Lonesome Dove (39 page)

42

“WELL, IF WE WASN’T DOOMED to begin with, we’re doomed now,” Augustus said, watching Bolivar ride away. He enjoyed every opportunity for pronouncing doom, and the loss of a cook was a good one.

“I expect we’ll poison ourselves before we get much farther, with no regular cook,” he said. “I just hope Jasper gets poisoned first.”

“I never liked that old man’s cooking anyway,” Jasper said.

“You’ll remember it fondly, once you’re poisoned,” Augustus said.

Call felt depressed by the morning’s events. He did not particularly lament the loss of the wagon—an old wired-together wreck at best—but he did lament the loss of Bol. Once he formed a unit of men he didn’t like to lose one of them, for any reason. Someone would have to assume extra work, which seldom sat well with whoever had to do it. Bolivar had been with them ten years and it was trying to lose him suddenly, although Call had not really expected him to come when he first announced the trip. Bolivar was a Mexican, If he didn’t miss his family, he’d miss his country, as the Irishman did. Every night now, Allen O’Brien sang his homesick songs to the cattle. It soothed the cattle but not the men—the songs were too sorrowful.

Augustus noticed Call standing off to one side, looking blue. Once in a while Call would fall into blue spells—times when he seemed almost paralyzed by doubts he never voiced. The blue spells never came at a time of real crisis. Call thrived on crisis. They were brought on by little accidents, like the wagon breaking.

“Maybe Lippy can cook,” Augustus suggested, to see if that would register with Call.

Lippy had found an old piece of sacking and was wiping the mud off his head. “No, I never learned to cook, I just learned to eat,” Lippy said.

Call got on his horse, hoping to shake off the low feeling that had settled over him. After all, nobody was hurt, the herd was moving well, and Bol was no great loss. But the low feeling stayed. It was as if he had lead in his legs.

“You might try to load that gear on them mules,” he said to Pea.

“Maybe we can make a two-wheel cart,” Pea said. “There ain’t much wrong with the front of the wagon. It’s the back end that’s busted up.”

“Dern, Pea, you’re a genius for figuring that out,” Augustus said.

“I guess I’ll go into San Antonio,” Call said. “Maybe I can hire a cook and buy a new wagon.”

“Fine, I’ll join you,” Augustus said.

“Why?” Call asked.

“To help judge the new chef,” Augustus said. “You’d eat a fried stove lid if you was hungry. I’m interested in the finer points of cooking, myself. I’d like to give the man a tryout before we hire him.”

“I don’t see why. He won’t have nothing much tenderer than a stove lid to cook around this outfit anyway,” Jasper said. He had been very disappointed in the level of the grub.

“Just don’t get nobody who cooks snakes,” he warned. “If I have to eat any more snakes I’m apt to give notice.”

“That’s an idle threat, Jasper,” Augustus said. “You wouldn’t know where to go if you was to quit. For one thing, you’d be skeert to cross a river.”

“You ought to let him be about that,” Call said, when they had ridden out of earshot. Jasper’s fear of water was nothing to joke about. Call had seen grown men get so scared of crossing rivers that it was practically necessary to knock them out at every crossing—and a shaky man was apt to panic and spook the herd. Under normal circumstances, Jasper Fant was a good hand, and there was nothing to be gained by riding him about his fear of water.

On the way to San Antonio they passed two settlements—nothing more than a church house and a few little stores, but settlements anyway, and not ten miles apart.

“Now look at that,” Augustus said. “The dern people are making towns everywhere. It’s our fault, you know.”

“It ain’t our fault and it ain’t our business, either,” Call said. “People can do what they want.”

“Why, naturally, since we chased out the Indians and hung all the good bandits,” Augustus said. “Does it ever occur to you that everything we done was probably a mistake? Just look at it from a nature standpoint. If you’ve got enough snakes around the place you won’t be overrun with rats or varmints. The way I see it, the Indians and the bandits have the same job to do. Leave ’em be and you won’t constantly be having to ride around these dern settlements.”

“You don’t have to ride around them,” Call said. “What harm do they do?”

“If I’d have wanted civilization I’d have stayed in Tennessee and wrote poetry for a living,” Augustus said. “Me and you done our work too well. We killed off most of the people that made this country interesting to begin with.”

Call didn’t answer. It was one of Gus’s favorite themes, and if given a chance he would expound on it for hours. Of course it was nonsense. Nobody in their right mind would want the Indians back, or the bandits either. Whether Gus had ever been in his right mind was an open question.

“Call, you ought to have married and had six or eight kids,” Augustus remarked. If he couldn’t get anywhere with one subject he liked to move on to another. Call’s spirits hadn’t improved much. When he was low it was hard to get him to talk.

“I can’t imagine why you think so,” Call said. “I wonder what’s become of Jake?”

“Why, Jake’s moseying along—starved for a card game, probably,” Augustus said.

“He ought to leave that girl and throw in with us,” Call said.

“You ain’t listening,” Augustus said. “I was trying to explain why you ought to marry. If you had a passel of kids, then you’d always have a troop to boss when you felt like bossing. It would occupy your brain and you wouldn’t get gloomy as often.”

“I doubt that marriage could be worse than having to listen to you,” Call said, “but that ain’t much of a testimonial for it.”

They reached San Antonio late in the day, passing near one of the old missions. A Mexican boy in a brown shirt was bringing in a small herd of goats.

“Maybe we ought to take a few goats to Montana,” Augustus said. “Goats can be melodious, more so than your cattle. They could accompany the Irishman and we’d have more of a singsong.”

“I’ll settle for more of a wagon,” Call said.

Fortunately they were able to buy one almost at once from a big livery stable north of the river. It was necessary to buy two more mules to pull the wagon back to the herd. Fortunately the mules were cheap, twenty dollars a head, and the big German who ran the livery stable threw in the harness.

Augustus volunteered to drive the wagon back to the herd on condition he could have a drink and a meal first. He hadn’t been to San Antonio in years and he marveled at the new establishments that had sprung up.

“Why, this place’ll catch New Orleans if it don’t stop growing,” he said. “If we’d put in a barbershop ten years ago we’d be rich now.”

There was a big saloon on the main street that they’d frequented a lot in their rangering days. It was called the Buckhorn, because of the owner’s penchant for using deer horns for coat and hat racks. His name was Willie Montgomery, and he had been a big crony of Augustus’s at one time. Call suspected him of being a card sharp, but if so he was a careful card sharp.

“I guess Willie will be so glad to see us he’ll offer us a free dinner, at least,” Augustus said, as they trotted over to the saloon. “Maybe a free whore, too, if he’s prospering.”

But when they strode in, there was no sign of Willie or anyone they recognized. A young bartender with slick hair and a string tie gave them a look when they stepped to the bar, but seemed as if he could scarcely be troubled to serve them. He was wiping out glasses with a little white towel and setting each one carefully on a shelf. The saloon was mostly empty, just a few cardplayers at a table in the back.

Augustus was not one to stand patiently and be ignored by a bartender. “I’d like a shot of whiskey and so would my companion, if it ain’t too much trouble,” he said.

The bartender didn’t look around until he had finished polishing the glass he had in his hand.

“I guess it ain’t, old-timer,” he said. “Rye, or what will it be?”

“Rye will do, provided it gets here quick,” Augustus said, straining to be polite.

The young bartender didn’t alter his pace, but he did provide two glasses and walked slowly back to get a bottle of whiskey.

“You dern cowboys ought to broom yourselves off before you walk in here,” he said with an insolent look. “We can get all the sand we need without the customers bringing it to us. That’ll be two dollars.”

Augustus pitched a ten-dollar gold piece on the bar and as the young man took it, suddenly reached out, grabbed his head and smashed his face into the bar, before the young man could even react. Then he quickly drew his big Colt, and when the bartender raised his head, his broken nose gushing blood onto his white shirtfront, he found himself looking right into the barrel of a very big gun.

“Besides the liquor, I think we’ll require a little respect,” he said. “I’m Captain McCrae and this is Captain Call. If you care to turn around, you can see our pictures when we was younger. Among the things we don’t put up with is dawdling service. I’m surprised Willie would hire a surly young idler like you.”

The cardplayers were watching the proceedings with interest, but the young bartender was too surprised at having suddenly had his nose broken to say anything at all. He held his towel to his nose, which was still pouring blood. Augustus calmly walked around the bar and got the picture he had referred to, which was propped up by the mirror with three or four others of the same vintage. He laid the picture on the bar, took the glass the young bartender had just polished, slinging it lazily into the air back in the general direction of the cardplayers, and then the roar of the big Colt filled the saloon.

Call glanced around in time to see the glass shatter. Augustus had always been a wonderful pistol shot—it was pleasing to see he still was. All of the cardplayers scurried for cover except a fat man in a big hat. Looking more closely, Call remembered him—his name was Ned Tym, and he was a seasoned gambler, too seasoned to be disturbed by a little flying glass. When it stopped flying, Ned Tym coolly took his hat off and blew the glass from the brim.

“Well, the Texas Rangers is back in town,” he said. “Hello, Gus. Next time I see a circus I’ll ask them if they need a trick shot.”

“Why, Ned, is that you?” Augustus said. “My old eyes are failing. If I’d recognized you I’d have shot your hat off and saved a glass. Where do you keep your extra aces these days?”

Before Ned Tym could answer, a man in a black coat came running down the stairs at the back of the saloon. He wasn’t much older than the bartender.

“What’s going on here, Ned?” the man asked, prudently stopping by the card table. Augustus still held the big pistol in his hand.

“Oh, nothing, John,” Ned said. “Captain McCrae and Captain Call happened in and Captain McCrae gave us a little demonstration with his pistol, that’s all.”

“It ain’t all,” the bartender said, in a loud voice. “The old son of a bitch broke my nose.”

With a movement so graceful it seemed almost gentle, Augustus reached across the bar and rapped the bartender above the ear with his gun barrel. A tap was enough. The bartender slid out of sight and was seen no more.

“Why’d you do that?” the man in the black coat asked. He was angry, but, even more, he seemed surprised. Call glanced at him and judged him no threat—he sipped his whiskey and left the theatrics to Augustus.

“I’m surprised you have to ask why I did that,” Augustus said, holstering his gun. “You heard the name he called me. If that’s city ways, they don’t appeal to me. Besides, he was a dawdling bartender and deserved a lick. Do you own this place, or what’s your gripe?”

“I own it,” the man said. “I don’t allow shooting in it, either.”

“What became of Wee Willie Montgomery?” Augustus asked. “You didn’t have to whack the bartender just to get a glass of whiskey when he owned it.”

“Willie’s woman run off,” Ned Tym informed them. “He decided to chase her, so he sold the place to Johnny here.”

“Well, I can’t say that I think he made a good choice,” Augustus said, turning back to the bar. “Probably chose bad in the woman department too. Maybe if he’s lucky she’ll get plumb away.”

“No, they’re living up in Fort Worth,” Ned said. “Willie was determined not to lose her.”

Call was looking at the picture Augustus had fetched from behind the bar. It was of himself and Gus and Jake Spoon, taken years before. Jake was grinning and had a pearl-handled pistol stuck in his belt, whereas he and Gus looked solemn. It had been taken in the year they chased Kicking Wolf and his band all the way to the Canadian, killing over twenty of them. Kicking Wolf had raided down the Brazos, messing up several families of settlers and scaring people in the little settlements. Driving them back to the Canadian had made the Rangers heroes for a time, though Call had known it was hollow praise. Kicking Wolf hadn’t been taken or killed, and there was nothing to keep him on the Canadian for long. But for a few weeks, everywhere they went there was some photographer with his box, wanting to take their picture. One had cornered them in the Buckhorn and made them stand stiffly while he got his shot.

The young man in the black coat went over behind the bar and looked at the fallen bartender.

“Why did you have to break his nose,” he asked.

“He’ll thank me someday,” Augustus said. “It will make him more appealing to the ladies. He looked too much like a long-tailed rat, as it was. With no better manners than he had, I expect he was in for a lonely life.”

“Well, I won’t have this!” the young man said loudly. “I don’t know why you old cowboys think you can just walk in and do what you please. What’s that picture doing on the bar?”

“Why, it’s just a picture of us boys, back in the days when they wanted to make us senators,” Augustus said. “Willie kept it on the mirror there so when we happened in we could see how handsome we used to look.”

“I’m a notion to call the sheriff and have the two of you arrested,” the young man said. “Shooting in my bar is a crime, and I don’t care what you done twenty years ago. You can get out of here and be quick about it or you’ll end up spending your night in jail.” He got angrier as he spoke.