Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

Augustus laughed. "You're one to talk," he said. "When's the last time you changed? It must have been before we met, and that was thirty years ago."

"Look at her watch us," Call said. The mare was watching them-even had her ears pointed at them.

"I wouldn't take it as no compliment," Augustus said. "She ain't watching you because she loves you."

"Say what you will," Call said, "I never seen a more intelligent filly."

Augustus laughed again. "Oh, that's what you look for, is it? Intelligence," he said. "You and me's got opposite ideas about things. It's intelligent creatures you got to watch out for. I don't care if they're horses or women or Indians or what. I learned long ago there's much to be said for dumbness. A dumb horse may step in a hole once in a while, but at least you can turn your back on one without losing a patch of hide."

"I'd rather my horses didn't step in no holes," Call said. "You reckon somebody's really on Jake's trail?"

"Hard to judge," Augustus said. "Jake was always nervous. He's seen more Indians that turned out to be sage bushes than any man I know.

"A dead dentist ain't a sage bush," Call said.

"No-in that case it's the sheriff that's the unknown factor," Gus said. "Maybe he didn't like his brother. Maybe some outlaw will shoot him before he can come after Jake. Maybe he'll get lost and end up in Washington, D.C. Or maybe he'll show up tomorrow and whip us all. I wouldn't lay money."

They fell silent for a moment, the only sound the grinding of the windlass as Dish drew up another bucket of dirt.

"Why not go north?" Call said, taking Augustus by surprise.

"Why, I don't know," Augustus said. "I've never given the matter no thought, and so far as I know you haven't either. I do think we're a shade old to do much Indian fighting."

"There won't be much," Call said. "You heard Jake. It's the same up there as it is down here. The Indians will soon be whipped. And Jake does know good country when he sees it. It sounds like a cattleman's paradise."

"No, it sounds like a goddamn wilderness," Augustus said. "Why, there ain't even a house to go to. I've slept on the ground enough for one life. Now I'm in the mood for a little civilization. I don't have to have oprys and streetcars, but I do enjoy a decent bed and a roof to keep out the weather."

"He said there were fortunes to be made," Call said. "It stands to reason he's right. Somebody's gonna settle it up and get that land. Suppose we got there first. We could buy you forty beds."

The surprising thing to Augustus was not just what Call was suggesting but how he sounded. For years Call had looked at life as if it were essentially over. Call had never been a man who could think of much reason for acting happy, but then he had always been one who knew his purpose. His purpose was to get done what needed to be done, and what needed to be done was simple, if not easy. The settlers of Texas needed protection, from Indians on the north and bandits on the south. As a Ranger, Call had had a job that fit him, and he had gone about the work with a vigor that would have passed for happiness in another man.

But the job wore out. In the south it became mainly a matter of protecting the cattle herds of rich men like Captain King or Shanghai Pierce, both of whom had more cattle than any one man needed. In the north, the Army had finally taken the fight against the Comanches away from the Rangers, and had nearly finished it. He and Call, who had no military rank or standing, weren't welcomed by the Army; with forts all across the northwestern frontier the free-roving Rangers found that they were always interfering with the Army, or else being interfered with. When the Civil War came, the Governor himself called them in and asked them not to go-with so many men gone they needed at least one reliable troop of Rangers to keep the peace on the border.

It was that assignment that brought them to Lonesome Dove. After the war, the cattle market came into existence and all the big landowners in south Texas began to make up herds and trail them north, to the Kansas railheads. Once cattle became the game and the brush country filled up with cowboys and cattle traders, he and Call finally stopped rangering. It was no trouble for them to cross the river and bring back a few hundred head at a time to sell to the traders who were too lazy to go into Mexico themselves. They prospered in a small way; there was enough money in their account in San Antonio that they could have considered themselves rich, had that notion interested them. But it didn't; Augustus knew that nothing about the life they were living interested Call, particularly. They had enough money that they could have bought land, but they hadn't, although plenty of land could still be had wonderfully cheap.

It was that they had roved too long, Augustus concluded, when his mind turned to such matters. They were people of the horse, not of the town; in that they were more like the Comanches than Call would ever have admitted. They had been in Lonesome Dove nearly ten years, and yet what little property they had acquired was so worthless that neither of them would have felt bad about just saddling up and riding off from it.

Indeed, it seemed to Augustus that that was what both of them had always expected would happen. They were not of the settled fraternity, he and Call. From time to time they talked of going west of the Pecos, perhaps rangering out there; but so far only the rare settler had cared to challenge the Apache, so there was no need for Rangers.

Augustus had not expected that Call would be satisfied just to rustle Mexican cattle forever, but neither had he expected him to suddenly decide to strike out for Montana. Yet it was obvious the idea had taken hold of the man.

"I tell you what, Call," Augustus said. "You and Deets and Pea go on up there to Montany and build a nice snug cabin with a good fireplace and at least one bed, so it'll be waiting when I get there. Then clear out the last of the Cheyenne and the Blackfeet and any Sioux that look rambunctious. When you've done that, me and Jake and Newt will gather up a herd and meet you on Powder River."

Call looked almost amused. "I'd like to see the herd you and Jake could get there with," he said. "A herd of whores, maybe."

"I'm sure it would be a blessing if we could herd a few up that way," Augustus said. "I don't suppose there's a decent woman in the whole territory yet."

Then the thought struck him that there could be no getting to Montana without crossing the Platte, and Clara lived on the Platte. Bob Allen or no, she would ask him to supper, if only to show off her girls. Jake's news might be out of date. Maybe she had even run her husband off since Jake had passed through. Anyway, husbands had been got around a few times in the history of the world, if only to the extent of having to set a place for an old rival at the supper table. Such thoughts put the whole prospect in a more attractive light.

"How far do you reckon it is to Montany, Call?" he asked.

Call looked north across the dusty flats, as if estimating in his mind's eye the great rise of the plains, stretching even farther than hearsay, away and beyond the talk of men. Jake that morning had mentioned the Milk River, a stream he had never heard of. He knew the country he knew, and had never been lost in it, but the country he knew stopped at the Arkansas River. He had known men speak of the Yellowstone as if it were the boundary of the world; even Kit Carson, whom he had met twice, had not talked of what lay north of it.

But then his memory went back to a camp they had made on the Brazos, many years before, with an Army captain; there was a Delaware scout with him who had been farther than any man they knew-all the way to the headwaters of the Missouri.