The Lonesome Dove Chronicles (1-4)

by Larry McMurtry

  Augustus walked over and stooped down by Pete Spettle, who was blowing frothy blood out of his broken nose.

  “I better take you to the doctor,” Augustus said.

  “Don’t want no doc,” Pete said.

  “ ’I god, this is a hardheaded lot,” Augustus said, walking over to Ben Rainey. He took the candy sack and helped himself to a piece. “Hardly a one of you will take good advice.”

  Call mounted the Hell Bitch, slowly re-coiling his rope. Several townspeople had witnessed the fight. Most were still standing there, watching the man on the gray mare.

  When he had his rope fixed again, Call rode over to Augustus. “Will you bring the grub?” he asked.

  “Yep,” Augustus said. “I’ll bring it.”

  Call saw that everyone was looking at him, the hands and cowboys and townspeople alike. The anger had drained out of him, leaving him feeling tired. He didn’t remember the fight, particularly, but people were looking at him as if they were stunned. He felt he should make some explanation, though it seemed to him a simple situation.

  “I hate a man that talks rude,” he said. “I won’t tolerate it.”

  With that he turned and rode out of town. The people watching kept quiet. Rough as the place was, accustomed as they all were to sudden death, they felt they had seen something extraordinary, something they would rather not have seen.

  “My lord, Gus,” Dish said, as he watched the Captain leave. Like the others, he was awed by the fury he had seen erupt in the Captain. He had seen men fight many times, but not like that. Though he himself hated Dixon, it was still disturbing to see him destroyed—not even with a gun, either.

  “Have you ever seen him like that before?” he asked Augustus.

  “Once,” Augustus said. “He killed a Mexican bandit that way once before I could stop it. The Mexican had cut up three white people, but that wasn’t what prompted it. The man scorned Call.”

  He took another piece of candy. “It don’t do to scorn W. F. Call,” he said.

  “Was it me?” Newt asked, feeling that maybe he should have managed things better. “Was it just that he was quirting me?”

  “That was part of it,” Augustus said. “Call don’t know himself what the rest of it was.”

  “Why, he’d have killed that man, if you hadn’t roped him,” Dish said. “He would have killed anybody. Anybody!”

  Augustus, eating his candy, did not dispute it.

  86.

  IT WAS BECAUSE of the fight that the boys ended up amid the whores. Dish saddled and left, and Augustus finished loading the wagon and started out of town. When he turned the wagon around, Newt and the Raineys were talking to Pea Eye, who had been up the street getting barbered and had missed the fight. Pea Eye had so much toilet water on that Augustus could smell him from ten feet away. He and the boys were standing around the bloody anvil and the boys were explaining the matter to him. Pea didn’t seem particularly surprised.

  “Well, he’s a fighter, the Captain,” he said mildly. “He’ll box ’em if they get him riled.”

  “Box?” Ben Rainey said. “He didn’t box. He run over the man with a horse and then near kicked his head off when he had him laying on the ground.”

  “Oh, that’s boxing, to the Captain,” Pea Eye said.

  Augustus stopped the wagon. “You boys aim to linger around here?” he asked.

  The boys looked at one another. The fight had startled them so that they had more or less forgotten their plans—not that they had many.

  “Well, it’s our only chance to see the town,” Newt said, thinking Augustus was going to tell them to go back to the wagon.

  That was not Augustus’s intention. He had four ten-dollar gold pieces in his pocket, which he had intended to slip the boys on the sly. With Call gone, that was unnecessary. He flipped one to Newt, then handed them to each of the other boys.

  “This is a bonus,” Augustus said. “It’s hard to enjoy a metropolis like this if you’ve got nothing but your hands in your pockets.”

  “Hell, if you’re giving away money, give me some, Gus,” Pea Eye said.

  “No, you’d just spend it on barbers,” Augustus said. “These boys will put it to better use. They deserve a frolic before we set out to the far north.”

  He popped the team with the reins and rode out of town, thinking how young the boys were. Age had never mattered to him much. He felt that, if anything, he himself had gained in ability as the years went by. Yet he became a little wistful, thinking of the boys. However he might best them, he could never stand again where they stood, ready to go into a whorehouse for the first time. The world of women was about to open to them. Of course, if a whorehouse in Ogallala was the door they had to go through, some would be scared back to the safety of the wagon and the cowboys. But some wouldn’t.

  The boys stood around the blacksmith’s shop, talking about the money Augustus had given them. In a flash, all the calculating they had done for the last few weeks was rendered unnecessary. They had means right in their hands. It was a dizzying feeling, and a little frightening.

  “Ten dollars is enough for a whore, ain’t it?” Ben Rainey asked Pea Eye.

  “Ain’t priced none lately,” Pea Eye said. It irked him that he had gone to the barbershop at the wrong time and missed the fight.

  “Why not, Pea?” Newt asked. He was curious. All the other hands had rushed in, to the whores. Even Dish had done it, and Dish was said to be in love with Lorena. Yet Pea was unaffected by the clamor—even around the campfire he kept quiet when the talk was of women. Pea was one of Newt’s oldest friends, and it was important to know what Pea felt on the subject.

  But Pea was not forthcoming. “Oh, I mostly just stay with the wagon,” he said, which was no answer at all. Indeed, while they were standing around getting used to having money to spend, Pea got his horse and rode off. Except for Lippy and the Irishman, they were the only members of the Hat Creek outfit left in town.

  Still, none of the boys felt bold enough just to go up the back stairs, as Dish had instructed them. It was decided to find Lippy, who was known to be a frequenter of whores.

  They found him standing outside a saloon looking very disappointed. “There’s only one pia-ner in this town, and it’s broke,” he said. “A mule skinner busted it. I rode all this way in and ain’t got to hear a note.”

  “What do you do about whores?” Jimmy Rainey asked. He felt he couldn’t bear much more frustration.

  “Why, that’s a dumb question,” Lippy said. “You do like the bull does with the heifer, only frontways, if you want to.”

  Instead of clarifying matters, that only made them more obscure, at least to Newt. His sense of the mechanics of whoring was vague at best. Now Lippy was suggesting that there was more than one method, which was not helpful to someone who had yet to practice any method.

  “Yeah, but do you just ask?” he inquired. “We don’t know how much it costs.”

  “Oh, that varies from gal to gal, or madam to madam,” Lippy said. “Gus gave Lorena fifty dollars once, but that price is way out of line.”

  Then he realized he had just revealed something he was not supposed to tell, and to boys too. Boys were not reliable when it came to keeping secrets.

  “I oughtn’t to tolt that,” he said. “Gus threatened to shoot another hole in my stomach if I did.”

  “We won’t tell,” Newt assured him.

  “Yes, you will,” Lippy said. He was depressed anyway, because of the piano situation. He loved music and had felt sure he would get to play a little, or at least listen to some, in Ogallala. Yet the best he had done so far was a bartender with a harmonica, and he couldn’t play that very well. Now he had really messed up and told Gus’s secret.

  Then, in a flash of inspiration, it occurred to him that the best way out of that tight spot was to get the boys drunk. They were young and not used to drinking. Get them drunk enough and they might forget Ogallala entirely, or even Nebraska. They certainly would not be li
kely to remember his chance remark. He saw that the strongest thing they had treated themselves to so far was horehound candy.

  “Of course you boys are way too sober to be visiting whores,” he said. “You’ve got to beer up a little before you attempt the ladies.”

  “Why?” Newt asked. Though he knew whores were often to be found in saloons, he wasn’t aware that being drunk was required of their customers.

  “Oh, yeah, them girls is apt to be rank,” Lippy assured them. “Hell, they wallow around with buffalo hunters and such like. You want to have plenty of alcohol in you before you slip up on one. Otherwise you’ll start to take a leak some morning and your pecker will come right off in your hand.”

  That was startling information. The boys looked at one another.

  “Mine better not,” Pete Spettle said darkly. He was not enjoying himself in town so far, apart from the miracle of being handed ten dollars by Gus.

  “Why, that’s a leg pull,” Jimmy Rainey said. “How could one come off?”

  “Oh, well, if it don’t come plumb off it’ll drip worse than my stomach,” Lippy said. “You boys oughtn’t to doubt me. I was living with whores before any of you sprouted.”

  “How do we get the beer?” Newt asked. He was almost as intrigued by the thought of beer as by the thought of whores. He had never quite dared go in a saloon for fear the Captain would walk in and find him.

  “Oh, I’ll get you the beer,” Lippy said. “Got any cash?”

  The boys looked at one another, reluctant to reveal the extent of their riches lest Lippy try to exploit them in some way. Fortunately they had nearly three dollars over and above what Gus had given them.

  They shook out the small change and handed it to Lippy. They knew that drinking was something required of all real cowboys, and they were hot to try it.

  “Will this get much?” Newt asked.

  “Hell, will a frog hop?” Lippy said. “I can get you plenty of beer and a bottle of whiskey to chase it.”

  Lippy was as good as his word. In ten minutes he was back with plenty of beer and a quart of whiskey. He had a twinkle in his eyes, but the boys were all so excited by the prospect of drinking that they didn’t notice. Lippy gave them the liquor and immediately started up the street.

  “Where you going?” Newt asked.

  “The barber says there’s a drummer with an accordion staying in the hotel,” Lippy said. “If he ain’t too attached to the accordion, I might buy it. We could make some fine music back at the wagon if we had an accordion to play.”

  “You oughta buy a new hat,” Jimmy Rainey said boldly, for Lippy was still wearing the disgraceful bowler he had worn in Lonesome Dove.

  “That hat looks like it was et by a heifer that had the green slobbers,” Newt said, feeling proud of his wit. Lippy was out of hearing by then, so the wit was wasted.

  The beer wasn’t, however. Feeling that it was not appropriate to drink right out on the main street, the boys took their liquor around to the back of the livery stable and fell to. At first they sipped cautiously, finding the beer rather bitter. But the more they drank, the less bothered they were by the bitter taste.

  “Let’s sample the whiskey,” Ben Rainey suggested. The suggestion was immediately adopted. After the cool beer, the whiskey tasted like liquid fire, and its effects were just as immediate as fire. By the time he had three long swigs of the whiskey, Newt felt that the world had suddenly changed. The sun had been sinking rapidly as they drank, but a few swallows of whiskey seemed to stop everything. They sat down with their backs against the wall of the livery stable and watched the sun hang there, red and beautiful, over the brown prairie. Newt felt it might be hours before it disappeared. He swigged a couple of bottles of beer and felt himself getting lighter. In fact, he felt so light he had to put his hands on the ground every once in a while—he felt like as if he might float away. He might float up to where the sun was hanging. It was amazing that a few swallows of liquid could produce such a sensation. It was silly, but after a while he felt like lying down and hugging his stomach and hugging the earth, to make sure he didn’t float off.

  Young Jimmy Rainey turned out to have no stomach for liquor at all. He started vomiting almost as soon as he started drinking. Pete Spettle drank freely, but only looked darker and more depressed, whereas Ben Rainey enjoyed the liquor hugely and guzzled considerably more than his share.

  In no time, it seemed, they had finished off the beer. Somehow the sun had slipped on down while no one was looking, and the afterglow was dying. Stars were already out, and the four of them were just sitting behind a livery stable, drunk, and no closer to the whores than they had been when they first came to town.

  Newt decided it wouldn’t do. He stood up and found that he didn’t float off—though when he tried to walk he found it no simple matter to put his feet down one after the other. It irritated him a bit, for he had never experienced any trouble in walking before and felt a resentment against his feet for behaving so peculiarly.

  Still, he could make progress, in some fashion, and he started boldly for the back stairs of the saloon.

  “I’m gonna meet one, at least,” he said. He kept walking, fearing that if he stopped the whole project might slide to a halt. The others picked themselves up and began to follow, Ben Rainey bringing the whiskey bottle. This was unnecessary, because it was empty.

  Newt made the stairs with no trouble and clomped right on up them. He had not really meant to seize the lead, and his heart was in his throat. He felt delicately balanced, as if his stomach might be in his throat too, if he didn’t proceed carefully.

  The stairs had seemed long and steep from the bottom, but in a second he found himself standing at the top. The door was slightly ajar and he saw that someone was there. All he could see was a large shape.

  Then, before he could speak, he saw a woman with almost no clothes on come out of a room behind the shape. The woman’s legs were naked, a sight so startling that Newt couldn’t believe he was seeing it.

  “Who is it, Buf?” the girl with the naked legs asked.

  “I guess the cat’s got his tongue,” the shape said in a husky voice. “He ain’t introduced himself.”

  “I’m Newt,” he said, feeling uncertain suddenly about the whole enterprise.

  The other boys were just making their way up the stairs.

  The shape—it was a woman, too—stepped half out the door and surveyed the group on the stairs. She was a large woman and she smelled rather like Pea Eye had after he came out of the barbershop. Newt saw to his astonishment that her legs were naked too.

  “It’s a troop of little fellers,” she said to her companion in the hall. “They must have just let out school.”

  “They better get on in here while we ain’t busy, then,” her friend said. “That is, if they can afford it.”

  “Oh, we got money,” Newt volunteered. “We come up with a herd and we just got paid.”

  “I didn’t know cowboys come this young,” the big woman said. “Show me the money.”

  Newt pulled out his gold piece and the woman leaned in the hall to look at it under the light.

  “I take it all back,” she said to her friend. “It’s a bunch of rich cattlemen.”

  Newt noticed that she didn’t give him back his gold piece, but he didn’t feel he ought to say anything. Maybe it cost ten dollars just to get in the door of a place where women went naked.

  The large woman held the door open and he went past her, taking care not to stumble, for his feet were feeling more and more untrustworthy. The other boys sidled in after him. They found themselves standing in a bare hall, being stared at by the two women.

  “This is Mary and I’m Buf,” the large woman said. Her ample bosom seemed to Newt to be about to burst out of the gown she wore. In the light it was clear that she was not very old herself—but she was large. The other girl, by comparison, seemed thin as a rail.

  “This one’s paid,” Buf said, putting a hand casually on N
ewt’s shoulder. “I hope you other fellows are as rich as he is, otherwise you’re welcome to pile back down those stairs.”

  The Rainey boys immediately produced their money, but Pete Spettle held back. He put his hand in his pocket, but instead of bringing out his money he brought his hand out empty, and turned for the door without a word. They heard him clump back down the stairs.

  “These two look like brothers,” Buf said, quickly sizing up the Rainey boys.

  “You take ’em, Buf,” Mary said. “I’ll take the one that come in first.”

  “Well, maybe you will and maybe you won’t,” Buf said. “I seen him first, I oughta have dibs.”

  Newt almost began to wish he had followed the example of Pete Spettle. It was a hot night, and close in the hall. He felt he might be sick. Also, from listening to the conversation he realized they were the two whores Dish had described. The big one was the Buffalo Heifer, and the other one was the one Dish said treated him nice. The Buffalo Heifer still had her large hand on his shoulder as she looked the group over. She had a black tooth right in front of her mouth. Her large body seemed to give off waves of heat, like a stove, and the toilet water she wore was so strong it made him queasy.

  “We got the whole night to get through,” Mary said. “We can’t waste too much of it on these tadpoles.” She took Ben Rainey’s hand and quickly led him into a little room off the hall.

  “Mary gets the fidgets if something ain’t happening ever minute,” Buf said. “Come on, Newt.”

  Jimmy Rainey didn’t like being left in the hall all by himself.

  “Who do I do?” he asked plaintively.

  “Just stand there like a post,” Buf said. “Mary’s quick, especially with tadpoles. She’ll get you in a minute.” Jimmy stood where he was, looking forlorn.

  She led Newt into a small room with nothing much in it but an iron bedstead and a small washbasin on a tiny stand. A small unlit coal-oil lamp with no shade over the wick sat on a windowsill. The window was open and the rim of the prairie still red, as if a line of coals had been spread along it.