Augustus turned and walked away. "I hate funerals," he said. "Particularly this one."

"At the rate we're dropping off, there won't be many of us left by the time we get to Montany," Lippy said, as they were all walking back to camp.

They expected to start the herd that day, as Captain Call had never been known to linger. But this time he did. He came back from the grave, got a big hammer and knocked a board loose from the side of the wagon. He didn't explain what he was doing to anyone, and the look on his face discouraged anyone from asking. He took the board and carried it down to the grave. The rest of the day he sat alone by Deets's grave, carving something into it with his knife. The sun flashed on his knife, and the cowhands watched in puzzlement. They just didn't know what it could be that would take the Captain so long.

"He had a short name," Lippy observed.

"It wasn't his full name," Newt pointed out. He had stopped crying but he felt empty.

"What was the other one then?" Jasper asked.

"It was Josh."

"Well, I swear," Jasper said. "That's a fine name. Starts with a J, like mine. We could have been calling him that all the time, if we'd known."

Then they heard the sound of the hammer-it was the big hammer that they used for straightening the rims of the wagon wheels. Captain Call was hammering the long board deep into the dirt by the grave.

Augustus, who had sat by himself most of the day, walked over and squatted down by Newt, who sat a little way apart. He had been afraid he would start crying again and wanted a little privacy.

"Let's go see what he wrote for old Deets," Augustus said. "I've seen your father bury many a man, but I never saw him take this kind of pains."

Newt hadn't really been listening. He had just been sitting there, feeling numb. When he heard Augustus mention his father, the words sank into the numbness for a minute and didn't affect him.

Then they did. "My what?" Newt asked.

"Your father," Augustus said. "Your pa."

Newt thought it an odd time for Mr. Gus to make a joke. The Captain wasn't his pa. Perhaps Mr. Gus had been so affected by Deets's death that he had gone a little crazy. Newt stood up. He thought it best just to ignore the remark-he didn't want to embarrass Mr. Gus at such a time. The Captain was still hammering, driving the long board into the hard ground.

They walked down to the grave. Call had finished his hammering and stood resting. Two or three of the cowboys trailed back to the grave, a little tentative, not sure they were invited.

Captain Call had carved the words deeply into the rough board so that the wind and sand couldn't quickly rub them out.

JOSH DEETS

SERVED WITH ME 30 YEARS. FOUGHT IN 21 ENGAGEMENTS

WITH THE COMMANCHE AND KIOWA. CHERFUL IN ALL

WEATHERS, NEVER SHERKED A TASK. SPLENDID BEHAVIOUR.

The cowboys came down one by one and looked at it in silence. Po Campo crossed himself. Augustus took something out of his pocket. It was the medal the Governor of Texas had given him for service on the border during the hard war years. Call had one too. The medal had a green ribbon on it, but the color had mostly faded out. Augustus made a loop of the ribbon and put the loop over the grave board and tied it tightly. Captain Call had walked away to put up the hammer. Augustus followed. Lippy, who had not cried all day, suddenly began to sob, tears running into his loose lip.

"I do wish I'd just stayed in Lonesome Dove," he said, when he stopped crying.

91.

THEY TRAILED THE HERD up the Powder River, whose water none of the cowboys liked. A few complained of stomach cramps and others said the water affected their bowel movements. Jasper Fant in particular had taken to watching his own droppings closely. They were coming out almost white, when any came out at all. It seemed an ominous sign.

"I've met ladies that wasn't as finicky as you, Jasper," Augustus said, but he didn't bother to tease Jasper very hard. The whole camp was subdued by Deets's death. They were not missing Deets so much, most of them, as wondering what fate awaited them in the north.

When they crossed the Powder they could see the Bighorn Mountains looming to the west-not really close, but close enough that anyone could see the snow on top of them. The nights began to be cold, and many of the hands began to regret the fact that they had not bought better coats in Ogallala when they had the opportunity.

The discussions around the campfire began to focus mainly on storms. Many of the hands had experienced plains northers and the occasional ice storm, but they were south Texas cowhands and had seldom seen snow. A few talked of loping over to the mountains to examine the snow at close range and see what it was like.

Newt had always been interested in snow, and looked at the mountains often, but in the weeks following Deets's death he found it difficult to care much about anything, even snow. He didn't pay much attention to the talk of storms, and didn't really care if they all froze, herd and hands together.

Occasionally the strange remark Mr. Gus had made came back to him. He didn't know what to make of it-the clear meaning had been that Captain Call was his father. It didn't make sense to Newt. If the Captain had been his father, surely he would have mentioned it at some point in the last seventeen years.

At other times the question would have excited him, but under the circumstances he felt too dull to care much. Set beside the fact that Deets was gone, it didn't seem to matter greatly.

Anyway, if Newt had wanted to question the Captain about it, he would have had a hard time catching him. The Captain took Deets's job and spent his days ranging far ahead. Usually he only rode back to the herd about dark, to guide them to a bed-ground. Once during the day he had come back in a high lope to report that he had crossed the tracks of about forty Indians. The Indians had been heading northwest, the same direction they were heading.

For the next few days everyone was tense, expecting Indian attack. Several men took alarm at the sight of what turned out to be sagebrush or low bushes. No one could sleep at night, and even those hands who were not on guard spent much of the night checking and rechecking their ammunition. The Irishman was afraid to sing on night duty for fear of leading the Indians straight to them. In fact, night herding became highly unpopular with everyone, and instead of gambling for money men began to gamble over who took what watch. The midnight watch was the most unpopular. No one wanted to leave the campfire: the men who came in from the watches did so with profound relief, and the men who went out assumed they were going to their deaths. Some almost cried. Needle Nelson trembled so that he could barely get his foot in his stirrup. Jasper Fant sometimes even got off and walked when he was on the far side of the herd, reasoning that the Indians would be less likely to spot him if he was on foot.

But a week passed and they saw no Indians. The men relaxed a little. Antelope became more common, and twice they saw small groups of buffalo. Once the remuda took fright in the night; the next morning Call found the tracks of a cougar.

The country began to change slightly for the better. The grass improved, and occasionally there were clumps of trees and bushes along the river bed. It was still hot in the afternoon, but the mornings were crisp.

Finally Call decided to leave the valley of the Powder. He felt the threat of drought was over. The grass was thick and wavy and there were plenty of streams. Not long after leaving the Powder, they crossed Crazy Woman Creek. Every day it seemed there was more snow on the mountains. Traveling became comparatively easy, and the cattle regained most of the flesh they had lost on the hard drive.