Since sport was what he had been brooding about when he got home, it was still in his thoughts when he arose, which he did about 4 A.M., to see to the breakfast-in his view too important a meal to entrust to a Mexican bandit. The heart of his breakfast was a plenitude of sourdough biscuits, which he cooked in a Dutch oven out in the backyard. His pot dough had been perking along happily for over ten years, and the first thing he did upon rising was check it out. The rest of the breakfast was secondary, just a matter of whacking off a few slabs of bacon and frying a panful of pullet eggs. Bolivar could generally be trusted to deal with the coffee.
Augustus cooked his biscuits outside for three reasons. One was because the house was sure to heat up well enough anyway during the day, so there was no point in building any more of a fire than was necessary for bacon and eggs. Two was because biscuits cooked in a Dutch oven tasted better than stove-cooked biscuits, and three was because he liked to be outside to catch the first light. A man that depended on an indoor cookstove would miss the sunrise, and if he missed sunrise in Lonesome Dove, he would have to wait out a long stretch of heat and dust before he got to see anything so pretty.
Augustus molded his biscuits and went out and got a fire going in the Dutch oven while it was still good dark- just enough of a fire to freshen up his bed of mesquite coals. When he judged the oven was ready he brought the biscuits and his Bible out in the backyard. He set the biscuits in the oven, and sat down on a big black kettle that they used on the rare occasions when they rendered lard. The kettle was big enough to hold a small mule, if anybody had wanted to boil one, but for the last few years it had remained upside down, making an ideal seat.
The eastern sky was red as coals in a forge, lighting up the flats along the river. Dew had wet the million needles of the chaparral, and when the rim of the sun edged over the horizon the chaparral seemed to be spotted with diamonds. A bush in the backyard was filled with little rainbows as the sun touched the dew.
It was tribute enough to sunup that it could make even chaparral bushes look beautiful, Augustus thought, and he watched the process happily, knowing it would only last a few minutes. The sun spread reddish-gold light through the shining bushes, among which a few goats wandered, bleating. Even when the sun rose above the low bluffs to the south, a layer of light lingered for a bit at the level of the chaparral, as if independent of its source. Then the sun lifted clear, like an immense coin. The dew quickly died, and the light that filled the bushes like red dust dispersed, leaving clear, slightly bluish air.
It was good reading light by then, so Augustus applied himself for a few minutes to the Prophets. He was not overly religious, but he did consider himself a fair prophet and liked to study the styles of his predecessors. They were mostly too long-winded, in his view, and he made no effort to read them verse for verse-he just had a look here and there, while the biscuits were browning.
While he was enjoying a verse or two of Amos the pigs walked around the corner of the house, and Call, at almost the same moment, stepped out the back door, pulling on his shirt. The pigs walked over and stood directly in front of Augustus. The dew had wet their blue coats.
'They know I've got a soft heart,' he said to Call. 'They're hoping I'll feed them this Bible.
'I hope you pigs didn't wake up Dish,' he added, for he had checked and seen that Dish was there, sleeping comfortably with his head on his saddle and his hat over his eyes, only his big mustache showing.
To Call's regret he had never been able to come awake easily. His joints felt like they were filled with glue, and it was an irritation to see Augustus sitting on the black kettle looking as fresh as if he'd slept all night, when in fact he had probably played poker till one or two o'clock. Getting up early and feeling awake was the one skill he had never truly perfected-he got up, of course, but it never felt natural.
Augustus lay down the Bible and walked over to look at Call's wound.
'I oughta slop some more axle grease on it,' he said. 'It's a nasty bite.'
'You tend to your biscuits,' Call said. 'What's Dish Boggett doing here?'
'I didn't ask the man his business,' Augustus said. 'If you die of gangrene you'll be sorry you didn't let me dress that wound.'
'It ain't a wound, it's just a bite,' Call said. 'I was bit worse by bedbugs down in Saltillo that time. I suppose you set up reading the Good Book all night.'
'Not me,' Augustus said. 'I only read it in the morning and the evening, when I can be reminded of the glory of the Lord. The rest of the day I'm just reminded of what a miserable stink hole we stuck ourselves in. It's hard to have fun in a place like this, but I do my best.'
He went over and put his hand on top of the Dutch oven. It felt to him like the biscuits were probably ready, so he took them out. They had puffed up nicely and were a healthy brown. He took them quickly into the house and Call followed. Newt was at the table, sitting straight upright, a knife in one hand and a fork in the other, but sound asleep.
'We come to this place to make money,' Call said. 'Nothing about fun was in the deal.'
'Call, you don't even like money,' Augustus said. 'You've spit in the eye of every rich man you've ever met. You like money even less than you like fun, if that's possible.'
Call sighed, and sat down at the table. Bolivar was up and stumbling around the stove, shaking so that he spilled coffee grounds on the floor.
'Wake up, Newt,' Augustus said. 'If you don't you'll fall over and stick yourself in the eye with your own fork.'
Call gave the boy a little shake and his eyes popped open.
'I was having a dream,' Newt said, sounding very young.
'Your tough luck, then, son,' Augustus said. 'Morning around here is more like a nightmare. Now look what's happened!'
In an effort to get the coffee going, Bolivar had spilled a small pile of coffee grounds into the grease where the eggs and bacon were frying. It seemed a small enough matter to him, but it enraged Augustus, who liked to achieve an orderly breakfast at least once a week.
'I guess it won't hurt the coffee none to taste like eggs,' he said testily. 'Most of the time your eggs taste like coffee.'
'I don't care,' Bolivar said. 'I feel sick.'
Pea Eye came stumbling through about that time, trying to get his pizzle out of his pants before his bladder started to flood. It was a frequent problem. The pants he wore had about fifteen small buttons, and he got up each morning and buttoned every one of them before he realized he was about to piss. Then he would come rushing through the kitchen trying to undo the buttons. The race was always close, but usually Pea would make it to the back steps before the flood commenced. Then he would stand there and splatter the yard for five minutes or so. When he could hear sizzling grease in one ear and the sound of Pea Eye pissing in the other, Augustus knew that the peace of the morning was over once again.
'If a woman ever stumbled onto this outfit at this hour of the day she'd screech and poke out her eyes,' Augustus said.
At that point someone did stumble onto it, but only Dish Boggett, who had always been responsive to the smell of frying bacon.
It was a surprise to Newt, who immediately snapped awake and tried to get his cowlick to lay down. Dish Boggett was one of his heroes, a real cowboy who had been up the trail all the way to Dodge City more than once. It was Newt's great ambition: to go up the trail with a herd of cattle. The sight of Dish gave him hope, for Dish wasn't somebody totally out of reach, like the Captain. Newt didn't imagine that he could ever be what the Captain was, but Dish seemed not that much different from himself. He was known to be a top hand, and Newt welcomed every chance to be around him; he liked to study the way Dish did things.
'Morning, Dish,' he said.
'Why, howdy there,' Dish said, and went to stand beside Pea Eye and attend to the same business.
It perked Newt up that Dish didn't treat him like a kid. Someday, if he was lucky, maybe he and Dish would be cowboys together. Newt could imagine nothing better.
Augustus had fried the eggs hard as marbles to compensate for the coffee grains, and when they looked done to him he poured the grease into the big three-gallon syrup can they used for a grease bucket.
'It's poor table manners to piss in hearing of those at the table,' he said, directing his remarks to the gentlemen on the porch. 'You two are grown men. What would your mothers think?'
Dish looked a little sheepish, whereas Pea was merely confused by the question. His mother had passed away in Georgia when he was only six. She had not had time to give him much training before she died, and he had no idea what she might think of such an action. However, he was sure she would not have wanted him to go in his
