Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

As they were working with the arrow there was a sudden terrified squeal from the horses. Augustus hobbled over, drawing his pistol, and saw that both horses were down, their throats cut, their blood very bright on the green weeds and bushes.

"Stay back, Pea," he said, crouching. The Indian that had killed the horses was there somewhere, in the underbrush, but he couldn't see him.

"Watch to the north, Pea," he said. "I don't think these boys want to stay around here till dark, either."

He quickly wiped the sweat from his forehead. Keeping a bush directly in front of him he edged very slowly to the bank, just high enough that he could see the tops of the weeds and underbrush. Then he waited. Once the dying horses finally stopped thrashing, it was very still. Augustus regretted that his preoccupation with the arrows had made him so lax that he had failed to protect the horses. It put them in a ticklish spot. It was over a hundred miles back to the Yellowstone and in all likelihood the herd hadn't even got there yet.

He kept his eyes focused on the tops of the underbrush. It was perfectly windless in the creek bottom, and if the underbrush moved it would be because someone moved it. His big pistol was cocked. He didn't move, and time stretched out. Minutes passed. Augustus carefully kept the sweat wiped out of his eyes, concentrating on keeping his focus. The silence seemed to ring, it was so absolute. There were no flies buzzing yet, no birds flying, nothing. He would have bet the Indian was not twenty yards away from him, and yet he had no inkling of precisely where he was.

"Ain't you coming back, Gus?" Pea Eye asked, after several minutes.

Augustus didn't answer. He watched the tops of the weeds, patiently. It was no time for hurry, much less for conversation. Patience was an Indian virtue. He, himself, didn't have it in day-to-day life, but he could summon it when it seemed essential. Then he heard a movement behind him, and glanced around quickly, to see if Pea had suddenly decided to take a stroll. When he did he saw the edge of a rifle extending an inch or two from the weeds, pointed not at himself but at Pea. He immediately fired twice into the weeds and an Indian flopped over as a fish might flop.

A second later, as the echo of the gun died, he heard a click a few yards to his right. He whirled and fired at it. A moment later the underbrush began to shake as if a huge snake were wiggling through it. Augustus ran into the weeds and saw the wounded Indian trying to crawl away. He at once shot him in the back of the head, and didn't stop to turn him over. Backing out of the weeds, he stepped on the pistol that had misfired, an old cap-and-ball gun. He stuck it in his belt and hurried back to Pea, who looked white. He had sense enough to realize he had just almost been shot. Augustus glanced at the other dead Indian, a fat boy of maybe seventeen. His rifle was an old Sharps carbine, which Augustus threw to Pea.

"We gotta move," he said. "This cover's working against us. But for luck we'd both be dead now already. What we need is a stretch with a steep bank and no cover."

They worked their way upstream, carrying the saddle, saddlebags and guns, for nearly a mile, hugging the bank. Augustus was limping badly but didn't stop to worry about it. Finally they came to a bend in the creek, where the bank was sheer and about ten feet high. The creek bottom was nearly bare of foliage.

"Let's dig," Augustus said, and began to work with his knife to create a shallow cave under the bank. They worked furiously for half an hour until both were drenched with sweat and covered with dirt. Augustus used the stock of the Indian boy's carbine as a rude shovel and tried to shape the dirt they raked out into low breastworks on either side of the cave. They watched as best they could, but saw no Indians.

"Maybe they gave up," Pea Eye said. "You kilt five so far."

"Five reasons why they won't give up," Augustus said. "They'll fight for their dead, since they expect to meet them agin. Ain't you learned that by now?"

Pea Eye could not be sure that he had learned anything about Indians except that he was scared of them, and he had learned that long before he ever saw one. The digging was hard work, but they didn't dare stop. The Indians might show up at any time.

"Which Indians is these we're fighting?" he asked.

"They didn't introduce themselves, Pea," Augustus said. "It might be written on these arrows. I'm going to be one-legged if we don't get this other arrow out pretty soon."

No sooner had he said it than it began to rain arrows, all arching over the south bank of the creek. "Crawl in," Augustus said. He and Pea scrunched back into the cave and stacked the saddlebags in front of them. Many of the arrows went over the creek bed entirely and into the prairie on the other side. A few stuck in the earthworks they had thrown up, and one or two fell in the water.

"They're just hoping to get lucky," Augustus said. "If my dern leg was better I'd sneak over to the other side of the creek and whittle down the odds a little more."

The shower of arrows soon stopped, but the two men stayed in the cave, taking no chances.

"I've got to push this arrow on through," Augustus said. "I may pass out, and if I do, I better do it now. When it gets dark we'll both need to be watching."

He stopped talking and listened. He put his finger to his lips so Pea Eye would be quiet. Someone was on the bank above them-at least one Indian, maybe more. He motioned to Pea to have his pistol ready, in case the Indians tried to rush them. Augustus was hoping for a rush, confident that with the two of them shooting they could decimate the Indians to such an extent that the survivors might leave. If the Indians couldn't be discouraged and driven off, then the situation was serious. They had no horses, the herd was more than a hundred miles away, and he was crippled. They could follow the creek down to the Yellowstone and perhaps strike Miles City, but it would be a slow trip for him to make crippled. Given his choice of gambles, he would prefer a fight. They might even be able to catch one of the Indian horses.

But the rush never came. Whoever was above them left. The creek bank on their side was already in shadow. Augustus uncocked his pistol and stretched his leg out again. He knew better than to put off anything to do with wounds, so he grasped the arrow and began to push it on through his leg. The pain was severe and caused a cold sweat to break out but at least the arrow moved.

"My lord, Gus, you're shot too," Pea Eye said. When Augustus bent over to twist the arrow, Pea noticed that the back of his shirt, down low near his belt, was caked with blood. The dirt from their diggings had covered it, but there was no doubt that it was blood.

"One wound at a time," Augustus said. It took both hands to move the arrow. The skin on his leg began to bulge.

"Cut," he said to Pea. "Pretend I'm snake-bit."

Pea went white. He hated even looking at wounds. The thought of cutting Gus made him want to be sick, but the fact that he had a sharp knife helped. He barely touched the skin and the cut was made. The bloody tip of the arrow poked through. Gus shoved the tip on out and then fainted. Pea Eye had to pull the arrow on through. It was as hard as pulling a bolt out of a board, but he got it out.

Then he felt deeply frightened. If the Indians came now, they were lost, he felt sure. He cocked his pistol and Gus's, and held them both at the ready until his hands grew tired. His head was throbbing. He laid the guns down and wet Gus's forehead from the water bag, hoping Gus would revive. If the Indians came, he would have to shoot quick, and his best shooting had always been done slowly. He liked to take a fine aim. It seemed Gus would never revive. Pea Eye thought he might be dying, although he could hear him breathing.