Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

get to work longer than was usual. He stood in the door, watching the whitening sky and looking restless enough to bite himself.
    “So where have you been, Jake?” Augustus asked, to speed things up.
    Jake looked thoughtful, as he almost always did. His coffee-colored eyes always seemed to be traveling leisurely over scenes from his own past, and they gave the impression that he was a man of sorrows—an impression very appealing to the ladies. It disgusted Augustus a little that ladies were so taken in by Jake’s big eyes. In fact, Jake Spoon had had a perfectly easy life, doing mostly just what he pleased and keeping his boots clean; what his big eyes concealed was a slow-working brain. Basically Jake just dreamed his way through life and somehow got by with it.
    “Oh, I’ve been seeing the country,” he said. “I was up to Montana two years ago. I guess that’s what made me decide to come back, although I’ve been meaning to get back down this way and see you boys for some years.”
    Call came back in the room and straddled a chair, figuring he might as well hear it.
    “What’s Montana got to do with us?” he asked.
    “Why, Call, you ought to see it,” Jake said. “A prettier country never was.”
    “How far’d you go?” Augustus asked.
    “Way up, past the Yellowstone,” Jake said. “I was near to the Milk River. You can smell Canady from there.”
    “I bet you can smell Indians too,” Call said. “How’d you get past the Cheyenne?”
    “They shipped most of them out,” Jake said. “Some of the Blackfeet are still troublesome. But I was with the Army, doing a little scouting.”
    That hardly made sense. Jake Spoon might scout his way across a card table, but Montana was something else.
    “When’d you take to scouting?” Call asked dryly.
    “Oh, I was just with a feller taking some beef to the Blackfeet,” Jake said. “The Army came along to help.”
    “A lot of damn help the Army would be, driving beef,” Gus said.
    “They helped us keep our hair,” Jake said, laying his knife and fork across his plate as neatly as if he were eating at a fancy table.
    “My main job was to skeer the buffalo out of the way,” he said.
    “Buffalo,” Augustus said. “I thought they was about gone.”
    “Pshaw,” Jake said. “I must have seen fifty thousand up above the Yellowstone. The damn buffalo hunters ain’t got the guts to take on them Indians. Oh, they’ll finish them, once the Cheyenne and the Sioux finally cave in, and they may have even since I left. The damn Indians have the grass of Montana all to themselves. And has it got grass. Call, you ought to see it.”
    “I’d go today if I could fly,” Call said.
    “Be safer to walk,” Augustus said. “By the time we walked up there maybe they would have licked the Indians.”
    “That’s just it, boys,” Jake said. “The minute they’re licked there’s going to be fortunes made in Montana. Why, it’s cattle land like you’ve never seen, Call. High grass and plenty of water.”
    “Chilly, though, ain’t it?” Augustus asked.
    “Oh, it’s got weather,” Jake said. “Hell, a man can wear a coat.”
    “Better yet, a man can stay inside,” Augustus said.
    “I’ve yet to see a fortune made inside,” Call said. “Except by a banker, and we ain’t bankers. What did you have in mind, Jake?”
    “Getting to it first,” Jake said. “Round up some of these free cattle and take ’em on up. Beat all the other sons of bitches, and we’d soon be rich.”
    Augustus and Call exchanged looks. It was odd talk to be hearing from Jake Spoon, who had never been known for his ambition—much less for a fondness for cows. Pretty whores, pacing horses, and lots of clean shirts had been his main requirements in life.
    “Why, Jake, what reformed you?” Gus asked. “You was never a man to hanker after fortune.”
    “Living with the cows from here to Montana would mean a change in your habits, if I remember them right,” Call