Lonesome Dove, Page 45

  The cattle were still running. He could feel the earth shake and hear the drumming of their hooves, though they weren't close. Probably the boys had managed to get them circling.

  Newt finally got his breath back and stopped crying, but he didn't get up because there was no reason to. He felt a terrible anger at Mouse for having run off and put him in such a position. If Mouse had suddenly walked up, Newt felt he would cheerfully have shot him.

  But Mouse didn't walk up. Newt heard a few shots, quite a ways to the north — just the boys, firing to turn the herd. Then the drumming got fainter and finally stopped. Newt knew the run was over. He sat where he was, wondering why, of all people, he had to be so unlucky. Then he noticed that it was beginning to get light. He must have slept most of the night over by Lorena's camp.

  He got up and trudged through the faint light back toward the wagon, and had not walked a quarter of a mile before he heard a loping horse and turned to see Pea clipping along a ridge, right toward him. Though caught afoot, Newt still felt a certain relief. Pea was his friend, and wouldn't judge him as harshly as the others would.

  Even in the cool morning Pea's horse was white with sweat, so it had been a hard run.

  "Dern, you're alive after all," Pea said. "I figured you was. The Captain's about to have a fit. He decided you got trampled, and he and Gus are having at it because Gus was the one sent you off."

  "Why did he think I got trampled?" Newt asked.

  "Because your horse was mixed in with the cattle when we finally got 'em turned," Pea said. "They all think you're a dead hero. Maybe I'll get to be a hero when I tell 'em I found you."

  Newt climbed upon Pea's weary horse, almost too tired to care that his reputation had been saved.

  "What'd he do, jump over a bush and throw you?" Pea asked. "I was always skittish about them small horses — they can get out from under you too quick."

  "He'll play hell doing it again," Newt said, feeling very angry at Mouse. He ordinarily wouldn't have spoken so strongly in the presence of Pea, or any adult, but his feelings were ragged. Somehow Pea's explanation of what had happened made more sense than the truths — so much so that Newt began to half believe it himself. Being thrown was not particularly admirable, but it happened to all cowboys sooner or later, and it was a lot easier to admit to than what had actually occurred.

  As they trotted over a ridge, Newt could see the herd about a mile away. It seemed curious that the Captain would get upset at the thought that he had been trampled — if he had let himself get thrown he deserved to be trampled — but he was too sleepy to care what anybody thought.

  "Looky there," Pea said. "I reckon that's the new cook."

  Newt had let his eyelids fall. It was not easy to get them up again, even to see the new cook. He was so sleepy things looked blurred when he did open his eyes. Then he saw a donkey with a pack on its back, walking slowly along.

  "I didn't know a donkey could cook," he said irritably, annoyed that Pea would josh him when he was so tired.

  "No, the cook's over there," Pea said. "He's got a fair lead on the donkey."

  Sure enough, a short man was walking through the grass some fifty yards ahead of the donkey. He was traveling slow: it was just that his donkey was traveling slower. The man wore a sombrero with a hole in the top.

  "I guess the Captain found us another old bandit," Pea said. "He ain't much taller than a rock."

  It was true that the new cook was very short. He was also very stout-looking. He carried a rifle casually over one shoulder, holding it by the barrel. When he heard them riding up he stopped and whistled at the donkey, but the donkey paid no attention.

  Newt saw that the new cook was old. His brown face was nothing but wrinkles. When they rode up he stopped and courteously took off his sombrero, and his short hair was white. But his eyes were friendly.

  "Howdy," Pea said. "We're with the Hat Creek outfit. Are you the new cook?"

  "I am Po Campo," the man said.

  "If you was to spur up that donkey you'd get there a lot quicker," Pea said. "We're all practically starved."

  Po Campo smiled at Newt.

  "If I tried to ride that donkey it would stop and I'd never get there at all," Po said. "Besides, I don't ride animals."

  "Why not?" Pea asked, amazed.

  "It's not civilized," the old man said. "We're animals too. How would you like it if somebody rode you?"

  Such a question was too much for Pea. He didn't consider himself an animal, and in his whole life had never given one minute's thought to the possibility of being ridden.

  "You mean you just walk everywhere?" Newt asked. The notion of a man who didn't ride horses was almost too strange to be believed. It was particularly strange that such a man was coming to cook for a crew of cowboys, some of whom hated to dismount even to eat.

  Po Campo smiled. "It's a good country to walk in," he said.

  "We got to hurry," Pea said, a little alarmed to be having such a conversation.

  "Get down and walk with me, young man," Po Campo said. "We might see some interesting things if we keep our eyes open. You can help me gather breakfast."

  "You'll likely see the Captain, if you don't speed along a little faster," Pea said. "The Captain don't like to wait on breakfast."

  Newt slid off the horse. It was a surprise to Pea and even a little bit of a surprise to himself, but he did it anyway. The wagon was only two or three hundred yards away. It wouldn't take long to walk it, but it would postpone for a few minutes having to explain why he had lost his horse.

  "I'll just walk on in with him," he said to Pea.

  "By God, if this keeps up I guess we'll all be afoot before long," Pea said. "I'll just lope on over and tell the Captain neither one of you is dead."

  He started to leave and then looked down at Po Campo.

  "Do you use a lot of pepper in your cooking?" he asked.

  "As much as I can find," Po Campo said.

  "Well, that's all right, we're used to it," Pea said.

  To Newt's surprise, Po Campo put a friendly hand on his shoulder. He almost flinched, for it was rare for anyone to touch him in friendship. If he got touched it was usually in a wrestling match with one of the Raineys.

  "I like to walk slow," Po Campo said. "If I walk too fast I might miss something."

  "There ain't much to miss around here," Newt said. "Just grass."

  "But grass is interesting," the old man said. "It's like my serape, only it's the earth it covers. It covers everything and one day it will cover me."

  Though the old man spoke cheerfully, the words made Newt sad. He remembered Sean O'Brien. He wondered if the grass had covered Sean yet. He hoped it had — he had not been able to rid himself of the memory of the muddy grave they had put Sean in, back by the Nueces.

  "How many men in this outfit?" Po Campo asked.

  Newt tried to count in his head, but his brain was tired and he knew he was missing a few hands.

  "There's a bunch of us," he said. "More than ten."

  "Have you got molasses?" Po Campo asked.

  "There's a barrel in the wagon but we ain't used it yet," Newt said. "Might be saving it for Christmas."

  "Maybe I'll fry up some grasshoppers tonight," Po Campo said. "Grasshoppers make good eating if you fry them crisp and dip them in a little molasses."

  Newt burst out laughing at the thought of anyone eating a grasshopper. Po Campo was evidently a joker.

  "What's your donkey's name?" he asked, feeling a little fresher for having had his laugh.

  "I call her Maria after my sister," Po Campo said. "My sister was slow too."

  "Do you really cook grasshoppers?" Newt asked.

  "When I can get them," Po Campo said. "The old ones taste better than the young ones. It isn't that way with animals, but it is with grasshoppers. The old ones are brittle, like old men. They are easy to get crisp."

  "I doubt you'll get anybody to eat one," Newt said, beginning to believe Po Campo was serious. After al
l the trouble there had been over snakes in the stew, it was hard to imagine what would happen if Po Campo fried up some grasshoppers.

  Newt liked the old man and didn't want him to get off on the wrong foot with the crew, which, after all, was a touchy crew.

  "Maybe you oughta just cook some beef," he suggested. "That's what we're mostly used to."

  Po Campo chuckled again. "Worms make good butter, you know," he said. "Slugs particularly."

  Newt didn't know what to say to that. It occurred to him that the Captain might have been a little hasty when he hired the cook. Po Campo was even friendlier than Bol, but still, a man who thought you could dip grasshoppers in molasses and use worms for butter was not likely to become popular with a finicky eater like Jasper Fant, who liked his beef straight.

  "Mr. Gus used to make the biscuits, but he had to leave his ovens behind," Newt said. He was hungry, and the memory of how good Mr. Gus's biscuits had tasted when they lived in Lonesome Dove came over him so strongly that for a second he felt faint.

  Po Campo looked at Newt quickly and hitched up his pants. "I'll make you something better than biscuits," he said, but he didn't mention what it might be.

  "I hope it ain't worms," Newt said.

  48

  "YOU THINK that Indian's around here somewhere?" Call asked.

  "How would I know?" Augustus said. "He didn't inform me of his business. He just said he'd cut our balls off if we come north of the Canadian."

  "I'd like to know why these cattle ran," Call said. "It was a still night and we had 'em bedded down."

  "Cattle don't just run in the rain," Augustus said. "They can run on still nights too."

  "I don't like it that Deets lost the man's track," Call said. "A man that Deets can't track is a slippery man."

  "Hell," Augustus said. "Deets is just rusty. You're rusty too. The two of you have lost your skills. Running a livery stable don't prepare you for tracking Comancheros."

  "I suppose you ain't rusty, though," Call said.

  "My main skills are talking and cooking biscuits," Augustus said. "And getting drunk on the porch. I've probably slipped a little on the biscuits in the last few days, and I've lost the porch, but I can still talk with the best of them."

  "Or the worst," Call said.

  They were standing by the wagon, hoping the new cook would come in time to cook breakfast. Pea Eye loped up and unfolded himself in the direction of the ground.

  "Your getting off a horse reminds me of an old crane landing in a mud puddle," Augustus said.

  Pea ignored the remark — it was necessary to ignore most of those Gus made or else you got bogged down in useless conversation.

  "Well, Newt's alive," he said. "He got throwed off, is all."

  "Why didn't you bring him?" Call asked, relieved.

  "We met the cook and he wanted company," Pea said. "The cook claims he don't ride on animals, so they're walking. There they come now."

  Sure enough, they could see the boy and the old man a couple of hundred yards away. They were moving in the general direction of the camp, but not rapidly.

  "If the cook's as slow as Newt, they won't be here till next week," Gus said.

  "What are they doing?" Call asked. They were certainly doing something. Instead of simply coming to camp they were walking around in circles, as if looking for lost objects.

  "The cook's got a donkey, only he don't ride it," Pea Eye remarked. "He says it ain't civilized to ride animals."

  "Why, the man's a philosopher," Augustus said.

  "That's right — I just hired him to talk to you," Call said. "It would free the rest of us so maybe we could work."

  A few minutes later Newt and Po Campo walked up to the wagon, trailed at a good distance by the donkey. It turned out they had been gathering bird's eggs. They were carrying them in the old man's serape, which they had stretched between them, like a hammock.

  "Buenos dias," Po Campo said to the group at large. "If that donkey ever gets here we'll have breakfast."

  "Why can't we have it now?" Augustus asked. "You're here and I see you brought the eggs."

  "Yes, but I need my skillet," Po Campo said. "I'm glad I spotted those plovers. It's not every day I find this many plover's eggs."

  "It's not every day I eat them," Augustus said. "What'd you say your name was?"

  "Po Campo," the old man said. "I like this boy here. He helped me gather these eggs, although he's bunged up from gettin' throwed."

  "Well, I'm Augustus McCrae," Augustus said. "You'll have to do the best you can with this rough old crew."

  Po Campo whistled at his donkey. "Plover's eggs are better than quail's eggs," he said. "More taste, although quail's eggs aren't bad if you boil them and let them cool."

  He went around the camp shaking hands with each man in turn. By the time he had finished meeting the crew the donkey had arrived, and in a remarkably short time Po Campo had unpacked a huge skillet, made himself a little grill with a couple of branding irons laid across two chunks of firewood, and had scrambled up sixty or seventy plover's eggs. He sprinkled in a few spices from his pack and cooked the eggs until they could be cut in slices, like an egg pie. After sampling his own wares and grunting cryptically, he gave each man a slice. Some, like Jasper, were reluctant to sample such exotic fare, but once they had eaten a bite or two their reluctance disappeared.

  "Dern, this is the best bird-egg pie I ever tasted," Jasper admitted. "It's better than hen's eggs."

  "Don't you even know an omelet when you see one, Jasper?" Augustus said. He was miffed to see the new cook become a hero in five minutes, whereas he had cooked excellent biscuits for years and drawn little praise.

  "It's just a plain omelet, made from plover's eggs," he added, for emphasis. "I could have scrambled one up if I'd known you boys had a taste for such things."

  "Tonight I intend to fry some grasshoppers," Po Campo remarked. He was watching the two blue pigs — they in their turn were watching him. They had come out from under the wagon in order to eat the eggshells.

  "If you're thinking of them pigs, don't bother," Augustus said. "If they want grasshoppers, let them catch their own. They're quick as rabbits."

  "No, I am going to fry some for Newt," Po Campo said. "He claims he has never eaten a good fried grasshopper dipped in molasses. It makes a good dessert if you fry them crisp."

  The crew burst out laughing at the thought of eating grasshoppers. Po Campo chuckled too. He had already dismantled his little grill and was scouring the frying pan with a handful of weeds.

  Call felt relieved. It was easy to see Po Campo had a way with men. Everyone looked happy except Gus, who was in a sulk because he had been outcooked. Gus always liked to be the best at whatever there was to do.

  "I liked that bird's-egg pie but I draw the line at eating insects," Jasper said.

  "I wish I had some sweet potatoes," Augustus said. "I'd show you girls how to make a pie."

  "I hear you cook good biscuits," Po Campo said, smiling at him.

  "That's right," Augustus said. "There's an art to biscuit making, and I learned it."

  "My wife was good at it too," Po Campo remarked. "I liked her biscuits. She never burned them on the bottom."

  "Where's she live, Mexico?" Augustus asked, curious as to where the short old man had come from.

  "No, she lives in hell, where I sent her," Po Campo said quietly, startling everyone within hearing. "Her behavior was terrible, but she made good biscuits."

  There was a moment of silence, the men trying to decide if they were supposed to believe what they had just heard.

  "Well, if that's where she is, I expect we'll all get to eat her biscuits, one of these days," Augustus said. Even he was a little startled. He had known men who had killed their wives, but none so cool about admitting it as Po Campo.

  "That's why I hope I go to heaven," Po Campo said. "I don't want nothing more to do with that woman."

  "This here ain't Montana," Call said. "Let's start the cattle
."

  * * *

  That night, true to his word, Po Campo fried some grasshoppers. Before he got around to it he fed the crew a normal meal of beefsteak and beans and even conjured up a stew whose ingredients were mysterious but which all agreed was excellent. Allen O'Brien thought it was better than excellent — it changed his whole outlook on life, and he pressed Po Campo to tell him what was in it.

  "You saw me gathering it," Po Campo said. "You should have watched better."

  True to his principles, he had refused to ride the donkey or climb up on the wagon seat beside Lippy. "I better walk," he said. "I might miss something."

  "Might miss getting snakebit," Lippy said. Since the incident on the Nueces he had developed such a terror of snakes that he slept in the wagon and even stood on the wagon seat to urinate.

  Po Campo had walked all day, a hundred yards or so west of the herd, trailing two sacks he had tucked in his belt. Now and then he would put something in one of them, but nobody saw what unless it was the pigs, who trailed the old man closely. All that could be said was that his stew was wonderfully flavorsome. Deets ate so many helpings that he grew embarrassed about his appetite.

  It was Deets who first got up his nerve to sample the fried grasshoppers. Since the new cook had the crew in such a good mood, Call allowed him to use a little of the molasses they were saving for special occasions. Just having someone who could cook decently was a special occasion, though, like the men, he put no stock in eating grasshoppers.

  But Po Campo had caught a big sackful, and when his grease was hot he sprinkled them into it five or six at a time. When he judged they were done he used the tip of a big knife to flick them out onto a piece of cheesecloth. Soon he had forty or fifty fried, and no one rushing to eat them.

  "Eat them," he said. "They're better than potatoes."

  "May be, but they don't look like potatoes," Allen O'Brien said. "They look like bugs."

  "Dish, you're a top hand, you ought to take the first helping," Augustus said. "None of us would want to cut you out of your turn."