Lonesome Dove, Page 3

  The business with the Comanches had been long and ugly — it had occupied Call most of his adult life — but it was really over. In fact, it had been so long since he had seen a really dangerous Indian that if one had suddenly ridden up to the crossing he would probably have been too surprised to shoot — exactly the kind of careless attitude he was concerned to guard against in himself. Whipped they might be, but as long as there was one free Comanche with a horse and a gun it would be foolish to take them lightly.

  He tried hard to keep sharp, but in fact the only action he had scared up in six months of watching the river was one bandit, who might just have been a vaquero with a thirsty horse. All Call had had to do in that instance was click the hammer of his Henry — in the still night the click had been as effective as a shot. The man wheeled back into Mexico, and since then nothing had disturbed the crossing except a few mangy goats on their way to the salt lick.

  Even though he still came to the river every night, it was obvious to Call that Lonesome Dove had long since ceased to need guarding. The talk about Bolivar calling up bandits was just another of Augustus's overworked jokes. He came to the river because he liked to be alone for an hour, and not always be crowded. It seemed to him he was pressed from dawn till dark, but for no good reason. As a Ranger captain he was naturally pressed to make decisions — and decisions that might mean life or death to the men under him. That had been a natural pressure — one that went with the job. Men looked to him, and kept looking, wanting to know he was still there, able to bring them through whatever scrape they might be in. Augustus was just as capable, beneath all his rant, and would have got them through the same scrapes if it had been necessary, but Augustus wouldn't bother rising to an occasion until it became absolutely necessary. He left the worrying to Call — so the men looked to Call for orders, and got drunk with Augustus. It never ceased to gripe him that Augustus could not be made to act like a Ranger except in emergencies. His refusal was so consistent that at times both Call and the men would almost hope for an emergency so that Gus would let up talking and arguing and treat the situation with a little respect.

  But somehow, despite the dangers, Call had never felt pressed in quite the way he had lately, bound in by the small but constant needs of others. The physical work didn't matter: Call was not one to sit on a porch all day, playing cards or gossiping. He intended to work; he had just grown tired of always providing the example. He was still the Captain, but no one had seemed to notice that there was no troop and no war. He had been in charge so long that everyone assumed all thoughts, questions, needs and wants had to be referred to him, however simple these might be. The men couldn't stop expecting him to captain, and he couldn't stop thinking he had to. It was ingrained in him, he had done it so long, but he was aware that it wasn't appropriate anymore. They weren't even peace officers: they just ran a livery stable, trading horses and cattle when they could find a buyer. The work they did was mostly work he could do in his sleep, and yet, though his day-to-day responsibilities had constantly shrunk over the last ten years, life did not seem easier. It just seemed smaller and a good deal more dull.

  Call was not a man to daydream — that was Gus's department — but then it wasn't really daydreaming he did, alone on the little bluff at night. It was just thinking back to the years when a man who presumed to stake out a Comanche trail would do well to keep his rifle cocked. Yet the fact that he had taken to thinking back annoyed him, too: he didn't want to start working over his memories, like an old man. Sometimes he would force himself to get up and walk two or three more miles up the river and back, just to get the memories out of his head. Not until he felt alert again — felt that he could still captain if the need arose — would he return to Lonesome Dove.

  * * *

  After supper, when Call left for the river, Augustus, Pea Eye, Newt, Bolivar and the pigs repaired to the porch. The pigs nosed around in the yard, occasionally catching a lizard or a grasshopper, a rat snake or an unwary locust. Bolivar brought out a whetstone and spent twenty minutes or so sharpening the fine bone-handled knife that he wore at his belt. The handle was made from the horn of a mule deer and the thin blade flashed in the moonlight as Bolivar carefully drew it back and forth across the whetstone, spitting on the stone now and then to dampen its surface.

  Although Newt liked Bolivar and considered him a friend, the fact that Bol felt it necessary to sharpen the knife every night made him a little nervous. Mr. Gus's constant joking about bandits — although Newt knew it was joking —had its effect. It was a mystery to him why Bol sharpened the knife every single night, since he never cut anything with it. When he asked him about it Bol smiled and tested the blade gently with his thumb.

  "It's like a wife," he said. "Every night you better stroke it."

  That made no sense to Newt, but got a laugh from Augustus.

  "If that's the case your wife is likely pretty rusty by now, Bol," he said. "She don't get sharpened more than twice a year."

  "She is old," Bolivar said.

  "The older the violin, the sweeter the music," Augustus said. "Us old folks appreciate whetting just as much as the young, or maybe more. You ought to bring her up here to live, Bol. Think of the money you'd save on whetstones."

  "That knife would cut through a man's naik like it was butter," Pea Eye said. He had an appreciation of such things, being the owner of a fine Bowie knife himself. It had a fourteen-inch blade and he had bought it from a soldier who had personally commissioned it from Bowie. He didn't sharpen it every night like Bol did his, but he took it out of its big sheath once in a while to make sure it hadn't lost its edge. It was his Sunday knife and he didn't use it for ordinary work like butchering or cutting leather. Bolivar never used his for ordinary work either, though once in a while, if he was in a good mood, he would throw it and stick it in the side of a wagon, or maybe shave off a few fine curls of rawhide with it. Newt would then feed the rawhide to the pigs.

  Augustus himself took a dim view of the utility of knives, particularly of fancy knives. He carried a plain old clasp in his pocket and used it mainly for cutting his toenails. In the old days, when they all lived mostly off game, he had carried a good skinning knife as a matter of necessity, but he had no regard at all for the knife as a fighting weapon. So far as he was concerned, the invention of the Colt revolver had rendered all other short-range weapons obsolete. It was a minor irritant that he had to spend virtually every night of his life listening to Bol grind his blade away.

  "If I have to listen to something, I'd rather listen to you whet your wife," he said.

  "I don't bring her," Bol said. "I know you. You would try to corrupt her."

  Augustus laughed. "No, I ain't much given to corrupting old women," he said. "Ain't you got any daughters?"

  "Only nine," Bolivar said. Abruptly, not even getting up, he threw the knife at the nearest wagon, where it stuck, quivering for a moment. The wagon was only about twenty feet away, so it was no great throw, but he wanted to make a point about his feeling for his daughters. Six were married already, but the three left at home were the light of his life.

  "I hope they take after their mother," Augustus said. "If they take after you you're in for a passel of old maids." His Colt was hanging off the back of the chair and he reached around and got it, took it out of its holster, and idly twirled the chamber a time or two, listening to the pretty little clicks.

  Bolivar was sorry he had thrown the knife, since it meant he would have to get up and walk across the yard to retrieve it. At the moment his hip joints hurt, as well as several other joints, all the result of letting a horse fall on him five years before.

  "I am better looking than a buzzard like you," he said, pulling himself up.

  Newt knew Bolivar and Mr. Gus were just insulting one another to pass the time, but it still made him nervous when they did it, particularly late in the day, when they had both been hitting their respective jugs for several hours. It was a peaceful night, so still that he could occa
sionally hear the sound of the piano down at the Dry Bean saloon. The piano was the pride of the saloon, and, for that matter, of the town. The church folks even borrowed it on Sundays. Luckily the church house was right next to the saloon and the piano had wheels. Some of the deacons had built a ramp out at the back of the saloon, and a board track across to the church, so that all they had to do was push the piano right across to the church. Even so, the arrangement was a threat to the sobriety of the deacons, some of whom considered it their duty to spend their evenings in the saloon, safeguarding the piano.

  Once they safeguarded it so well on Saturday night that they ran it off its rail on Sunday morning and broke two legs off it. Since there weren't enough sober men in church that morning to carry it inside, Mrs. Pink Higgins, who played it, had to sit out in the street and bang away at the hymns, while the rest of the congregation, ten ladies and a preacher, stayed inside and sang. The arrangement was made more awkward still by the fact that Lorena Wood came out on the backstairs of the saloon, practically undressed, and listened to the hymns.

  Newt was deeply in love with Lorena Wood, though so far he had not even had an opportunity to speak to her. He was painfully aware that if the chance for personal speech ever did arise he would have no idea what to say. On the rare occasions when he had an errand that took him by the saloon he lived in terror, afraid some accident might occur which would actually force him to speak to her. He wanted to speak to Lorena, of course — it represented the very summit of his life's hopes — but he didn't want to have to do it until he had decided on the best thing to say, which so far he had not, though Lorena had been in town for several months, and he had been in love with her from the moment he first glimpsed her face.

  On an average day, Lorena occupied Newt's thoughts about eight hours, no matter what tasks occupied his hands. Though normally an open young man, quick to talk about his problems — to Pea Eye and Deets, at least — he had never so much as uttered Lorena's name aloud. He knew that if he did utter it a terrible amount of ribbing would ensue, and while he didn't mind being ribbed about most things, his feeling for Lorena was too serious to admit frivolity. The men who made up the Hat Creek outfit were not great respecters of feeling, particularly tender feeling.

  There was also the danger that someone might slight her honor. It wouldn't be the Captain, who was not prone to jesting about women, or even to mentioning them. But the thought of the complications that might arise from an insult to Lorena had left Newt closely acquainted with the mental perils of love long before he had had an opportunity to sample any of its pleasures except the infinite pleasure of contemplation.

  Of course, Newt knew that Lorena was a whore. It was an awkward fact, but it didn't lessen his feelings for her one whit. She had been abandoned in Lonesome Dove by a gambler who decided she was bad for his luck; she lived over the Dry Bean and was known to receive visitors of various descriptions, but Newt was not a young man to choke on such details. He was not absolutely sure what whores did, but he assumed that Lorena had come by her profession as accidentally as he had come by his. It was pure accident that he happened to be a horse wrangler for the Hat Creek outfit, and no doubt an equally pure one that had made Lorena a whore. What Newt loved about her was her nature, which he could see in her face. It was easily the most beautiful face that had ever been seen in Lonesome Dove, and he had no doubt that hers was the most beautiful nature, too. He intended to say something along those lines to her when he finally spoke to her. Much of his time on the porch after supper was spent in trying to figure out what words would best express such a sentiment.

  That was why it irritated him slightly when Bol and Mr. Gus started passing insults back and forth, as if they were biscuits. They did it almost every night, and pretty soon they'd be throwing knives and clicking pistols, making it very hard for him to concentrate on what he would say to Lorena when they first met. Neither Mr. Gus nor Bolivar had lived their lives as peaceful men, and it seemed to him they might both be itching for one last fight. Newt had no doubt that if such a fight occurred Mr. Gus would win. Pea Eye claimed that he was a better pistol shot than Captain Call, though it was hard for Newt to imagine anyone being better at anything than Captain Call. He didn't want the fight to happen, because it would mean the end of Bol, and despite a slight nervousness about Bol's bandit friends, he did like Bol. The old man had given him a serape once, to use as a blanket, and had let him have the bottom bunk when he was sick with jaundice. If Mr. Gus shot him it would mean Newt had one less friend. Since he had no family, this was not a thought to be taken lightly.

  "What do you reckon the Captain does out there in the dark?" he asked.

  Augustus smiled at the boy, who was hunched over on the lower step, as nervous as a red pup. He asked the same question almost every night when he thought there might be a fight. He wanted Call around to stop it, if it ever started.

  "He's just playin' Indian fighter," he said.

  Newt doubted that. The Captain was not one to play. If he felt he had to go off and sit in the dark every night, he must think it important.

  Mention of Indians woke Pea Eye from an alcoholic doze. He hated Indians, partly because for thirty years fear of them had kept him from getting a good night's sleep. In his years with the Rangers he never closed his eyes without expecting to open them and find some huge Indian getting ready to poke him with something sharp. Most of the Indians he had actually seen had all been scrawny little men, but it didn't mean the huge one who haunted his sleep wasn't out there waiting.

  "Why, they could come," he said. "The Captain's right to watch. If I wasn't so lazy I'd go help him."

  "He don't want you to help him," Augustus said testily. Pea's blind loyalty to Call was sometimes a trial. He himself knew perfectly well why Call headed for the river every night, and it had very little to do with the Indian threat. He had made the point many times, but he made it again.

  "He heads for the river because he's tired of hearing us yap," he said. "He ain't a sociable man and never was. You could never keep him in camp, once he had his grub. He'd rather sit off in the dark and prime his gun. I doubt he'd find an Indian if one was out there."

  "He used to find them," Pea said. "He found that big gang of them up by Fort Phantom Hill."

  " 'I god, Pea," Augustus said. "Of course he found a few here and there. They used to be thicker than grass burrs, if you remember. I'll guarantee he won't scratch up none tonight. Call's got to be the one to out-suffer everybody, that's the pint. I won't say he's a man to hunt glory like some I've knowed. Glory don't interest Call. He's just got to do his duty nine times over or he don't sleep good."

  There was a pause. Pea Eye had always been uncomfortable with Gus's criticisms of the Captain, without having any idea how to answer them. If he came back at all he usually just adopted one of the Captain's own remarks.

  "Well, somebody's got to take the hard seat," he said.

  "Fine with me," Augustus said. "Call can suffer for you and me and Newt and Deets and anybody else that don't want to do it for themselves. It's been right handy having him around to assume them burdens all these years, but if you think he's doing it for us and not because it's what he happens to like doing, then you're a damn fool. He's out there sitting behind a chaparral bush congratulating himself on not having to listen to Bol brag on his wife. He knows as well as I do there isn't a hostile within six hundred miles of here."

  Bolivar stood over by the wagon and relieved himself for what seemed to Newt like ten or fifteen minutes. Often when Bol started to relieve himself Mr. Gus would yank out his old silver pocket watch and squint at it until the pissing stopped. Sometimes he even got a stub of a pencil and a little notebook out of the old black vest he always wore and wrote down how long it took Bolivar to pass his water.

  "It's a clue to how fast he's failing," Augustus pointed out. "An old man finally dribbles, same as a fresh calf. I best just keep a record, so we'll know when to start looking for a new cook."

&nbs
p; For once, though, the pigs took more interest in Bol's performance than Mr. Gus, who just drank a little more whiskey. Bol yanked his knife out of the side of the wagon and disappeared into the house. The pigs came to Newt to get their ears scratched. Pea Eye slumped against the porch railing — he had begun to snore.

  "Pea, wake up and go to bed," Augustus said, kicking at his leg until he waked him. "Newt and I might forget and leave you out here, and if we done that these critters would eat you, belt buckle and all."

  Pea Eye got up without really opening his eyes and stumbled into the house.

  "They wouldn't really eat him," Newt said. The blue shoat was on the lower step, friendly as a dog.

  "No, but it takes a good threat to get Pea moving," Augustus said.

  Newt saw the Captain coming back, his rifle in the crook of his arm. As always, Newt felt relieved. It eased something inside him to know the Captain was back. It made it easier to sleep. Lodged in his mind somewhere was the worry that maybe some night the Captain wouldn't come back. It wasn't a worry that he would meet with some accident and be killed, either: it was a worry that he might just leave. It seemed to Newt that the Captain was probably tired of them all, and with some justice. He and Pea and Deets did their best to pull their weight, but Mr. Gus never pulled any weight at all, and Bol sat around and drank tequila most of the day. Maybe the Captain would just saddle up the Hell Bitch some night and go.

  Once in a great while Newt dreamed that the Captain not only left, but took him with him, to the high plains that he had heard about but never seen. There was never anyone else in the dreams: just him and the Captain, horseback in a beautiful grassy country. Those were sweet dreams, but just dreams. If the Captain did leave he would probably just take Pea along, since Pea had been his corporal for so many years.