Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

That didn't mean she was in the habit of thinking about herself as a sporting woman, but it was precisely that habit that Tinkersley expected her to acquire.

"Well, you're already trained, ain't you?" he said. Lorena didn't consider what had happened in Gladewater any training for anything, but then it was clear there wasn't anything respectable she was trained for, even if she could get away from Tinkersley without being killed. For a few days she had thought Tinkersley might love her, but he soon made it clear that she meant about as much to him as a good saddle. She knew that for the time being the sporting life was about her only choice. At least the hotel room was nice and there were no mean sisters. Most of the sports who came to see her were men Tinkersley gambled with in the bar down below. Once in a while a nice one would even give her a little money directly, instead of leaving it with Tinkersley, but Tinkersley was smart about such things and he found her hiding place and cleaned her out the day they took the stage to Matamoros. He might not have done it if he hadn't had a string of losses, but the fact that he was handsome didn't mean that he was a good gambler, as several of the sports pointed out to Lorena. He was just a middling gambler, and he had such a run of bad luck in San Antonio that he decided there might be less competition down on the border.

It was on that trip that they had the real fight. Lorena felt swollen with anger about the money-swollen enough, finally, not to be scared of him. What she wanted was to kill him for being so determined to leave her absolutely nothing. If she had known more about guns she would have killed him. She thought with a gun you just pulled the trigger, but it turned out his had to be cocked first. Tinkersley was lying on the bed drunk, but not so drunk he didn't notice when she stuck his own gun in his stomach. When she realized it wasn't going to go off she had just time to hit him in the face with it, a lick that actually won the fight for her, although before he gave up and went to look for a doctor to stitch his jaw up Tinkersley did bite her on the upper lip as they were rolling around, Lorena still hoping the gun would shoot.

The bite had left a faint little scar just above her upper lip; to Lorena's amusement it was that trifling scar that seemed to make men crazy for a time with her. Of course it wasn't just the scar-she had developed well and had also gotten prettier as she got older. But the scar played its part. Tinkersley got drunk n Lonesome Dove the day he left her, and he told everyone in the Dry Bean that she was a murderous woman. So she had a reputation in the town before she even unpacked her clothes. Tinkersley had left her with no money at all, but fortunately she could cook when she had to; the Dry Bean was the only place in Lonesome Dove that served food, and Lorena had been able to talk Xavier Wanz, who owned it, into letting her do the cooking until the cowboys got over being scared of her and began to approach her.

Augustus was the man who got it started. While he was pulling off his boots the first time he smiled at her.

"Where'd you get that scar?" he asked.

"Somebody bit me," Lorena said.

Once Gus became a regular, she had no trouble making a living in the town, although in the summer, when the cowboys were mostly off on the trail, pickings sometimes grew slim. While she was well past the point of trusting men, she soon perceived that Gus was in a class. by himself, at least in Lonesome Dove. He wasn't mean, and he didn't treat her like most men treated a sporting woman. She knew he would probably even help her if she ever really needed help. It seemed to her he had got rid of something other men hadn't got rid of-some meanness or some need. He was the one man besides Lippy she would sometimes talk to-a little. With most of the sports she had nothing at all to say.

In fact, her silence soon came to be widely commented on. It was part of her, like the scar, and, like the scar, it drew men to her even though it made them deeply uneasy. It was not a trick, either, although she knew it unnerved the sports and made matters go quicker. Silent happened to be how she felt when men were with her.

In respect to her silence, too, Gus McCrae was different. At first he seemed not to notice it-certainly he didn't let it bother him. Then it began to amuse him, which was not a reaction Lorena had had from anyone else. Most men chattered like squirrels when they were with her, no doubt hoping she would say something back. Of course Gus was a great blabber, but his blabbing wasn't really like the chattering the other sports did. He was just full of opinion, which he freely poured out, as much for his own amusement as for anything. Lorena had never particularly looked at life as if it was something funny, but Gus did. Even her lack of talk struck him as funny.

One day he walked in and sat down in a chair, the usual look of amusement on his face. Lorena assumed he was going to take his boots off and she went over to the bed, but when she looked around he was sitting there, one foot on the other knee, twirling the rowel of his spur. He always wore spurs, although it was not often she saw him on horseback. Once in a while, in the early morning, the bawling of cattle or the nickering of horses would awaken her and she would look out the window and see him and his partner and a gang of riders trailing their stock through the low brush to the east of town. Gus was noticeable, since he rode a big black horse that looked like it could have pulled three stagecoaches by itself. But he kept his spurs on even when he wasn't riding so he would have them handy when he wanted something to jingle.

"Them's the only musical instruments I ever learned to play," he told her once.

Since he just sat there twirling his spur and smiling at her, Lorena didn't know whether to get undressed or what. It was July, blistering hot. She had tried sprinkling the bedsheets, but the heat dried them Sometimes before she could even lay down.

"'I god, it's hot," Gus said. "We could all be living in Canada just as cheap. I doubt I've even got the energy to set my post."

Why come then? Lorena thought.

Another unusual thing about Gus was that he could practically tell what she was thinking. In this case he looked abashed and dug a ten-dollar gold piece out of his pocket, which he pitched over to her. Lorena felt wary. It was five dollars too much, even if he did decide to set his post. She knew old men got crazy sometimes and wanted strange things-Lippy was a constant problem, and he had a hole in his stomach and could barely keep up his piano playing. But it turned out she had no need to worry about Gus.

"I figured out something, Lorie," he said. "I figured out why you and me get along so well. You know more than you say and I say more than I know. That means we're a perfect match, as long as we don't hang around one another more than an hour at a stretch."

It made no sense to Lorena, but she relaxed. There was no likelihood he would try anything crazy on her.

"This is ten dollars," she said, thinking maybe he just hadn't noticed what kind of money he was handing over.

"You know, prices are funny," he said. "I've known a good many sporting girls and I've always wondered why they didn't price more flexible. If I was in your place and I had to traipse upstairs with some of these old smelly sorts, I'd want a sight of money, whereas if it was some good-looking young sprout who kept himself barbered up, why a nickel might be enough."

Lorena remembered Tinkersley, who had had the use of her for two years, taken all she brought in, and then left her without a cent.

"A nickel wouldn't be enough," she said. "I can do without the barbering."

But Augustus was in a mood for discussion. "Say you put two dollars as your low figure," he said. "That's for the well-barbered sprout. What would the high figure be, for some big rank waddy who couldn't even spell? The pint I'm making is that all men ain't the same, so they shouldn't be the same price, or am I wrong? Maybe from where you sit all men are the same."