The Lonesome Dove Chronicles (1-4)

by Larry McMurtry

  Clara saw at once that he had sustained some blow. When she saw him come back without even the mail, it had been on her tongue to say something about his poor memory. She and the girls hungered for the magazines and catalogues that came in the mail, and it was a disappointment to have someone ride right past the post office and not pick them up. But July looked so low that she refrained from speaking. At the supper table she tried several times to get a word or two out of him, but he just sat there, scarcely even touching his food. He had been ravenous since coming off the plains—so whatever the blow was, it was serious.

  She knew he was a man who was grateful for any kindness; she had shown him several, and she showed him another by holding her tongue and giving him time to get past whatever had happened in town. But there was something about his silent, sunken manner that irritated her.

  “Everything’s gloomy,” Betsey said. Betsey was quick to pick up moods.

  “Yep,” Clara said. She was holding the baby, who was babbling and gumming his fist.

  “It’s a good thing we got Martin here,” she said. “He’s the only man we got who can still talk.”

  “He don’t talk,” Sally said. “That ain’t talk.”

  “Well, it’s sound, at least,” Clara said.

  “I think you’re mean,” Sally said. She was quick to attack mother and sister alike. “Daddy’s sick, or he’d talk.”

  “All right,” Clara said. “I’ll take that back.” In fact, she could remember a thousand meals when Bob hadn’t said a word.

  “I think you’re mean,” Sally repeated, not satisfied.

  “Yes, and you’re my equal,” Clara said, looking at her daughter.

  July realized it all had something to do with him, but he couldn’t get his mind on it. He carried his plate to the sink and thanked Clara for the meal. Then he went out on the front porch, glad it was a dark night. He felt he would cry. It was puzzling; he didn’t know what to do. He had never heard of a wife doing any of the things Elmira had done. He sat on the steps of the porch, sadder and more bewildered than he had been even on the night when he got back to the river and discovered the three bodies. There was nothing to do about death, but Elmira was alive. He had to do something—he just didn’t know what.

  The girls came out and chattered behind him for a while, but he paid them no mind. He had a headache and thought he ought to lie down, except that lying down usually made his headaches worse.

  Clara came out, still holding the baby, and sat in a rocker. “You seem to be feeling poorly, Mister Johnson,” she said.

  “Just call me July,” he said.

  “I’ll be happy to,” she said. “You can drop the Mrs., too. I think we know one another well enough for first names now.”

  July didn’t think he knew her very well, but he didn’t say it. He didn’t think he knew any woman.

  “I need to ask you a favor,” she said. “Could you help me turn my husband, or are you feeling too poorly?”

  He would help her, of course. Several times he had helped her with her husband. The man had lost so much weight that July could simply lift him while Clara changed the bedding. The first time it bothered him a good deal, for the man never closed his eyes. That night he worried about what the man might think—another man coming in with his wife. Clara was businesslike about it, telling him what to do when he was slow. July wondered if the man was listening, and what he was thinking, in case he was.

  Clara handed him a lantern and they went inside. She left the baby with the girls for a minute. Clara stopped at the door of her bedroom and listened before going in.

  “Every time I come I expect he’ll have stopped breathing,” she said. “I always stop and listen.”

  The man was breathing, though. July lifted him and Clara removed the sheets.

  “Dern it, I forgot the water,” she said, going to the door. “Sally, bring up the bucket,” she yelled, and in a little while the girl appeared with it.

  “Betsey’s going to let the baby fall off the bed,” she said. “She don’t know how to hold it.”

  “Well, she better learn,” Clara said. “You girls quit fighting over that baby.”

  July felt embarrassed, holding the sick, naked man while his wife sponged him with warm water. It seemed very improper to him. Clara seemed to understand how he felt and made the bed quickly.

  “It’s just nurse work, Mister Johnson,” she said. “I tried keeping clothes on him, but it’s no good. The poor man can’t control himself.”

  She stopped and looked at him. “I forgot I was supposed to call you July,” she said.

  July felt that his head would burst. He didn’t care what she called him. It hurt so that he could hardly walk straight on the stairs. He bumped into the door at the foot of the stairs. Above them, the baby was squalling.

  Clara was about to go and see to the baby, but when she saw July stumble into the door she changed her mind. He went back out on the porch and sank on the steps, as if at the end of his strength. Clara reached down and put her palm against his forehead, which caused him to jump as if he had been struck.

  “My goodness, you’re shy as a colt,” she said. “I thought you might be feverish, but you ain’t.”

  “It’s just my head,” he said.

  “You need a cool rag, then,” she said.

  She went back into the house and got a rag and a little water. She made him let her bathe his forehead and temples. He had to admit the cool water felt good.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Oh, you don’t have to thank me for a washrag,” Clara said. “I’m not much of a nurse. It’s one of my failings. I’m too impatient. I’ll give a person a week or two, and then if they don’t improve I’d just about as soon they’d die.”

  “Not children,” she added, a little later. “I ain’t that harsh with children. I’d rather have them sick five years than to lose one. It’s just my observation that nursing don’t do that much good. People get well if they’re able, or else they die.”

  They were silent for several minutes.

  “Did you find your wife?” Clara asked. “It ain’t my business, I know, but I’ll ask you anyway.”

  “Yes,” July said. “She was at the doctor’s.”

  “She must not have been very glad to see you,” Clara said.

  July wished she would leave him alone. She had taken him in and fed him, saved his wife and cared for his child, and yet he did wish she would just leave him alone. He felt so weak himself that if he hadn’t been braced against the porch railing he might have rolled off the steps. He had nothing to say and nothing to offer. And yet there was something tireless in Clara that never seemed to stop. His head hurt so he felt like shooting himself, the baby was squalling overhead, and yet she would ask questions.

  “I guess she’s still sick,” he said. “She didn’t say much.”

  “Did she want the baby?”

  “She didn’t say,” July said.

  “Did she ask any questions about it at all?”

  “No,” July admitted. “She never said a word.”

  The baby had stopped crying. They heard a horse splash out of the river—Cholo was coming in late. Even with no moon they could see his white hair as he trotted to the corrals.

  “July, I know you’re tired,” Clara said. “I expect you’re heartsick. I’m going to say a terrible thing to you. I used to be ladylike, but Nebraska’s made me blunt. I don’t think that woman wants you or the baby either. I don’t know what she does want, but she left that baby without even looking at it.”

  “She must have been addled,” July said. “She had a hard trip.”

  Clara sighed. “She had a hard trip, but she wasn’t addled,” she said. “Not every woman wants every child, and plenty of wives don’t want the husbands they took.

  “It’s your child and her child,” she added. “But I don’t think she wants it, and if she means to prove me wrong she better do it soon.”

  July didn’t kno
w what she meant and didn’t really care. He felt too low to pay any attention.

  “I like young things,” Clara said. “Babies and young horses. I get attached real quick. They don’t have to be mine.”

  She paused. She knew he wished she’d shut up, but she was determined to say what was on her mind.

  “I’m getting attached to Martin,” she said. “He ain’t mine, but he ain’t your wife’s anymore, either. Young things mainly belong to themselves. How they grow up depends on who gets attached to them. I’ll take Martin, if she don’t, or you don’t.”

  “But your husband’s sick,” July said. Why would the woman want a baby to care for when she had two girls to manage and a big horse outfit to run?

  “My husband’s dying,” Clara said. “But whether he’s dead or alive, I’ll still raise that child.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” July said. “It’s been so long since I done anything right that I can’t remember it. I don’t know if I’ll ever get Ellie back to Fort Smith. They might even have hired a new sheriff by now.”

  “Finding a job’s the least of your problems,” Clara said. “I’ll give you a job, if you want one. Cholo’s been doing Bob’s work and his too, and he can’t keep it up forever.”

  “I always lived in Arkansas,” July said. It had never occurred to him that he might settle anywhere else.

  Clara laughed. “Go to bed,” she said. “I’ve worried you enough for one night.”

  He went, but the next morning at breakfast he didn’t look much better or feel much better. He would scarcely talk to the girls, both of whom doted on him. Clara sent them off to gather eggs so she could have a word or two more with July in private.

  “Did you understand what I said last night, about raising Martin?” she asked.

  July hadn’t. He wished she would just be quiet. He had no idea what to do next, and hadn’t since he left Fort Smith many months ago. At moments, what he wanted was just to go home. Let Ellie go, if she didn’t want to be his wife. Let Clara have the baby, if she wanted him so much. He had once felt competent being a sheriff—maybe if he went back and stuck to it he would someday feel competent again. He didn’t know how much longer he could stand to feel such a failure.

  “If your wife don’t want Martin, do you have a mother or sisters that would want to raise him?” Clara asked. “The point is, I don’t want to keep him a year or two and then give him up. If I have to give him up I’d rather do it soon.”

  “No, Ma’s dead,” July said. “I just had brothers.”

  “I’ve lost three boys,” Clara said. “I don’t want to lose another to a woman who keeps changing her mind.”

  “I’ll ask her,” July said. “I’ll go back in a day or two. Maybe she’ll be feeling better.”

  But he found he couldn’t stand it to wait—he had to see her again, even if she wouldn’t look at him. At least he could look at her and know he had found her after all. Maybe, if he was patient, she would change.

  He saddled and rode to town. But when he got to the doctor’s, no one was there at all. The room Ellie had been in was empty, the big man no longer to be found.

  By asking around, he found the doctor, who was delivering a baby in one of the whorehouses.

  “She’s left,” the doctor said. “I came home yesterday and she was gone. She didn’t leave a note.”

  “But she was sick,” July said.

  “Only unhappy,” Patrick Arandel said. He felt sorry for the young man. Five idle young whores were listening to the conversation, while one of their friends lay in labor in the next room.

  “She took it hard when they hung that killer,” he added. “That and the childbirth nearly killed her. I thought she would die—she ran one of the highest fevers I’ve ever seen. It’s a good sign that she left. It means she’s decided to live a little longer.”

  The man at the livery stable shook his head when July asked which way they went.

  “The wrong way,” he said. “If they get past them Sioux they’re lucky people.”

  July felt frantic. He had not even brought his rifle to town, or his bedroll or anything. They had a day’s start, though they were traveling in a wagon and would have to move slow. Still, he would lose another half day going back to the ranch to get his gear. He was tempted to follow with just his pistol, and he even rode to the east end of town. But there were the vast, endless plains. They had almost swallowed him once.

  He turned back, racing for the ranch. He wore the horse half down, and he remembered it was a borrowed horse, so he slowed up. By the time he got back to Clara’s he was not racing at all. He seemed to have no strength, and his head hurt again. He was barely able to unsaddle; instead of going right to the house, he sat down behind the saddle shed and wept. Why would Ellie keep leaving? What was he supposed to do? Didn’t she know about the Indians? It seemed he would have to chase her forever, and yet catching her did no good.

  When he stood up, he saw Clara. She had been on her way back from the garden with a basket of vegetables. It was hot, and she had rolled the sleeves up on her dress. Her arms were thin and yet strong, as if they were all bone.

  “Did she leave?” Clara asked.

  July nodded. He didn’t want to talk.

  “Come help me shuck this corn,” Clara said. “The roasting ears are about gone. I get so hungry for them during the winter, I could eat a dozen.”

  She went on toward the house, carrying her heavy garden basket. When she didn’t hear his footsteps, she looked back at him. July wiped his face and followed her to the house.

  82.

  THE NEXT MORNING, when he managed to get up, July came into the kitchen to find Cholo sharpening a thin-bladed knife. The baby lay on the table, kicking his bare feet, and Clara, wearing a man’s hat, was giving the two girls instructions.

  “Don’t feed him just because he hollers,” she said. “Feed him when it’s time.”

  She looked at July, who felt embarrassed. He was not sick, and yet he felt as weak as if he had had a long fever. A plate with some cold eggs on it and a bit of bacon sat on the table—his breakfast, no doubt. Being the last one up made him feel a burden.

  Cholo stood up. It was clear he and Clara were contemplating some work. July knew he ought to offer to help, but his legs would barely carry him to the table. He couldn’t understand it. He had long since been over his jaundice, and yet he had no strength.

  “We’ve got to geld some horses,” Clara said. “We’ve put if off too long, hoping Bob would get back on his feet.”

  “I hate it when you do that,” Sally said.

  “You’d hate it worse if we had a bunch of studs running around here,” Clara said. “One of them might crack your head just like that mustang cracked your father’s.”

  She paused by the table a minute and tickled one of the baby’s feet.

  “I’d like to help,” July said.

  “You don’t look that vigorous,” she said.

  “I’m not sick,” July said. “I must have slept too hard.”

  “I expect you did something too hard,” she said. “Stay and make conversation with these girls. That’s harder work than gelding horses.”

  July liked the girls, though he had not said much to them. They seemed fine girls to him, always chattering. Mostly they fought over who got to tend the baby.

  Clara and Cholo left and July slowly ate his breakfast, feeling guilty. Then he remembered what had happened—Ellie was gone, into Indian country. He had to go after her as soon as he ate. The baby, still on the table, gurgled at him. July had scarcely looked at it, though it seemed a good baby. Clara wanted it, the girls fought over it, and yet Ellie had left it. Thinking about it made him more confused.

  After breakfast he got his rifle, but instead of leaving, he walked down to the lots. Every now and then he heard the squeal of a young horse. Walking, he didn’t feel quite so weak, and it occurred to him that he ought to try and be some help—he could start after Ellie later.

&nb
sp; It was hot, and the young horses were kicking up dust in the lots. To his surprise, he saw that Clara was doing the cutting, while the old man held the ropes. It was hard work—the horses were strong, and they badly needed another man. July quickly climbed into the lots and helped the old man anchor the hind legs of a quivering young bay.

  Clara paused a moment, wiping the sweat off her forehead with her shirttail. Her hands were bloody.

  “Shouldn’t one of us do it?” July asked.

  “No,” Cholo said. “She is better.”

  “Bob taught me,” Clara said. “We didn’t have any help when we first came here. I wasn’t strong enough to hold the horses so I got stuck with the messier job.”

  They gelded fifteen young horses and left them in the pen where they could be watched. July had stopped feeling weak, but even so it was a wonder to him how hard Clara and the old man worked. They didn’t stop to rest until the job was done, by which time they were all soaked with sweat. Clara splashed water out of the horse trough to wash her hands and forearms, and immediately started for the house.

  “I hope those worthless girls have been cooking,” she said. “I’ve built an appetite.”

  “Do you know anything about the Indian situation?” July asked.

  “I know Red Cloud,” Clara said. “Bob was good to him. They lived on our horses that hard winter we had four years ago—they couldn’t find buffalo.”

  “I’ve heard they’re dangerous,” July said.

  “Yes,” Clara said. “Red Cloud’s fed up. Bob treated them fair and we’ve never had to fear them. I was more scared as a girl. The Comanches would come right into Austin and take children. I always dreamed they’d get me and I’d have red babies.”

  July had never felt so irresolute. He ought to go, and yet he didn’t. Though he had worked hard, he had little appetite, and after the meal spent more time cleaning his gun than was really necessary.

  When he finished, he sat the rifle against the porch railing, telling himself that he would get up and leave. But before he could get up, Clara walked out on the porch with no warning at all and put the baby into his hands. She practically dropped the child into his lap, an act July felt was very reckless. He had to catch him.