The Lonesome Dove Chronicles (1-4)

by Larry McMurtry

  Call had not recovered from his embarrassment at having been led. Yet he knew Deets had done the right thing. He had still been dreaming of Ben and that hot day at Phantom Hill, and if he had slipped off his horse he might just have laid there and slept. But it was the first time in his life he had not been able to last through a task in command of his wits, and it bothered him.

  All during the night and the next day, cattle straggled into the river, some of them cattle Call had supposed would merely become carcasses, rotting on the trail. Yet a day on the water worked wonders for them. Augustus and Dish made counts, once the stragglers stopped coming, and it appeared they had only lost six head.

  The Irishman spent most of the day sitting in a puddle in Salt Creek, recovering from his delirium. He could not remember having been delirious and grew angry when the others kidded him about it. Newt, who had planned to drink all day once he got to water, soon found that he couldn’t drink any more. He devoted his leisure to complicated games of mumblety-peg with the Rainey boys.

  Deets went on a scout and reported that the country to the west didn’t improve—grass was as scarce as water in that direction. Far to the north they could see the outlines of mountains, and there was much talk about which mountains they were.

  “Why, the Rocky Mountains,” Augustus said.

  “Will we have to climb them?” Jasper asked. He had survived rivers and drought, but did not look forward to climbing mountains.

  “No,” Call said. “We’ll go north, up the Powder River, right into Montana.”

  “How many days will it take now?” Newt asked. He had almost forgotten that Montana was a real place that they might get to someday.

  “I expect three weeks or a little more and we might hit the Yellowstone,” Call said.

  “The Yellowstone already?” Dish Boggett said. It was the last river—or at least the last river anyone knew much about. At mention of it the whole camp fell silent, looking at the mountains.

  90.

  THEY RESTED ON the Salt for two days, giving the animals and men plenty of time to recover. The men spent much of their time speculating about what lay on beyond the mountains, and how long it would take to get there.

  Call slept a distance out of camp, as was his habit. He knew the men were in a good mood, for he could hear them singing most of the night. Now that he had the leisure to sleep, he found he couldn’t, much. He had always thought his energies equal to any situation, but he had begun to have doubts. A tiredness clung to his bones, but not a tiredness that produced sleep. He felt played out, and wished they were already in Montana. There were only a few hundred miles left, but it seemed farther to him than all the distance they had come.

  Trotting back into camp one morning he saw there was excitement around the cook fire. Several of the men were holding rifles. The sight surprised him, for it had seemed a peaceful night.

  “Twelve horses are gone, Captain,” Dish Boggett said. “Indians got ’em.”

  Deets was looking hangdog, and the Spettle boy could only shake his head. Neither of them had heard a thing, they said.

  “Well, you boys was singing opry loud enough to wake the deaf,” Augustus remarked. “I guess it was just their charity that they didn’t take the whole herd. Nobody would have noticed.”

  Call was vexed. He had been awake almost all night and had had no suspicion of Indians. All his years of trying to stay prepared hadn’t helped. “They must have been good with horses,” he said.

  Deets felt it was mainly his fault, since it was his job to watch for Indian sign. He had always had a good ear for Indians, but he had sat by the wagon, listening to the singing, and had heard nothing.

  “They came on foot, Captain,” he said. He had found their tracks, at least.

  “That was bold,” Call said. “But they ain’t on foot now.”

  He decided to take only Augustus and Deets, though that left the camp without a really competent Indian fighter, in case the raid was a feint. On the other hand, whoever took the horses might have a good deal of help nearby. If it became necessary to take on an Indian camp, three men were about the minimum that could expect to succeed.

  Ten minutes later the three men were ready to go. Call was well aware that they were leaving a camp full of scared men.

  Augustus laughed at the sight. “You boys will get the drizzles if you don’t relax,” he said.

  “If they got the dern horses they might decide to come back and get us,” Jasper Fant pointed out. “They got Custer, didn’t they? And he fought Indians his whole life.”

  Call was more worried about the grass situation. It was too sparse to support the herd for long.

  “Graze ’em upriver,” he said. “Start tomorrow if we ain’t back, but don’t push ’em. Just let ’em graze along. You’ll make the Powder in a few days.”

  Newt felt very nervous when he saw the three men ride off. It was Lippy’s fault that he felt so nervous—all morning Lippy had done nothing but talk about how it felt to be scalped. Lippy hadn’t been scalped, and couldn’t possibly know, but that didn’t keep him from talking and scaring everybody.

  The horsethieves had gone southwest. Call thought that with luck they might catch them within a day, but in that he was disappointed. The country grew more barren as they rode, and the only sign of life was an occasional buzzard and many, many rattlesnakes.

  “If we was to settle around here we’d have to start a snake ranch,” Augustus said.

  They rested only a little while at night, and by midmorning of the next day were a hundred miles from the herd, with no results in sight.

  “Hell, they’ll be to the Wind River before we catch them,” Augustus said. “I’ve always heard the Wind River country was worse than the Pecos country, when it comes to being dry.”

  “We’re better mounted than they are,” Call said. “We’ll catch them.”

  It was another long day, though, before they closed the gap.

  “You sure this is worth it for twelve horses?” Augustus asked. “This is the poorest dern country I ever saw. A chigger would starve to death out here.”

  Indeed, the land was bleak, the surface sometimes streaked with salt. There were ocher-colored ridges here and there, completely free of grass.

  “We can’t start putting up with horse theft,” Call said.

  Deets was ranging ahead, and in the afternoon they saw him coming back. The simmering heat waves made him appear larger than he was.

  “Camp’s up ahead,” he said. “They’re in a draw, with a little water.”

  “How many?” Call asked.

  “Didn’t get no count,” Deets said. “Not many. Couldn’t be many and live out here.”

  “I say we wait for night and steal the nags back,” Augustus said. “It’s too hot to fight. Steal ’em back and let the red man chase the white for a while.”

  “If we wait for night we might lose half the horses,” Call said. “They’ll probably post a better guard than we had.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you in this heat,” Augustus said. “If you want to go now, okay. We’ll just ride in and massacre them.”

  “Didn’t see many men,” Deets said. “Mostly women and children. They’re real poor, Captain.”

  “What do you mean, real poor?”

  “Means they’re starving,” Deets said. “They done cut up one horse.”

  “My God,” Augustus said. “You mean they stole them horses for meat?”

  That proved to be the case. They carefully approached the draw where the camp was and saw the whole little tribe gathered around the dead horse. There were only some twenty Indians, mostly women, children and old men. Call saw only two braves who looked to be of fighting age, and they were no more than boys. The Indians had pulled the dead horse’s guts out and were hacking them into slices and eating them. Usually there were dogs around an Indian camp, but there were no dogs around this time.

  “I guess these ain’t the mighty plains Indians we’ve been he
aring about,” Augustus said. The whole little tribe was almost silent, each person concentrating on eating. They were all thin. Two old women were cutting meat off the haunch, meaning to dry it, and two young men, probably the ones who had stolen the horses, had caught another and were preparing to cut its throat. To prevent this, Call drew his pistol and fired into the air.

  “Oh, let’s go,” Augustus said. “We don’t want to be shooting these people, although it would probably be a mercy. I don’t think they even have guns.”

  “I didn’t shoot nobody,” Call said. “But they’re our horses.”

  At the shot the whole tribe looked up, stunned. One of the young men grabbed an old single-shot rifle but didn’t fire. It seemed to be the only firearm the tribe possessed. Call fired in the air again, to scare them away from the horse, and succeeded better than he had expected to. Those who had been eating got to their feet, some with sections of gut still in their hands, and fled toward the four small ragged tepees that stood up the draw. The young man with the gun retreated too, helping one of the older women. She was bloody from the feast.

  “They were just having a picnic,” Augustus said. “We had a picnic the other day without nobody shooting at us.”

  “We can leave them two or three horses,” Call said. “I just don’t want to lose that sorrel they were about to kill.”

  In the tribe’s flight a child had been forgotten—a little boy barely old enough to walk. He stood near the neck of the dead horse, crying, trying to find his mother. The tribe huddled in front of the tepees, silent. The only sound, for a moment, was the sound of the child’s crying.

  “He blind,” Deets said.

  Augustus saw that it was true. The child couldn’t see where he was going, and a second later tripped over a pile of bloody horse guts, falling into them.

  Deets, who was closest to the dead horse, walked over and picked the child up. The little blind boy kept wailing.

  “Hush now,” Deets said. “You a mess. You done rolled in all that blood.”

  At that moment there was a wild yell from the tepees and Deets looked up to see one of the young braves rushing toward him. He was the one who had picked up the rifle, but he had discarded the rifle and was charging with an old lance, crying his battle cry. Deets held out the baby and smiled—the young man, no older than Newt, didn’t need to cry any battle cry. Deets kept holding the baby out toward the tribe and smiling, trusting that the young brave would realize he was friendly. The young man didn’t need his lance—he could just take the squalling baby back to its mother.

  Call and Augustus thought too that the young man would probably stop once he saw that Deets meant no harm. If not, Deets could whop him—Deets was a good hand-to-hand fighter.

  It was only at the last second that they both realized that the Indian wasn’t going to stop. His charge was desperate, and he didn’t notice that Deets was friendly. He closed at a run.

  “Shoot him, Deets!” Call yelled, raising his own gun.

  Deets saw, too, at the last second, that the boy wasn’t going to stop. The young warrior wasn’t blind, but the look in his eyes was as unseeing as the baby’s. He was still screaming a war cry—it was unnerving in the stillness—and his eyes were filled with hate. The old lance just looked silly. Deets held the baby out again, thinking the boy hadn’t understood.

  “Here, take him, I just helping him up,” he said. Only then he saw it was too late—the young man couldn’t stop coming and couldn’t stop hating, either. His eyes were wild with hatred. Deets felt a deep regret that he should be hated so by this thin boy when he meant no harm. He tried to sidestep, hoping to gain a moment so he could set the baby down and wrestle with the Indian and maybe calm him.

  But when Deets turned, the boy thrust the lance straight into his side and up into his chest.

  Call and Augustus shot almost at the same time—the boy died with his hands still on the lance. They ran down to Deets, who still had the baby in his hands, although he had over a foot of lance inside him.

  “Would you take him, Captain?” Deets asked, handing Call the child. “I don’t want to sit him back in all that blood.”

  Then Deets dropped to his knees. He noticed with surprise that the young Indian was near him, already dead. For a moment he feared that somehow he had killed him, but then he saw that his own gun was still holstered. It must have been the Captain, or Mr. Gus. That was a sad thing, that the boy had had to die just because he couldn’t understand that they were friendly. It was one more regret—probably the boy had just been so hungry he couldn’t think straight.

  Then he realized that he was on his knees and tried to get up, but Mr. Gus put a hand on his shoulder and asked him to wait.

  “No, you don’t have to get up yet, Deets,” Augustus said. “Just rest a minute.”

  Deets noticed the handle of the lance protruding from his side. He knew the dead boy had put it there, but he felt nothing. The Captain stood in front of him, awkwardly holding the Indian baby. Deets looked at the Captain sadly. He hoped that now the Captain would see that he had been right to feel worried about leaving Texas. It was a mistake, coming into other people’s country. It only disturbed them and led to things like the dead boy. People wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t know that they were friendly.

  It would have been so much better to stay where they had lived, by the old river. Deets felt a longing to be back, to sit in the corrals at night and wonder about the moon. Many a time he had dozed off, wondering about the moon, whether the Indians had managed to get on it. Sometimes he dreamed he was on it himself—a foolish dream. But the thought made him sleepy, and with one more look of regret at the dead boy who hadn’t understood that he meant no harm, he carefully lay down on his side. Mr. Gus knelt beside him. For a moment Deets thought he was going to try to pull the lance out, but all he did was steady it so the handle wouldn’t quiver.

  “Where’s little Newt?” Deets asked.

  “Well, Newt didn’t come, Deets,” Augustus said. “He’s with the boys.”

  Then it seemed to Deets that something was happening to Mr. Gus’s head. It had grown larger. He couldn’t see it all well. It was as if he were looking through water—as if he had come back to the old river and were lying on the bottom, looking at Mr. Gus through the shallow brown water. Mr. Gus’s head had grown larger, was floating off. It was rising toward the sky like the moon. He could barely see it and then couldn’t see it at all, but the waters parted for a moment and he saw a blade or two of grass, close to his eye; then to his relief the brown waters came back and covered him again, deep this time and warm.

  “Can’t you take that lance out?” Call asked. He didn’t know what to do with the baby, and there Deets lay dying.

  “I will in a minute, Call,” Augustus said. “Just let him be dead for a minute.”

  “Is he dead already?” Call asked. Though he knew from long experience that such things happened quickly, he could not accept it in Deets’s case. “I guess it went to the heart,” he added pointlessly.

  Augustus didn’t answer. He was resting for a moment, wondering if he could get the lance out or if he should just break it off or what. If he pulled it out he might bring half of Deets out with it. Of course Deets was dead—in a way, it didn’t matter. Yet it did—if there was one thing he didn’t want to do, it was tear Deets up.

  “Can’t you give that squalling baby to the women?” he asked. “Just set it down over there and maybe they’ll come and get it.”

  Call took a few steps toward the huddled Indians, holding out the baby. None of the Indians moved. He went a few more steps and set the baby on the ground. When he turned back he saw Augustus put a foot against Deets’s side and try to remove the lance, which did not budge.

  Augustus gave up and sat down beside the dead man. “I can’t do this today, Deets,” he said. “Somebody else will have to do it if it gets done.”

  Call also knelt down by Deets’s body. He could not get over his surprise. Though he h
ad seen hundreds of surprising things in battle, this was the most shocking. An Indian boy who probably hadn’t been fifteen years old had run up to Deets and killed him.

  It must have shocked Augustus just as much, because he didn’t have anything to say.

  “I guess it’s our fault,” Call said. “We should have shot sooner.”

  “I don’t want to start thinking about all the things we should have done for this man,” Augustus said. “If you’ve got the strength to ride, let’s get out of here.”

  They managed to break the lance off so it wouldn’t wave in the air, and loaded Deets’s body on his horse. While Augustus was tying the body securely, Call rounded up the horses. The Indians watched him silently. He changed his mind and cut off three of the horses that were of little account anyway. He rode over to the Indians.

  “You better tie them three,” he said. “Otherwise they’ll follow us.”

  “I doubt they speak English, Woodrow,” Augustus said. “I imagine they speak Ute. Anyway, we killed their best warrior; they’re done for now unless they find some better country. Three horses won’t last them through the winter.”

  He looked around at the parched country, the naked ridges where the earth had split from drought. The ridges were varicolored, smudged with red and salt-white splotches, as if the fluids of the earth had leaked out through the cracks.

  “Montana better not be nothing like this,” he said. “If it is, I’m going back and dig up that goddamn Jake Spoon and scatter his bones.”

  They rode all night, all the next day and into the following night. Augustus just rode, his mind mostly blank, but Call was sick with self-reproach. All his talk of being ready, all his preparation—and then he had just walked up to an Indian camp and let Josh Deets get killed. He had known better. They all knew better. He had known men killed by Indian boys no older than ten, and by old Indian women who looked as if they could barely walk. Any Indian might kill you: that was the first law of the Rangers. And yet they had just walked in, and now Josh Deets was gone. He had never called the man by his first name, but now he remembered Gus’s foolish sign and how Deets had been troubled by it. Deets had finally concluded that his first name was Josh—that was the way he would think of him from then on, Call decided. He had been Josh Deets. It deepened his sense of reproach that, only a few days before, Josh Deets had been so thoughtful as to lead his horse through the sandstorm, recognizing that he himself was played out.