Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

At night while they were having their grub, or just waiting for their turn at night herding to start, the cowboys talked endlessly about deaths they had witnessed, deaths they had heard about. Most of them had lived through rough times and had seen men die, but no one of their acquaintance had ridden into a nest of snakes in a river, and they could not keep the subject off their tongues.

The worst, by far, was Jasper Fant, who was so unnerved by what he had seen that for a time Call felt he might be losing his mind. Jasper had never been reticent, but now it seemed he had to be talking every waking minute as a means of holding his own fears in balance.

Allen O'Brien had the opposite response. He rode all day in silence, as nervous and withdrawn as the Spettle brothers. He would sit by the fire crying while the others talked of memorable deaths.

The cattle, still fresh to the trail, were not easily controlled. The brush was bad, the weather no better. It rained for three days and the mosquitoes were terrible. The men were not used to the night work and were irritable as hens. Bert Borum and Soupy Jones had an argument over how to hobble a horse and almost came to blows. Lippy had been put in charge of firewood, and the wood he cut didn't suit Bolivar, who was affronted by Lippy's very presence. Deets had fallen into one of his rare glooms, probably because he felt partly to blame for the boy's death.

Dish Boggett was proving a treasure as a point man. He kept the point all day, true as a rule, and little happened with the cattle that he didn't see.

By contrast the Rainey boys were disappointing. Both had taken homesick, missing their jolly mother and her well-stocked table. They drug around listlessly, not actually shirking their work but taking a long time to do it.

Augustus roamed freely about the outfit. Sometimes he rode ahead of the herd, which put Dish Boggett in a bad mood-nobody was supposed to be ahead of him except the scout. Other days Augustus would idle along with his pigs, who frequently stopped to wallow in puddles or root rats out of their holes.

Everyone had been dreading the next river, which was the San Antonio. There was much controversy about how far north moccasins could live-were they in the Cimarron, the Arkansas, the Platte? No one knew for sure, but everyone knew there were plenty in the San Antonio river.

One morning after breakfast Deets came back to say he had found a shallow crossing only a mile or two from the camp.

"What's the snake population?" Augustus asked. It was another gray wet day and he was wearing his big yellow slicker.

"Seen a few turtles, that's all," Deets said. "If they're there, they're hid."

"I hope they ain't there," Augustus said. "If a mouse snake was to show itself now, half these waddies would climb a tree."

"I'm more worried about Indians," Pea Eye said.

It was true. The minute they left Lonesome Dove he had begun to have his big Indian dreams. The same big Indian he had dreamed about for years had come back to haunt his sleep. Sometimes just dozing on his horse he would dream about the Indian. He slept poorly, as a result, and felt he would be tired and good for nothing by the time they reached Montana.

"It's curious how things get in your head," he said. "I've got an Indian in mine."

"I expect your ma told you you'd be stolt, when you was young," Augustus said.

He and Call rode over to the crossing and looked carefully for snakes, but saw none.

"I wish you'd stop talking about that boy's death," Call said. "If you would maybe they'd get over it."

"Wrong theory," Augustus said. "Talk's the way to kill it. Anything gets boring if you talk about it enough, even death."

They sat on the bank of the river, waiting for the herd to come in sight. When it did, the Texas bull was walking along beside Old Dog. Some days the bull liked to lead, other days he did nothing but fight or worry the heifers.

"This ain't a well-thought-out journey," Augustus remarked. "Even if we get these cattle to Montana, who are we gonna sell 'em to?"

"The point ain't to sell 'em next week," Call said. "The point is to get the land. The people will be coming."

"Why are we taking that ugly bull?" Augustus asked. "If the land's all that pretty, it don't need a lot of ugly cattle on it."

To their relief the crossing went off well. The only commotion was caused by Jasper, who charged the river at a gallop and caused his horse to stumble and nearly fall.

"That might have worked if there'd been a bridge," Soupy Jones said, laughing.

Jasper was embarrassed. He knew he couldn't run a horse across a river, but at the last minute a fear of snakes had overcome him and blocked out his common sense.

Newt was too tired to be afraid of anything. He had not adjusted to night herding. While his horse was watering, Mr. Gus rode up beside him. The clouds had broken to the west.

"I wish the sun would come out and fry these skeeters," Augustus said.

The wagon was slowly approaching the crossing, Bolivar driving and Lippy riding in the back. Behind came the horse herd and the Spettle boys.

It was strange, Newt thought, that one river could be so peaceful and another suddenly boil up with snakes and kill Sean. Several times, mostly at night, he had imagined Sean was still alive. Being so sleepy made it harder to keep from mixing dreams with what was actually happening. He even had conversations with the other hands that seemed like they were conversations in dreams. He had never known the sadness of losing a friend, and had begun to consider what a long way they had to go.

"I hope don't nobody else get killed," he said.

"Well, it's hard to calculate the odds in this kind of a situation," Augustus said. "We may not have another bad injury the whole way. On the other hand, half of us may get wiped out. If we have much bad luck I doubt I'll make it myself."

"Why?" Newt asked, startled to hear him say such a thing.

"Because I ain't spry like I used to be," Augustus said. "Used to be I was quick to duck any kind of trouble. I could roll off a horse quicker than a man can blink. I'm still faster than some folks, but I ain't as fast as I was."

The wagon made the crossing easily, and the two blue pigs, who had been ambling along behind it, walked in and swam the San Antonio river.

"Look at them," Augustus said happily. "Ain't they swimmers?"

AS THE DAYS PASSED, Lorena found she liked the traveling more and more. The nights were no easier-almost every night the lightning flickered and thunderstorms rolled over them. Often, while she and Jake slept, big drops of rain would hit them in the face and force them to grab for the tarp. Soon the blankets seemed permanently damp, causing Jake to grumble and complain. But the tarp was hot and stiff, and he himself never thought to keep it handy. She would have to stumble around and arrange it in the dark, while Jake cussed the weather.

But no matter how uncomfortable the nights, the sky usually cleared in the morning. She liked to sit on the blankets and feel the sun getting warmer. She watched her arms getting slowly tanned and felt that a life of travel was what she was meant for. Her mare had gotten used to the travel too and no longer looked back toward Lonesome Dove.

Lorena might love the traveling, but it was clear that Jake didn't. More and more he was inclined to sulk. The fact that she had refused to go into San Antonio festered like the thorn he had had in his hand. Every day he brought it up, but she had said all she intended to say on the subject and just shook her head. Often she traveled all day in silence, thinking her thoughts and ignoring Jake's complaints.

"Dern you, why can't you talk?" he said one night as she was making the campfire. Deets, who stopped by their camp almost every day to see that they were all right, had shown her how to make a fire. He had also taught her how to pack the mule and do various other chores that Jake mostly neglected.