Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry Page B

that,” Call said. “It was little Billy it killed. I hated to lose that horse.”
    “Of course we couldn’t convince Pea he’d done it,” Augustus said. “He don’t understand trajectory.”
    “Well, I understand it,” Jake said. “Everybody in town liked that dentist.”
    “Aw, Jake, that won’t stick,” Augustus said. “Nobody really likes dentists.”
    “This one was the mayor,” Jake said.
    “Well, it was accidental death,” Call said.
    “Yeah, but I’m just a gambler,” Jake said. “They all like to think they’re respectable back in Arkansas. Besides, the dentist’s brother was the sheriff, and somebody told him I was a gunfighter. He invited me to leave town a week before it happened.”
    Call sighed. All the gunfighter business went back to one lucky shot Jake had made when he was a mere boy starting out in the Rangers. It was funny how one shot could make a man’s reputation like that. It was a hip shot Jake made because he was scared, and it killed a Mexican bandit who was riding toward them on a dead run. It was Call’s opinion, and Augustus’s too, that Jake hadn’t even been shooting at the bandit—he was probably shooting in hopes of bringing down the horse, which might have fallen on the bandit and crippled him a little. But Jake shot blind from the hip, with the sun in his eyes to boot, and hit the bandit right in the Adam’s apple, a thing not likely to occur more than once in a lifetime, if that often.
    But it was Jake’s luck that most of the men who saw him make the shot were raw boys too, with not enough judgment to appreciate how lucky a thing it was. Those that survived and grew up told the story all across the West, so there was hardly a man from the Mexican border to Canada who hadn’t heard what a dead pistol shot Jake Spoon was, though any man who had fought with him through the years would know he was no shot at all with a pistol and only a fair shot with a rifle.
    Call and Augustus had always worried about Jake because of his unearned reputation, but he was a lucky fellow and there were not many men around dumb enough to enjoy pistol fights, so Jake managed to get by. It was ironic that the shot which finally got him in trouble was as big an accident as the shot that had made his fame.
    “How’d you get loose from the sheriff?” Call asked.
    “He was gone when it happened,” Jake said. “He was up in Missouri, testifying on some stage robbers. I don’t know if he’s even back to Fort Smith yet.”
    “They wouldn’t have hung you for an accident, even in Arkansas,” Call said.
    “I am a gambler, but that’s one I didn’t figure to gamble on,” Jake said. “I just went out the back door and left, hoping July would get too busy to come after me.”
    “July’s the sheriff?” Gus asked.
    “Yes, July Johnson,” Jake said. “He’s young, but he’s determined. I just hope he gets busy.”
    “I don’t know why a lawman would want a dentist for a brother,” Augustus said rather absently.
    “If he warned you out of the town you should have left,” Call said. “There’s plenty of other towns besides Fort Smith.”
    “Jake probably had him a whore,” Augustus said. “He usually does.”
    “You’re one to talk, Gus,” Jake said.
    They all fell silent for a time while Jake thoughtfully picked his teeth with the sharpened match. Bolivar was sound asleep, sitting on his stool.
    “I should have rode on, Call,” Jake said apologetically. “But Fort Smith’s a pretty town. It’s on the river, and I like to have a river running by me. They eat catfish down there. I got where it kinda suited my tooth.”
    “I’d like to see the fish that could keep me in a place I wasn’t wanted,” Call said. Jake had always been handy with excuses.
    “That’s what we’ll tell the sheriff when he shows up to take you back,” Augustus said. “Maybe he’ll take you fishing while you’re waiting to be hung.”
    Jake let it pass. Gus would have his joke,