Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

"Let's leave tomorrow," she said.

"But the herd don't leave till Monday," he reminded her.

"It ain't our herd," she said. "We don't have to wait for it."

There was something different about her, Jake had to admit. She had a beautiful face, a beautiful body, but also a distance in her such as he had never met in a woman. Certain mountains were that way, like the Bighorns. The air around them was so clear you could ride toward them for days without seeming to get any closer. And yet, if you kept riding, you would get to the mountains. He was not so sure he would ever get to Lorie. Even when she took him, there was a distance between them. And yet she would not let him leave.

When they blew out the lamp a shaft of moonlight came in the window and cut across their bodies. Lorie let him rub her back, since he enjoyed doing it. She was not sleepy. In her mind she had already left Lonesome Dove; she was simply waiting for the night to end so they could really leave. Jake got tired of the back rub and tried to roll her over for another poke but she wouldn't have it. She pushed his carrot away, a response he didn't like at all.

"What's the matter now?" he asked.

Lorie didn't answer. There was nothing to say. He made a second try and she pushed it away again. She knew he hated to be denied but didn't care. He would have to wait. Listening to his heavy, frustrated breathing, she thought for a while that he might be going to make a fight over it, but he didn't. His feelings were hurt, but pretty soon he yawned. He kept twisting and turning, hoping she would relent. From time to time he nudged her hip, as if by accident. But he had worked all day; he was tired. Soon he slept. Lorie lay awake, looking out the window, waiting for it to be time to leave.

JAKE AWOKE not long after dawn to find Lorena up before him. She sat at the foot of the bed, her face calm, watching the first red light stretch over the mesquite flats. He would have liked to sleep, to hide in sleep for several days, make no decisions, work no cattle, just drowse. But not even sleep was really under his control. The thought that he had to get up and leave town-with Lorie-was in the front of his mind, and it melted his drowsiness. For a minute or two he luxuriated in the fact that he was sleeping on a mattress. It might be a poor one stuffed with corn shucks, but it was better than he would get for the next several months. For months it would just be the ground, with whatever weather they happened to catch.

He looked at Lorie for a minute, thinking that perhaps if he scared her with Indian stories she would change her mind.

But when he raised up on one elbow to look at her in the fresh light, the urge to discourage her went away. It was a weakness, but he could not bear to disappoint women, even if it was ultimately for their own good. At least he couldn't disappoint them to their faces. Leaving them was his only out, and he knew he wasn't ready to leave Lorie. Her beauty blew the sleep right out of his brain, and all she was doing was looking out a window, her long golden hair spilling over her shoulders. She wore an old threadbare cotton shift that should have been thrown away long ago. She didn't own a decent dress, and had nothing to show her beauty to advantage, yet most of the men on the border would ride thirty miles just to sit in a saloon and look at her. She had the quality of not yet having really started her life-her face had a freshness unusual in a woman who had been sporting for a while. The thought struck him that the two of them might do well in San Francisco, if they could just get there. There were men of wealth there, and Lorie's beauty would soon attract them.

"You don't look like you've changed your mind," he said. "I guess I've got to get up and go buy you a horse."

"Take my money," she said. "Don't get one that's too tall."

She gave him Gus's fifty dollars.

"Hell, I don't need all this," he said. "There ain't a horse in town worth fifty dollars, unless it's that mare of Call's, and she ain't for sale.

But he took the money, thinking it a fine joke on Gus that the money from his poke would buy Lorie a mount to ride to Montana, or however far they went. He had known perfectly well Gus would try something of the sort, for Gus would never let him have a woman to himself. Gus liked to be a rival more than anything else, Jake figured. And as for Lorie going through with it-well, it relieved him of a certain level of responsibility for her. If she was going to keep that much independence, so would he.

Lorena kept looking out the window. It was as if her mind had already left Lonesome Dove and moved up the trail. Jake sat up and put his arms around her. He loved the way she smelled in the mornings; he liked to sniff at her shoulders or her throat. He did it again. She didn't reject these little morning attentions, but she didn't encourage them either. She waited for him to leave and go buy the horse, running over in her mind the few things she could take with her.

There was not much. Her favorite thing was a mother-of-pearl comb Tinkersley had bought her when they first got to San Antonio. She had a thin gold ring that had been her mother's, and one or two other trifles. She had never liked to buy things; in Lonesome Dove it didn't matter, for there was nothing much to buy.

Jake sat and scratched himself for a while, smelling Lorie's flesh and hoping she would encourage him, but since she didn't, he finally got dressed and went off to see about horses and equipment.

Before Jake had been gone ten minutes Lorena got a surprise. There was a timid knock at her door. She opened it a peek and there was Xavier, standing on the stairs in tears. He just stood there looking as if it was the end of the world, tears running down his cheeks and dripping onto his shirt. She didn't know what to make of it, but since she wasn't dressed, she didn't want to let him in.

"Is it true, what Jake says?" he asked. "You are leaving today?"

Lorena nodded. "We're going to San Francisco," she said.

"I want to marry you," Xavier said. "Do not go. If you go I don't want to live. I will burn the place down. It's a filthy place anyway. I will burn it tomorrow."

Well, it's your place, she thought. Burn it if you want to. But she didn't say it. Xavier had not been unkind to her. He had given her a job when she didn't have a penny, and had paid promptly for whatever services he required. Now he was standing on the stairs, so wrought up he could hardly see.

"I'm going," she said.

Xavier shook his head in despair. "But Jake is not true," he said. "I know him. He will leave you somewhere. You will never get to San Francisco."

"I'll get there," Lorena said. "If Jake don't stay, I'll get there with someone else."

He shook his head. "You will die somewhere," he said. "He'll take you the wrong way. We could marry. I will sell this place. We can go to Galveston and take a boat for California. We can get a restaurant there. I have Therese's money. We can get a clean restaurant, with tablecloths. You won't have to see men anymore."

Except I'd have to see you, she thought.

"Let me come in," he said. "I will give you anything… more than Gus."

She shook her head. "Jake would kill you," she said. "You go on now."

"I can't," he said, still crying. "I am dying for you. If he kills me I would be better. I will give you anything."

Again she shook her head, not quite sure what to think. She had seen Xavier have fits before, but usually fits of anger. This fit was different. His chest was heaving and his eyes poured tears.

"You should marry me," he said. "I will be good to you. I am not like these men. I have manners. You would see how kind I would be. I would never leave you. You could have an easy life."

Lorena just kept shaking her head. The most interesting thing he said was about the boat. She didn't know much, but she knew Galveston was closer than Denver. Why was Jake wanting to ride to Denver, if they could take a boat?