd and do what with it?"

"Drive it," Call said.

"Well, we might drive it over to Pickles Gap, I guess," Augustus said. "That ain't enough work to keep a hand like Dish occupied for the summer."

Call got up and carrried his dishes to the washtub. Bolivar wearily got off his stool and picked up the water bucket.

"I wish Deets would come back," he said.

Deets was a black man; he had been with Cal and Augustus nearly as long as Pea Eye. Three days before, he had been sent to San Antonio with a deposit of money, a tactic Call always used, since few bandits would suspect a black man of having any money on him.

Bolivar missed him because one of Deets's jobs was to carry water.

"He'll be back this morning," Call said. "You can set your clock by Deets.

"You might set yours," Augustus said. "I wouldn't set mine. Old Deets is human. If he ever run into the right dark-complexioned lady you might have to wind your clock two or three times before he showed up. He's like me. He knows that some things are more important than work."

Bolivar looked at the water bucket with irritation. "I'd like to shoot this damn bucket full of holes," he said.

"I don't think you could hit that bucket if you was sitting on it," Augustus said. "I've seen you shoot. You ain't the worst shot I ever knew-that would be Jack Jennell-but you run him a close race. Jack went broke as a buffalo hunter quicker than any man I ever knew. He couldn't have hit a buffalo if one had swallowed him."