Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

Jasper was impatient with Lippy's pessimism. Any suggestion that they might not get to visit Ogallala was extremely upsetting to him.

"Can't you shut up?" he said. "We don't care what the Captain does. We just want to be let off."

Po Campo was also likely to dampen the discussion, once he was free from his cooking chores.

"I think you should all go to the barber and forget these whores," he added. "They will just take your money, and what will you get for it?"

"Something nice," Needle said.

"A haircut will last you a month, but what you get from the whores will only last a moment," Po remarked. "Unless she gives you something you don't want."

From the heated responses that ensued, Newt gathered that whores sometimes were not simply givers of pleasure. Diseases apparently sometimes resulted, although no one was very specific about them.

Po Campo was unshakable. He kept plugging for the barbershop over the whorehouse.

"If you think I'd rather have a haircut than a whore you're crazy as a June bug," Jasper said.

Newt and the Raineys left the more abstruse questions to others and spent most of their time trying to reckon the economics of a visit to town. The summer days were long and slow, the herd placid, the heat intense. Just having Ogallala to think about made the time pass quicker.

Occasionally one of the Raineys would ride over by Newt to offer some new speculation. "Soupy says they take off their clothes," Ben Rainey said, one day.

Newt had once seen a Mexican girl who had pulled up her skirt to wade in the Rio Grande. She wore nothing under the skirt. When she noticed he was watching she merely giggled. Often, after that, he had slipped down to the river when nothing much was happening, hoping to see her cross again. But he never had; that one glimpse was all he had to go on when it came to naked women. He had run it through his mind so many times it was hardly useful.

"I guess that costs a bunch," he said.

"'Bout a month's wages," Jimmy Rainey speculated.

Late one afternoon Deets rode in to report that the Platte was only ten miles ahead. Everyone in camp let out a whoop.

"By God, I wonder which way town is," Soupy said. "I'm ready to go."

Call knew the men were boiling to get to town. Though he had brought happy news, Deets himself seemed subdued. He had not been himself since Jake's hanging.

"You feeling poorly?" Call asked.

"Don't like this north," Deets said.

"It's good grazing country," Call remarked.

"Don't like it," Deets said. "The light's too thin."

Deets had a faraway look in his eye. It puzzled Call. The man had been cheerful through far harder times. Now Call would often see him sitting on his horse, looking south, across the long miles they had come. At breakfast, sometimes, Call would catch him staring into the fire the way old animals stared before they died-as if looking across into the other place. The look in Deets's eyes unsettled Call so much that he mentioned it to Augustus. He rode over to the tent one evening. Gus was sitting on a saddle blanket, barefoot, trimming his corns with a sharp pocketknife. The woman was not in sight, but Call stopped a good distance from the tent so as not to disturb her.

"If you want to talk to me you'll have to come a little closer," Augustus said. "I ain't walking that far barefooted."

Call dismounted and walked over to him. "I don't know what's the matter with Deets," he said.

"Well, Deets is sensitive," Augustus said. "Probably you hurt his feelings in your blunt way."

"I didn't hurt his feelings," Call said. "I always try to be especially good to Deets. He's the best man we got."

"Best man we've ever had," Augustus said. "Maybe he's sick."

"No," Call said.

"I hope he ain't planning to leave us," Augustus said. "I doubt the rest of us could even find the water holes."

"He says he don't like the north," Call said. "That's all he'll say."

"I hear we strike the Platte tomorrow," Augustus said. "All the boys are ready to go off and catch social diseases."

"I know it," Call said. "I'd just as soon miss this town, but we do need supplies."

"Let them boys go off and hurrah a little," Augustus said. "It might be their last chance."

"Why would it be their last chance?"

"Old Deets might know something," Augustus said. "Since he's so sensitive. "We might all get killed by Indians in the next week or two."

"I doubt that," Call said. "You ain't much more cheerful than he is."

"No," Augustus said. He knew they were not far from Clara's house, a fact which made Lorena extremely nervous.

"What will you do with me?" she had asked. "Leave me in the tent when you go see her?"

"No, ma'am," he said. "I'll take you along and introduce you properly. You ain't just baggage, you know. Clara probably don't see another woman once a month. She'll be happy for feminine conversation."

"She may know what I am, though," Lorena said.

"Yes, she'll know you're a human being," Augustus said. "You don't have to duck your head to nobody. Half the women in this country probably started out like you did, working in saloons."

"She didn't," Lorena said. "I bet she was always a lady. That's why you wanted to marry her."

Augustus chuckled. "A lady can slice your jugular as quick as a Comanche," he said. "Clara's got a sharp tongue. She's tomahawked me many a time in the past."

"I'll be afraid to meet her, then," Lorena said. "I'll be afraid of what she'll say."

"Oh, she'll be polite to you," Augustus assured her. "I'm the one that will have to watch my step."

But no matter what he said, he couldn't soothe the girl's agitation. She felt she would lose him, and that was that. She offered her body-it was all she knew to do. Something in the manner of the offer saddened him, though he accepted it. In their embraces she seemed to feel, for a moment, that he loved her; yet soon afterward she would grow sad again.

"You're worrying yourself into a sweat for nothing," he said. "Clara's husband will probably live to be ninety-six, and anyway she and I probably ain't got no use for one another now. I ain't got the energy for Clara. I doubt I ever did."

At night, when she finally slept, he would sit in the tent, pondering it all. He could see the campfire. Whatever boys weren't night herding would be standing around it, swapping jokes. Probably all of them envied him, for he had a woman and they didn't. He envied them back, for they were carefree and he wasn't. Once started, love couldn't easily be stopped. He had started it with Lorie, and it might never be stopped. He would be lucky to get again such easy pleasures as the men enjoyed, sitting around a campfire swapping jokes. Though he felt deeply fond of Lorena, he could also feel a yearning to be loose again and have nothing to do but win at cards.

The next morning he left Lorena for a bit and fell in with Deets.

"Deets, have you ever spent much time wanting what you know you can't have?" he asked, figuring to get the conversation off to a brisk start.

"'Spect I've had a good life," Deets said. "Captain paid me a fair wage. Ain't been sick but twice, and one time was when I got shot over by the river."

"That ain't an answer to the question I asked," Augustus said.

"Wantin' takes too much time," Deets said. "I'd rather be working."

"Yes, but what would you have, if you could have what you really want, right now?"

Deets trotted along for a bit before he answered. "Be back on the river," he said.

"Hell, the Rio Grande ain't the only river," Augustus commented, but before they could continue the discussion they saw a group of riders come over a ridge, far to the north. Augustus saw at once that they were soldiers.

"'I God, we've found the cavalry, at least," he said.