Allow me full disclosure, I don't like Westerns. I find the
all-male, dusty, sparse with flora, gun-toting allegories, be
they cinematic or literary, too far from my own experience to
relate. Yet, when asked which of the Pulitzer Prize winning
novels I liked best, while many excel and compel, Larry McMurty's
Lonesome Dove, (winner, 1986) and also a four-part miniseries set
in the Wild West during the last days of the buffalo, when
settlers still avoided certain trails due to the risk of being
scalped, is the story that moved me to skip meals, avoid phone
calls, and stay up late until I knew if Gus would save Lorie, and
if he would wind up with his old sweetheart Clara.
Captain Augustus McCrae and Captain Woodrow F. Call are ex-Texas
rangers who run the cattle ranch at Lonesome Dove, Texas. Most of
the cattlehands are in love with Lorie, a young woman who was
forced into prostitution by her lover and then abandoned. Lorie
works in the local saloon, where the owner is also in love with
her. When she falls in love, it is with another young, physically
beautiful character, Jake Spoon, who starts out as a Texas Ranger
with the Captains but is so used to his life being easy on
account of his looks that he slowly drifts, lacking moral
resolve, into a band of gamblers and then worse. Gus knows that
Lorie will fall for Jake before she does; He is used to Jake's
effect on women and knows that Lorie is no better judge of
character than any other foolish young woman. But Lorie
reminds Gus of the woman he loved when he was a young man, whose
name is Clara. Clara rejected Gus's marraige proposals, taking up
with the first "stable" opportunity that presented its self,
because she felt that Gus's true love was adventure. Gus married,
and was widowed, but never forgot Clara.
When Gus sees Lorie he
wants to protect her from her own bad decisions and impetuous
wrecklessness. But the drive toward a larger adventure seizes
hold of Gus and his partner, the reserved, orderly, stern Woodrow
Call, usually referred to as Call. Call is the opposite of Gus.
Gus likes to ponder, pontificate, and relax. Call keeps his mouth
shut and is more comfortable working than anything else. Somehow
Call and Gus take hold of the idea of a cattle drive to Montana,
to start the first ranch there. If they succeed they will be
rich, as the only competitor for a government contract to supply
soldiers with beef. Jake Spoon, shows up at Lonesome Dove shortly
before the grand adventure, on the lam from an accidental
shooting of a dentist, whose brother-in-law, July Johnson, has
been reluctantly dispatched to bring him back to justice.
Meanwhile, July's wife runs off to find the man she really loves,
an associate of Jake's, and July's deputee chases July to tell
him that his wife is missing.
The villain of the story is a bloodthirsty criminal, an Indian
named Blue Duck. This is not a simplistic cowboys and Indians
story where one side is good and one side is evil. There are many
whites in the story who are alcoholic, depraved, bigoted, or
cowardly. Gus and the other cowboys have more in common, he
realizes, with the natives than with the whites who come after
men like him have blazed a trail. He prefers to get along with
the Indians as he sees how similar they are. But this particular
individual, Blue Duck, is a real bad guy. He kills slowly when he
has the time, brutally when he is in a hurry. He steals horses.
He kidnaps women and sells them into sexual slavery for horses
and supplies, then gambles and cheats to win back his "property"
and kills any one who argues with him. He's ugly. He's mean. He
smells bad and everything about him is sick and cruel, just for
the sake of cruelty. At the beginning of the adventure, when Gus
has a chance to shoot him in the back, he doesn't; a decision he
comes to regret.
The story reminds me of something I find hard to imagine: That
before the shopping malls, the railroads, the highways, there was
a different kind of law, wide open skies, and wilderness. In this
context love and redemption never come easy, if at all. Others
have told this American history, but none have made it so vivid,
so real, so heartachingly rendered.