The Lonesome Dove Chronicles (1-4)

by Larry McMurtry

  Then he had stood there with a rifle in his hands and let the man be killed. They had all concluded the Indians were too starved down to do anything. It was a mistake he would never forgive himself.

  “I think he knowed it was coming,” Augustus said, to Call’s surprise, as they rode through the cracked valleys toward the Salt Creek.

  “What do you mean, knowed it?” Call asked. “He didn’t know it. It was just that one boy who showed any fight.”

  “I think he knowed it,” Augustus said. “He just stood there waiting.”

  “He had that baby in his hands,” Call reminded him.

  “He could have dropped that baby,” Augustus said.

  They came back the second night to where the herd had been, only to find it gone. Josh Deets had begun to smell.

  “We could bury him here,” Augustus said.

  Call looked around at the empty range.

  “We ain’t gonna find no churchyard, if that’s what you’re looking for,” Augustus said.

  “Let’s take him on,” Call said. “The men will want to pay their respects. I imagine we can catch them tonight.”

  They caught the herd not long before dawn. Dish Boggett was the night herder who saw them coming. He was very relieved, for with both of them gone, the herd had been his responsibility. Since he didn’t know the country, it was a heavy responsibility, and he had been hoping the bosses would get back soon. When he saw them he felt a little proud of himself, for he had kept the cattle on grass and had moved them along nicely.

  “Mornin’, Captain,” he said. Then he noticed that something was wrong. There were three horses, not counting the stolen ones, but only two riders. There was something on the third horse, but it wasn’t a rider. It was only a body.

  “Who’s that, Gus?” he asked, startled.

  “It’s what’s left of Deets,” Augustus said. “I hope the cook’s awake.” After feeling nothing for two days, he had begun to feel hungry.

  Newt had taken the middle watch and was sleeping soundly when dawn broke. He was using his saddle for a pillow and had covered himself with a saddle blanket as the nights had begun to be quite cool.

  The sound of voices reached him. One belonged to the Captain, the other to Mr. Gus. Po Campo’s voice could be heard, too, and Dish Boggett said something. Newt opened his eyes a moment and saw they were all kneeling by something on the ground. Maybe they had killed an antelope. He was very drowsy and wanted to go back to sleep. He closed his eyes again, then opened them. It wasn’t an antelope. He sat up and saw that Po Campo was kneeling down, twisting on something. Someone had been hurt and Po was trying to pull a stob of some kind out of his body. He was straining hard, but the stob wouldn’t come out. He stopped trying, and Dish, who had been holding the wounded man down, turned away suddenly, white and sick.

  When Dish moved, Newt saw Deets. He was in the process of yawning when he saw him. Instead of springing up, he lay back down and pulled his blanket tighter. He opened his eyes and looked, and then shut them tightly. He felt angry at the men for having talked so loud that they had awakened him. He wished they would all die, if that was the best they could do. He wanted to go back to sleep. He wanted it to be one of those dreams that you wake up from just as the dream gets bad. He felt that was probably what it was. When he opened his eyes again he wouldn’t see Deets’s body lying on the wagon sheet a few yards away.

  Yet it didn’t work. He couldn’t go back to sleep, and when he sat up the body was there—though if it hadn’t been black he might not have known it was Deets.

  He looked and saw that Pea Eye knelt on the other side of the body, looking dazed. Far away, toward the river, he saw the Captain and Lippy, digging. Mr. Gus sat by himself, near the cookfire, eating. The three horses had been unsaddled but no one had returned them to the remuda. They grazed nearby. Most of the hands stood in a group near Deets’s feet, just looking as Po Campo worked.

  Finally Po Campo gave up. “Better to bury him with it,” he said. “I would have liked to see that boy. The lance went all the way to his collarbone. It went through the heart.”

  Newt sat in his blankets, feeling alone. No one noticed him or spoke to him. No one explained Deets’s death. Newt began to cry, but no one noticed that either. The sun had risen, and everyone was busy with what they were doing, Mr. Gus eating, the Captain and Lippy digging the grave. Soupy Jones was repairing a stirrup and talking in subdued tones to Bert Borum. Newt sat and cried, wondering if Deets knew anything about what was going on. The Irishman and Needle and the Rainey boys held the herd. It was a beautiful morning, too—mountains seemed closer. Newt wondered if Deets knew about any of it. He didn’t look at the corpse again, but he wondered if Deets had kept on knowing, somehow. He felt he did. He felt that if anyone was taking any notice of him, it was probably Deets, who had always been his friend. It was only the thought that Deets was still knowing him, somehow, that kept him from feeling totally alone.

  Even so, the Deets who had walked around and smiled and been kind to him day after day, through the years—that Deets was dead. Newt sat in his blankets and cried until he was afraid he would never stop. No one seemed to notice. No one said anything to him as preparations for burying Deets went on.

  Pea Eye didn’t cry, but he was so shaken he went weak in the legs.

  “Well, my lord,” he said, from time to time. “My lord.” An Indian boy had killed him, the Captain said. Deets was still wearing a pair of the old patchy quilt pants that he had favored for so long. Pea Eye scarcely knew what to think. He and Deets had been the main hired help on the Hat Creek outfit ever since there had been a Hat Creek outfit. Now it was down to him. It would mean a lot more chores for him, undoubtedly, for the Captain only trusted the two of them with certain chores. He remembered that he and Deets had had a pretty good conversation once. He had been vaguely planning to have another one with him if the chance came along. Of course that was off, now. Pea Eye went over and leaned against a wagon wheel, wishing he could stop feeling weak in the legs.

  The other hands were somber. Soupy Jones and Bert Borum, who didn’t feel it appropriate for white men to talk much to niggers, exchanged the view that nevertheless this one had been uncommonly decent. Needle Nelson offered to help dig the grave, for Deets had been the man who finally turned the Texas bull the day the bull got after him. Dish Boggett hadn’t said much to Deets, either, but he had often been cheered, from his position on the point, to see Deets come riding back through the heat waves. It meant he was on course, and that water was somewhere near. Dish wished he had said more to the man at some point.

  Lippy offered to help with the grave-digging, and Call let him. It was the task that usually got assigned to Deets himself, grave-digging. Call had laid many a compañero in graves Josh Deets had dug, including, most recently, Jake Spoon. Lippy was not a good digger—in fact, he was mostly in the way, but Call tolerated him. Lippy also talked constantly, saying nothing. They were digging on a little rise, north of the juncture of where Salt Creek joined the Powder River.

  Augustus wrapped Deets carefully in a piece of wagon sheet and tied the sheet around him with heavy cord.

  “A shroud for a journey,” Augustus said.

  No one else said anything. They loaded Deets in the wagon. Newt finally got out of his blanket, though he was almost blind from crying.

  Po Campo led the team down to the grave and Deets was put in and quickly covered. The Irishman, unasked, began to sing a song of mourning so sad that all the cowboys at once began to cry, even the Spettle boy, who had not shed a tear when his own brother was buried.

  Augustus turned and walked away. “I hate funerals,” he said. “Particularly this one.”

  “At the rate we’re dropping off, there won’t be many of us left by the time we get to Montany,” Lippy said, as they were all walking back to camp.

  They expected to start the herd that day, as Captain Call had never been known to linger. But this time he did. He came back from the grave, g
ot a big hammer and knocked a board loose from the side of the wagon. He didn’t explain what he was doing to anyone, and the look on his face discouraged anyone from asking. He took the board and carried it down to the grave. The rest of the day he sat alone by Deets’s grave, carving something into it with his knife. The sun flashed on his knife, and the cowhands watched in puzzlement. They just didn’t know what it could be that would take the Captain so long.

  “He had a short name,” Lippy observed.

  “It wasn’t his full name,” Newt pointed out. He had stopped crying but he felt empty.

  “What was the other one then?” Jasper asked.

  “It was Josh.”

  “Well, I swear,” Jasper said. “That’s a fine name. Starts with a J, like mine. We could have been calling him that all the time, if we’d known.”

  Then they heard the sound of the hammer—it was the big hammer that they used for straightening the rims of the wagon wheels. Captain Call was hammering the long board deep into the dirt by the grave.

  Augustus, who had sat by himself most of the day, walked over and squatted down by Newt, who sat a little way apart. He had been afraid he would start crying again and wanted a little privacy.

  “Let’s go see what he wrote for old Deets,” Augustus said. “I’ve seen your father bury many a man, but I never saw him take this kind of pains.”

  Newt hadn’t really been listening. He had just been sitting there, feeling numb. When he heard Augustus mention his father, the words sank into the numbness for a minute and didn’t affect him.

  Then they did. “My what?” Newt asked.

  “Your father,” Augustus said. “Your pa.”

  Newt thought it an odd time for Mr. Gus to make a joke. The Captain wasn’t his pa. Perhaps Mr. Gus had been so affected by Deets’s death that he had gone a little crazy. Newt stood up. He thought it best just to ignore the remark—he didn’t want to embarrass Mr. Gus at such a time. The Captain was still hammering, driving the long board into the hard ground.

  They walked down to the grave. Call had finished his hammering and stood resting. Two or three of the cowboys trailed back to the grave, a little tentative, not sure they were invited.

  Captain Call had carved the words deeply into the rough board so that the wind and sand couldn’t quickly rub them out.

  JOSH DEETS

  SERVED WITH ME 30 YEARS. FOUGHT IN 21 ENGAGEMENTS WITH THE COMMANCHE AND KIOWA. CHERFUL IN ALL WEATHERS, NEVER SHERKED A TASK. SPLENDID BEHAVIOUR.

  The cowboys came down one by one and looked at it in silence. Po Campo crossed himself. Augustus took something out of his pocket. It was the medal the Governor of Texas had given him for service on the border during the hard war years. Call had one too. The medal had a green ribbon on it, but the color had mostly faded out. Augustus made a loop of the ribbon and put the loop over the grave board and tied it tightly. Captain Call had walked away to put up the hammer. Augustus followed. Lippy, who had not cried all day, suddenly began to sob, tears running into his loose lip.

  “I do wish I’d just stayed in Lonesome Dove,” he said, when he stopped crying.

  91.

  THEY TRAILED THE HERD up the Powder River, whose water none of the cowboys liked. A few complained of stomach cramps and others said the water affected their bowel movements. Jasper Fant in particular had taken to watching his own droppings closely. They were coming out almost white, when any came out at all. It seemed an ominous sign.

  “I’ve met ladies that wasn’t as finicky as you, Jasper,” Augustus said, but he didn’t bother to tease Jasper very hard. The whole camp was subdued by Deets’s death. They were not missing Deets so much, most of them, as wondering what fate awaited them in the north.

  When they crossed the Powder they could see the Bighorn Mountains looming to the west—not really close, but close enough that anyone could see the snow on top of them. The nights began to be cold, and many of the hands began to regret the fact that they had not bought better coats in Ogallala when they had the opportunity.

  The discussions around the campfire began to focus mainly on storms. Many of the hands had experienced plains northers and the occasional ice storm, but they were south Texas cowhands and had seldom seen snow. A few talked of loping over to the mountains to examine the snow at close range and see what it was like.

  Newt had always been interested in snow, and looked at the mountains often, but in the weeks following Deets’s death he found it difficult to care much about anything, even snow. He didn’t pay much attention to the talk of storms, and didn’t really care if they all froze, herd and hands together.

  Occasionally the strange remark Mr. Gus had made came back to him. He didn’t know what to make of it—the clear meaning had been that Captain Call was his father. It didn’t make sense to Newt. If the Captain had been his father, surely he would have mentioned it at some point in the years they had been together.

  At other times the question would have excited him, but under the circumstances he felt too dull to care much. Set beside the fact that Deets was gone, it didn’t seem to matter greatly.

  Anyway, if Newt had wanted to question the Captain about it, he would have had a hard time catching him. The Captain took Deets’s job and spent his days ranging far ahead. Usually he only rode back to the herd about dark, to guide them to a bed-ground. Once during the day he had come back in a high lope to report that he had crossed the tracks of about forty Indians. The Indians had been heading northwest, the same direction they were heading.

  For the next few days everyone was tense, expecting Indian attack. Several men took alarm at the sight of what turned out to be sagebrush or low bushes. No one could sleep at night, and even those hands who were not on guard spent much of the night checking and rechecking their ammunition. The Irishman was afraid to sing on night duty for fear of leading the Indians straight to them. In fact, night herding became highly unpopular with everyone, and instead of gambling for money men began to gamble over who took what watch. The midnight watch was the most unpopular. No one wanted to leave the campfire: the men who came in from the watches did so with profound relief, and the men who went out assumed they were going to their deaths. Some almost cried. Needle Nelson trembled so that he could barely get his foot in his stirrup. Jasper Fant sometimes even got off and walked when he was on the far side of the herd, reasoning that the Indians would be less likely to spot him if he was on foot.

  But a week passed and they saw no Indians. The men relaxed a little. Antelope became more common, and twice they saw small groups of buffalo. Once the remuda took fright in the night; the next morning Call found the tracks of a cougar.

  The country began to change slightly for the better. The grass improved, and occasionally there were clumps of trees and bushes along the riverbed. It was still hot in the afternoon, but the mornings were crisp.

  Finally Call decided to leave the valley of the Powder. He felt the threat of drought was over. The grass was thick and wavy and there were plenty of streams. Not long after leaving the Powder, they crossed Crazy Woman Creek. Every day it seemed there was more snow on the mountains. Traveling became comparatively easy, and the cattle regained most of the flesh they had lost on the hard drive.

  Almost daily, from then on, Call saw Indian signs, but no Indians. It bothered him a little. He had fought Indians long enough not to underrate them, but neither did he exaggerate their capacities. Talk of Indians was never accurate, in his view. It always made them seem worse or better than they were. He preferred to judge the northern Indians with his own eyes, but in this case the Indians didn’t oblige him.

  “We’re driving three thousand cattle,” Call said. “They’re bound to notice us.”

  “They ain’t expecting cattle,” Augustus said. “There’s never been cattle here before. They’re probably just out hunting, trying to lay in enough meat to last them the winter.”

  “I guess we’ll meet soon enough,” Call said.

  “If not too soon. They ma
y come piling out of them hills and wipe us out any day. Then they’d have enough meat to last the winter. They’d be rich Indians, and we’d be dead fools.”

  “Fools for doing what?” Call asked. “This country’s looking better all the time.”

  “Fools for living the lives we’ve lived,” Augustus said.

  “I’ve enjoyed mine,” Call said. “What was wrong with yours?”

  “I should have married again,” Augustus said. “Two wives ain’t very many. Solomon beat me by several hundred, although I’ve got the same equipment he had. I could have managed eight or ten at least. I don’t know why I stuck with this scraggly old crew.”

  “Because you didn’t have to work, I guess,” Call said. “You sat around, and we worked.”

  “I was working in my head, you see,” Augustus said. “I was trying to figure out life. If I’d had a couple more fat women to lay around with I might have figured out the puzzle.”

  “I never understood why you didn’t stay in Tennessee, if your family was rich,” Call said.

  “Well, it was tame, that’s why,” Augustus said. “I didn’t want to be a doctor or a lawyer, and there wasn’t nothing else to do in those parts. I’d rather go outlaw than be a doctor or a lawyer.”

  The next day, as they were trailing along a little stream that branched off Crazy Woman Creek, Dish Boggett’s horse suddenly threw up its head and bolted. Dish was surprised and embarrassed. It had been a peaceful morning, and he was half asleep when he discovered he was in a runaway, headed back for the wagon. He sawed on the reins with all his might but the bit seemed to make no difference to the horse.