Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

It was high summer, the days blazing hot almost until the sun touched the horizon. The cattle were mulish and hard to move, stopping whenever possible to graze, or simply to stand. For several days they trailed west along the Platte, but when the river curved south, toward Colorado, Call pointed the herd northwest.

Po Campo hated to leave the river. The morning they left it he lingered behind so long with the wagon that the herd was completely out of sight. Lippy, who rode on the wagon, found this fact alarming. After all, they were in Indian country, and there was nothing to keep a few Indians from nipping in and taking their scalps.

"What are we waiting on?" Lippy asked. "We're three miles behind already."

Po Campo stood by the water's edge, looking across the Platte to the south. He was thinking of his dead sons, killed by Blue Duck on the Canadian. He didn't think often of his sons, but when he did, a feeling of sadness filled him, a feeling so heavy that it was an effort for him to move. Thinking of them in their graves in New Mexico made him feel disloyal, made him feel that he should have shot himself and been buried with them, for was it not the duty of a parent to stay with the children? But he had left, first to go south and kill his faithless wife, and now to the north, while Blue Duck, the killer, still rode free on the llano -unless someone had killed him, which Po Campo doubted. Lippy's fears about Indians did not move him-the sight of flowing water moved him, stirring feelings in him which, though sad, were deep feelings. They made him want to sing his saddest songs.

He finally turned and plodded after the herd, Lippy following at a Slow walk in the wagon. But Po Campo felt they were wrong to leave the river. He became moody and ceased to have pride in his cooking, and if the cowboys complained he said nothing. Also, he grew stingy with water, which irritated the cowboys, who came in parched and dusty, dying for a drink. Po Campo would only give them a dipperful each.

"You will wish you had this water when you drink your own piss," he said to Jasper one evening.

"I ain't planning on drinking my own piss or anybody else's, either," Jasper said.

"You have not been very thirsty then," Po said. "I once drank the urine of a mule. It kept me alive."

"Well, it couldn't taste much worse than that Ogallala beer," Needle observed. "My tongue's been peeling ever since we was there."

"It ain't what you drink that causes your tongue to peel," Augustus said. "That's the result of who you bedded down with."

The remark caused much apprehension among the men, and they were apprehensive anyway, mainly because everyone they met in Ogallala assured them they were dead men if they tried to go to Montana. As they edged into Wyoming the country grew bleaker-the grass was no longer as luxuriant as it had been in Kansas and Nebraska. To the north were sandy slopes where the grass only grew in tufts. Deets ranged far ahead during the day, looking for water. He always found it, but the streams grew smaller and the water more alkaline. "Near as bad as the Pecos," Augustus said.

Call seemed only mildly concerned about the increasing dryness. Indeed, Call was cheerful, easier on the men than was his wont. He seemed relaxed and almost at ease with himself.

"Have you cheered up because I left Lorie behind?" Augustus asked as they were riding together one morning. Far to the south they saw a black line of mountains. To the north there was only the dusty plain.

"That was your business," Call said. "I didn't tell you to leave her behind, though I'm sure it's the best thing."

"I think we ought to have listened to our cook," Augustus said. "It's looking droughty to me."

"If we can make Powder River I guess we'll be all right," Call said.

"What if Jake lied to us?" Augustus said. "What if Montana ain't the paradise he said it was? We'll have come a hell of a way for nothing."

"I want to see it," Call said. "We'll be the first to graze cattle on it. Don't that interest you?"

"Not much," Augustus said. "I've watched these goddamn cattle graze all I want to."

The next day Deets came back from his scout looking worried. "Dry as a bone, Captain," he said.

"How far did you go?"

"Twenty miles and more," Deets said.

The plain ahead was white with heat. Of course, the cattle could make twenty miles, though it would be better to wait a day and drive them at night.

"I was told if we went straight west we'd strike Salt Creek and could follow it to the Powder," Call said. "It can't be too far."

"It don't take much to be too far, in this heat," Augustus said.

"Try going due north," Call said.

Deets changed horses and left. It was well after dark when he reappeared. Call stopped the herd, and the men lounged around the wagon, playing cards. While they played, the Texas bull milled through the cows, now and then mounting one. Augustus kept one eye on his cards and one eye on the bull, keeping a loose count of his winnings and of the bull's.

"That's six he's had since we started playing," he said. "That sucker's got more stamina than me."

"More opportunity, too," Allen O'Brien observed. He had adjusted quite well to the cowboy life, but he still could not forget Ireland. When he thought of his little wife he would break into tears of homesickness, and the songs he sung to the cattle would often remind him of her.

When Deets returned it was to report that there was no water to the north. "No antelope, Captain," he said. The plains of western Nebraska had been spotted with them.

"I'll have a look in the morning," Call said. "You rest, Deets."

He found he couldn't sleep, and rose at three to saddle the Hell Bitch. Po Campo was up, stirring the coals of his cookfire, but Call only took a cup of coffee.

"Have you been up here before?" he asked. The old cook's wanderings had been a subject of much speculation among the men. Po Campo was always letting slip tantalizing bits of information. Once, for example, he had described the great gorge of the Columbia River. Again, he had casually mentioned Jim Bridger.

"No," Po Campo said. "I don't know this country. But I'll tell you this, it is dry. Water your horse before you leave."

Call thought the old man rather patronizing-he knew enough to water a horse before setting off into a desert.

"Don't wait supper," he said.

All day he rode west, and the country around him grew more bleak. Not fit for sheep, Call thought. Not hardly fit for lizards-in fact, a small gray lizard was the only life he saw all day. That night he made a dry camp in sandy country where the dirt was light-colored, almost white. He supposed he had come some sixty miles and could not imagine that the herd would make it that far, although the Hell Bitch seemed unaffected. He slept for a few hours and went on, arriving just after sunup on the banks of Salt Creek. It was not running, but there was adequate water in scattered shallow pools. The water was not good, but it was water. The trouble was, the herd was nearly eighty miles back-a four-day drive under normal conditions; and in this case the miles were entirely waterless, which wouldn't make for normal conditions.

Call rested the mare and let her have a good roll. Then he started back and rode almost straight through, only stopping once for two hours' rest. He arrived in camp at midmorning to find most of the hands still playing cards.

When he unsaddled the mare, one of Augustus's pigs grunted at him. Both of them were lying under the wagon, sharing the shade with Lippy, who was sound asleep. The shoat was a large pig now, but travel had kept him thin. Call felt it was slightly absurd having pigs along on a cattle drive, but they had proven good foragers as well as good swimmers. They got across the rivers without any help.