Lonesome Dove (7 page)

Deets was a black man; he had been with Call and Augustus nearly as long as Pea Eye. Three days before, he had been sent to San Antonio with a deposit of money, a tactic Call always used, since few bandits would suspect a black man of having any money on him.

Bolivar missed him because one of Deets’s jobs was to carry water.

“He’ll be back this morning,” Call said. “You can set your clock by Deets.”

“You might set yours,” Augustus said. “I wouldn’t set mine. Old Deets is human. If he ever run into the right dark-complexioned lady you might have to wind your clock two or three times before he showed up. He’s like me. He knows that some things are more important than work.”

Bolivar looked at the water bucket with irritation. “I’d like to shoot this damn bucket full of holes,” he said.

“I don’t think you could hit that bucket if you was sitting on it,” Augustus said. “I’ve seen you shoot. You ain’t the worst shot I ever knew that would be Jack Jennell but you run him a close race. Jack went broke as a buffalo hunter quicker than any man I ever knew. He couldn’t have hit a buffalo if one had swallowed him.”

Bolivar went out the door with the bucket, looking as if it might be a while before he came back.

Dish meanwhile was doing some hard thinking. He had meant to leave right after breakfast and ride back to the Matagorda, where he had a sure job. The Hat Creek outfit was hardly known as a trail-driving bunch, but on the other hand Captain Call was not a man to indulge in idle talk. If he was contemplating a drive he would probably make one. Meanwhile there was Lorena, who might come to see him in an entirely different light if he could spend time with her for a few days running. Of course, getting to spend time with her was expensive, and he had not a cent, but if word got around that he was working for the Hat Creek outfit he could probably attract a little credit.

One thing Dish prided himself on was his skill at driving a buggy; it occurred to him that since Lorena seemed to spend most of her time cooped up in the Dry Bean, she might appreciate a buggy ride along the river in a smart buggy, if such a creature could be found in Lonesome Dove. He got up and carried his plate to the wash bucket.

“Captain, if you mean it I’d be pleased to stay the day or two,” Dish said.

The Captain had stepped out on the back porch and was looking north, along the stage road that threaded its way through the brush country toward San Antonio. The road ran straight for a considerable distance before it hit the first gully, and Captain Call had his eyes fixed on it. He seemed not to hear Dish’s reply, although he was only a few feet away. Dish stepped out on the porch to see what it was that distracted the man. Far up the road he could see two horsemen coming, but they were so far yet that it was impossible to tell anything about them. At moments, heat waves from the road caused a quavering that made them seem like one horseman. Dish squinted but there was nothing special about the riders that his eye could detect. Yet the Captain had not so much as turned his head since they appeared.

“Gus, come out here,” the Captain said.

Augustus was busy cleaning his plate of honey, a process that involved several more biscuits.

“I’m eating,” he said, though that was obvious.

“Come see who’s coming,” the Captain said, rather mildly, Dish thought.

“If it’s Deets my watch is already set,” Augustus said. “Anyway, I don’t suppose he’s changed clothes, and if I have to see his old black knees sticking out of them old quilts he wears for pants it’s apt to spoil my digestion.”

“Deets is coming all right,” Call said. “The fact is, he ain’t by himself.”

“Well, the man’s always aimed to marry,” Augustus said. “I imagine he just finally met up with that dark-complexioned lady I was referring to.”

“He ain’t met no lady,” Call said with a touch of exasperation. “Who he’s met is an old friend of ours. If you don’t come here and look I’ll have to drag you.”

Augustus was about through with the biscuits anyway. He had to use a forefinger to capture the absolute last drop of honey, which was just as sweet licked off a finger as it was when eaten on good sourdough biscuits.

“Newt, did you know honey is the world’s purest food?” he said, getting up.

Newt had heard enough lectures on the subject to have already forgotten more than most people ever know about the properties of honey. He hurried his plate to the tub, more curious than Mr. Gus about who Deets could have found.

“Yes, sir, I like it myself,” he said, to cut short the talk of honey.

Augustus was a step behind the boy, idly licking his forefinger. He glanced up the road to see what Call could be so aroused about. Two riders were coming, the one on the left clearly Deets, on the big white gelding they called Wishbone. The other rider rode a pacing bay; it took but a moment for recognition to strike. The rider seemed to slump a little in the saddle, in the direction of his horse’s off side, a tendency peculiar to only one man he knew. Augustus was so startled that he made the mistake of running his sticky fingers through his own hair.

“’I god, Woodrow,” he said. “That there’s Jake Spoon.”

6

THE NAME STRUCK NEWT like a blow, so much did Jake Spoon mean to him. As a very little boy, when his mother had still been alive, Jake Spoon was the man who came most often to see her. It had begun to be clear to him, as he turned over his memories, that his mother had been a whore, like Lorena, but this realization tarnished nothing, least of all his memories of Jake Spoon. No man had been kinder, either to him or his mother—her name had been Maggie. Jake had given him hard candy and pennies and had set him on a pacing horse and given him his first ride; he had even had old Jesus, the bootmaker, make him his first pair of boots; and once when Jake won a lady’s saddle in a card game he gave the saddle to Newt and had the stirrups cut down to his size.

Those were the days before order came to Lonesome Dove, when Captain Call and Augustus were still Rangers, with responsibilities that took them up and down the border. Jake Spoon was a Ranger too, and in Newt’s eyes the most dashing of them all. He always carried a pearl-handled pistol and rode a pacing horse—easier on the seat, Jake claimed. The dangers of his profession seemed to sit lightly on him.

But then the fighting gradually died down along the border and the Captain and Mr. Gus and Jake and Pea Eye and Deets all quit rangering and formed the Hat Creek outfit. But the settled life seemed not to suit Jake, and one day he was just gone. No one was surprised, though Newt’s mother was so upset by it that for a time he got a whipping every time he asked when Jake was coming back. The whippings didn’t seem to have much to do with him, just with his mother’s disappointment that Jake had left.

Newt stopped asking about Jake, but he didn’t stop remembering him. It was barely a year later that his mother died of fever; the Captain and Augustus took him in, although at first they argued about him. At first Newt missed his mother so much that he didn’t care about the arguments. His mother and Jake were both gone and arguments were not going to bring them back.

But when the worst pain passed and he began to earn his keep around the Hat Creek outfit by doing the numerous chores that the Captain set him, he often drifted back in his mind to the days when Jake Spoon had come to see his mother. It seemed to him that Jake might even be his father, though everyone told him his name was Newt Dobbs, not Newt Spoon. Why it was Dobbs, and why everyone was so sure, was a puzzle to him, since no one in Lonesome Dove seemed to know anything about a Mr. Dobbs. It had not occurred to him to ask his mother while she was alive—last names weren’t used much around Lonesome Dove, and he didn’t realize that the last name was supposed to come from the father. Even Mr. Gus, who would talk about anything, seemed to have no information about Mr. Dobbs. “He went west when he shouldn’t have,” was his only comment on the man.

Newt had never asked Captain Call to amplify that information—the Captain preferred to volunteer what he wanted you to know. In his heart, though, Newt didn’t believe in Mr. Dobbs. He had a little pile of stuff his mother had left, just a few beads and combs and a little scrapbook and some cutout pictures from magazines that Mr. Gus had been kind enough to save for him, and there was nothing about a Mr. Dobbs in the scrapbook and no picture of him amid the pictures, though there was a scratchy picture of his grandfather, Maggie’s father, who had lived in Alabama.

If, as he suspected, there had been no Mr. Dobbs, or if he had just been a gentleman who stopped at the rooming house a day or two—they had lived in the rooming house when Maggie was alive—then it might be that Jake Spoon was really his father. Perhaps no one had informed him of it because they thought it more polite to let Jake do so himself when he came back.

Newt had always assumed Jake
would
come back, too. Scraps of news about him had blown back down the cow trails—word that he was a peace officer in Ogallala, or that he was prospecting for gold in the Black Hills. Newt had no idea where the Black Hills were, or how you went about finding gold in them, but one of the reasons he was eager to head north with a cow herd was the hope of running into Jake somewhere along the way. Of course he wanted to wear a gun and become a top hand and have the adventure of the drive—maybe they would even see buffalo, though he knew there weren’t many left. But underneath all his other hopes was the oldest yearning he had, one that could lie covered over for months and years and still be fresh as a toothache: the need to see Jake Spoon.

Now the very man was riding toward them, right there beside Deets, on a pacing horse as pretty as the one he had ridden away ten years before. Newt forgot Dish Boggett, whose every move he had been planning to study. Before the two riders even got very close Newt could see Deets’s big white teeth shining in his black face, for he had gone away on a routine job and was coming back proud of more than having done it. He didn’t race his horse up to the porch or do anything silly, but it was plain even at a distance that Deets was a happy man.

Then the horses were kicking up little puffs of dust in the wagon yard and the two were almost there. Jake wore a brown vest and a brown hat, and he still had his pearl-handled pistol. Deets was still grinning. They rode right up to the back porch before they drew rein. It was obvious that Jake had come a long way, for the pacing bay had no flesh on him.

Jake’s eyes were the color of coffee, and he wore a little mustache. He looked them all over for a moment, and then broke out a slow grin.

“Howdy, boys,” he said. “What’s for breakfast?”

“Why, biscuits and fatback, Jake,” Augustus said. “The usual fare. Only we won’t be serving it up for about twenty-four hours. I hope you’ve got a buffalo liver or a haunch of venison on you to tide you over.”

“Gus, don’t tell me you’ve et,” Jake said, swinging off the bay. “We rode all night, and Deets couldn’t think of nothing to talk about except the taste of them biscuits you make.”

“While you was talking, Gus was eating them,” Call said. He and Jake shook hands, looking one another over.

Jake looked at Deets a minute. “I knowed we should have telegraphed from Pickles Gap,” he said, then turned with a grin and shook Gus’s hand.

“You always was a hog, Gus,” Jake said.

“And you were usually late for meals,” Augustus reminded him.

Then Pea Eye insisted on shaking hands, though Jake had never been very partial to him. “By gosh, Jake, you stayed gone a while,” Pea Eye said.

While they were shaking Jake noticed the boy, standing there by some lank cowhand with a heavy mustache. “My lord,” he said. “Are you little Newt? Why you’re plumb growed. Who let that happen?”

Newt felt so full of feeling that he could hardly speak. “It’s me, Jake,” he said. “I’m still here.”

“What do you think, Captain?” Deets asked, handing Call the receipt from the bank. “Didn’t I find the prodigal?”

“You found him,” Call said. “I bet he wasn’t in church, either.”

Deets had a laugh at that. “No, sir,” he said. “Not in church.”

Jake was introduced to Dish Boggett, but once he shook hands he turned and had another look at Newt as if the fact that he was nearly grown surprised him more than anything else in Lonesome Dove.

“I swear, Jake,” Augustus said, looking at the bay horse, “you’ve rode that horse right down to the bone.”

“Give him a good feed, Deets,” Call said. “I judge it’s been a while since he’s had one.”

Deets led the horses off toward the roofless barn. It was true that he made his pants out of old quilts, for reasons that no one could get him to explain. Colorful as they were, quilts weren’t the best material for riding through mesquite and chaparral. Thorns had snagged the pants in several places, and cotton ticking was sticking out. For headgear Deets wore an old cavalry cap he had found somewhere—it was in nearly as bad shape as Lippy’s bowler.

“Didn’t he have that cap when I left?” Jake asked. He took his own hat off and slapped the dust off his pants leg with it. He had curly black hair, but Newt saw to his surprise that there was a sizable bald spot on the top of his head.

“He found that cap in the fifties, to the best of my recollection,” Augustus said. “You know Deets is like me—he’s not one to quit on a garment just because it’s got a little age. We can’t all be fine dressers like you, Jake.”

Jake turned his coffee eyes on Augustus and broke out another slow grin. “What’d it take to get you to whip up another batch of them biscuits?” he said. “I’ve come all the way from Arkansas without tasting a good bite of bread.”

“From the looks of that pony it’s been fast traveling,” Call said, which was as close to prying as he intended to get. He had run with Jake Spoon off and on for twenty years, and liked him well; but the man had always worried him a little, underneath. There was no more likable man in the west, and no better rider, either; but riding wasn’t everything, and neither was likableness. Something in Jake didn’t quite stick. Something wasn’t quite consistent. He could be the coolest man in the company in one fight, and in the next be practically worthless.

Augustus knew it too. He was a great sponsor of Jake’s and had stayed fond of him although for years they were rivals for Clara Allen, who eventually showed them both the door. But Augustus felt, with Call, that Jake wasn’t long on backbone. When he left the Rangers Augustus said more than once that he would probably end up hung. So far that hadn’t happened, but riding up at breakfast time on a gant horse was an indication of trouble. Jake prided himself on pretty horses, and would never ride a horse as hard as the bay had been ridden if trouble wasn’t somewhere behind him.

Jake saw Bolivar coming from the old cistern with a bucketful of water. Bolivar was a new face, and one that had no interest in his homecoming. A little cool water sloshed over the edges of the bucket, looking very good to a man with a mouth as dusty as Jake’s.

“Boys, I’d like a drink and maybe even a wash, if you can spare one,” he said. “My luck’s been running kinda muddy lately, but I’d like to get water enough in me that I can at least spit before I tell you about it.”

“Why, sure,” Augustus said. “Go fill the dipper. You want us to stay out here and hold off the posses?”

“There ain’t no posses,” Jake said, going in the house.

Dish Boggett felt somewhat at a loss. He had been all ready to hire on, and then this new man rode up and everyone had sort of forgotten him. Captain Call, a man known for being all business, seemed a little distracted. He and Gus just stood there as if they expected a posse despite what Jake Spoon had said.

Newt noticed it too. Mr. Gus ought to go in and cook Jake some biscuits, but he just stood there, thinking about something, evidently. Deets was on his way back from the lots.

Dish finally spoke up. “Captain, like I said, I’d be glad to wait if you have some plans to make up a herd,” he said.

The Captain looked at him strangely, as if he might have forgotten his name, much less what he was doing there. But it wasn’t the case.

“Why, yes, Dish,” he said. “We might be needing some hands, if you don’t mind doing some well-digging while you wait. Pea, you best get these boys started.”

Dish was almost ready to back out then and there. He had drawn top wages for the last two years without being asked to do anything that couldn’t be done from a horse. It was insensitive of the Captain to think that he could just order him off, with a boy and an old idiot like Pea Eye, to wrestle a spade and crowbar all day. It scratched his pride, and he had a notion to go get his horse and let them keep their well-digging. But the Captain was looking at him hard, and when Dish looked up to say he had changed his mind, their eyes met and Dish didn’t say it. There had been no real promises made, much less talk of wages, but somehow Dish had taken one step too far. The Captain was looking at him eye to eye, as if to see if he was going to stand by his own words or if he . meant to wiggle like a fish and change his mind. Dish had only offered to stay because of Lorie, but suddenly it had all gotten beyond her. Pea and Newt were already walking toward the barn. It was clear from the Captain’s attitude that unless he wanted to lose all reputation, he had trapped himself into at least one day’s well-digging.

It seemed to him he ought to at least say something to salvage a little pride, but before he could think of anything Gus came over and clapped him on the shoulder.

“You should have rode on last night, Dish,” he said with an irritating grin. “You may never see the last of this outfit now.”

“Well, you was the one that invited me,” Dish said, highly annoyed. Since there was no help for it short of disgrace, he started for the lots.

“If you come to Chiny you can stop digging,” Augustus called after him. “That’s the place where the men wear pigtails.”

“I wouldn’t ride him if I were you,” Call said. “We may need him.”

“I didn’t send him off to dig no well,” Augustus said. “Don’t you know that’s an insult to his dignity? I’m surprised he went. I thought Dish had more grit.”

“He said he’d stay,” Call said. “I ain’t feeding him three times a day to sit around and play cards with you.”

“No need to now,” Augustus said. “I got fake for that. I bet you don’t get Jake down in your well.”

At that moment Jake stepped out on the back porch, his sleeves rolled up and his face red from the scrubbing he had given it with the old piece of sacking they used for a towel.

“That old
pistolero’s
been cleaning his gun on this towel,” Jake said. “It’s filthy dirty.”

“If it’s just his six-shooter he’s cleaning on it you oughtn’t to complain,” Augustus said. “There’s worse things he could wipe on it.”

“Hell, don’t you men ever wash?” Jake asked. “That old Mex didn’t even want to give me a pan of water.”

It was the kind of remark Call had no patience with, but that was Jake, more interested in fancy arrangements than in the more important matters.

“Once you left, our standards slipped,” Augustus said. “The majority of this outfit ain’t interested in refinements.”

“That’s plain,” Jake said. “There’s a damn pig on the back porch. What about them biscuits?”