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Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Summary

The famous sign. Augustus's compulsive elaborations turned a plain livery notice into a manifesto listing the partners, P. E. Parker (Wrangler), Deets, Joshua — added after Deets sulked at being left off, and after he suddenly remembered a second name — rates, the caution "We Don't Rent Pigs," and a Latin motto, Uva uvam vivendo varia fit, whose meaning Augustus does not know. Two strangers stop to read it: Wilbarger, a blunt cattleman who has had forty horses stolen by Mexicans, and his pockmarked hand Chick, who asks where the whorehouse is. Dish lies and sends him to Sabinas. Later, walking to the Dry Bean to see Lorena, Dish hears her bed creaking overhead and prepares to kill whoever is up there — then finds the street empty. He returns to find her sharing a whiskey glass with Jake Spoon. His idea of women collapses. He drinks two bottles and ends up singing by the piano.

Analysis

The sign chapter — a comic set piece that becomes the novel's last grave marker eight hundred pages later. Wilbarger enters as Call's foil and future obligation. Dish's overheard bedsprings deliver the first of the book's many humiliations dealt by desire rather than by violence.

Plates

The middle of the afternoon, too hot to think, the hands working the half-dug well and the windlass in the bare lots at Lonesome Dove.
00 The middle of the afternoon, too hot to think, the hands working the half-dug well and the windlass in the bare lots at Lonesome Dove.
Call rides the lathered grey mare straight up to the well after twenty miles along the river, and tells the hands to rest — they go to Mexico tonight.
01 Call rides the lathered grey mare straight up to the well after twenty miles along the river, and tells the hands to rest — they go to Mexico tonight.
In the shade of the barn alleyway, Deets gets out his needle and heavy thread the minute he sits down and goes back to patching his pants — "These pants got to last."
02 In the shade of the barn alleyway, Deets gets out his needle and heavy thread the minute he sits down and goes back to patching his pants — "These pants got to last."
Newt loses at root-the-peg and has to dig the peg out of the ground with his teeth; Dish drove it in so far that Newt gets dirt up his nose.
03 Newt loses at root-the-peg and has to dig the peg out of the ground with his teeth; Dish drove it in so far that Newt gets dirt up his nose.
The two strangers halt on the far side of the lots to read Augustus's sign — the old root-cellar door nailed to the corral corner, covered edge to edge with his additions, the pigs and the Latin motto at the bottom.
04 The two strangers halt on the far side of the lots to read Augustus's sign — the old root-cellar door nailed to the corral corner, covered edge to edge with his additions, the pigs and the Latin motto at the bottom.
Wilbarger trots on to the barn and wants forty well-broke horses — Mexicans ran off near all his remuda two nights back, and he doesn't plan to walk his cattle to Kansas on foot.
05 Wilbarger trots on to the barn and wants forty well-broke horses — Mexicans ran off near all his remuda two nights back, and he doesn't plan to walk his cattle to Kansas on foot.
Chick asks again where the yellow-haired girl is and Dish gets slowly to his feet — "Well, just my sister" — a rank lie that gets the job done.
06 Chick asks again where the yellow-haired girl is and Dish gets slowly to his feet — "Well, just my sister" — a rank lie that gets the job done.
Behind the Dry Bean, tucking in his shirttail, Dish hears the cornshuck bed creaking in the corner room above him and stands paralysed in the heat.
07 Behind the Dry Bean, tucking in his shirttail, Dish hears the cornshuck bed creaking in the corner room above him and stands paralysed in the heat.
Dish comes round to the front ready to commit murder and finds no swaybacked grulla at the rail — no horses at all, the street empty but for the Pumphrey boys loading barbed wire.
08 Dish comes round to the front ready to commit murder and finds no swaybacked grulla at the rail — no horses at all, the street empty but for the Pumphrey boys loading barbed wire.
By the middle of the second bottle Dish has stopped worrying about it and sits by the piano singing while Lippy plays, Lorena and Jake Spoon still at their table sharing the one glass.
09 By the middle of the second bottle Dish has stopped worrying about it and sits by the piano singing while Lippy plays, Lorena and Jake Spoon still at their table sharing the one glass.