"McMurtry, Larry - Lonesome Dove 01 - Dead Man's Walk" - читать интересную книгу автора (McMurtry Larry)

"Goddamn this wind!" the Major said. During breakfast he had been rereading a letter from his dear wife, Jane. He had read the letter at least twenty times, but it was the only letter he had with him and he did love his winsome Jane. When the business about Gomez and Buffalo Hump came up he had casually stuffed the letter in his coat pocket, but he didn't get it in securely, and now the whistling wind had snatched it. It was a long .letter—his dear Jane was lavish with detail of circumstances back in Virginia—and now several pages of it were blowing away, in the general direction of Mexico.

"Here, boys, fetch my letter!" the Major said. "I can't afford to lose my letter. I'll finish saddling this horse."

Call and Gus left the Major to finish cinching his saddle on his big sorrel and began to chase the letter, some of which had sailedquite a distance downwind. Both of them kept looking over their shoulders, expecting to see the Indians charging.

Call had not had time to fetch his rifle—his only weapon was a pistol.

Thanks to his efforts with the mare, the talk of torture and suicide had been hard to follow. Call liked to do things correctly, but was in doubt as to the correct way to dispatch himself, should he suddenly be surrounded by Comanches.

"What was it Bigfoot said about shooting out your brains?" he asked Gus, his lanky pal.

Gus had run down four pages of the Major's lengthy letter. Call had three pages. Gus didn't seem to be particularly concerned about the prospect of Comanche capture—his nonchalant approach to life could be irksome in times of conflict.

"I'd go help Matty clean her turtle if I thought she'd give me a poke," Gus said.

"Gus, there's Indians coming," Call said. "Just tell me what Big-foot said about shooting out your brains.

"That whore don't need no help with that turtle," he added.

"Oh, you're supposed to shoot through the eyeball," Gus said. "I'll be damned if I would, though. I need both eyes to look at whores."

"I should have kept my rifle handier," Call said, annoyed with himself for having neglected sound procedure. "Do you see any Indians yet?"

"No, but I see Josh Corn taking a shit," Gus said, pointing at their friend Josh. He was squatting behind a sage bush, rifle at the ready, while he did his business.

"I guess he must think it's his last chance before he gets scalped," Gus added.

Major Chevallie jumped on his sorrel and started to race after Shadrach, but had scarcely cleared the camp before he reined in his horse. Call could just see him, in the swirling dust—the plain to the north of the camp had become a wall of sand.

"I wonder how we can get some money—I sure do need a poke," Gus said. He had turned his back to the wind and was casually reading the Major's letter, an action that shocked Call.

"That's the Major's letter," he pointed out. "You got no business reading it."

"Well, it don't say much anyway," Gus said, handing the pages to Call. "I thought it might be racy, but it ain't."

"If I ever write a letter, I don't want to catch you reading it," Call said. "I think Shad's coming back." His eyes were stinging, from staring into the dust.

There seemed to be figures approaching camp from the north. Call couldn't make them out clearly, and Gus didn't seem to be particularly interested. Once he began to think about whores he had a hard time pulling his mind off the subject.

"If we could catch a Mexican we could steal his money—he might have enough that we could buy quite a few pokes," Gus said, as they strolled back to camp.

Major Chevallie waited on his sorrel, watching. Two figures seemed to be walking. Then Bigfoot fell in with them. Shadrach appeared on his horse, a few steps behind the figures.

All around the camp Rangers began to stand up and dust the sand off their clothes. Matilda, unaffected by the crisis, was still cooking her turtle. The bloody shell lay by the campfire. Call smelled the sizzling meat and realized he was hungry.

"Why, it's just an old woman and a boy," he said when he finally got a clear view of the two figures trudging through the sandstorm, flanked on one side by Shadrach and on the other by Bigfoot Wallace.

"Shoot, I doubt either one of them has got a cent on them," Gus said. "I think we ought to sneak off across the river and catch a Mexican while it's still early."