Read "Lonesome Dove, Volume 1" by Larry McMurtry online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
WHEN AUGUSTUS CAME OUT on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake-not a very big one. It had probably just been crawling around looking for shade when it ran into the pigs. They were having a fine tug-of-war with it, and its rattling days were over. The sow had it by the neck, and the shoat had the tail.
"You pigs git," Augustus said, kicking the shoat. "Head on down to the creek if you want to eat that snake. " It was the porch he begrudged them, not the snake. Pigs on the porch just made things hotter, and things were already hot enough. He stepped down into the dusty yard and walked around to the springhouse to get his jug. The sun was still high, sulled in the sky like a mule, but Augustus had a keen eye for sun, and to his eye the long light from the west had taken on an encouraging slant.