Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

HAT CREEK CATTLE COMPANY

AND LIVERY EMPORIUM

CAPT. AUGUSTUS MCCRAE

CAPTAIN W. F. CALL PROPS.

P. E. PARKER WRANGLER

DEETS, JOSHUA

FOR RENT: HORSES AND RIGS

FOR SALE: CATTLE AND HORSES

GOATS AND DONKEY'S NEITHER BOUGHT NOR SOLD

WE DON'T RENT PIGS.

UVA UVAM VIVENDO VARIA FIT.

Augustus didn't say a word about the motto, and it was a good two months before anybody even noticed it, which showed how unobservant the citizens of Lonesome Dove really were. It galled Augustus severely that no one appreciated the fact that he had thought to write a Latin motto on a sign that all visitors could see as they rode in, though in fact those riding in took as little note of it as those already in, perhaps because getting to Lonesome Dove was such a hot, exhausting business. The few people who accomplished it were in no mood to stop and study erudite signs.

More galling still was the fact that no member of his own firm had noticed the motto, not even Newt, from whom Augustus expected a certain alertness. Of course two members of the firm were totally illiterate-three, if he chose to count Bolivar-and wouldn't have known Latin from Chinese. Still, the way they casually treated the sign as just part of the landscape caused Augustus to brood a good deal about the contempt that familiarity breeds.

Call did finally notice the motto one day, but only because his horse happened to throw a shoe across the road from the sign. When he got down to pick up the shoe he glanced over and noticed some curious writing below the part about pigs. He had a notion that the words were Latin but that didn't explain what they were doing on the sign. Augustus was on the porch at the time, consulting his jug and keeping out of the way.

"What the hell did you do now?" Call asked. "Wasn't the part about the pigs bad enough for you? What's the last part say?"

"It says a little Latin," Augustus said, undisturbed by his partner's surly tone.

"Why Latin?" Call asked. "I thought it was Greek you knew."

"I did know my letters once," he said. He was fairly drunk, and feeling melancholy about all the sinking he had done in the world. Throughout the rough years the Greek alphabet had leaked out of his mind a letter at a time-in fact, the candle of knowledge he had set out with had burned down to a sorry stub.

"So what's it say, that Latin?" Call asked.

"It's a motto," Augustus said. "It just says itself." He was determined to conceal for as long as possible the fact that he didn't know what the motto meant, which anyway was nobody's business. He had written it on the sign-let others read it.

Call was quick to see the point. "You don't know yourself," he said. "It could say anything. For all you know it invites people to rob us."

Augustus got a laugh out of that. 'The first bandit that comes along who can read Latin is welcome to rob us, as far as I'm concerned," he said. "I'd risk a few nags for the opportunity of shooting at an educated man for a change."

After that, the argument about the motto, or the appropriateness of the sign as a whole, surfaced intermittently when there was nothing else to argue about around the place. Of the people who actually had to live closest to the sign, Deets liked it best, since in the afternoon the door it was written on afforded a modest spot of shade in which he could sit and let his sweat dry.

No one else got much use out of it, and it was unusual to see two horsemen on a hot afternoon stop and read the sign instead of loping on into Lonesome Dove to wet their dusty gullets.

"I guess they're professors," Dish said. "They sure like to read."

Finally the men trotted on around to the barn. One was a stocky red-faced man of about the age of the Captain; the other was a tiny feist of a fellow with a pocked face and a big pistol strapped to his leg. The red-faced man was obviously the boss. His black horse was no doubt the envy of many a man. The little man rode a grulla that was practically swaybacked.

"Men, I'm Wilbarger," the older man said. "That's a damned amusing sign."

"Well, Mr. Gus wrote it," Newt said, trying to be friendly. It would certainly please Mr. Gus that somebody with a liking for signs had finally come along.

"However, if I had a mind to rent pigs I'd be mighty upset," Wilbarger said. "A man that likes to rent pigs won't be stopped."

"He'd be stopped if he was to show up here," Newt said, after a bit. Nobody else spoke up and he felt that Wilbarger's remark demanded an answer.

"Well, is this a cow outfit or have you boys run off from a circus?" Wilbarger asked.

"Oh, we cow a little," Pea said. "How much cowing are you likely to need."

"I need forty horses, which it says on that sign you sell," Wilbarger said. "A dern bunch of Mexicans run off dern near all of our remuda two nights back. I've got a herd of cattle gathered up the other side of the Nueces, and I don't plan to walk ' em to Kansas on foot. A feller told me you men could supply horses. Is that true?"

"Yep," Pea Eye said. "What's more, we can even chase Mexicans."

"I've got no time to discuss Mexicans," Wilbarger said. "If you gentlemen could just trot out about forty well-broke horses we'll pay you and be on our way."

Newt felt a little embarrassed. He was well aware that forty horses was out of the question, but he had hated to come right out and say so. Also, as the youngest member of the outfit, it was not his responsibility to be the spokesman.

"You best talk to the Captain about it," he suggested. "The Captain handles all the deals."

"Oh," Wilbarger said, wiping the sweat off his brow with his forearm. If I'd noticed a captain I'd have picked him to talk to in the first place, instead of you circus hands. Does he happen to live around here?"

Pea pointed at the house, fifty yards away, in the chaparral.

"I expect he's home," he said.

"You men oughta publish a newspaper," Wilbarger said. "You're plumb full of information."

His pockmarked companion found the remark wonderfully funny. To everyone's surprise, he let out a cackle of a laugh, like the sound a hen might make if the hen were mad about something.

"Which way's the whorehouse?" he asked, when he finished his cackle.

"Chick, you're a sight," Wilbarger said, and turned his horse and trotted off toward the house.

"Which way's the whorehouse?" Chick asked again.

He was looking at Dish, but Dish had no intention of revealing Lorena's whereabouts to an ugly little cowboy on a swaybacked horse.

"It's over in Sabinas," Dish said matter-of-factly.

"Which?" Chick asked, caught a little off guard.

"Sabinas," Dish repeated. "Just wade the river and ride southeast for about a day. You'll likely strike it."

Newt thought it extremely clever of Dish to come out with such a remark, but Chick clearly didn't appreciate the cleverness. He was frowning, which tensed his small face up and made his deep pockmarks look like holes that went clear through his cheeks.

"I didn't ask for no map of Mexico," he said. "I've been told there's a yellow-haired girl right in this town."

Dish slowly got to his feet. "Well, just my sister," he said.

Of course it was a rank lie, but it got the job done. Chick was not convinced by the information, but Wilbarger had ridden off and left him, and he was conscious of being outnumbered and disliked. To imply that a cowboy's sister was a sporting woman might lead to prolonged fisticuffs, if not worse-and Dish Boggett looked to be a healthy specimen.

"In that case some fool has tolt me wrong," Chick said, turning his horse toward the house.

Pea Eye, who liked to take life one simple step at a time, had not appreciated the subtleties of the situation.

"Where'd you get a sister, Dish?" he asked. Pea's mode of living was modeled on the Captain's. He barely went in the Dry Bean twice a year, preferring to wet his whistle on the front porch, where he would be assured of a short walk to bed if it got too wet. When he saw a woman it made him uncomfortable; the danger of deviating from proper behavior was too great. Generally when he spotted a female in his vicinity he took the modest way and kept his eyes on the ground. Nonetheless, he had chanced to look up one morning as they were trailing a herd of Mexican cattle through Lonesome Dove. He had seen a yellow-haired girl looking out an open window at them. Her shoulders were bare, which startled him so that he dropped a rein. He had not forgotten the girl, and he occasionally stole a glance at the window if he happened to be riding by. It was a surprise to think she might have been Dish's sister.