Lonesome Dove (76 page)

77

IT SEEMED TO JULY that he was nearly as cursed as Job when it came to catching Elmira. Despite his caution, he kept having accidents and setbacks of a kind that had never happened at home in Fort Smith. Three days out of Dodge, the new horse he had bought, which turned out not to be well-broken, fell and crippled himself trying to throw a hobble. July waited a day, hoping it wasn’t as bad as he thought it was—but the next day he saw it was even worse. It hardly seemed possible to lose two horses on one trip, when he had never lost a horse before in his life, but it was a fact he had to face.

With that fact went another: he wasn’t likely to get another horse unless he went back to Dodge. North of him there was only the plains, until he came to the Platte River—a long walk. July hated to double back on himself, but he had no choice. It was as if Dodge City was some kind of magnet, letting him go and then sucking him back. He shot the second horse, just as he had shot the first one, hid his saddle and went back. He walked grimly, trying to keep his mind off the fact that Ellie was getting farther and farther away all the time.

He swam the Arkansas River when he came to it, walked into town in wet clothes, bought another horse, and left again within the hour. The old horse trader was half drunk and eager to bargain, but July cut him short.

“You ain’t getting anywhere very fast, are you, young feller?” the old man said, chuckling. July thought it an unnecessary remark. He went right back across the river.

All during the trip he had been haunted by the memory of something that had happened in Fort Smith several years before. One of the nicest men in town, a cotton merchant, had gone to Memphis on a business trip, only to have his wife take sick while he was gone. They tried to send a telegram to notify the man, but he was on his way back and the telegram never got delivered. The man’s name was John Fisher. As he rode back into Fort Smith, John Fisher saw a burying party out behind the church. Being a neighborly man, he had ridden over to see who had died, and the people had all stopped, stricken, for they were burying his wife. July had been helping to cover the coffin. He never forgot the look on John Fisher’s face when he realized he was a day late—his wife had died the afternoon before his return. Though a healthy man, John Fisher only lived another year himself. If he ran into someone on the street who had seen his wife on her sickbed he always asked, “Do you think Jane might have lived if I’d got back sooner?” Everyone told him no, you couldn’t have done a thing, but John Fisher didn’t believe them.

July had no reason to think that Elmira was sick, but he had so much worry that he hated every delay. Fortunately the new horse was strong, a good traveler. July pushed him hard, taking his own rest when he felt the horse needed it. He watched the horse closely, knowing that he couldn’t afford to lose him. He only had two dollars left, plus some coffee, bacon and his rifle. He hoped to kill an antelope, but could not hit one. Mostly he lived on bacon.

Near the Republican River he had his second piece of bad luck. He had camped on a little bluff, exhausted, and after hobbling the horse, fell asleep like a stone. He didn’t sleep well. In the night he felt a stinging in his leg but was too heavy with sleep to care—red ants had gotten him several times.

When he awoke it was to severe pain and a right leg so swollen that he had to cut his pants open to see what was wrong. When he did, he saw fang marks, just above his knee. A snake must have crawled near him in the night, and in his thrashing he had turned over and scared it. He had heard no rattle, but it might have been a young snake, or had its rattle broken off.

At first he was very scared. He had been bitten in the night—the poison had had several hours in which to work. It was already too late to cut the bite and try to drain the poison. He had no medicines and could do nothing for himself. He grew lightheaded and assumed he was dying. From the bluff he could see far north across the Republican, almost to Nebraska, he supposed. It was terribly bad luck, to be snakebit almost in sight of where he needed to be. He didn’t even have much water, for with the river so close he had let himself run low.

There was no shade on the bluff. He covered his face with his hat and lay back against his saddle, sweating, and ashamed of his own carelessness. He grew delirious and in his delirium would have long talks with Roscoe. He could see Roscoe’s face as plain as day. Roscoe didn’t seem to blame him for the fact that he was dead. If he himself was soon going to be dead, too, it might not matter so much. July didn’t die. His leg felt terrible, though. In the night came a rainstorm and he could do nothing but huddle under his saddle blanket. His teeth began to chatter and he couldn’t stop them. He almost wished he could go on and die, it was so uncomfortable. But in the morning the sun was hot, he soon dried out. He felt weak, but he didn’t feel as if he were dying. Mainly he had to avoid looking at his leg. It looked so bad he didn’t know what to think. If a doctor saw it he could probably just cut it off and be done with it. When he tried to bend it even a little, a terrible pain shot through him—yet he had to get down to the river or else die of thirst, even though it had just rained. He had been too sick to try and catch any of the rainwater.

That afternoon he stood up, but he couldn’t touch his right foot to the ground. He managed to belly over the horse and get down to the river. It was three days before he had the strength to go back and get the saddle. The effort of getting to the river had exhausted him so much he could barely undo a button. Early one morning he shot a large crane with his pistol, and the meat put a little strength in him. His leg had not returned to normal, but it had not fallen off either. He could put a little weight on it, but not much.

Five days after the snake bit him, July saddled up and rode across the Republican River. Since leaving Dodge he had not seen one person. He worried about Indians—wounded as he was, he would have been easy prey—and yet finally he grew so lonesome that he would have been glad to see an Indian or two. He began to wonder if there were any people at all in the north.

As he neared Nebraska, the plains took on a browner look. Though he was fairly sure now he wasn’t going to die, he kept having spells of lightheadedness in which his vision wavered and he tended to run off at the mouth. At night he would wake and find himself in the middle of a conversation with Roscoe—it embarrassed him, though no one was around to hear.

But he kept on. Streams became a little more plentiful and he ceased to worry too much about water. Once he thought he saw riders, far in the distance, but when he went toward them they turned out to be two buffalo, standing on the prairie as if they were lost. July started to shoot one, but it was more meat than he needed, and if he killed one the other buffalo would be as alone as he was. He passed on and that night killed a big prairie chicken with a rock.

Three days later he saw the Platte, winding between low brown slopes. He soon hit a good wagon track and followed it west.

About noon he saw a lone frame house standing a half mile south of the Platte. There were corrals and a few sheds near it, and a sizable horse herd grazing in sight of the house. July felt like crying—it meant he wasn’t lost anymore. No one would build a frame house unless there was a town somewhere near. Being alone on the prairie for so many weeks had made him realize how much he liked being in towns, though when he thought about all that he had been through, he didn’t feel he had much hope of finding Ellie there. How could a woman come across such distances?

As he approached the house an old man appeared to the north, riding out of the Platte, his horse dripping water. July saw there were more horses north of the river. The old man had white hair and seemed to be a Mexican. He rode with a rifle held lightly across his saddle. July didn’t want to appear unfriendly. He stopped to wait.

The old man looked mainly at his leg. July had forgotten how ugly it looked—he had even forgotten it was still yellowish and almost bare, for he had cut his pants leg off when the leg was so swollen.

“Is it bad?” the old man asked in English. July was glad for the English.

“Not as bad as it was,” July said. “Is Ogallala near here?”

“Twenty miles,” the old man said. “I’m Cholo. Come to the house. You must be hungry.”

July didn’t argue. He had almost forgotten that people sat at tables, in houses, to eat. He had lived so long on half-cooked bacon, or half-cooked game, that he had become shy at the thought of sitting at a proper table. He didn’t look proper, he knew.

As he approached the house he suddenly heard shrieks of laughter, and a little girl flew around the corner of the house, another slightly older girl in hot pursuit. The girl in the lead ran on to one of the sheds between the house and the corral and tried to hide in it, but her sister caught her before she could get inside, and they tussled and shrieked. The older girl was trying to put something down the younger girl’s neck, and she finally succeeded, at which point the younger girl began to hop up and down while the older one ran off, laughing.

As the two men rode up, a woman appeared on the back steps of the house. She wore a gray smock and an apron and had an infant in her arms. She was clearly out of temper, for she yelled something at the two girls, who stopped their shrieking, looked at one another and slowly approached the house. The infant the woman held was crying fretfully, though, at that, making less noise than the girls. The woman addressed herself to the older girl, who made some excuse, and the younger girl, in her own defense, pointed back toward the shed. The woman listened a minute and began to talk rapidly, giving her daughters what for, July supposed.

To see a woman so suddenly, after so much time alone, made him very nervous—particularly since the woman was so out of temper. But as they drew closer he found that, out of temper or not, he couldn’t stop looking at her. Her eyes flashed as she lectured her daughters, neither of whom was taking the lecture silently—both were trying to talk back but the mother didn’t pause to listen. She had abundant brown hair tucked into a bun at the back of her neck, though the bun had partly come loose.

The old Mexican seemed not the least disturbed by the argument in progress. In fact, he seemed amused by it, and he rode up and got off his horse as if nothing were happening.

“But she put a grasshopper down my neck,” the younger girl said. “I hate her.”

“I don’t care who hates who,” the woman said. “I was up with this baby all night—you know how colicky he is. You don’t have to scream right under my window—looks like there be room on this prairie for you to scream without doing it under my window. All we got here is room.”

“It was a grasshopper,” the little girl insisted.

“Well, is it the first one you’ve ever seen?” the woman asked. “You’ll have more to worry about than grasshoppers if you wake this baby again.”

The woman was rather thin, but anger put color in her cheeks. The girls finally were subdued and the woman looked up and saw him, lifting her chin with a bit of belligerence, as though she might have to tie into him too. Then she saw his discolored leg, and her look changed. She had gray eyes and she turned them on him with sudden gravity.

“Get down,
señora
,” the old man said.

The girls looked around and became aware for the first time that a stranger had come. They instantly stopped fidgeting and stood like statues.

The woman smiled. She seemed to have switched from anger to amusement.

“Hello, I’m Clara,” she said. “Pardon the commotion. We’re a loud bunch. Get down, sir. You’re welcome.”

July had not spoken in so long, except for the few words he had said to Cholo and his ravings to Roscoe Brown, that his voice came out cracked. “Thank you, I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” he said.

Clara laughed. “You don’t look strong enough to trouble nobody around here,” she said. “We grow our own troubles—it would be a novelty to have some we ain’t already used to. These are my daughters, Sally and Betsey.”

July nodded to the girls and got off his horse. After a ride his leg stiffened and he had to hobble over to the porch. The baby was still fretting. The woman rocked it in her arms as she watched July hobble.

“Snake bit him,” Cholo observed.

“I guess I rolled into it at night,” July said. “I never even seen it. Just woke up with a yellow leg.”

“Well, if you’ve lived this long I expect you have nothing to fear,” Clara said. “We’ll get some food in you. The way sick people have been turning up lately, I sometimes think we oughta go out of the horse business and open a hospital. Come on in the house—you girls set him a place.”

The old man helped him up the steps and into the roomy kitchen. Clara was poking the fire in the cookstove, the baby still held in one arm.

“If you’d like a wash first, I’ll have the girls draw some water,” Clara said. “I didn’t get your name.”

“I’m July Johnson,” July said. “I come from Arkansas.”

Clara almost dropped the poker. The girls had told her the little scarfaced man had said the woman they were with was married to a sheriff named Johnson, from Arkansas. She hadn’t given the story much credence—the woman didn’t strike her as the marrying type. Besides, the little man had whispered something to the effect that the big buffalo hunter considered himself married to her. The girls thought it mighty exciting, having a woman in the house who was married to two men. And if that wasn’t complicated enough, the woman herself claimed to be married to Dee Boot, the gunfighter they had hung last week. Cholo had been in town when the hanging took place and reported that the hanging had gone smoothly.

Clara looked more closely at the man standing in her kitchen. He was very thin and in a kind of daze—probably couldn’t quite believe that he was still alive after such a journey. She had felt that way herself upon arriving in Ogallala after her trip over the plains with Bob, and she hadn’t been snakebit or had any particular adventures.

But if he was married to the woman, the baby drooling on her bosom might be his. Clara felt a flash of annoyance, most of it with herself. She had already grown attached to the baby. She liked to lie in bed with him and watch him try to work his tiny hands. He would peer at her for long stretches, frowning, as if trying to figure life out. But when Clara laughed at him and gave him her finger to hold he would stop frowning and gurgle happily. Apart from the colic, he seemed to be a healthy baby. She knew the mother was probably still in Ogallala, and that she ought to take the child into town and see if the woman had had a change of heart and wanted her son, but she kept putting it off. It would be discouraging to have to give him up—she told herself if the mother didn’t want him bad enough to come and get him, then the mother was too foolish to have him. She reminded herself it was time she got out of the habit of babies. She wouldn’t be likely to get any more, and she knew she ought to figure out another way to keep herself amused. But she did like babies. Few things were as likely to cheer her up.