Lonesome Dove - By Larry McMurtry Page 0,104

did. When Gus tricked her and she gave him the poke, she was confident the matter would get back to Jake eventually. Lippy was only human, and things that happened to her got told and repeated. She didn’t exactly want Jake to know, but she wasn’t afraid of him, either. He might hit her, or he might shoot Gus: she found she couldn’t easily predict him, which was one reason she didn’t care if he found out. After that, she would know him a lot better, whatever he did.

But when he sat down at the table and set a glass in front of her she soon realized it was not her who had put the tight look in his face. She saw nothing unfriendly in his eyes. She took a sip or two of whiskey, and about that time Lippy came over and sat down at the table with them as if he’d been invited.

“Well, you’ve come in by yourself, I see,” Lippy said, pushing his dirty bowler back off his wrinkled forehead.

“I did, and by God I intend to be by myself,” Jake said irritably. He got up and without another word took his bottle and glass and headed for the stairs.

It put her out of sorts with Lippy, for it was still hot in her room and she would rather have stayed in the saloon, where there was at least a breath of breeze.

But with Jake so out of sorts there was nothing to do but go upstairs. She gave Lippy a cool look as she got up, which surprised him so it made his lip drop.

“Why air you looking at me that way?” he asked. “I never tolt on you.”

Lorena didn’t answer. A look was better than words, where Lippy was concerned.

Then, the very minute she got in the room, Jake decided he wanted a poke, and in a hurry. He had drunk a half glass of whiskey while he was climbing the stairs, and a big shot of whiskey nearly always made him want it. He was dusty as could be from a day with the cattle, and would usually have waited for a bath, or at least washed the grit off his face and hands in the washbasin, but this time he didn’t wait. He even tried to kiss her with his hat on, which didn’t work at all. His hat was as dusty as the rest of him. The dust got in her nose and made her sneeze. His haste was unusual—he was a picky man, apt to complain if the sheets weren’t clean enough to suit him.

But this time he didn’t seem to notice that dust was sifting out of his clothes onto the floor. When he opened his pants and pulled his shirttail out a little trickle of sand came with it. The night was stifling and Jake so sandy that by the time he got through there was so much dirt in the bed that they might as well have been wallowing around on the ground. There were little lines of mud on her belly where sweat had caked the dust. She didn’t resent it, particularly—it was better than smoke pots and mosquitoes.

It was only when Jake sat up to reach for his whiskey bottle that he noticed the dust.

“Dern, I’m sandy,” he said. “I should have bathed in the river.”

He sighed, poured himself a whiskey and sat with his back against the wall, idly running a hand up and down her leg. Lorena waited, taking a sip or two of whiskey. Jake looked tired.

“Well, these boys,” he said. “They are aggravating devils.”

“Which boys?” she asked.

“Call and Gus,” he said. “Just because I mentioned Montana to ’em they expect me to help ’em drive them dern cattle up there.”

Lorena watched him. He looked out the window and wouldn’t meet her eye.

“I’ll be damned if I’ll do it,” he said. “I ain’t no dern cowpuncher. Call just got it in his head to go, for some reason. Well, let him go.”

But she knew that bucking Gus and the Captain was no easy thing for Jake. He looked at her finally, a sadness in his eyes, as if he was asking her to think of a way to help him.

Then he grinned, his little smart lazy grin. “Gus thinks we ought to marry,” he said.

“I’d rather go to San Francisco,” Lorena said.

Jake stroked her leg again. “Well, we will,” he said. “But don’t Gus come up with some notions! He thinks I ought