Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

As they were going off, Newt saw that the tail of Lippy's old brown coat had gotten pinched in the wagon seat-which explained his not having jumped. The wagon tipped straight down, bounced once, and turned completely over just as it hit the water. The mules, still hitched to it, fell backwards on top of the mess. All four wagon wheels were spinning in the air when Newt and the Raineys jumped off their horses. The trouble was, they had no idea what to do next.

Fortunately Augustus had seen the commotion and in a minute was in the water, on old Malaria. He threw a loop over one of the spinning wheels and spurred the big horse vigorously, pulling the wagon to a tilt on one edge.

"Fish him out, boys, otherwise we'll have to go all the way to Montana without no pianer player," he said-though privately he doubted his efforts would do any good. The wagon had landed smack on top of Lippy. If he wasn't drowned he probably had a broken neck.

When the wagon tilted, Newt saw Lippy's legs. He and the Raineys waded in and tried to get him loose, but the coat was still pinched in the seat. All they could do was get his head above water, though his head was so covered with mud that it was difficult at first to know if he was dead or alive. Fortunately Pea soon rode up and cut the coat loose with his bowie knife.

"He's a mudhead, ain't he," Pea said, carefully wiping his knife on his pants leg. "Now I guess he'll be mad at me for ten years because I ruined his coat."

Lippy was limp as a rag and hadn't moved a muscle. Newt felt sick to his stomach. Once more, on a perfectly nice day with everything going well, death had struck and taken another of his friends. Lippy had been part of his life since he could remember. When he was a child, Lippy had occasionally taken him into the saloon and let him bang on the piano. Now they would have to bury him as they had buried Sean.

Strangely, neither Pea nor Mr. Gus was much concerned. The mules had regained their feet and stood in the shallow water, swishing their tails and looking sleepy. Call rode up about that time. He had been at the head of the herd, with Dish Boggett.

"Ain't nobody gonna unhitch them mules?" he asked. A big sack of flour had been thrown out of the wagon and lay in the river getting ruined. Newt had not noticed it until the Captain pointed at it.

"Well, I ain't," Augustus said. "The boys can, their feet are already wet."

It seemed to Newt everyone was being mighty callous about Lippy, who lay on the riverbank. Then, to his surprise, Lippy, whose head was still covered with mud, rolled over and began to belch water. He belched and vomited for several minutes, making a horrible sound, but Newt's relief that he was not dead was so great that he welcomed the sound and waded out to help the Raineys unhitch the mules.

It soon became clear that the wagon bed had been damaged beyond repair in the accident. When it was righted, all the goods that had been in it floated in the shallow water.

"What a place for a shipwreck," Augustus said.

"I never seen a wagon break in two before," Pea said.

The wagon bed, old and rotten, had burst upon impact. Several cowboys rode up and began to fish their bedrolls out of the muddy water.

"What became of Bol?" Pea asked. "Wasn't he driving the wagon?"

Lippy was sitting up, wiping mud off his head. He ran one finger under his loose lip as if he expected to find a tadpole or a small fish, but all he found was mud. About that time the Spettle boys rode up, and crossed the horse herd.

"Seen the cook?" Augustus asked.

"Why, he's walking along carrying his gun," Bill Spettle said. "Them pigs are with him."

Bolivar soon came in sight a couple of hundred yards away, the blue pigs walking along beside him.

"I heared a shot," Lippy said. "About that time them mules took to running. I guess a bandit shot at us."

"No competent bandit would waste a bullet on you or Bol either," Augustus said. "There ain't no reward for either of you."

"It sounded like a shotgun," Bill Spettle volunteered.

"Bol might have been taking target practice," Augustus said. "He might have fired at a cowpie."

"It don't matter what it was," Call said. "The damage is done."

Augustus was enjoying the little break the accident produced. Walking along all day beside a cow herd was already proving monotonous-any steady work had always struck him as monotonous. It was mainly accidents of one kind and another that kept life interesting, in his view, the days otherwise being mainly repetitious things, livened up mostly by the occasional card game.

It was made even more interesting a few minutes later when Bolivar walked up and handed in his resignation. He didn't even look at the smashed wagon.

"I don't want to go this way," he said, addressing himself to the Captain. "I am going back."

"Why, Bol, you won't stand a chance," Augustus said. "A renowned criminal like you. Some young sheriff out to make a reputation will hang you before you get halfway to the border."

"I don't care," Bol said. "I am going back."

In fact, he expected to be fired anyway. He had been dozing on the wagon seat, dreaming about his daughters, and had accidentally fired off the ten-gauge. The recoil had knocked him off the wagon, but even so it had been hard to get free of the dream. It turned into a dream in which his wife was angry, even as he awoke and saw the mules dashing away. The pigs were rooting in a rat's nest, under a big cactus. Bol was so enraged by the mules' behavior that he would have shot one of them, only they were already well out of range.

He had not seen the wagon go off the creek bank, but he was not surprised that it was broken. The mules were fast. He would probably not have been able to hit one of them even with a rifle, distracted as he was by the dream.

The fall convinced him he had lived long enough with Americans. They were not his compañeros . Most of his compañeros were dead, but his country wasn't dead, and in his village there were a few men who liked to talk about the old days when they had spent all their time stealing Texas cattle. In those years his wife had not been so angry. As he walked toward the busted wagon and the little group of men, he decided to go back. He was tired of seeing his family only in dreams. Perhaps this time when he walked in, his wife would be glad to see him.

At any rate, the Americanos were going too far north. He had not really believed Augustus when he said they would ride north for several months. Most of what Augustus said was merely wind. He supposed they would ride for a few days and then sell the cattle, or else start a ranch. He himself had never been more than two days' hard ride from the border in his life. Now a week had passed and the Americanos showed no sign of stopping. Already he was far from the river. He missed his family. Enough was enough.

Call was not especially surprised. "All right, Bol, do you want a horse?" he asked. The old man had cooked for them for ten years. He deserved a mount.

" Sí ," Bol said, remembering that it was a long walk back to the river, and then three days more to his village.

Call caught the old man a gentle gelding. "I've got no saddle to give you," he said, when he presented Bol with the horse.

Bol just shrugged. He had an extra serape and soon turned it into a saddle blanket. Apart from the gun, it was his only possession. In a moment he was ready to start home.

"Well, Bol, if you change your mind, you can find us in Montana," Augustus said. "It may be that your wife's too rusty for you now. You may want to come back and cook up a few more goats and snakes."

" Gracias, Capitán ," Bol said, when Call handed him the reins to the gelding. Then he rode off, without another word to anybody. It didn't surprise Augustus, since Bol had worked for them all those years without saying a word to anybody unless directly goaded into it-usually by Augustus.