Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

The battle won Soupy no friends; he had assumed so many airs once Dish left that he had few friends anyway, whereas Newt was popular. Reaction was so unfavorable that a few days later Soupy drew his wages again and left, taking Bert with him. They had concluded they could make Texas, if they went together.

Call was worried for a few weeks about being short-handed, but then three young men he had seen at the fort decided to quit soldiering and try their hand at ranching. All three were from Kentucky. They were inept at first but industrious. Then two genuine cowboys showed up; lured all the way north from Miles City by the news that there was a ranch on the Milk. They had given up cowboying for mule skinning the year before and concluded they had made a bad mistake. Then a tall boy named Jim wandered in alone. He had been with a wagon train but had lost interest in getting to Oregon.

Soon, instead of being short-handed, Call found that he had almost more men than he needed. He decided to start the branding early. Several hundred calves had been born since they left Texas; many were yearlings, and a struggle to brand. A few of the men questioned the necessity, since they were the only cattle outfit in the Territory, but Call knew that would soon change. Others would come.

The roundup took ten days. The cattle had spread themselves wide over the range between the Milk and the Missouri in their foraging during the winter. Then the branding took a week. At first the men enjoyed the activity, competing with one another to see who could throw the largest animals the quickest. There was also much disagreement over who should get to rope and who should work on foot. Newt improved so rapidly as a roper that he was soon sharing that task with Needle Nelson, the only one of the original crew skilled with a lariat.

With the branding ended, and the spring grass spiking through the thin May snows, Call knew the time had come for him to fulfill his promise to his old friend. It was awkward-indeed, it seemed absurd-to have to tote a six-months-old corpse to Texas, but there it was.

Yet May wore on and June approached, and still he had not gone. The snows had melted, all down the plains, he imagined, and yet something held him. It wasn't work. There were plenty of men to do the work-they had even had to turn away three or four men who came looking to hire on. Many times Call spent much of the afternoon watching Newt work with the new batch of horses they had bought on a recent trip to the fort. It was work he himself had never been particularly good at-he had always lacked the patience. He let the boy alone and never made suggestions. He liked to watch the boy with the horses; it had become a keen pleasure. If a cowboy came over and tried to talk to him while he was watching he usually simply ignored the man until he went away. He wanted to watch the boy and not be bothered. It could only be for a few days, he knew. It was a long piece to Texas and back. Sometimes he wondered if he would even come back. The ranch was started, and the dangers so far had been less than he feared. He felt sometimes that he had no more to do. He felt much older than anyone he knew. Gus had seemed young even when he was dying, and yet Call felt old. His interest in work had not returned. It was only when he was watching the boy with the horses that he felt himself.

In those hours he would lose himself in memory of other times, of other men who had lived with horses, who had broken them, ridden them, died on them. He felt proud of the boy, and with it, anguish that their beginnings had been as they had. It could not be changed, though. He thought he might speak of it sometime, as Gus had wanted him to, and yet he said nothing. He couldn't. If he happened to be alone with the boy, his words went away. At the thought of speaking about it a tightness came into his throat, as if a hand had seized it. Anyway, what could a few words change? They couldn't change the years.

Newt was puzzled at first when the Captain began watching him with the horses. At first he was nervous-he felt the Captain might be watching because he was doing something that needed correcting. But the afternoons passed, and the Captain merely watched, sometimes sitting there for hours, even if it turned wet or squally. Newt came to expect him. He came to feel that the Captain enjoyed watching. Because of the way the Captain had been behaving, giving him more and more of the responsibility for the work, Newt came to feel that Mr. Gus must have been right. The Captain might be his father. On some afternoons, with the Captain there by the corrals watching, he felt almost sure of it, and began to expect that the Captain would tell him soon. He began to listen-waiting to be told, his hope always growing. Even when the Captain didn't speak, Newt still felt proud when he saw him come to watch him work.

For two weeks, through the spring evenings, Newt was very happy. He had never expected to share such a time with the Captain, and he hoped the Captain would speak to him soon and explain all that had puzzled him for so long.

One night toward the end of May, Call couldn't sleep. He sat in front of the tent all night, thinking of the boy, and Gus, and the trip he had to make. That morning, after breakfast, he called Newt aside. For a moment he couldn't speak-the hand had seized his throat again. The boy stood waiting, not impatient. Call was annoyed with himself for his strange behavior, and he eventually found his voice.

"I have to take Gus back," he said. "I guess I'll be gone a year. You'll have to be the range boss. Pea will help you, and the rest are mostly reliable, though I think that Irishman is homesick and might go home."

Newt didn't know what to say. He looked at the Captain.

"That woman gets half the money when you sell stock," Call said. "It was Gus's request. You can bank it for her in Miles City. I'll tell her it's there when I see her."

Newt could hardly believe he would be made boss over the men. He expected more orders, but the Captain turned away.

Later in the morning, he and Pea Eye and Needle were riding the banks of the Milk, seeing if any cattle were bogged. They were always bogging. Getting them out was hard, muddy work, but it had to be done; if it rained, the river might rise in the night and drown the bogged animals.

The day was cold and blowy. Newt had to wade out into the mud three times to lift the hind ends of the bogged yearlings, while Needle roped the animals by the head and drug them out. Newt scraped the mud off his legs as best he could, put his pants back on, and was getting ready to turn back toward headquarters when he saw the Captain riding toward them. He was riding the Hell Bitch and leading Greasy, the big mule that had come with them all the way from Texas, and a rangy dun named Jerry, the mount he preferred after the Hell Bitch. Augustus's old sign was tied to the pack mule.

"I guess the Captain's going," Pea Eye said. "He's taking old Greasy and an extra horse."

Newt felt his spirits sink. He knew the Captain had to leave, and yet he hoped he wouldn't-not for another few days anyway.

Call rode up to the three men, dismounted and, to everyone's surprise unsaddled the Hell Bitch and put the saddle on Jerry. Then he led the Hell Bitch over to where Newt stood.

"See how your saddle fits her," Call said.

Newt was so surprised he could only look at the Captain in silence. He thought he must have misunderstood. No one but the Captain had ridden the mare since the Hat Creek outfit had acquired her.

"Do what?" he asked finally.

"Put your saddle on her," Call said. He felt tired and was finding it difficult to speak. He felt at any moment he might choke.

"I doubt she'd like it," Newt said, looking at the mare, who pointed her ears at him as if she knew what had been said. But the Captain didn't take back the order, so he unsaddled the little sorrel he had been riding, the one Clara had given him, and carried his saddle over to the mare. Call held the bridle while Newt saddled her. Then he handed Newt the reins and went over and took his big Henry out of its scabbard. He removed the Winchester from the boy's saddle and stuck the Henry in his saddle scabbard. It wasn't a perfect fit, but it would do.