Lonesome Dove (48 page)

The plains were still and silent, so silent that July felt that if he spoke Ellie ought to be able to hear him. If she was watching the stars, as he was, why wouldn’t she know that he was thinking of her?

The longer he lay awake, the stranger he felt. He felt he was probably going crazy from all the strain. Of course the stars couldn’t help. They were stars, not mirrors. They couldn’t show Ellie what he was feeling. He dozed for a little while and had a dream that she had come back. They were sitting in the loft of their little cabin and she was smiling at him.

When he awoke and realized the dream wasn’t true, he felt so disappointed that he cried. It had seemed so real, and Ellie had even touched him, smiling. He tried to go back to sleep so the dream would return, but he couldn’t. The rest of the night he lay awake, remembering the sweetness of the dream.

51

IN THE MORNING, when July was making coffee, they began to hear the sounds of cattle. They were camped near a little creek and the flats were misty, so he couldn’t see much, but over the mists he could hear cattle bawling and cowboys hollering at them. Probably a herd had been bedded nearby and the boys were trying to get them moving.

Joe was yawning and trying to get awake. The hardest part of traveling was trying to start early. Just when he was sleeping best, July would get up and start saddling his horse.

By the time the sun was beginning to thin out the mists, they had had their coffee and a bite of bacon and were horseback. The herd was in sight, spread out over the plain for three or four miles, thousands of cattle in it. Neither July nor Joe had ever seen a herd so large, and they paused for a moment to look at it. The morning plains were still dewy.

“How many is it?” Joe asked. He had never dreamed there could be so many cattle in one place.

“I don’t know. Thousands,” July said. “I’ve heard south Texas is nothing but cattle.”

Though the herd was in progress, the camp crew wasn’t. The cook was packing his pots and skillets into a wagon.

“I guess we ought to ask them if they’ve seen Roscoe,” July said. “He could be south of us. Or they might have news of Jake.”

They loped over to the wagon just as the wrangler turned loose the horse herd. The horses, fifty or sixty of them, were jumping and frisking, kicking up their heels and nickering at one another, glad to be moving. July and Joe waited until the wrangler had them headed north before trotting on toward the wagon. The cook wore an old black hat, and had a long, dirty beard.

“You’re too late, boys,” he said. “The hands just et me out of breakfast.”

“Well, we’ve et,” July said, noticing for the first time a man sitting on a tarp by the ashes of the campfire. The unusual thing about the man was that he was reading a book. His horse, a fine-looking black, was saddled and grazing a few yards away.

“Where would I find the boss?” July asked, addressing himself to the old cook.

“I’m the boss, that’s why I’ve got time to read,” the reading man said. “My name’s Wilbarger.” He wore iron-rimmed spectacles.

“I like to snatch a minute for Mr. Milton, and the morning’s my only hope,” Wilbarger added. “At night I’m apt to be in a stampede, and you can’t read Mr. Milton during a stampede—not and take his sense. My days are mostly taken up with lunkheads and weather and sick horses, but I sometimes get a moment of peace after breakfast.”

The man looked at them sternly through his glasses. Joe, who had hated what little schooling he’d had, was at a loss to know why a grown man would sit around and read on a pretty day.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you,” July said.

“Are you a lawman?” Wilbarger asked in his impatient way.

“I am,” July said.

“Then you’re going to have to listen to some complaints about the law in this state,” Wilbarger said. “I’ve never seen a place with less law. The farther south you go, the worse the horsethieves get. Along that border they’re thicker than ticks.”

“Well, I ain’t from Texas, I’m from Arkansas,” July said.

“It’s a weak excuse,” Wilbarger said, marking his place with a grass blade and standing up. “I didn’t notice much law in Arkansas either. There’s law of sorts in New Orleans, but out here it’s every man for himself.”

“Well, there’s Texas Rangers but I guess they mostly fight the Indians,” July said, wondering where the conversation would end.

“Yes, I met a couple,” Wilbarger said. “They were excellent horsethieves themselves. They stole my remuda back from some sly Mexicans. Are you looking for a killer or what?”

“Yes, a man named Jake Spoon,” July said. “He killed a dentist in Fort Smith.”

Wilbarger tucked his book carefully into his bedroll and tossed the bedroll in the back of the wagon.

“You’ve overshot Mr. Spoon,” he said. “He was recently seen in the town of Lonesome Dove, where he won twenty dollars from a hand of mine. However, he’s headed this way. He partnered up with the gentlemen who got my horses back. If I were you I’d camp here and put this boy in school. They’ll be along in two or three weeks.”

“I thank you for the information,” July said. “I don’t suppose you’ve run across a man named Roscoe Brown along the trail.”

“Nope, who’d he kill?” Wilbarger asked.

“Nobody,” July said. “He’s my deputy. It may be that he’s lost.”

“The name Roscoe don’t inspire confidence,” Wilbarger said. “People named Roscoe ought to stick to clerking. However, it’s summertime. At least your man won’t freeze to death. Any more people you’re looking for?”

“No, just them two,” July said, refraining from mentioning Elmira.

Wilbarger mounted. “I hope you hang Spoon promptly,” he said. “I expect he’s a card cheat, and card cheats undermine society faster than anything. If you find your deputy, see if you can’t steer him into clerking.”

With that he trotted over to the cook. “Are you coming with us, Bob?” he asked.

“No,” the cook said. “I’m planning to marry and settle down here in north Texas.”

“I hope you marry somebody who can cook,” Wilbarger said. “If you do, let me know. When she gets ready to leave you, I’ll hire her.”

He looked around at Joe. “Need a job, son?” he asked. “We need a boy that don’t ask questions and is handy with an ax. I don’t know about your chopping skills, but you ain’t asked a question yet.”

Wilbarger seemed serious, and July was tempted to let Joe do it. Going north with a herd would be good experience for him. The main advantage, though, was that he himself could then travel alone, with just his thoughts. Without Joe to look after, he could better accomplish the main task ahead, which was to find Elmira.

Joe was startled. He had never expected to be offered a job with a cow outfit, and hearing the words was a thrill. But of course he couldn’t take it—he had been assigned to July.

“Much obliged,” he said. “I reckon I can’t.”

“Well, the job’s open,” Wilbarger said. “We may meet again. I’ve got to lope up to the Red River to see if I think the water’s fresh enough for my stock.”

“What’ll you do if it ain’t?” Joe asked. He had never known anyone who just said one unusual thing after another, as Wilbarger did. How could the water in a river not be fresh enough for cows?

“Well, I could piss in it to show it what I thought of it,” Wilbarger said.

“Could you use any company?” July asked. “We’re going up that way.”

“Oh, I can always use good conversation, when I can get it,” Wilbarger said. “I was brought up to expect good conversation, but then I run off to the wilderness and it’s been spotty ever since. Why are you going north when the man you want is to the south?”

“I’ve got other business as well,” July said. He didn’t want to describe it though. He hadn’t meant to ask Wilbarger if they could ride along. He wouldn’t ordinarily have done it, but then his life was no longer ordinary. His wife was lost, and his deputy also. He felt more confused than he ever had in his life, whereas Wilbarger was a man who seemed far less confused than most. He seemed to know his mind immediately, whatever the question put to him.

Wilbarger started at once and loped several miles without speaking. Joe loped with him. The country was open, lightly spotted with elm and post oak. They came to a fair-sized stream and Wilbarger stopped to water his horse.

“Have you been to Colorado?” July asked.

“Yes, once,” Wilbarger said. “Denver’s no worse than most towns out here. I intend to avoid that country, though. The Indians in those parts ain’t entirely reformed, and the outlaws are meaner than the Indians, with less excuse.”

It was not comforting talk when one’s wife was said to be on a whiskey boat going up the Arkansas.

“Planning a trip to Colorado?” Wilbarger asked.

“I don’t know,” July said. “Maybe.”

“Well, if you go up on the plains and get scalped, there’ll be that much less law in Arkansas,” Wilbarger said. “But then there might not be that much crime in Arkansas now. I guess most of the crime’s moved to Texas.”

July wasn’t listening. He was trying to convince himself that Peach was wrong—that Elmira had just gone wandering for a few days. When Wilbarger started to move on, July did not.

“Thanks for the company,” he said. “I think we better go look for my deputy.”

“There’s a perfectly straight trail from Fort Smith into Texas,” Wilbarger said. “Captain Marcy laid it out. If that deputy can’t even stay in a road, I expect you ought to fire him.”

Then he loped away without saying goodbye. Joe wished they were going with him. In only a few hours the man had paid him several compliments and had offered to hire him. He found himself feeling resentful both of July and Roscoe. July didn’t seem to know what he wanted to do, and as for Roscoe, if he couldn’t stay in a road, then he deserved to be lost. He wished he had spoken up and grabbed the job when Wilbarger offered it.

But the moment had been missed—Wilbarger was already out of sight, and they were still sitting there. July looked depressed, as he had ever since they had left Fort Smith. Finally, without a word, he turned east, back toward Arkansas. Joe wished he was old enough to point out to July that nothing he was doing made any sense. But he knew July probably wouldn’t even hear him in the state he was in. Joe felt annoyed, but he kept quiet and followed along.

52

THE AMAZING THING about Janey, in Roscoe’s view, was that she knew her way. Almost as amazing was that she liked to walk. The first day or two it felt a little wrong that he was riding and she was walking, but she was just a slip of a girl, and he was a grown man and a deputy besides. He pointed out to her that she was welcome to ride—she weighed practically nothing, and anyway they weren’t traveling fast enough to tire a horse.

But Janey didn’t want to ride. “I’ll walk and all you have to do is keep up,” she said. Of course it was no trouble for a man on horseback to keep up with a girl on foot, and Roscoe began to relax and even to enjoy the trip a little. It was pretty weather. All he had to do was trot along and think. What he mostly thought about was how surprised July would be when they showed up and told him the news.

Not only could Janey keep them on the trail but she was also extremely useful when it came to rounding up grub. Once they got settled in a camp at night she would disappear and come back five minutes later with a rabbit or a possum or a couple of squirrels. She could even catch birds. Once she came back with a fat brownish bird of a sort Roscoe had never seen.

“Now what bird is that?” he asked.

“Prairie chicken,” Janey said. “There was two but one got away.”

They ate the prairie chicken and it was as good as any regular chicken Roscoe had ever had. Janey cracked open the bones with her teeth and sucked out the marrow.

The only problem with her at all, from Roscoe’s point of view, was that she was tormented by bad dreams and whimpered at night. Roscoe loaned her a blanket, thinking she might be cold, but that wasn’t it. Even wrapped in a blanket she still whimpered, and because of that didn’t sleep much. He would awake in the grayness just before dawn and see Janey sitting up, stirring the little campfire and scratching her ankles. She was barefoot, of course, and her ankles and shins were scratched by the rough grass she went through each day.

“Did you never have any shoes?” he asked once.

“Never did,” Janey said, as if it didn’t matter.

The only times she would consent to crawl up on the horse was when they had a sizable creek to cross. She didn’t like wading in deep water.

“’Fraid of them snappers,” she said. “If one of them was to bite me I’d die.”

“They’re mighty slow,” Roscoe said. “It’s easy to outrun em.

“I dream about them,” Janey said, not reassured. “They just keep coming, and I can’t run.”

Except for snapping turtles and sleep, she seemed to fear nothing. Many times coiled rattlers would sing at them as they traveled, and Janey would never give the snakes a glance. Old Memphis was more nervous about snakes than she was, and Roscoe more nervous than either one of them. He had once heard of a man being bitten by a rattlesnake that had gotten up in a tree. According to the story, the snake had dropped right off a limb and onto the man and had bitten him in the neck. Roscoe imagined how unpleasant it could be to have a snake drop on one’s neck—he took care to ride under as few limbs as possible and was glad to see the trees thinning out as they rode west.

It seemed they were on a fairly good trail, for every day they encountered three or four travelers, sometimes more. Once they caught up with a family plodding along in a wagon. It was such a large family that it looked like a small town on the move, particularly if you wanted to count the livestock. The old man of the family, who was driving the team, didn’t seem talkative, but his wife was.

“We’re from Missouri,” she said. “We’re going west and I guess we’ll stop when we feel like it. We’ve got fourteen young ’uns and are hoping to establish a farm.”

Eight or nine of the young ones were riding in the wagon. They stared at Roscoe and Janey, as silent as owls.

Several times they met soldiers going east toward Fort Smith. The soldiers were a taciturn lot and passed without much talk. Roscoe attempted to inquire about July, but the soldiers made it clear that they had better things to do than keep a lookout for Arkansas sheriffs.

Janey was shy of people. She had keen eyesight and would usually see other travelers before Roscoe did. Often when she saw one she disappeared, darting off the trail and hiding in weeds and tall grass until the stranger passed.

“What are you hiding for?” Roscoe asked. “Them soldiers ain’t after you.”

“Bill might be with them,” Janey said.

“Bill who?”

“Bill,” she repeated. “He gave me to old Sam. I ain’t going with Bill again.”

She continued to hide at the approach of strangers, and once in a while Roscoe had to admit that it was well she did. There were some rough customers traveling the trail. One day they met two dirty-looking men with greasy beards and six or seven guns between them. Roscoe had an anxious moment, for the men stopped him and asked to borrow tobacco. The fact that he was traveling without any didn’t sit well with them, and they looked as if they might contest the issue.

“I reckon you’re lying,” one said. He was a small fellow but had mean little eyes and was generally more frightening than his companion, a man the size of an ox, who seemed to take no interest in the conversation.

“Why would a man travel without nothing to smoke?” the little one asked.

“It never agreed with me,” Roscoe explained. “I had to give it up.”

“If you was more dried up I guess we could smoke you,” the little one said, with mean intent.

But the men rode on, and Roscoe soon forgot about them and began to feel drowsy. The day was muggy, and occasionally he would see lightning flicker in the west.

After a while it struck him that something was missing, and he figured out that it was Janey. Usually, once the travelers were out of sight, she reappeared. Memphis had come to trust her and would follow her like a pet goat.

Only this time she wasn’t there to follow. Roscoe looked all around and there wasn’t a soul in sight, though the plain stretched out and he could see for miles. He was alone, and by no means sure of his direction. It scared him. He had come to depend on the girl, even though she was a loud sleeper. He yelled a time or two, but got no response. The fact that he could see so far scared him a little. He had been raised in a land of trees and was not used to country that looked so long and empty. How he could have lost Janey in such an open place was a mystery to him. He sat still for a while, hoping she would pop up, but she didn’t, and finally he rode on at a slow walk.

An hour passed, and then another, and Roscoe was forced to consider the possibility that he might have lost the girl. One of the snakes she took so little notice of could have bitten her. She could be dying somewhere back along the trail.

If she wasn’t going to reappear it was his duty to go back and find her, and, as sunset was not far off, and it looked like thunderstorms were on the way, he had better hurry.

He turned and started back at a trot, but had not gone twenty paces before Janey popped up from behind a bush and jumped right up on Memphis.

“They’re followin’,” she said. “I been watching. I guess they want to kill you.”

“Well, they won’t find no tobacco, even if they do,” Roscoe said.

Still, the little one had had a bad pair of eyes, and he could easily believe they meant to harm him. He wheeled the horse around and started to put him into a run, but Janey jerked on the reins.

“They’re in front of us,” she said. “They got around you while you was poking along.”

Roscoe had never felt so at a loss. There was not so much as a tree in sight, and it was a long way back to Fort Smith. He didn’t see how the men could expect to ambush him in the open plain.

“Dern,” he said, feeling hopeless. “I can’t figure which way to run.”

Janey pointed north. “Up that way,” she said. “There’s a gully.”

Roscoe couldn’t see what good a gully would do but he took her advice, and they set off north at a dead run. Memphis was shocked to be spurred into a run, but once he got started he ran with a will.

Once again, Janey was right. They had only been running half a mile when they struck a big gully. Roscoe stopped and looked around. Not a soul was in sight, which made him feel silly. What were they to do next?

“Can you shoot?” Janey asked.

“Well, I have shot,” Roscoe said. “There ain’t been nobody much to shoot at in Fort Smith. Sometimes July and I shoot at pumpkins, or bottles and things. July’s a good shot, but I’m just fair. I expect I could hit that big fellow but I don’t know about the little one.”

“Gimme the pistol, I’ll shoot ’em for you,” Janey said.

“What’d you ever shoot?” he asked, surprised.

“Give it to me,” Janey said, and when he slowly handed it over, she hopped off the horse, climbed out of the gully and disappeared.

Five minutes later, before he could even untie his tarp, it began to rain. Lightning started hitting the ground, and it rained torrents. Roscoe got totally soaked. In ten minutes there was a little river running down the middle of the gully, though the gully had been bone dry when they rode up. The thunder crashed and it grew dark.

Roscoe felt that he had never hated travel so much, not even when the pigs chased him. He was alone and likely either to be drowned or shot before the night was over, or even well begun.

He remembered how snug and secure the jail was, back in Fort Smith, how nice it was to come in slightly drunk and have a comfortable couch to lie on. It was a life he fervently wished he had never left.

The rain increased until it seemed to Roscoe it was raining as hard as it could possibly rain. He didn’t try to seek shelter, for there was none. It was uncomfortable to be so soaked, but since the water was probably all that was keeping him from being murdered by the little man with the mean eyes, it was silly to complain. Roscoe just sat, hoping that the little creek that filled the gully wouldn’t rise enough to drown him.

The storm turned out to be just a heavy shower. In ten minutes the rain lightened, and soon it was barely sprinkling. The sun had set, but to the west there was a clear band of sky under the clouds, and the clouds were thinning. The band of sky became red with afterglow. Above it, as the clouds thinned, there was a band of white, and then a deep blue, with the evening star in it. Roscoe dismounted and stood there dripping, aware that he ought to be planning some form of defense but unable to think of any. It seemed to him the storm might have discouraged the two men—maybe one of them had even been struck by lightning.

Before he could draw much comfort from that line of speculation he heard his own gun go off. A second or two later it went off again, and then again. The sound came from just north of the gully. As he could not be any wetter, and could not stand the suspense of not knowing what was going on, he waded the little creek and climbed the bank, only to look and see the barrels of a shotgun not a yard from his face. The ox of a man held the shotgun; in his big hands it looked tiny, though the barrels in Roscoe’s face seemed as big as cannons.

“Clamber on up here, traveler,” the big man said.

July had told him never to argue with a loaded gun, and Roscoe had no intention of disobeying his instructions. He climbed up the muddy bank and saw that Janey was involved in a tussle with the little outlaw. He had her down and was astraddle of her and was trying to tie her, but Janey was wiggling desperately. She was covered with mud, and in the wet, slick grass was proving hard to subdue. The man cuffed her twice, but the blows had no effect that Roscoe could see.

The big man with the shotgun seemed to find the tussle amusing. He walked over for a closer look, though he continued to keep the shotgun pointed at Roscoe.

“Why don’t you just shoot her?” he asked the little man. “She was willing to shoot you.”

The little man didn’t answer. He was breathing hard but he continued to try and tie Janey’s wrists.

Roscoe had to admire Janey’s spunk. The situation looked hopeless, but she kept struggling, twisting around and scratching at the man when she could. Finally the big man stepped in and planted a muddy boot on one of her arms, enabling his companion to tie her wrists. The little man cuffed her again for good measure, and sat back to get his breath. He looked around at Roscoe, his eyes as bad as ever.

“Where’d you get this feisty rabbit?” he asked. “She dern near shot me and she nicked Hutto.”

“We’re from Arkansas,” Roscoe said. He felt foolish for having given Janey the pistol. After all, he was the deputy. On the other hand, if they had seen him shoot, the men might have shot back.

“Let’s just shoot them and take the horse,” Hutto, the big man said. “We could have done it this afternoon and saved all this time.”

“Yeah, and the dern soldiers would have found them,” the other said. “You can’t just leave bodies lying right in the road no more. Somebody’s apt to take an interest.”

“Jim, you’re too nervous,” Hutto said. “Anyway, this ain’t a road, and we ain’t far from the Territory. Let’s shoot ’em and take what they got.”

“What
have
they got, by God?” Jim asked. “Go bring the horse.”

Hutto brought Memphis and the two amused themselves for a few minutes by going through the bedroll and the saddlebags. One kept Roscoe covered with the shotgun while the other emptied the contents of the saddlebags carelessly on the wet grass. What they saw was very disappointing to them.

“All right, Jim, I told you they looked like a waste of time,” Hutto said.

“Well, there’s a horse, at least,” Jim said. Then he gave Roscoe a mean look.

“Strip off them duds,” he said.

“What?” Roscoe asked.

“Strip off them duds,” the man repeated. He picked up Roscoe’s pistol, which had fallen in the grass, and pointed it at him.

“Why must I?” Roscoe asked.

“Well, your underwear might fit me,” Jim suggested. “You ain’t got much else to offer.”

Roscoe was forced to take off every bit of clothing. He felt miserable taking off his boots, for he knew that wet as they were he’d be lucky to get them back on. But then, if he was dead it wouldn’t matter. When he got down to his long johns he became embarrassed, for after all Janey was sitting there watching. She was wet and muddy, and hadn’t said a word.