Lonesome Dove (Lonesome Dove, #1)

by Larry McMurtry

Throughout the rough years the Greek alphabet had leaked out of his mind a letter at a time—in fact, the candle of knowledge he had set out with had burned down to a sorry stub.

He had heard it said that Ned had never got over the war, which might have explained it. Plenty hadn’t.

His main happiness consisted of sitting with his back against the water trough at night, watching the sky and the changing moon. He had known several men who blew their heads off, and he had pondered it much. It seemed to him it was probably because they could not take enough happiness just from the sky and the moon to carry them over the low feelings that came to all men.

JULY JOHNSON HAD BEEN RAISED not to complain, so he didn’t complain, but the truth of the matter was, it had been the hardest year of his life: a year in which so many things went wrong that it was hard to know which trouble to pay attention to at any given time.

There were so many factors to consider that he felt passive for a moment—an old feeling he knew well from his years of rangering. Often, in a tight situation, his mind would seem to grow tired from so much hard thinking. He would sink for a time into a blankness, only to come out of it in the midst of an action he had not planned. He was never conscious of the trigger that set him back in motion, but something always pulled it, and he would find himself moving before he was conscious that it was time to move.

“Needle had to get going so fast he near forgot his dingus.”

Dish said no more, and Augustus decided not to tease him. Occasionally the very youngness of the young moved him to charity—they had no sense of the swiftness of life, nor of its limits. The years would pass like weeks, and loves would pass too, or else grow sour.

“I wish you’d stop talking about that boy’s death,” Call said. “If you would maybe they’d get over it.” “Wrong theory,” Augustus said. “Talk’s the way to kill it. Anything gets boring if you talk about it enough, even death.”

unless you counted Gus.

And Xavier

As he rode away he decided he had made another stupid choice. So far, in his opinion, almost every decision of his life had been stupid.

“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.”

“We’ll be the Indians, if we last another twenty years,” Augustus said. “The way this place is settling up it’ll be nothing but churches and dry-goods stores before you know it. Next thing you know they’ll have to round up us old rowdies and stick us on a reservation to keep us from scaring the ladies.”

The other men were easy to talk to, but they didn’t know anything. If one stopped to think about it, it was depressing how little most men learned in their lifetimes. Pea Eye was a prime example. Though loyal and able and brave, Pea had never displayed the slightest ability to learn from his experience, though his experience was considerable. Time and again he would walk up on the wrong side of a horse that was known to kick, and then look surprised when he got kicked.

He wondered if all men felt such disappointment when thinking of themselves.

She had been hungry so much, tired so much, scared so much, that her mind didn’t work well anymore. Sometimes she would try to remember something and couldn’t—it was as if her mind and memory had gone and hidden somewhere until things were better.

“It’s mostly bones we’re riding over, anyway. Why, think of all the buffalo that have died on these plains. Buffalo and other critters too. And the Indians have been here forever; their bones are down there in the earth. I’m told that over in the Old Country you can’t dig six feet without uncovering skulls and leg bones and such. People have been living there since the beginning, and their bones have kinda filled up the ground. It’s interesting to think about, all the bones in the ground. But it’s just fellow creatures, it’s nothing to shy from.”

Everything took longer than it should, or else went too quick. Her sons’ lives had been whipped away like a breath, while her husband had lain motionless for two months and still wasn’t dead. It was wearying, trying to adjust to all the paces life required.

It seemed to her she had better not form the practice of ignoring death. If she tried it, death would find a way to answer back—it would take another of her loved ones, to remind her to respect it.

“It wouldn’t be his way, to mention it,” Augustus said. “Woodrow don’t mention nothing he can keep from mentioning. You couldn’t call him a mentioner.”

“I don’t like this cold. Of course, they say when you’re dead the temperature don’t concern you, but who knows the truth on that?”

Gus had tricked him out of his belief, as easily as if cheating at cards. All his work, and it hadn’t saved anyone, or slowed the moment of their going by a minute.

“Gus was lucky and Dish isn’t.”