Praise for Dead Man’s Walk by Larry McMurtry
“In Dead Man’s Walk, McMurtry uses a simple, wry, immensely accessible storyteller’s voice to ponder the same questions that Melville and Conrad did. This is a great book. . . . Larry McMurtry, at his best here, is one of the finest American novelists, ever. We are lucky he’s around.”
—John Milius, Los Angeles Times
“Succeeds marvelously . . . resurrecting two brilliantly conceived characters and delivering a rousing tale of the Wild West.”
—Michael Berry, San Francisco Chronicle
“Gee-haw! Larry McMurtry is back in the yarn-slinging business—with a vengeance. . . . Readers will gobble up Dead Man’s Walk—a wild and wooly read—from cover to cover.”
—The Denver Post
“McMurtry spins some scary, bloodthirsty tall tales and peoples them with remarkably vivid characters.”
—New York Daily News
“McMurtry remains a good storyteller, and he remains a master of dialogue, doing a sort of frontier version of Oscar Wilde.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“Dead Man’s Walk is a very good read. . . . [It] will keep you reading [and] make you miss meals.”
—The Seattle Times
“McMurtry does great characters. Call and McCrae are real, lifelike, believable, and lovable. . . . McMurtry’s stories are brimming with passion and page-turning excitement. . . . It’s good, good stuff.”
—The Kansas City Star
Praise for Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry
“McMurtry’s revisionist vision of frontier life is always compelling.”
—Jay Freeman, Booklist
“The [frontier] myth is intact, if a tad tattered by McMurtry’s darkly comedic touch and sly debunking of chivalric conventions. But at its core are McMurtry’s respect and gift for exaggerated and fanciful pageantry and heroic form.”
—Bill Bell, New York Daily News
“A sprawling, picaresque novel.”
—Andy Solomon, The New York Times Book Review
“[A] fine tableau of western life, full of imaginative exploits, convincing historical background, and characters who are alive.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A monumental work that has few equals in current literature.”
—Thomas L. Kilkpatrick, Library Journal
“Comanche Moon has its considerable pleasures . . . a singular treat.”
—Michael Berry, San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle Book Review
“McMurtry is one of our finest storytellers, and he’s at his best here.”
—Kyle Smith, People
“Consistently entertaining.”
—Gene Lyons, Entertainment Weekly
“Almost impossible to put down . . . McMurtry knows how to deploy his most suspenseful episodes for maximum effect. He treats his large cast of characters with humor and respect.”
—Judith Wynn, Boston Herald
Praise for Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove
“It has been a long time since I have been annoyed at a writer as I was with McMurtry for bringing his story to a close after a mere 843 pages. He could have doubled it without any diminishment of power and pleasure. It is, yes, just that good. It is, absolutely, that much fun to read. . . . Superb.”
—Chicago Tribune
“A marvelous novel . . . moves with joyous energy . . . amply imagined and crisply, lovingly written. I haven’t enjoyed a book more this year . . . a joyous epic.”
—Newsweek
“If you read only one Western novel in your life, read Lonesome Dove.”
—USA Today
“Anything but predictable . . . skillfully drawn characters crop up at nearly every turn . . . splendid.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“Larry McMurtry’s loftiest novel, a wondrous work, drowned in love, melancholy, and yet, ultimately, exultant . . . celebrates a world abundant with calamity and a human spirit wistful but prevailing. . . . A compelling and memorable epic . . . masterful.”
—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Magnificent . . . should be ranked as a classic . . . provides a showcase for the author’s astonishing narrative skills.”
—The San Diego Union
“Larry McMurtry tops them all . . . nothing less than a masterful odyssey, and an enduring addition to the lore of Western Americana.”
—Los Angeles Daily News
“McMurtry’s masterwork. There’s but one word for this vast novel: wonderful.”
—John Jakes
Praise for Streets of Laredo by Larry McMurtry
“One of McMurtry’s most powerful and moving achievements.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Larry McMurtry is a wonderful storyteller, and with . . . Streets of Laredo . . . he has written a novel that is even better than the original—and that was one hell of a tale.”
—The Boston Globe
“Larry McMurtry remains a genius at dialogue. The scene where the seven whores start reminiscing about the first men in their lives is wonderful.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Streets of Laredo is a splendid addition to the literary portrait of McMurtry’s native Texas and the West that he has been creating for three decades. It’s also one of his most affectingly melancholy books. . . . The characters are as finely etched as any McMurtry has ever minted.”
—Newsweek
“A marvelous novel in its own right and in every way a worthy successor to Lonesome Dove.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Gorgeous . . . violent, funny, achingly sad, filled with heroism and regret. . . . If you can put Streets of Laredo down, I’ll eat my ten-gallon hat.”
—Cosmopolitan
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Contents
Dead Man’s Walk
Comanche Moon
Lonesome Dove
Streets of Laredo
Contents
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part II
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Part III
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part IV
Chapter 1
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
For Sara Ossana
très belle
très claire
très fidèle
Part I
1.
MATILDA JANE ROBERTS WAS naked as the air. Known throughout south Texas as the Great Western, she came walking up from the muddy Rio Grande holding a big snapping turtle by the tail. Matilda was almost as large as the skinny little Mexican mustang Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call were trying to saddle-break. Call had the mare by the ears, waiting for Gus to pitch the saddle on her narrow back, but the pitch was slow in coming. When Call glanced toward the river and saw the Great Western in all her plump nakedness, he knew why: young Gus McCrae was by nature distractable; the sight of a naked, two-hundred-pound whore carrying a full-grown snapping turtle had captured his complete attention, and that of the rest of the Ranger troop as well.
“Look at that, Woodrow,” Gus said. “Matty’s carrying that old turtle as if it was a basket of peaches.”
“I can’t look,” Call said. “I’ll lose my grip and get kicked—and I’ve done been kicked.” The mare, small though she was, had already displayed a willingness to kick and bite. Call knew that if he loosened his grip on her ears even slightly, he could count on getting kicked, or bitten, or both.
Long Bill Coleman, lounging against his saddle only a few yards from where the two young Rangers were struggling with the little mustang, watched Matilda approach, with a certain trepidation. Although it was only an hour past breakfast, he was already drunk. It seemed to Long Bill, in his tipsy state, that the Great Western was walking directly toward him with her angry catch. It might be that she meant to use the turtle as some kind of weapon—or so Long Bill surmised. Matilda Roberts despised debt, and carried grudges freely and at length. Bill knew himself to be considerably in arrears, the result of a persistent lust coupled with a vexing string of losses at cards. At the moment, he didn’t have a red cent and knew that he was unlikely to have one for days, or even weeks to come. If Matilda, who was whimsical, chose to call his debt, his only recourse might be to run; but Long Bill was in no shape to run, and in any case, there was no place to run to that offered the least prospect of refuge. The Rangers were camped on the Rio Grande, west of the alkaline Pecos. They were almost three hundred miles from the nearest civilized habitation, and the country between them and a town was not inviting.
“When’s the next payday, Major?” Long Bill inquired, glancing at his leader, Major Randall Chevallie.
“That woman acts like she might set that turtle on me,” he added, hoping that Major Chevallie would want to issue an order or something. Bill knew that there were military men who refused to allow whores within a hundred feet of their camp—even whores not armed with snapping turtles.
Major Chevallie had only spent three weeks at West Point—he left because he found the classes boring and the discipline vexing. He nonetheless awarded himself the rank of major after a violent scrape in Baltimore convinced him that civilian life hemmed a man in with such a passel of legalities that it was no longer worth pursuing. Randall Chevallie hid on a ship, and the ship took him to Galveston; upon disembarking at that moist, sandy port, he declared himself a major and had been a major ever since.
Now, except for the two young Rangers who were attempting to saddle the Mexican mare, his whole troop was drunk, the result of an incautious foray into Mexican territory the day before. They had crossed the Rio Grande out of boredom, and promptly captured a donkey cart containing a few bushels of hard corn and two large jugs of mescal, a liquor of such potency that it immediately unmanned several of the Rangers. They had been without spirits for more than a month—they drank the mescal like water. In fact, it tasted a good deal better than any water they had tasted since crossing the Pecos.
The mescal wasn’t water, though; two men went blind for awhile, and several others were troubled by visions of torture and dismemberment. Such visions, at the time, were not hard to conjure up, even without mescal, thanks to the folly of the unfortunate Mexican whose donkey cart they had captured. Though the Rangers meant the man no harm—or at least not much harm—he fled at the sight of gringos and was not even out of earshot before he fell into the hands of Comanches or Apaches: it was impossible to tell from his screams which tribe was torturing him. All that was known was that only three warriors took part in the torturing. Bigfoot Wallace, the renowned scout, returned from a lengthy look around and reported seeing the tracks of three warriors, no more. The tracks were heading toward the river.
Many Rangers thought Bigfoot’s point somewhat picayune, since the Mexican could not have screamed louder if he had been being tortured by fifty men—the screams made sleep difficult, not to mention short. The Great Western didn’t earn a cent all night. Only young Gus McCrae, whose appetite for fornication admitted no checks, approached Matilda, but of course young McCrae was penniless, and Matilda in no mood to offer credit.
“You better turn that mare loose for awhile,” Gus advised. “Matty’s coming with that big turtle—I don’t know what she means to do with it.”
“Can’t turn loose,” Call said, but then he did release the mare, jumping sideways just in time to avoid her flailing front hooves. It was clear to him that Gus had no intention of trying to saddle the mare, not anytime soon. When there was a naked whore to watch, Gus was unlikely to want to do much of anything, except watch the whore.
“Major, what about payday?” Long Bill inquired again.
Major Chevallie cocked an eyebrow at Long Bill Coleman, a man noted for his thorough laziness.
“Why, Bill, the mail’s undependable, out here beyond the Pecos,” the Major said. “We haven’t seen a mail coach since we left San Antonio.”
“That whore with the dern turtle wants to be paid now,” one-eyed Johnny Carthage speculated.
“I’ve never seen a whore bold enough to snatch an old turtle right out of the Rio Grande River,” Bob Bascom said. In his opinion, it had been quite unmilitary for the Major to allow Matilda Roberts to accompany them on their expedition; though how he would have stopped her, short of gunplay, was not easy to say. Matilda had simply fallen in with them when they left the settlements. She rode a large gray horse named Tom, who lost flesh rapidly once they were beyond the fertile valleys. Matilda had no fear of Indians, or of anything else, not so far as Bob Bascom was aware. She helped herself liberally to the Rangers’ grub, and conducted business on a pallet she spread in the bushes, when there were bushes. Bob had to admit that having a whore along was a convenience, but he still considered it unmilitary, though he was not so incautious as to give voice to his opinion.
Major Randall Chevallie was of uncertain temper at best. Rumor had it that he had, on occasions, conducted summary executions, acting as his own firing squad. His pistol was often in his hand, and though his leadership was erratic, his aim wasn’t. He had twice brought down running antelope with his pistol—most of the Rangers couldn’t have hit a running antelope with a rifle, or even a Gatling gun.
“That whore didn’t snatch that turtle out of the river,” Long Bill commented. “I seen that turtle sleeping on a rock, when I went to wash the puke off myself. She just snuck up on it and picked it off that rock. Look at it snap at her. Now she’s got it mad!”
The snapper swung its neck this way and that, working its jaws; but Matilda Roberts was holding it at arm’s length, and its jaws merely snapped the air.
“What next?” Gus said, to Call.
“I don’t know what next,” Call said, a little irritated at his friend. Sooner or later they would have to have another try at saddling the mare—a chancy undertaking.
“Maybe she means to cook it,” Call added.
“I have heard of slaves eating turtle,” Gus said. “I believe they eat them in Mississippi.”
“Well, I wouldn’t eat one,
” Call informed him. “I’d still like to get a saddle on this mare, if you ain’t too busy to help.”
The mare was snubbed to a low mesquite tree—she wound herself tighter and tighter, as she kicked and struggled.
“Let’s see what Matilda’s up to first,” Gus said. “We got all day to break horses.”
“All right, but you’ll have to take the ears, this time,” Call said. “I’ll do the saddling.”
Matilda swung her arm a time or two and heaved the big turtle in the general direction of a bunch of Rangers—the boys were cleaning their guns and musing on their headaches. They scattered like quail when they saw the turtle sailing through the air. It turned over twice and landed on its back, not three feet from the campfire.
Bigfoot Wallace squatted by the fire—he had just finished pouring himself a cup of coffee. It was chickory coffee, but at least it was black. Bigfoot paid the turtle no attention at all—Matty Roberts had always been somewhat eccentric, in his view. If she wanted to throw snapping turtles around, that was her business. He himself was occupied with more urgent concerns, one of them being the identity of the three warriors who had tortured the Mexican to death. A few hours after coming across their tracks he had dozed off and dreamed a disturbing dream about Indians. In his dream Buffalo Hump was riding a spotted horse, while Gomez walked beside him. Buffalo Hump was the meanest Comanche anyone had ever heard of, and Gomez the meanest Apache. The fact that a Comanche killer and an Apache killer were traveling together, in his dream, was highly unpleasant. Never before, that he could remember, had he had a dream in which something so unlikely happened. He almost felt he should report the dream to Major Chevallie, but the Major, at the moment, was distracted by Matilda Roberts and her turtle.
“Good morning, Miss Roberts, is that your new pet?” the Major inquired, when Matilda walked up.
“Nope, that’s breakfast—turtle beats bacon,” Matilda said. “Has anybody got a shirt I can borrow? I left mine out by the pallet.”
She had strolled down to the river naked because she felt like having a wash in the cold water. It wasn’t deep enough to swim in, but she gave herself a good splashing. The old snapper just happened to be lazing on a rock nearby, so she grabbed it. Half the Rangers were scared of Matilda anyway, some so scared they would scarcely look at her, naked or clothed. The Major wasn’t scared of her, nor was Bigfoot or young Gus; the rest of the men, in her view, were incompetents, the kind of men who were likely to run up debts and get killed before they could pay them. She sailed the snapper in their direction to let them know she expected honest behavior. Going naked didn’t hurt, either. She was big, and liked it; she could punch most men out, if she had to, and sometimes she had to; her dream was to get to California and own a fine bordello, which was why she fell in with the first Ranger troop going west. It was a scraggly little troop, composed mostly of drunks and shiftless ramblers, but she took it and was making the best of it. The alternative was to wait in Texas, get old, and never own a bordello in California.
The Lonesome Dove Chronicles (1-4) Page 1
