It was made even more interesting a few minutes later when Bolivar walked up and handed in his resignation. He didn't even look at the smashed wagon.

'I don't want to go this way,' he said, addressing himself to the Captain. 'I am going back.'

'Why, Bol, you won't stand a chance,' Augustus said. 'A renowned criminal like you. Some young sheriff out to make a reputation will hang you before you get halfway to the border.'

'I don't care,' Bol said. 'I am going back.'

In fact, he expected to be fired anyway. He had been dozing on the wagon seat, dreaming about his daughters, and had accidentally fired off the ten-gauge. The recoil had knocked him off the wagon, but even so it had been hard to get free of the dream. It turned into a dream in which his wife was angry, even as he awoke and saw the mules dashing away. The pigs were rooting in a rat's nest, under a big cactus. Bol was so enraged by the mules' behavior that he would have shot one of them, only they were already well out of range.

He had not seen the wagon go off the creek bank, but he was not surprised that it was broken. The mules were fast. He would probably not have been able to hit one of them even with a rifle, distracted as he was by the dream.

The fall convinced him he had lived long enough with Americans. They were not his companeros. Most of his companeros were dead, but his country wasn't dead, and in his village there were a few men who liked to talk about the old days when they had spent all their time stealing Texas cattle. In those years his wife had not been so angry. As he walked toward the busted wagon and the little group of men, he decided to go back. He was tired of seeing his family only in dreams. Perhaps this time when he walked in, his wife would be glad to see him.

At any rate, the Americanos were going too far north. He had not really believed Augustus when he said they would ride north for several months. Most of what Augustus said was merely wind. He supposed they would ride for a few days and then sell the cattle, or else start a ranch. He himself had never been more than two days' hard ride from the border in his life. Now a week had passed and the Americanos showed no sign of stopping. Already he was far from the river. He missed his family. Enough was enough.

Call was not especially surprised. 'All right, Bol, do you want a horse?' he asked. The old man had cooked for them for ten years. He deserved a mount.

'Si,' Bol said, remembering that it was a long walk back to the river, and then three days more to his village.

Call caught the old man a gentle gelding. 'I've got no saddle to give you,' he said, when he presented Bol with the horse.

Bol just shrugged. He had an extra serape and soon turned it into a saddle blanket. Apart from the gun, it was his only possession. In a moment he was ready to start home.

'Well, Bol, if you change your mind, you can find us in Montana,' Augustus said. 'It may be that your wife's too rusty for you now. You may want to come back and cook up a few more goats and snakes.'

'Gracias, Capitan,' Bol said, when Call handed him the reins to the gelding. Then he rode off, without another word to anybody. It didn't surprise Augustus, since Bol had worked for them all those years without saying a word to anybody unless directly goaded into it-usually by Augustus.

But his departure surprised and saddened Newt. It spoiled his relief that Lippy was alive-after all, he had lost another friend, Bol instead of Lippy. Newt didn't say so, but he would rather have lost Lippy. He didn't want Lippy to die, of course, but he wouldn't have minded if he had decided to return to Lonesome Dove.

But Bol rode away from them, his old gun resting across the horse's withers. For a moment Newt felt so sad that he almost embarrassed himself by crying. He felt his eyes fill up. How could Bol just go? He had always been the cook, and yet in five minutes he was as lost to them as if he had died. Newt turned and made a show of spreading out the bedrolls, but it was mainly to conceal the fact that he felt sad. If people kept leaving, they'd be down to nobody before they even got north of Texas.

Riding away, Bolivar too felt very sad. Now that he was going, he was not sure why he had decided to go. Perhaps it was because he didn't want to face embarrassment. After all, he had fired the shot that caused the mules to run. Also, he didn't want to get so far north that he couldn't find his way back to the river. 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. He didn't miss his wife that much-they had lost the habit of one another and might not be able to reacquire it. He felt a little bitter as he rode away. The Capitan should not have let him go. After all, he was the only man among them who could cook. He didn't really like the Americanos, but he was used to them. It was too bad they had suddenly decided to get so many cattle and go north. Life in Lonesome Dove had been easy. Goats were plentiful and easy to catch, and his wife was the right distance away. When he grew bored, he could beat the dinner bell with the broken crowbar. For some reason it gave him great satisfaction to beat the dinner bell. It had little to do with dinner, or anything. It was just something he liked to do. When he stopped he could hear the echoes of his work fading into Mexico.

He decided that, since he was in no hurry, he would stop in Lonesome Dove and beat the bell a few more times. He could say it was the Capitan's orders. The thought was comforting. It made up for the fact that most of his decisions had been stupid. He rode south without looking back.

42.

'WELL, IF WE WASN'T DOOMED to begin with, we're doomed now,' Augustus said, watching Bolivar ride away. He enjoyed every opportunity for pronouncing doom, and the loss of a cook was a good one.

'I expect we'll poison ourselves before we get much farther, with no regular cook,' he said. 'I just hope Jasper gets poisoned first.'

'I never liked that old man's cooking anyway,' Jasper said.

'You'll remember it fondly, once you're poisoned,' Augustus said.

Call felt depressed by the morning's events. He did not particularly lament the loss of the wagon-an old wired- together wreck at best-but he did lament the loss of Bol. Once he formed a unit of men he didn't like to lose one of them, for any reason. Someone would have to assume extra work, which seldom sat well with whoever had to do it. Bolivar had been with them ten years and it was trying to lose him suddenly, although Call had not really expected him to come when he first announced the trip. Bolivar was a Mexican. If he didn't miss his family, he'd miss his country, as the Irishman did. Every night now, Allen O'Brien sang his homesick songs to the cattle. It soothed the cattle but not the men-the songs were too sorrowful.

Augustus noticed Call standing off to one side, looking blue. Once in a while Call would fall into blue spells- times when he seemed almost paralyzed by doubts he never voiced. The blue spells never came at a time of real crisis. Call thrived on crisis. They were brought on by little accidents, like the wagon breaking.

'Maybe Lippy can cook,' Augustus suggested, to see if that would register with Call.

Lippy had found an old piece of sacking and was wiping the mud off his head. 'No, I never learned to cook, I just learned to eat,' Lippy said.

Call got on his horse, hoping to shake off the low feeling that had settled over him. After all, nobody was hurt, the herd was moving well, and Bol was no great loss. But the low feeling stayed. It was as if he had lead in his legs.

'You might try to load that gear on them mules,' he said to Pea.

'Maybe we can make a two-wheel cart,' Pea said. 'There ain't much wrong with the front of the wagon. It's the back end that's busted up.'

'Dern, Pea, you're a genius for figuring that out,' Augustus said.

'I guess I'll go into San Antonio,' Call said. 'Maybe I can hire a cook and buy a new wagon.'

'Fine, I'll join you,' Augustus said.

'Why?' Call asked.

'To help judge the new chef,' Augustus said. 'You'd eat a fried stove lid if you was hungry. I'm interested in the finer points of cooking, myself. I'd like to give the man a tryout before we hire him.'

'I don't see why. He won't have nothing much tenderer than a stove lid to cook around this outfit anyway,' Jasper said. He had been very disappointed in the level of the grub.

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