traveling with July Johnson had lost their lives so far, and Montana nowhere in sight.
'He ought to have taken his hanging,' Augustus said out loud.
Actually, Jake couldn't fairly be blamed for any of the deaths, though he could be blamed for Lorena's troubles, which were worth a hanging by Augustus's reckoning.
'Who ought?' Lorena asked. Her eyes were open but she still rested her head against Augustus's chest.
'Jake,' he said. 'Look at all the bad that happened since he showed up.'
'He wanted to take me to town,' Lorena said. 'I wouldn't go. I didn't want no towns.
'I still don't want no towns,' she said a little later, beginning to tremble at the thought of all the men that would be in them.
Augustus held her close and didn't try to discuss it with her. Soon she stopped trembling. Two big hawks were skimming the surface of the prairie, not far away.
'Look at them birds,' Augustus said. 'I'd give a passel if I could fly like that.'
Lorena had an uneasy thought in her mind. Gus was holding her in his arms, as he had every day and night since he had rescued her. Yet he had not approached her, had never mentioned it. She understood it was kindness-he was letting her get well. She didn't want him to approach her, never would want any man to again. And yet it troubled her. She knew what men wanted with her. It wasn't just a bedfellow. If Gus had stopped wanting her, what did that mean? Would he take her to a town someday and say goodbye?
'My goodness, Lorie, you smell fresh as dew,' he said, sniffing her hair. 'It's a miracle you can keep fresh out in these raw parts.'
One button had come off his shirt, and a few tufts of the white hair on his chest were sticking out. She wanted to say something, but she was afraid to. She tried to poke the little white chest hairs back under his shirt.
Augustus laughed at the tidy way she did it. 'I know I'm a shameful sight,' he said. 'It's all Call's fault. He wouldn't let me bring my tailor on this trip.'
Lorena was silent, but fear was building up in her. Gus had become too important to her. It was disturbing to think that he might leave her someday. She wanted to make sure of him, but she didn't know how to do it. After all, he had already told her there was a woman in Ogallala. She began to tremble again from her sudden fear.
'What's the matter?' he asked. 'Here it is, a beautiful morning, and you're sitting here shaking.'
She was afraid to speak but began to cry.
'Lorie, we're an honest pair,' he said. 'Why don't you tell me why you're so upset?'
He seemed so friendly that it eased her mind a little. 'You can have a poke,' she said. 'If you want one. I wouldn't charge you.'
Augustus smiled. 'That's neighborly of you,' he said. 'But why should a beauty like you drop her price? You ought to raise it, for you're getting more beautiful than ever. I ain't never seen nothing wrong with paying a toll to beauty.'
'You can have one if you want one,' she said, trembling still.
'What if I want five or six?' he asked, rubbing her neck with his warm hand. It relieved her-he was still the same. She could see it in his eyes.
'The truth is you want to stay clear of such doings for a while,' Augustus said. 'That's natural. You best take your time.'
'It won't matter how much time,' she said, and began to cry again. Gus held her.
'I'm glad we didn't break camp,' he said. 'There's a rough cloud to the north. We'd be in for a drenching. I bet them cowboys is already floating.'
It suited her that it was going to rain and they would stay longer. She didn't like being too close to the cowboys. It was more restful just being with Gus. When he was there it was easier not to think of the things that had happened.
For some reason Gus was still watching the cloud, which seemed to her no worse-looking than many another cloud. But he was studying it intently.
'That's a dern funny cloud,' he said.
'I don't care if it rains,' Lorena said. 'We got the tent.'
'The funny part is, I can hear it,' Augustus said. 'I never heard a cloud make a noise like that before.'
Lorena listened. It seemed she did hear something, but it was a long way off, and faint.
'Maybe it's the wind getting up,' she said.
Augustus was listening. 'It don't sound like no wind I ever heard,' he said, standing up. The horses were looking at the cloud, too. They were acting nervous. The sound the brown cloud made had become a little louder, but was still far away and indefinable.
Suddenly Augustus realized what it was. 'Good lord,' he said. 'It's grasshoppers, Lorie. 'I've heard they came in clouds out on the plains, and there's the proof. It's a cloud of grasshoppers.'
The horses were grazing on long lead ropes. There were no trees to tie the ropes to, so he had loosened a heavy block of soil and put the lead ropes under it. Usually that was sufficient, for the horses weren't troublesome. But now they were rolling their eyes and jerking at the ropes. Augustus grabbed the ropes-he would have to hold them himself.
Lorena watched the cloud, which came down on them faster than any rain cloud. She could plainly hear the hum of millions of insects. The cloud covered the plain in front of them from the ground far up in the air. It was blotting out the ground as if a coven were being pulled over it.
'Get in the tent,' Augustus said. He was holding the terrified horses. 'Get in and pile whatever you can around the bottom to keep 'em out.'
Lorena ran in, and before Augustus could follow, grasshoppers covered the canvas, every inch. Augustus had fifty on his hat, though he tried to knock them off outside the tent, and more on his clothes. He backed in, hanging to the lead ropes as the horses tried to break free.
'Pull the flaps,' he said, and Lorena did. Soon there was just the hole the two ropes fed through. It was dim and dark in the tent, as more and more grasshoppers covered the canvas-insects on top of insects. The hum they made as they spread over the prairie grass was so loud Lorena had to grit her teeth. As the tent got darker, she began to cry and shake-it was just more trouble and more fear, this life.
'It's all right, honey, it's just bugs,' Augustus said. 'Hang onto me and we'll be fine. I don't think bugs will eat canvas when they've got all this grass.'
Lorena put her arms around him and shut her eyes. Augustus peeked out and saw that every inch of the lead ropes were covered with grasshoppers.
'Well, that old cook of Call's that likes to fry bugs will be happy, at least,' he said. 'He can fry up a damn wagonful tonight.'
When the cloud of grasshoppers hit the Hat Creek outfit, they were on a totally open plain and could do nothing but watch it come, in terror and astonishment. Lippy sat on the wagon seat, his mouth hanging open.
'Is them grasshoppers?' he asked.
'Yes, but shut your mouth unless you want to choke on them,' Po Campo said. He promptly crawled in the wagon and pulled his hat down and his serape close around him.
The cowboys who saw the cloud while on horseback were mostly terrified. Dish Boggett came racing back to the Captain, who sat with Deets, watching the cloud come.
'Captain, what'lI we do?' he asked. 'There's millions of them. What'll we do?'
'Live through it,' Call said. 'That's all we can do.'
'It's the plague,' Deets said. 'Ain't it in the Bible?'
'Well, that was locusts,' Call said.
Deets looked in wonderment as the insects swirled toward them, a storm of bugs that filled the sky and covered the land. Though he was a little frightened, it was more the mystery of it that affected him. Where did they come from, where would they go? The sunshine glinted strangely off the millions of insects.
'Maybe the Indians sent 'em,' he said.
'More likely they ate the Indians,' Call said. 'The Indians and everything else.'
Newt's first fear when the cloud hit was that he would suffocate. In a second the grasshoppers covered every inch of his hands, his face, his clothes, his saddle. A hundred were stuck in Mouse's mane. Newt was afraid to draw breath for fear he'd suck them into his mouth and nose. The air was so dense with them that he couldn't see the cattle and could barely see the ground. At every step Mouse crunched them underfoot. The whirring they made was
