Lonesome Dove, Page 33

  The Rainey boys were sleeping under the wagon. Both had dropped like rocks once they dismounted, oblivious to wet clothes and too tired to be interested in food. The Raineys liked their sleep, whereas the Spettles could do without it. They seemed unaffected by the strenuous night — they sat apart, as silent as always.

  "I wish they'd talk, so we'd know what they were thinking," Sean said. The silent Spettles made him nervous.

  Call was annoyed with Gus, who had still not returned. Pea had reported seeing him just after dawn, riding east in evident health. Call noticed the Texas bull, standing about fifty yards away. He was watching the two pigs, who were rooting around a chaparral bush. Probably they were trying to root out a ground squirrel, or perhaps a rattlesnake. The bull took a few steps toward them, but the pigs ignored him.

  Needle Nelson was scared of the bull. The minute he noticed him he went to get his rifle out of his saddle scabbard. "If he comes at me, I aim to shoot him," Needle said. "He'll never live to cross the Yellowstone unless he leaves me be."

  Lippy, too, disliked the bull, and climbed up on the wagon when he saw how close the bull was.

  "He won't charge the camp," Call said — though in fact he was not so sure the bull wouldn't.

  "Why, he charged Needle," Jasper said. "Needle had to get going so fast he near forgot his dingus."

  At that there was a general laugh, though Needle Nelson didn't join in. He kept his rifle propped against a wagon wheel while he was eating.

  The bull continued to watch the pigs.

  34

  AS SOON AS THE SUN got high enough to be warm, Lorena spread their gear on trees and bushes to dry. It seemed astonishing to her that she was alive and unhurt after such a night. Her spirits rose rapidly and she was even reconciled to having to ride the pack mule. But Jake wouldn't hear of that. His own spirits were low.

  "I hate to squish every move I make," he said. "It ain't supposed to get this wet in these parts."

  Now that the scare was over, Lorena found that she didn't mind that things were damp. It beat being hot, in her book. The only awkward part was that the few foodstuffs they had brought had been soaked. The flour was ruined, the salt a lump. At least the bacon and coffee weren't ruined, and they had a little of each before Jake rode off to look for her horse.

  Once he left, she went down to the river to wash the mud off her legs. Then, since the sun was already hot, she found a grassy place that wasn't too wet and lay down to have a nap. Looking up at the sky, her spirits rose even more. The sky was perfectly clear and blue, only whitened with sun over to the east. Being outside felt good — she had spent too much time in little hot rooms, looking at ceilings.

  While she was resting, who should come riding up with her mare but Gus.

  "I hope there's still some coffee in the pot," he said, when he dismounted. "I've usually had ten biscuits by this time of day, not to mention some honey and a few eggs. Got any eggs, Lorie?"

  "No, but we got bacon," she said. "I'll fry you some."

  Augustus looked around with amusement at the muddy camp.

  "I don't see young Jake," he said. "Is he off preaching a sermon, or did he wash away?"

  "He went to look for the horse, only I guess he went in the wrong direction," Lorie said.

  Augustus took out his big clasp knife and cut the bacon for her. For a woman who had spent the night being drenched she looked wonderfully fresh, young and beautiful. Her hair was not yet dry; the wet ends were dark. Occasionally a little line of water ran down her bare arm. Bending over the fire, her face was relaxed in a way he had never seen it. The strain that always showed in Lonesome Dove — the strain of always holding herself apart — had disappeared, making her look girlish.

  "Why, Lorie," he said, "I guess traveling agrees with you. You look pretty as the morning."

  Lorena smiled. It was funny. Out in the open she felt more at ease with Gus than she had in the saloon.

  "How long has Jake been gone?" he asked.

  "Not long," she said. "He rode down the river, looking for tracks."

  Augustus laughed. "Why, Jake couldn't track an elephant if he was more than ten steps behind it," he said. "I guess we ought to call him back before he gets lost."

  He drew his pistol and fired a couple of shots into the air.

  A few minutes later, as he was finishing the bacon, Jake came galloping into camp, rifle in hand. Lorena was going around from bush to bush, collecting the clothes, which the hot sun had already dried.

  "Gus, I didn't know we was gonna have to have you for breakfast every day of the whole trip," Jake said.

  "You was never grateful for nothing, Jake," Augustus said. "Here I returned a fifty-dollar horse that you couldn't have found in a week, and all you can do is gripe about my company."

  "Well, there's such a thing as too much of your dern company," Jake said, looking to see if Lorie was out of hearing.

  "Are you jealous, or what?" Augustus asked.

  "Why wouldn't I be, when you've tried to poke every woman I ever looked at?" Jake said.

  "Whoa, now," Augustus said. "I'm just eating my bite of bacon. But I will say you should have brought a tent if you mean to take a sprightly girl like Lorie out in the weather."

  Jake didn't intend to spend any time bantering about women with Gus. It was good they had the horse back, of course. "I reckon we'll pack up and move on to San Antonio," he said, just as Lorena came back with an armful of dry clothes.

  "I don't want to go to San Antone," she said. "I been there."

  Jake was taken aback. "Why, it's a good gambling town," he said. "We ain't rich yet. It wouldn't hurt us to stop for a week, while the boys get the herd started good. Then we can catch up."

  "I don't like to go back to places," Lorena said. "It's bad luck."

  "Yes, and it would be worse luck to get up the trail and run out of money."

  "That's all right, Jake," Augustus said, flinging the dregs of his coffee into a chaparral bush. "I'll be glad to keep tabs on Lorie while you run into town and lose your wad."

  "What makes you think I'd lose it?" Jake said, his face darkening.

  "You'd lose it if I was around," Augustus said, "and if I wasn't handy, you'd probably get in a scrape and shoot another dentist. Besides, if anybody with a badge on is trying to hunt you up, I'd think the first place they'd look is San Antonio."

  "If anybody with a badge on comes looking for me he's apt to find more of me than he wants," Jake said. "Let's get packed, Lorie. We might make town tomorrow, if we push on."

  "I don't want to go to San Antonio," Lorena said again. She knew Jake hated to be contradicted, but she didn't much care.

  Before she could think, he whipped around and slapped her — not hard, but it was a slap.

  "Dern it all, I guess you'll go where I say go," he said, his face red with anger.

  Lorena felt embarrassed to have been hit in front of Gus, but he seemed uninterested in what she and Jake did. Of course he was just being polite — what else could he do?

  She remembered all the money Xavier had pressed on her. It was lucky she had it.

  She looked at Augustus again and saw that he was quietly watching, waiting to see how she would handle Jake, who was glaring at her, expecting her to cry, probably. But it had taken all the fury of the storm to make her cry; a little pop from him was just something to be ignored. She turned her back on him and walked off to start the packing.

  In a minute Jake cooled down sufficiently to come over and squat by the fire. "I don't know what's wrong with Lorie," he said. "She's getting touchy."

  Augustus chuckled. "You're the one that's touchy," he said. "She didn't slap you."

  "Well, by God, why would she buck me?" Jake asked. "I'm the one that decides where we go and when we stop."

  "You may be and you may not be," Augustus said. "Maybe it ain't that simple."

  "It'll be that simple or she'll have soon seen the last of me," Jake said.

  "I doubt she'll miss you, J
ake," Augustus said. "You got your charms but then I got my charms too. I'll come and make camp with her if you decide you've had enough of her sass. I ain't violent like you, neither."

  "I didn't hurt her," Jake said. He felt a little guilty about the slap — it had upset him to ride in and see her sitting there with Gus, and then she bucked him. Gus always managed to aggravate whatever situation he was in with a woman.

  "I've got to go," Augustus said. "Captain Call will be mad as a hornet if I don't get back. Much obliged for the breakfast."

  "That's two you owe us," Jake said. "I hope you'll ride into town and buy us a feed when you're up that way."

  "Why, the two of you won't be in town," Augustus said. He trotted down to where Lorena was quietly packing the mule..

  "Don't forget to hobble that mare," he said. "I guess she ain't as tired of Lonesome Dove as we are. She was on her way home when I came across her."

  "I'll hobble her," Lorena said. She gave Gus a grin — Jake's little flare-up had not affected her good spirits.

  "If you get any prettier you won't be safe around me," Augustus said. "I might be forced to cut the cards with you again."

  "No, I told you we're gonna play a hand next time," Lorena said. "It'll give me a better chance."

  "You look out for yourself," Augustus said. "If that scamp runs off and leaves you, why, come and get me. You can find us by the dust."

  "He won't leave," Lorena said. "He'll be fine."

  She watched Gus swim the muddy river. He waved from the other bank and soon disappeared into the brush. She went on packing. Soon Jake couldn't stand it and walked over.

  "You oughtn't to provoke me like that," he said, looking a little hangdog. He tried putting his hands on her, but Lorena shrugged them off and went to the other side of the pack mule.

  "I wasn't provoking you," she said. "I just said I wasn't going back to San Antone."

  "Dern it, I'd like to gamble a little somewhere between here and Denver," Jake said.

  "Go gamble," she said. "I never said you couldn't. I'll stay in camp."

  "Oh, no doubt you've made arrangements with Gus," Jake said. "I guess he's planning to come over and teach you card tricks," he said bitterly, and turned on his heel.

  Lorena didn't mind. It was too pretty a day. The fact that Gus had found her horse was a good sign. She felt like riding, even though the country was brushy. She felt like a lope, in fact. Jake could sulk if he wanted to. She was looking forward to the trip.

  35

  THE DAY SOON GREW HOT, and the cattle, tired from their all-night walk, were sluggish and difficult to move. Call had to put half the crew on the drags to keep them going. Still, he was determined to get across the Nueces, for Deets had said he expected it to storm again that night.

  There was no avoiding the brush entirely, but Deets had found a route that took them slightly downriver, around the worst of the thickets. As they got close to the river they began to encounter swarms of mosquitoes, which attacked horses and men alike, settling on them so thickly that they could be wiped off like stains. All the men covered their faces as best they could, and the few who had gloves put them on. The horses were soon flinching, stamping and swishing their tails, their withers covered with mosquitoes. The cattle were restive too, mosquitoes around their eyes and in their nostrils.

  Newt was soon so covered with blood from mashed mosquitoes that he looked as if he had been wounded in battle. Sean, who rode near him, was no better. Any inconvenience made Sean think of home, and the mosquitoes were a big inconvenience.

  "I'd like to be going to Ireland," he told Newt. "If I only knew where the boats were, I'd be going." His face was lumpy from mosquito bites.

  "I guess we'll drown the skeeters when we hit the river," Newt said. It was the only thing that promised relief. He had been dreading the river, but that was before the mosquitoes hit.

  To make matters worse, one particular red cow had begun to irritate him almost beyond endurance. She had developed a genius for wiggling into thickets and just stopping. Shouting made no impression on her at all — she would stand in the thicket looking at him, well aware that she was safe. Once Newt dismounted, planning to scare her on foot, but she lowered her head menacingly and he abandoned that idea.

  Time and again she hid in a thicket, and time and again, after shouting himself hoarse, he would give up and force his horse into the thicket after her. The cow would bolt out, popping limbs with her horns, and run as if she meant to lead the herd. But when the next thicket appeared, she would wiggle right in. She was so much trouble that he was sorely tempted to leave her — it seemed to him the boys were driving the herd and he was just driving the one red cow.

  Once the mosquitoes hit, the cow's dilatoriness became almost more than Newt could endure. The cow would stand in a thicket and look at him silently and stupidly, moving only when she had to and stopping again as soon as she could find a convenient thicket. Newt fought down a terrible urge just to pull his gun and shoot her — that would show the hussy! Nothing less was going to make any impression on her — he had never felt so provoked by a single animal before. But he couldn't shoot her and he couldn't leave her; the Captain wouldn't approve of either action. He had already shouted himself hoarse. All he could do was pop her out of thicket after thicket.

  Call had taken the precaution of buying a lead steer from the Pumphreys — a big, docile longhorn they called Old Dog. The steer had never been to Montana, of course, but he had led several herds to Matagorda Bay. Call figured the old steer would at least last until they had the herd well trail-broken.

  "Old Dog's like me," Augustus said, watching Dish Boggett edge the old steer to the front of the herd in preparation for the crossing.

  "How's that?" Call asked. "Lazy, you mean?"

  "Mature, I mean," Augustus said. "He don't get excited about little things."

  "You don't get excited about nothing," Call said. "Not unless it's biscuits or whores. So what was Jake up to?" he asked. It rankled him that the man was being so little help. Jake had done many irritating things in his rangering days, but nothing as aggravating as bringing a whore along on a cattle drive.

  "Jake was up to being Jake," Augustus said. "It's a full-time job. He requires a woman to help him with it."

  Dish had gradually eased Old Dog to the front of the herd, working slowly and quietly. The old steer was twice as big as most of the scrawny yearlings that made up the herd. His horns were long and they bent irregularly, as if they were jointed.

  Just before the men reached the river they came out into a clearing a mile or more wide. It was a relief, after the constant battle with the mesquite and chaparral. The grass was tall. Call loped through it with Deets, to look at the crossing. Dish trotted over to Augustus on the trim sorrel he called Mustache, a fine cow horse whose eyes were always watching to see that no rebellious cow tried to make a break for freedom. Dish uncoiled his rope and made a few practice throws at a low mesquite seedling. Then he even took a throw, for a joke, at a low-flying buzzard that had just risen off the carcass of an armadillo.

  "I guess you're practicing up so you can rope a woman, if we make it to Ogallala," Augustus said.

  "You don't have to rope women in that town, I hear," Dish said. "They rope you."

  "It's a long way to Nebrasky," Augustus said. "You'll be ready to be roped by then, Dish."

  "Where'd you go for half the morning?" Dish asked. He was hoping Gus would talk a little about Lorena, though part of him didn't want to hear it, since it would involve Jake Spoon.

  "Oh, Miss Lorena and I like to take our coffee together in the morning," Augustus said.

  "I hope the weather didn't treat her too bad," Dish said, feeling wistful suddenly. He could think of nothing pleasanter than taking coffee with Lorena in the morning.

  "No, she's fine," Augustus said. "The fresh air agrees with her, I guess."

  Dish said no more, and Augustus decided not to tease him. Occasionally the very youngness of the youn
g moved him to charity — they had no sense of the swiftness of life, nor of its limits. The years would pass like weeks, and loves would pass too, or else grow sour. Young Dish, skilled cowhand that he was, might not live to see the whores of Ogallala, and the tender feelings he harbored for Lorena might be the sweetest he would ever have.

  Looking at Dish, so tight with his need for Lorena, whom he would probably never have, Augustus remembered his own love for Clara Allen — it had pained him and pleased him at once. As a young woman Clara had such grace that just looking at her could choke a man; then, she was always laughing, though her life had not been the easiest. Despite her cheerful eyes, Clara was prone to sudden angers, and sadnesses so deep that nothing he could say or do would prompt her to answer him, or even to look at him. When she left to marry her horse trader, he felt that he had missed the great opportunity of his life; for all their fun together he had not quite been able to touch her, either in her happiness or her sadness. It wasn't because of his wife, either — it was because Clara had chosen the angle of their relation. She loved him in certain ways, wanted him for certain purposes, and all his straining, his tricks, his looks and his experience could not induce her to alter the angle.

  The day she told him she was going to marry the horse trader from Kentucky, he had been too stunned to say much. She just told him plainly, with no fuss: Bob was the kind of man she needed, and that was that. He could remember the moment still: they had been standing in front of her little store, in Austin, and she had taken his hand and held it for a time.

  "Well, Clara," he said, feeling very lame, "I think you are a fool but I wish you happiness. I guess I'll see you from time to time."

  "You won't if I can help it, Gus," she said. "You leave me be for the next ten years or so. Then come and visit."

  "Why ten years?" he asked, puzzled.

  Clara grinned — her humor never rested for long. "Why, I'll be a wife," she said. "I won't be wanting to be tempted by the likes of you. But once I've got the hang of married life I'll want you to come."