Part 22 (1/2)

”I would have taken her to San Francisco,” Xavier said. ”I would have given her money, bought her clothes.”

”In my opinion the woman made a poor bargain,” Augustus said. ”I seen her not an hour ago, trying to cook over a dern smoky fire. But then we don't look at life like women do, Wanz. They don't always appreciate convenience.”

Xavier shrugged. Gus often talked about women, but he had never listened and didn't intend to start. It wouldn't bring Lorena back, or make him feel less hopeless. It had seemed a miracle, the day she walked in the door, with nothing but her beauty. From the first he had planned to marry her someday. It didn't matter that she was a wh.o.r.e. She had intelligence, and he felt sure her intelligence would one day guide her to him. She would see, in time, how much kinder he was than other men; she would recognize that he treated her better, loved her more.

Yet it hadn't worked. She went with him willingly enough when he requested it, but no more willingly than she went with other men. Then Jake had come and taken her, just taken her, as easily as picking a hat off a rack. Often Xavier had pa.s.sed the boring hours by dreaming of how happy Lorie would be when he made his proposal, offering to free her from whoring and every form of drudgery. But when he offered, she had merely shaken her head, and now his dreams were ruined.

He remembered that when he declared his love her eyes hadn't changed at all-it was as if he had suggested she sweep out the bar. She had only tolerated him to avoid a scene with Jake, and had seemed scarcely aware that he had given her nearly two hundred dollars, four times as much as Gus. It was enough to buy her pa.s.sage to San Francisco. But she had merely taken it and shut the door. It was cruel, love.

”Well, it's too bad you ain't a cowboy,” Augustus said. ”You look like you could use a change of air. Where's Lippy?”

Xavier shrugged. The last thing that would interest him was the whereabouts of Lippy.

Augustus drank a gla.s.s but said no more. He knew he could not talk Xavier out of his depression.

”If Jake gets killed, tell her I will come,” Xavier said-there was always that prospect. After all, he had only met Therese because her first husband had fallen off a roof and broken his neck. A man like Jake, a traveler and a gambler, might meet a violent end at any time.

”I doubt it'll happen,” Augustus said, not wis.h.i.+ng to encourage faint hopes.

When he went out he found Lippy sitting in the wagon with his bowler on his head.

”How'd you get in my wagon?” Augustus asked.

”Jumped off the roof and this is where I landed,” Lippy said. He liked to joke.

”Jump back on the roof then,” Augustus said. ”I'm going to Montana.”

”I'm hiring on,” Lippy said. ”The pianer playin's over around here. Wanz won't feed me and I can't cook. I'll starve to death.”

”It might beat drowning in the Republican River,” Augustus said. Lippy had a little bag packed and sitting between his feet. It was clear he was packed and ready.

”Let's go,” he said.

”Well, we got two Irishmen, I guess we can always use a man with a hole in his stomach,” Augustus said. Lippy had been a fair horseman once. Maybe Call would let him look after the remuda.

As they rode out of town the widow Cole was hanging out her was.h.i.+ng. Hot as the sun was, it seemed to Augustus it would be dry before she got it on the line. She kept a few goats, one of which was nibbling on the rope handle of her laundry basket. She was an imposing woman, and he felt a pang of regret that he and she had not got on better, but the truth was they fell straight into argument even if they only happened to meet in the street. Probably her husband, Joe Cole, had bored her for twenty years, leaving her with a taste for argument. He himself enjoyed argument, but not with a woman who had been bored all her life. It could lead to a strenuous existence.

As they pa.s.sed out of town, Lippy suddenly turned sentimental. Under the blazing sun the town looked white-the only things active in it were the widow and her goats. There were only about ten buildings, hardly enough to make a town, but Lippy got sentimental anyway. He remembered when there had been another saloon, one that kept five Mexican wh.o.r.es. He had gone there often and had great fun in the days before he got the wound in his belly. He had never forgotten the merry wh.o.r.es-they were always sitting on his lap. One of them, a girl named Maria, would sleep with him merely because she liked the way he played the piano. Those had been the years.

At the thought of them his eyes teared up, making his last look at Lonesome Dove a watery one. The dusty street wavered in his vision as if under a heavy rain.

Augustus happened to notice that Lippy was crying, tears running down both sides of his nose into the floppy pocket of his lip. Lippy normally cried when he got drunk, so the sight was nothing new, except that he didn't seem drunk. ”If you're sick you can't go,” he said sternly. ”We don't want no sickly hands.”

”I ain't sick, Gus,” Lippy said, a little embarra.s.sed by his tears. Soon he felt a little better. Lonesome Dove was hidden-he could barely see the top of the little church house across the chaparral flats.

”It's funny, leaving a place, ain't it?” he said. ”You never do know when you'll get back.”

24.

ALTHOUGH HE KNEW they wouldn't leave until the heat of the day was over, Newt felt so excited that he didn't miss sleep and could hardly eat. The Captain had made it final: they were leaving that day. He had told all the hands that they ought to see to their equipment; once they got on the trail, opportunities for repair work might be scarce.

In fact, the advice only mattered to the better-equipped hands: Dish, Jasper, Soupy Jones and Needle Nelson. The Spettle brothers, for example, had no equipment at all, unless you called one pistol with a broken hammer equipment. Newt had scarcely more; his saddle was an old one and he had no slicker and only one blanket for a bedroll. The Irishmen had nothing except what they had been loaned.

Pea seemed to think the only important equipment was his bowie knife, which he spent the whole day sharpening. Deets merely got a needle and some pieces of rawhide and sewed a few rawhide patches on his old quilted pants.

When they saw Mr. Augustus ride up with Lippy, some of the hands thought it might be a joke, but the Captain at once put him in charge of the horses, an action that moved Dish Boggett to scorn.

”Half the remuda will run off once they see him flop that lip,” he said.

Augustus was inspecting the feet of his main horse, a large buckskin he called old Malaria, not a graceful mount but a reliable one.

”It might surprise you, Dish,” he said, ”but Lippy was once a considerable hand. I wouldn't talk if I were you. You may end up with a hole in your own stomach and have to play wh.o.r.ehouse piano for a living.”

”If I do I'll starve,” Dish said. ”I never had the opportunity of piano lessons.”

Once it was clear he was not going to be constantly affronted by the sight of Jake and Lorena, Dish's mood improved a little. Since they were traveling along the same route, an opportunity might yet arise to demonstrate that he was a better man than Jake Spoon. She might need to be saved from a flood or a grizzly bear-grizzly bears were often the subject of discussion around the campfire at night. No one had ever seen one, but all agreed they were almost impossible to kill. Jasper Fant had taken to worrying about them constantly, if only as a change from worrying about drowning.

Jasper's obsession with drowning had begun to oppress them all. He had talked so much about it that Newt had come to feel it would be almost a miracle if someone didn't drown at every river.

”Well, if we see one of them bears, Pea can stick him with that knife he keeps sharpening,” Bert Borum said. ”It ought to be sharp enough to kill a dern elephant by now.”

Pea took the criticism lightly. ”It never hurts to be ready,” he said, quoting an old saying of the Captain's.

Call himself spent the day on the mare, weeding out the weaker stock, both cattle and horses. He worked with Deets. About noon, they were resting under a big mesquite tree. Deets was watching a little Texas bull mount a cow not far away. The little bull hadn't come from Mexico. He had wandered in one morning, unbranded, and had immediately whipped three larger bulls that attempted to challenge him. He was not exactly rainbow-colored, but his hide was mottled to an unusual extent-part brown, part red, part white, and with a touch here and there of yellow and black. He looked a sight, but he was all bull. Much of the night he could be heard baying; the Irishmen had come to hate him, since his baying drowned out their singing.

In fact, none of the cowboys liked him-he would occasionally charge a horse, if his temper was up, and was even worse about men on foot. Once, Needle Nelson had dismounted meaning to idle away a minute or two relieving himself, and the little bull had charged him so abruptly that Needle had had to hop back on his horse while still p.i.s.sing. All the hands had a fine laugh at his expense. Needle had been so angered that he wanted to rope and cut the bull, but Call intervened. Call thought the bull well made though certainly a peculiar mix of colors, and wanted to keep him.

”Let him be,” he said. ”We'll need some bulls in Montana.”

Augustus had been highly amused. ”Good G.o.d, Call,” he said. ”You mean you want to fill this paradise we're going to with animals that look like that?”

”He ain't bad-looking if you don't count his color,” Call said.

”Be d.a.m.ned to his color and his disposition too,” Needle said. He knew he would be a long time living down having to mount his horse with his dingus flopping.

”Well, I reckon it's time to go,” Call said to Deets. ”We'll never get there if we don't start.”

Deets was not so sure they would get there anyway, but he kept his doubts to himself. The Captain usually managed to do what he meant to do.

”I want you to be the scout,” the Captain said. ”We got plenty of men to keep the stock moving. I want you to find us water and a good bed ground every night.”

Deets nodded modestly, but inside he felt proud. Being made scout was more of an honor than having your name on a sign. It was proof that the Captain thought highly of his abilities.

When they got back to the wagon Augustus was oiling his guns. Lippy fanned himself with his bowler, and most of the other hands were just sitting around wis.h.i.+ng it was cooler.