Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

"There's Ed," Louisa said. Sure enough, a big rattler was crawling over a log about ten yards away. Louisa continued to sit, unconcerned about the snake or anything else.

"Are you a one-timer or are you feisty, Roscoe?" she asked after a while.

Roscoe had a notion that he knew what she meant. "I'm mostly a no-timer," he said.

Louisa sighed. "You ain't hopeless, but you sure ain't feisty," she said after a while, wiping the sweat off her face with the sleeve of her dress. "Let's go see if the corn bread's done."

She got up and went back around the house. Roscoe quickly got dressed and drug his gear around the corner, dumping it in a heap beside the door.

When he went in, Louisa sat another pan of corn bread on the table and they had breakfast.

"Well, what's it going to be, marriage or Texas?" Louisa asked after a while.

Roscoe knew it had to be Texas, but it was not so simple a matter to think out as it had been before Louisa came out and sat down on him. For one thing, he had no desire to go to Texas; he felt his chances of finding July to be very slim, and July's of finding Elmira completely hopeless. In the meantime it had become clear to him that Louisa had her charms, and that the fact that they were being offered him on a trial basis was a considerable enticement. He was beginning to feel that Louisa was right: he had mostly been wasted, and might have more feistiness in him than anyone, himself included, had suspected. There was no likelihood of his getting to use much of this capacity in Texas, either.

"It's a hand choice," he said, though one thing that made it a little easier was the knowledge that life with Louisa involved more than featherbeds. It also involved pulling up stumps all day, an activity he had no interest in or aptitude for.

"Well, I don't take back nothing I said," Louisa declared. "You men are a worthless race. You're good for a bounce now and then, and that's about it. I doubt you'd make much of a farmer."

For some reason Roscoe felt melancholy. For all her loud talk, Louisa didn't seem to be as disagreeable to him as he had first thought her to be. It seemed to him she might be persuaded to tone down her farming, maybe even move into a town and settle for putting in a big garden, if it was presented to her right. But he couldn't, because there was the problem of July, who had given him a job and been good to him. The point was, he owed July. Even if he never found him, he had to make the effort, or know that he had failed a friend. Had it not been for that obligation he would have stayed a day or two and considered Louisa's offer.

"It ain't that I ain't obliged," he said. "I'm obliged. The dern thing about it is July. Even if Elmira ain't coming back, he's got to be told. It's my dern job, too. July's the only friend I got in that town except Joe. Joe's Elmira's boy."

Then a happy thought occurred to him. Maybe July had made a slow start. He might not be too far ahead. Perhaps his jaundice had come back on him, in which case he might have had to hole up for a few days. If he himself was lucky he might strike July in a week or two and break the news. Once that was done, his obligation would be satisfied and there would be nothing to keep him from coming back for another visit with Louisa-provided he could find the farm a second time.

"I could come by on my way back," he said. "July's been sick-he may have had to hole up. I might not have to look no more than a month."

Louisa shrugged. "Suit yourself but don't expect me to hold you no stall," she said. "Somebody feistier than you might ride in tomorrow for all I know."

Roscoe found nothing to say. Obviously he was taking a risk.

"What's the story on this July?" Louisa asked. "That wife of his sounds like a woman of ill fame. What kind of sheriff would marry a woman of ill fame?"

"Well, July's slow," Roscoe said. "He's the sort that don't talk much."

"Oh, that sort," Louisa said. "The opposite of my late husband, Jim."

She took a pair of men's brogans from beside the table and began to lace them on her bare feet.

"The thing about men that don't talk much is that they don't usually learn much, either," Louisa said. She got her sunbonnet off a nail on the wall and tucked her thick brown hair under it.

"You don't blabber, but I believe you've got it in you to learn," she said. "I'm going to do some farming."

"What do I owe you for the grub?" Roscoe asked.

"I'd hate to think I'd charge for corn bread," Louisa said. They went out and Roscoe began to roll up his bedroll. He was preoccupied and made such a sloppy job of it that Louisa burst out laughing. She had a happy laugh. One corner of his tarp hung down over his horse's flank.

"Roscoe, you're a disgrace in most respects," Louisa said. "I bet you lose that bedroll before you get to Texas."

"Well, should I stop back?" Roscoe asked, for she seemed in a fair humor.

"Why, I guess so," Louisa said. "I've put up with worse than you, and probably will again."

Roscoe rode off, though Memphis didn't take kindly to having the tarp flopping at his flank, so he had to get down and retie the roll. When he finally got it tied and remounted to ride on, he saw that Louisa had already hitched her mules to a stump and was giving them loud encouragement as they strained at the harness. It seemed to him he had never met such a curious woman. He gave her a wave that she didn't see, and rode on west with very mixed feelings. One moment he felt rather pleased and rode light in the saddle, but the next moment the light feeling would turn heavy. A time or two Roscoe could barely hold back the tears, he felt so sad of a sudden-and it would have been hand to say whether the sadness came because of having to leave Louisa or because of the uncertain journey that lay ahead.

JOE KNEW RIGHT OFF that something was bothering July, because he didn't want to talk. It was not that July had ever been a big talker, like Roscoe could be if he was in the mood, but he was seldom as silent as he was the first week of the trip. Usually he would talk about horses or fishing or cowboys or the weather or something, but on the trip west it just seemed he didn't want to talk at all.

At first it made a problem because Joe had never been on such an important journey, and there were many things he wanted to ask about. For one thing, he was curious to know how they were going to go about catching Jake Spoon. Also, he was curious about Indians, and about the famous Texas Rangers Roscoe said were protecting Jake. He wanted to know how far it was to Texas and if they would see an ocean on the trip.

Once he started asking these questions it became clear at once that it was a strain for July even to listen, much less answer. It cost him such an effort to respond that Joe soon gave up asking and just rode along in silence, waiting for the land to change and the Indians to appear.

In fact they rode so hard that Joe soon stopped missing the talk. Although still curious, he discovered that travel was harder than he had expected it to be. Besides hating to talk, July also seemed to hate to stop. When they came to a creek he would let the horses water, and now and then he got down to relieve himself; otherwise they rode from first light until it was too dark to see. On nights when there was a moon they rode well into the night.

It was a strange business, traveling, Joe decided. July went at it hard. Yet Joe didn't wish for a minute that he had stayed home. Going with July was the most exciting thing he had ever done by far.

Several times they came upon farms. July asked the farmers if they had seen Jake, and twice was told that yes, Jake had spent the night. But they themselves didn't spend the night, and rarely even took a meal. Once on a hot afternoon July did accept a glass of buttermilk from a farmer's wife. Joe got one too. There were several little girls on that farm, who giggled every time they looked at Joe, but he ignored them. The farmer's wife asked them twice to stay overnight, but they went on and made camp in a place thick with mosquitoes.