Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

"Luke, she's got a fever," Zwey said.

"I ain't a doctor," Luke said. "We shouldn't have left that house."

Zwey bathed her face with water, but it was like putting water on a stove, she was so hot. Zwey didn't know what to do. A person so hot could die. He had seen much death, and very often it came with fever. He didn't understand why she had had the baby if it was only going to make her so sick. While he was bathing her face, she sat up straight and looked at him, her eyes wide.

"Dee, is that you?" she asked. "Where have you been?" Then she fell back against the skins.

Luke drove as fast as he could, but it was still a long road. The sky was light in the east when they finally found a wagon track and pulled into Ogallala.

The town was not large-just a long street of saloons and stores, and a few shacks on the slope north of the Platte. One of the saloons was still open. Three cowboys were lounging around outside, getting ready to mount up and go back to work. The two who were soberest were laughing at the third because he was so drunk he was trying to mount his horse from the wrong side.

"Hell, Joe's fixing to get on backwards," one said. They were not much interested in the fact that a wagon had pulled up. The drunk cowboy slipped and fell in the street. The other cowboys found that hilarious, one laughing so hard that he had to go over by the saloon and vomit.

"Where's the doctor live?" Luke asked the soberest cowboy. "We got a sick woman here."

At that the cowboys all stopped and stared. All they could see was Ellie's hair. The rest of her was covered with blankets.

"Where'd she come from?" one asked.

"Arkansas," Luke said. "Where's the doctor?"

Ellie had dropped into a fevered doze. She opened her eyes and saw the buildings. It must be the town where Dee was. She began tO. shove off the blankets.

"Do you know Dee Boot?" she asked the cowboys. "I come to find Dee Boot."

The cowboys stared at her as if they hadn't heard. Her hair was long and tangled, and she was wearing a nightdress. A huge buffalo hunter sat beside her.

"Ma'am, Dee Boot is in jail," one of the cowboys said politely. "It's that building over there."

Light was just filtering into the street between the shadowed buildings.

"Where's the doctor?" Luke asked again.

"I don't know if there is one," the cowboy said. "We just got here last night. I know about Boot because they were talking about him in the saloon."

Ellie began to try and climb over the side of the wagon. "Help me, Zwey," she said. "I wanta see Dee." She got one leg over the side board of the wagon and suddenly began to feel weak again. She clung to the board, trembling.

"Help me, Zwey," she said again.

Zwey lifted her out of the wagon as if she were a doll. Elmira took two steps and stopped. She knew she would fall if she tried another step, and yet Dee Boot was just across the street. Once she saw Dee she felt she could start getting well.

Zwey stood beside her, big as one of the horses the cowboys rode.

"Carry me over," she said.

Zwey felt afraid. He had never carried a woman, much less Ellie. He felt he might break her, if he wasn't careful. But she was looking at him and he felt he had to try. He lifted her in his arms and found again that she was light as a doll. She smelled different from anything he had ever carried, too. Mostly he had just carried skins, or carcasses of game.

As he was carrying her, a man came out of the jail and stepped around the corner of the building. It proved to be a deputy sheriff-his name was Leon-going out to relieve himself. He was startled to see a huge man standing there with a tiny woman in a nightgown in his arms. Nothing so surprising had happened in his whole tenure as deputy. It stopped him in his tracks.

"I want to see Dee Boot," the woman said, her voice just a whisper.

"Dee Boot?" Leon said, startled. "Well, we got him, all right, but I doubt he's up."

"I'm his wife," Ellie said.

That was another surprise. "Didn't know he was even married," Leon said.

Leon was watching the buffalo hunter, who was very large. It occurred to him that the couple might have come to try and break Dee Boat out of jail.

"I'm his wife, I want to see Dee," the woman said. "Zwey don't have to come."

"Dee can probably hear you, he's right in this cell," Leon said, Pointing to a small barred window on the side of the jail.

"Carry me over, Zwey," Elmira said, and Zwey obeyed.

The window was tiny and the cell still mostly dark, but Elmira could make out a man lying on a little bare bunk. He had his arm over his eyes and at first she doubted it was Dee-if so, he had put on weight, which wouldn't be like Dee. He prided himself on being slim and quick.

"Dee," she said. "Dee, it's me." Her voice was the merest whisper, and the man didn't awake. Ellie felt angry-here she had come such a distance, and she had found him, yet she couldn't make him hear.

"Say something to him, Zwey," she whispered. "Your voice is louder."

Zwey was at a loss. He had never met Dee Boot and had no idea what to say to him. The task embarrassed him a little.

"Don't know nothing to say," he said.

Fortunately it didn't matter. The deputy had gone back in and he woke Dee Boot himself.

"Wake up, Boot," he said. "You got visitors."

The sleeping man immediately sprang up with a wild look. Ellie saw that it was him, although he hardly looked like the dapper man she remembered. He glanced at the window fearfully, then just stood and stared.

"Who's that?" he asked.

"Why, it's your wife," Leon said.

Dee came to the window-it was just two steps. Ellie saw that he had not shaved in several days-another surprise. Dee was particular about barbering and had always had the best barber in town come and shave him every morning. The eyes that she had remembered almost every day of the long trip-Dee's merry eyes-now just looked scared and sad.

"It's me, Dee," she said.

Dee just stared at her and at the large man holding her in his arms. Ellie realized he might have the wrong idea about Zwey, although he had never been particularly the jealous type.

"It's just Zwey," she whispered. "Him and Luke brought me in the wagon.

"There ain't nobody else?" Dee said, coming close to the bars and trying to peer out

Ellie didn't know what was wrong. He could see it was her, and yet he hardly looked at her. He seemed scared, and his hair had little pieces of cotton ticking in it from a tear in the thin mattress he slept on. The scruffy growth of whiskers made him seem a lot older than she had remembered him.

"It's just me," Elmira whispered. She was beginning to feel scared-she felt so weak she could hardly hold her eyes open, and she wanted more than anything to talk to Dee. She didn't want to faint before they had their talk, and yet she was afraid she might.

"I left July," she said. "I couldn't do it. All I could think of was you, the whole time. I should have gone with you and not even tried it. I took a whiskey boat and then Zwey and Luke brought me in the wagon. I had a baby but I left it. I been coming back to you as quick as I could, Dee."

Dee kept trying to peer around them, as if he was sure there were more people than he could see. Finally he stopped trying, and looked at her. She was hoping for' the old smile, but Dee didn't have it in him to smile.

"They're gonna hang me, Ellie," he said. "That's why I jumped up-I been expecting lynchers."

Elmira couldn't believe it. Dee had never done anything wrong-not wrong enough to make people hang him. He gambled and flirted, but those weren't hanging crimes.

"Why, Dee?" she asked.

Dee shrugged. "Killed a boy," he said. "I was just trying to scare him and he jumped the wrong way."

Ellie felt confused. She had never even heard of Dee Boot shooting a gun. He carried one, like all men did, but he never ever practiced with it that she knew. Why would he try to scare a boy?