p. 211 There was something different about her, Jake had to admit. She had a beautiful face, a beautiful body, but also a distance in her such as he had never met in a woman. Certain mountains were that way, like the Bighorns. The air around them was so clear you could ride toward them for days without seeming to get any closer. And yet, if you kept riding, you would get to the mountains. He was not so sure he would ever get to Lorie.
p. 473 Of course they had heard that the buffalo were being wiped out, but with the memory of the southern herd so vivid, they had hardly credited the news. Discussing it in Lonesome Dove they had decided that the reports must be exaggerated - thinned out, maybe, but not wiped out. Thus the sight of the road of bones stretching over the prairie was a shock. Maybe roads of bones were all that was left. The thought gave the very emptiness of the plains a different feel. With those millions of animals gone, and the Indians mostly gone in their wake, the great plains were truly empty, unpeopled and ungrazed. Soon the whites would come, of course, but what he was seeing was a moment between, no the plains as they had been, or as they would be, but a moment of true emptiness, with thousands of miles of grass resting unused, occupied only by remnants - of the buffalo, the Indians, the hunters. Augustus thought they were crazed remnants, mostly, like the old mountain man who worked night and day gather bones to no purpose.
p. 474 A chain of follies had put him there: Call's abrupt decision to become a cattleman and his own decision, equally abrupt, to try and rescue a girl foolish enough to be taken in by Jake Spoon. None of it was sensible, yet he had to admit there was something about such follies that he liked. The sensible way, which he had pursued once or twice in his life, had always proved boring, usually within a few days. In his case it had led to nothing much, just excessive drunkenness and reckless card playing. There was more enterprise in certain follies, it seemed to him.
p. 587 It had always puzzled [July] how some men could spend their days just sitting in a saloon, drinking, but now it was beginning to seem less puzzling. It was restful, and the heavy feeling that came with the drinking was a relief to him, in a way. For the last few weeks he had been struggling to do things which were beyond his powers - he knew he was supposed to keep trying, even if he wasn't succeeding, but it was pleasant not to try for a little while.
p. 622 "People have been living there since the beginning, and their bones have kinda filled up the ground. It's interesting to think about, all the bones in the ground. But it's just fellow creatures, nothing to shy from." It was such a startling thought - that under him, beneath the long grass, were millions of bones - that Newt stopped feeling so strained. He rode beside Mr. Gus, thinking about it, the rest of the night.
p. 696 "You can't avoid it, you've got to learn to handle it," Augustus said. "If you only come face to face with your own mistakes once or twice in your life it's bound to be extra painful. I face mine every day - that way they ain't usually much worse than a dry shave."
p. 832 "I can't think of nothing better than riding a fine horse into new country. It's exactly what I was meant for, and Woodrow too." "Do you think we'll see Indians?" Newt asked. "You bet," Augustus said. "We might all get killed this afternoon, for all I know. That's the wild for you - it's got its dangers, which is part of the beauty. 'Course the Indians have had this land forever. To them it's precious because it's old. To us it's exciting because it's new."
p. 907 Often [Clara] sat out on her upper porch at night, wrapped in Bob's huge coat. She liked the bitter cold, a cold that seemed to dim the stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment