Lonesome Dove

Still, July liked the look of the cowboys-he always had, even when they got a little rowdy, as they sometimes did in Fort Smith. They were young and friendly and seemed not to have a care in the world. They rode as if they were grown to their horses. Their teamwork when the cattle misbehaved and tried to break out was interesting to see. He saw a cowboy rope a ru

After watching the loading for a while he went back to the saloon where the woman named Je

The bartender kept bringing whiskeys and it seemed to July he must be ru

Then he looked up and saw a woman standing by the table-she was ski

"Let's get going, cowboy," she said. "You can't do nothing sitting there."

"Get going where?" he asked, taken by surprise. No one had ever called him "cowboy" before, but it was a natural mistake. He had taken off his sheriff's star for a few days-a precaution he often took in a strange town.

"I'm Je

"Oh," July said, embarrassed. He had even forgotten he was waiting for someone named Je

"We could get going, even if you ain't the right cowboy," Je

July had never in his life bought a woman a drink, or even sat with a woman who liked to drink. Any other time such an invitation would have shocked him, but in this case it just made him feel that his ma

"Yes, have a drink," he said. "I'm ru

Je

July suddenly remembered why he was waiting to see the girl named Je

"Did you know Ellie?" he asked. "I heard you knowed her."

It was Je

"You mean Ellie Tims?" she asked.

"Yes," July said. "That's the Ellie. I was hoping you had news of her. I don't know where she is."

"Well, she moved to Missouri," Je

"She didn't," July said. "She run off while I was was chasing Jake Spoon, and I got three people killed since I started looking for her."

Je

"Are you a sheriff?" she asked, sipping the whiskey Sam had poured.

"I was," July said. "I'm most likely going to have to give it up."

"Why do that?" Je

"I ain't a good fighter," July said. "I can crack a drunk on the head and get him to jail, but I ain't really a good fighter. When we rode into that camp, the man with me killed six or seven men and I never killed a one. I went off and left Roscoe and the others and they got killed before I could get back. It was only Jake Spoon I went to catch, but I made a mess of it. I don't want to be a sheriff now."

He had not expected such words to rush out-he had suddenly lost control of his speech somehow.

Je

"They say Ellie left on a whiskey boat," July said. "I don't know why she would have done it, but that's what they say. Roscoe thought a bear might have got her, but they didn't see no tracks."

"What's your name?" Je

"July Johnson," he said, glad that she was no longer looking at him quite so impatiently.

"It sounds like Ellie to me," Je

"I got to find her," July said simply.

"You come to the wrong town, mister," Je

"Well, then I'll have to keep looking," July said.

He thought of the empty plains, which it seemed to him he had been lucky to get across. There seemed only the smallest chance that Ellie would have been so lucky.

"I fear she's dead," he said.

"She's hunting Dee, I'd say," Je

"Why, no," July said. "I was told he died of smallpox."

Je

"Where?" July asked, and Je

"That's Webster Witter," Je

"Why?" July asked. He sensed that it was a rather loose-tongued question, but the fact was, his tongue was out of control and behaving ever more loosely.

"It's like trying to keep up with a tumbleweed," Je

"I don't know why she married me," July said. "I ain't got any idea about it."

Je

"No, I seldom drink," July said. "Though I do like toddy in the winter."

Je