Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

"Left me twenty dollars in his will. I bought this saddle with it and I been a cowboy ever since."

"You call yourself one, you mean," Soupy Jones said. He had poor relations with Jasper as a result of a dispute over cards.

"I'm here, ain't I?" Jasper said. "Just because you lost that hand don't mean I can't cow."

"Oh, shut your trap, Jasper," Dish said. He had had enough of Jasper and Soupy and felt that the whole question of Pea and Deets had been treated too brusquely. After all, the first words Pea had said was that they had just missed Deets. Dish didn't want to admit it, but he had been scared of ghosts all his life, and didn't like to think that any were wandering around. It would just make night herding more nerveracking, even if the ghost in question was one that might be friendly to him.

Then someone noticed that Captain Call was leaving. He took an extra rifle from the wagon and got the slicker that he had lent Pea, covering Pea with a blanket.

"Just move the stock on north," he said. "Be alert. I'm going to get Gus."

The thought of him leaving sent a ripple of apprehension through the camp. Though independent to a man in some respects, the outfit was happier in all respects when Captain Call was around. Or if not the Captain, then Gus. Only a few hours earlier, they had felt cocky enough to take on an army. After all, they were the conquerors of the Yellowstone. But now, watching the Captain catch a horse for Gus to ride back on, they all felt daunted. The vast plain was beautiful, but it had reduced Pea Eye to a scarred wreck. And the Indians had Gus holed up somewhere. They might kill him and the Captain too. All men were mortal, and they felt particularly so. A thousand Indians might come by nightfall. The Indians might fall on them as they had fallen on Custer.

Call had no time to soothe the men with elaborate instructions. If Gus was badly wounded, he would weaken rapidly, and every hour counted. Arriving ten minutes too late would be as bad as ten days, or a year, for that matter. Besides, the almost beseeching way the men looked at him was irritating. Sometimes they acted as if they would forget how to breathe if he or Gus wasn't there to show them. They were all resourceful men-he knew that, if they didn't-and yet at certain times they became like children, wanting to be led. All his adult life, he had consented to lead, and yet occasionally, when the men seemed particularly dumbstruck, he wondered why he had done it.

He and Augustus had discussed the question of leadership many times.

"It ain't complicated," Augustus maintained. "Most men doubt their own abilities. You don't. It's no wonder they want to keep you around. It keeps them from having to worry about failure all the time."

"They ain't failures, most of them," Call pointed out. "They can do perfectly well for themselves."

Augustus chuckled. "You work too hard," he said. "It puts most men to shame. They figure out they can't keep up, and it's just a step or two from that to feeling that they can't do nothing much unless you're around to get them started.

"It don't take on me, which is lucky," he added. "I don't care how hard you work, or where you go."

"I'd like to see something that could put you to shame," Call said.

"My pecker's done it a few times," Augustus said.

Call wondered what he meant by that, but didn't ask.

When he was packed, he mounted at once, and rode over to Dish Boggett. "You're in charge," he said. "Trail on north. I'll be back when I can."

Dish paled at the thought of so much responsibility. He had enough worries as it was, what with Pea Eye talking of ghosts.

The Captain looked angry, which made the men better reconciled to the fact that he was leaving. All of them feared his angers. But once he left, before he and the mare were even out of sight, their mood of relief changed back to one of apprehension.

Jasper Fant, so cheerful only an hour before, sank the fastest. "Good lord," he said. "Here we are in Montana and there's Indians and bears and it's winter coming on and the Captain and Gus both off somewhere. I'll be surprised if we don't get massacred."

For once Soupy Jones didn't have a word to say.

AUGUSTUS KEPT HIS PISTOL COCKED ALL NIGHT, once Pea Eye left. He watched the surface of the river closely, for the trick he hoped might work for Pea could also work for the Indians. They might put a log in the water and float down on him, using the log for cover. He tried to look and listen closely, a task not helped by the fact that he was shaking and feverish.

He expected the Indians to come sliding out of the water like big snakes, right in front of him, but none came, and as his fever mounted he began to mumble. From time to time he was half aware that he was delirious, but there was nothing he could do about it, and anyway he preferred the delirium to the tedium of waiting for the Indians to attack. One minute he would be trying to watch the black water, the next he would be back at Clara's. At times he saw her face vividly.

The dawn broke sunny. Bad as he felt, Augustus still enjoyed seeing the sun. It helped clear his head and stirred him to thoughts of escape. He was sick of the little cold cave under the riverbank. He had thought to wait there for Call, but the more he considered, the more he felt it to be a bad plan. Call's arrival was days away, and dependent on Pea getting through. If Pea didn't get through-and the chances were good that he wouldn't-then Call might not even start to look for him for another week.

As a student of wounds, he knew just by looking at his leg that he was in trouble. The leg was yellowish, with black streaks striping the yellow. Blood poisoning was a possibility. He knew that if he didn't get medical attention within the next few days his chances were slim. Even waiting for nightfall might be folly.

If the Indians caught him in the open, his chances would be equally slim, of course, but it took no deliberation to know that if he had to choose, and he did, he would prefer the active to the passive course.

As soon as the sun was well up he eased out of the cave and stood up. The bad leg throbbed. Even to touch his toes to the ground hurt. The waters were rapidly receding. Fifty yards to the east, a game trail led up the creek bank. Augustus decided to use the carbine he had taken off the Indian boy as a crutch. He cut the stirrups off the saddle and lashed one over each end of the rifle, then padded one end of his rude crutch with a piece of saddle leather. He stuffed one pistol under his belt, holstered the other, took his rifle and a pocketful of jerky, and hobbled across along the bank to the animal trail.

He edged cautiously out of the riverbed, but saw no Indians. The broad plain was empty for miles. The Indians had left. Augustus wasted no time in speculation. He started at once, hobbling southeast toward Miles City. He hoped he had not more than thirty or forty miles to go before he struck the town.

He was not used to the crutch and he made poor time. When occasionally he forgot and set his bad foot to the ground, the pain was almost enough to make him pass out. He was weak, and had to stop every hour or so to rest. In the hot sun, sweat poured out of him, though he felt cold and feared a chill. Two or three miles from where he started, he crossed the tracks of a sizable herd of buffalo-they were probably the reason the Indians had left. With winter coming, buffalo were more important to the warriors than two white men, though probably they meant to return and finish off the whites once the hunt was over.

All day he persevered, dragging himself along. He stopped less frequently, because he found it hard to get started once he stopped. Rest was seductive, made more so by his tendency to improve the situation through imagination. Maybe the herd had moved north faster than he calculated. Maybe Call would show up the next day and save him the painful business of dragging along with his crutch.