pants.
'I had to hurry,' he said.
'Howdy, Captain,' Dish said.
Call nodded. In the morning he had the advantage of Gus, since Gus had to cook. With Gus cooking, he got his choice of the eggs and bacon, and a little food always brought him to life and made him consider all the things that ought to be done during the day. The Hat Creek outfit was just a small operation, with just enough land under lease to graze small lots of cattle and horses until buyers could be found. It amazed Call that such a small operation could keep three grown men and a boy occupied from sunup until dark, day after day, but such was the case. The barn and corrals had been in such poor shape when he and Gus bought the place that it took constant work just to keep them from total collapse. There was nothing important to do in Lonesome Dove, but that didn't mean there was enough time to keep up with the little things that needed doing. They had been six weeks sinking a new well and were still far from deep enough.
When Call raked the eggs and bacon onto his plate, such a crowd of possible tasks rushed into his mind that he was a minute responding to Dish's greetings.
'Oh, hello, Dish,' he said, finally. 'Have some bacon.'
'Dish is planning to shave his mustache right after breakfast,' Augustus said. 'He's getting tired of livin' without women.'
In fact, with the aid of Gus's two dollars, Dish had been able to prevail on Lorena. He had awakened on the porch with a clear head, but when Augustus mentioned women he remembered it all and suddenly felt weak with love. He had been keenly hungry when he sat down at the table, his mouth watering for the eggs and fryback, but the thought of Lorena's white body, or the portion of it he had got to see when she lifted her nightgown, made him almost dizzy for a moment. He continued to eat, but the food had lost its taste.
The blue shoat came to the door and looked in at the people, to Augustus's amusement. 'Look at that,' he said. 'A pig watching a bunch of human pigs.' Though he had been outpositioned at the frying pan, he was in prime shape to secure his share of the biscuits, half a dozen of which he had already sopped in honey and consumed.
'Throw that pig them eggshells,' he said to Bolivar. 'He's starving.'
'I don't care,' Bolivar said, sucking coffee-colored sugar out of a big spoon. 'I feel sick.'
'You're repeating yourself, Bol,' Augustus said. 'If you're planning on dying today I hope you dig your grave first.'
Bolivar looked at him sorrowfully. So much talk in the morning gave him a headache to go with his shakes. 'If I dig a grave it will be yours,' he said simply.
'Going up the trail, Dish?' Newt asked, hoping to turn the conversation to more cheerful matters.
'I hope to,' Dish said.
'It would take a hacksaw to cut these eggs,' Call said. 'I've seen bricks that was softer.'
'Well, Bol spilled coffee in them,' Augustus said, 'I expect it was hard coffee.'
Call finished the rocklike eggs and gave Dish the once-over. He was a lank fellow, loose-built, and a good rider. Five or six more like him and they could make up a herd themselves and drive it north. The idea had been in his mind for a year or more. He had even mentioned it to Augustus, but Augustus merely laughed at him.
'We're too old, Call,' he said. 'We've forgot everything we need to know.'
'You may have,' Call said. 'I ain't.'
Seeing Dish put Call in mind of his idea again. He was not eager to spend the rest of his life on well-digging or barn repair. If they made up a fair herd and did well with it, they would make enough to buy some good land north of the brush country.
'Are you signed to go with someone then?' he asked Dish.
'Oh, no, I ain't signed on,' Dish said. 'But I've gone before, and I imagine Mr. Pierce will hire me again-or if not him someone else.'
'We might give you work right here,' Call said.
That got Augustus's attention. 'Give him work doing what?' he asked. 'Dish here's a top hand. He don't cotton to work that requires walking, do you, Dish?'
'I don't, for a fact,' Dish said, looking at the Captain but seeing Lorena. I ye done a mess of it though. What did you have in mind?
'Well, we're going down to Mexico tonight,' Call said. 'Going to see what we can raise. We might make up a herd ourselves, if you wanted to wait a day or two while we look it over.'
'That mare bite's drove you crazy,' Augustus said. 'Make up a herd and do what with it?'
'Drive it,' Call said.
'Well, we might drive it over to Pickles Gap, I guess,' Augustus said. 'That ain't enough work to keep a hand like Dish occupied for the summer.'
Call got up and carrried his dishes to the washtub. Bolivar wearily got off his stool and picked up the water bucket.
'I wish Deets would come back,' he said.
Deets was a black man; he had been with Cal 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 traildriving 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.'
