'It was a shark that swallowed Jonah, wasn't it?' Lee Hitch inquired.
'Shut up, you fool--t was a whale, and this river's too small for a whale to be in.' Augustus kept his eyes on the blue object thrashing in the shallow water. It was an aquatic beast of some kind, that was for sure--now and then he thought he glimpsed the limb of a body; it might be that the shark was eating somebody, right before their eyes, or before .his eyes at least. None of the other rangers could see anything, other than the river, but they had grown accustomed to accepting Gus's judgment when it came to the analysis of distant events.
'If it's a shark, why are we stopped?' Call said. 'It's in the water and we ain't.
Sharks don't walk on land, that I recall.' 'It might jump, though,' Augustus said.
'If it jumped out of the water then it would die,' Call pointed out. 'Let's go.' Call was about to ride past him when they suddenly heard brush popping from the Mexican bank of the river. In a moment two men and a bull emerged from the brush and plunged into the river. In a minute the bull, a large brown animal wearing a bell that clanged with every step, came out of the river and trotted straight into a thicket of brush, popping their limbs liberally as he went.
One of the riders was an American, a short man riding a fine bay gelding; the other was an old vaquero on a buckskin mare.
The short man pulled up in surprise when he saw the rangers but the old vaquero went right on into the brush, behind the bull. The rangers, who had been stopped by the brush a number of times in the last week, were as amazed by the vaquero's ability to penetrate the thicket as they were by the size of the bull that had just swum out of Mexico.
The American had bushy sideburns and a short, stiff beard. He surveyed the rangers carefully if quickly before he trotted up to where they were stopped.
'You're Call and McCrae, aren't you? And these are your wild ranger boys, I expect,' the man said. 'I'm Captain King. So you want a thousand cattle, do you?' Though Call had already suspected the short man's identity--several of the ranchers had described him, mentioning that he was partial to fine horses--he was surprised that Captain King not only knew who they were but what they wanted of him.
'Yes, but not as a gift,' Call said. 'The state will pay you for them.' 'I doubt that, but let's see the letter,' Captain King said.
He observed that Gus McCrae seemed to be considerably less interested in the matter of the thousand cattle than was Captain Call. Gus McCrae was looking downriver, in the direction of Lonesome Dove.
Call produced the letter, which he had wrapped in oilcloth--two or three violent rainstorms had doused them lately. Inasmuch as the letter was their only hope of getting the cattle they needed, he wanted to make sure it didn't get wet.
'That was my bull Solomon you just saw--y'll not see his equal in America,' Captain King said, taking the letter from Call. 'He strayed off last night--tempted by a Mexican heifer, I suppose.' He started to read the letter but then looked again at Gus.
'McCrae, you seem jumpy as a tick,' he said. 'What do you see that's upset you so?' 'It's down the river and it's blue, Captain,' Gus said. 'I expect it's a shark.' Captain King glanced at what Gus pointed at and immediately burst out laughing--j as he did a gust of wind took the Governor's letter out of his hand and blew it into the river. Before anyone could move it sank.
Call jumped off his horse and ran into the river--he was not a little vexed at Captain King, who sat astride his horse enjoying a fit of laughing. Call was able to pull the letter from the water, but not before it had become a sodden mess.
Call felt like giving Captain King a good dressing down, for being so careless with an important document, but it was hard to dress down a man who was laughing; and, anyway, Captain King was the one man who might help them succeed in their mission.
'I wish you'd read it before you let it blow in the river,' Call said. He spread the letter on a good-sized rock; thinking it might dry if given time.
'I beg your pardon, Captain,' Captain King said, attempting to control his amusement. 'I don't usually throw letters into the river, particularly not if they're letters from a high potentate like Ed Pease. But I must say this is the best laugh yet. Captain McCrae here has mistook our blue sow for a shark.' 'Sow ... what sow?' Gus asked, annoyed by the man's jocular tone.
'Why, that sow,' Captain King said, with a wave of his hand. 'She probably caught a snake--a moccasin, perhaps. There's not much to Lonesome Dove but at least it's mainly clean of snakes. The sow eats them all--she's thorough, when it comes to snakes.' 'But Captain,' Gus said, appalled by his mistake. 'Whoever heard of a blue pig? I ain't.' Captain King evidently didn't welcome challenges to his point of view--he looked at Augustus sharply.
'That's a French pig, sir,' he said.
'She's silvery in the main, though I suppose she does look bluish in certain lights. She comes from the region of the Dordogne, I believe. In France they use pigs to root up truffles, but you'll find very few damn truffles in this part of the world--s mainly she roots up snakes. Madame Wanz brought her over, and a fine boar too. I expect the boar is off girling, like my bull Solomon. When you get a closer look you'll find she's unusually long legged, that sow. She ain't low slung, like these runty little Texas pigs. The long legs are for climbing hills, to seek out the truffles, which don't flourish in low altitudes.' Call was listening carefully, impressed by Captain King's quick manner. Gus had had the rangers half spooked, with his talk of sharks, when it was only a pig in the water, downriver.
He didn't know what a truffle was, or why one would need to be rooted up.
'What is a truffle, Captain?' he asked, putting up the rifle he had pulled during the alarm.
'Truffles are edible delicacies, Captain,' Richard King said. 'I have not had the pleasure of digesting one myself, but Th@er@ese Wanz swears by them, and she's as French as they come.' 'If she's French, why is she here? This ain't France,' Gus said. He was a good deal embarrassed by the matter of the shark that was only a sow; he felt sure he would be ribbed about it endlessly by the other rangers, once they got to town --if there really was a town.
'She should have stayed in France, and her pig too!' he said, in a burst of annoyance.
'They've got no call to be disturbing the local stock!' Captain King had been about to turn his fine bay horse and ride down the river, but he paused and looked at Gus sharply again.
