Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

"I didn't hurt her," Jake said. He felt a little guilty about the slap-it had upset him to ride in and see her sitting there with Gus, and then she bucked him. Gus always managed to aggravate whatever situation he was in with a woman.

"I've got to go," Augustus said. "Captain Call will be mad as a hornet if I don't get back. Much obliged for the breakfast."

"That's two you owe us," Jake said. "I hope you'll ride into town and buy us a feed when you're up that way."

"Why, the two of you won't be in town," Augustus said. He trotted down to where Lorena was quietly packing the mule.

"Don't forget to hobble that mare," he said. "I guess she ain't as tired of Lonesome Dove as we are. She was on her way home when I came across her."

"I'll hobble her," Lorena said. She gave Gus a grin-Jake's little flare-up had not affected her good spirits.

"If you get any prettier you won't be safe around me," Augustus said. "I might be forced to cut the cards with you again."

"No, I told you we're gonna play a hand next time," Lorena said. "It'll give me a better chance."

"You look out for yourself," Augustus said. "If that scamp runs off and leaves you, why, come and get me. You can find us by the dust."

"He won't leave," Lorena said. "He'll be fine."

She watched Gus swim the muddy river. He waved from the other bank and soon disappeared into the brush. She went on packing. Soon Jake couldn't stand it and walked over.

"You oughtn't to provoke me like that," he said, looking a little hangdog. He tried putting his hands on her, but Lorena shrugged them off and went to the other side of the pack mule.

"I wasn't provoking you," she said. "I just said I wasn't going back to San Antone."

"Dern it, I'd like to gamble a little somewhere between here and Denver," Jake said.

"Go gamble," she said. "I never said you couldn't. I'll stay in camp."

"Oh, no doubt you've made arrangements with Gus," Jake said. "I guess he's planning to come over and teach you card tricks," he said bitterly, and turned on his heel.

Lorena didn't mind. It was too pretty a day. The fact that Gus had found her horse was a good sign. She felt like riding, even though the country was brushy. She felt like a lope, in fact. Jake could sulk if he wanted to. She was looking forward to the trip.

THE DAY SOON GREW HOT, and the cattle, tired from their all-night walk, were sluggish and difficult to move. Call had to put half the crew on the drags to keep them going. Still, he was determined to get across the Nueces, for Deets had said he expected it to storm again that night.

There was no avoiding the brush entirely, but Deets had found a route that took them slightly downriver, around the worst of the thickets. As they got close to the river they began to encounter swarms of mosquitoes, which attacked horses and men alike, settling on them so thickly that they could be wiped off like stains. All the men covered their faces as best they could, and the few who had gloves put them on. The horses were soon flinching, stamping and swishing their tails, their withers covered with mosquitoes. The cattle were restive too, mosquitoes around their eyes and in their nostrils.

Newt was soon so covered with blood from mashed mosquitoes that he looked as if he had been wounded in battle. Sean, who rode near him, was no better. Any inconvenience made Sean think of home, and the mosquitoes were a big inconvenience.

"I'd like to be going to Ireland," he told Newt. "If I only knew where the boats were, I'd be going." His face was lumpy from mosquito bites.

"I guess we'll drown the skeeters when we hit the river," Newt said. It was the only thing that promised relief. He had been dreading the river, but that was before the mosquitoes hit.

To make matters worse, one particular red cow had begun to irritate him almost beyond endurance. She had developed a genius for wiggling into thickets and just stopping. Shouting made no impression on her at all-she would stand in the thicket looking at him, well aware that she was safe. Once Newt dismounted, planning to scare her on foot, but she lowered her head menacingly and he abandoned that idea.

Time and again she hid in a thicket, and time and again, after shouting himself hoarse, he would give up and force his horse into the thicket after her. The cow would bolt out, popping limbs with her horns, and run as if she meant to lead the herd. But when the next thicket appeared, she would wiggle right in. She was so much trouble that he was sorely tempted to leave her-it seemed to him the boys were driving the herd and he was just driving the one red cow.

Once the mosquitoes hit, the cow's dilatoriness became almost more than Newt could endure. The cow would stand in a thicket and look at him silently and stupidly, moving only when she had to and stopping again as soon as she could find a convenient thicket. Newt fought down a terrible urge just to pull his gun and shoot her-that would show the hussy! Nothing less was going to make any impression on her-he had never felt so provoked by a single animal before. But he couldn't shoot her and he couldn't leave her; the Captain wouldn't approve of either action. He had already shouted himself hoarse. All he could do was pop her out of thicket after thicket.

Call had taken the precaution of buying a lead steer from the Pumphreys-a big, docile longhorn they called Old Dog. The steer had never been to Montana, of course, but he had led several herds to Matagorda Bay. Call figured the old steer would at least last until they had the herd well trail-broken.

"Old Dog's like me," Augustus said, watching Dish Boggett edge the old steer to the front of the herd in preparation for the crossing.

"How's that?" Call asked. "Lazy, you mean?"

"Mature, I mean," Augustus said. "He don't get excited about little things."

"You don't get excited about nothing," Call said. "Not unless it's biscuits or whores. So what was Jake up to?" he asked. It rankled him that the man was being so little help. Jake had done many irritating things in his rangering days, but nothing as aggravating as bringing a whore along on a cattle drive.

"Jake was up to being Jake," Augustus said. "It's a full-time job. He requires a woman to help him with it."

Dish had gradually eased Old Dog to the front of the herd, working slowly and quietly. The old steer was twice as big as most of the scrawny yearlings that made up the herd. His horns were long and they bent irregularly, as if they were jointed.

Just before the men reached the river they came out into a cleaning a mile or more wide. It was a relief, after the constant battle with the mesquite and chaparral. The grass was tall. Call loped through it with Deets, to look at the crossing. Dish trotted over to Augustus on the trim sorrel he called Mustache, a fine cow horse whose eyes were always watching to see that no rebellious cow tried to make a break for freedom. Dish uncoiled his rope and made a few practice throws at a low mesquite seedling. Then he even took a throw, for a joke, at a low-flying buzzard that had just risen off the carcass of an armadillo.

"I guess you're practicing up so you can rope a woman, if we make it to Ogallala," Augustus said.

"You don't have to rope women in that town, I hear," Dish said. "They rope you."

"It's a long way to Nebrasky," Augustus said. "You'll be ready to be roped by then, Dish."

"Whene'd you go for half the morning?" Dish asked. He was hoping Gus would talk a little about Lorena, though part of him didn't want to hear it, since it would involve Jake Spoon.

"Oh, Miss Lorena and I like to take our coffee together in the morning," Augustus said.

"I hope the weather didn't treat her too bad," Dish said, feeling wistful suddenly. He could think of nothing pleasanter than taking coffee with Lorena in the morning.