Lonesome Dove

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1985

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Part 1, Chapters 6-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary

Jake often came to see Newt’s mother, Maggie, who had been a sporting girl. But Gus and Call took Newt in when Maggie died of fever. Newt has always wondered if Jake could be his father, but Newt’s last name is Dobbs. Call and Gus have mixed feelings about Jake. Call likes him but is suspicious of his smooth talk and love of fineries. Gus thinks Jake is entertaining but thinks he will end up in a noose.

Jake says he’s been in Montana on a scouting trip for the army. He says if they take cattle to Montana they’ll be rich. Jake also tells them that he shot and killed a dentist in Arkansas, but it was an accident. The dentist’s brother was the sheriff—July Johnson. The matter is complicated because Jake has an undeserved reputation as a gunfighter because of one lucky, improbable shot he made when he was a Ranger. Jake believes that Call and Gus will help him. He downplays the fact that he is on the run and hopes to use the cattle drive—and their protection— as cover for his escape.

Gus asks about Clara, and Call gets ready to leave. Call knows that Clara has been married for 15 years and he doesn’t want to hear about her. Jake is surprised that they kept Newt for so many years. Gus says they did it because either Jake or Call is his father.

Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary

Jake remembers that Maggie said she would die if he left her. He left, and she died. He tells Gus that he saw Clara and her husband, Bob, briefly. They had two daughters. Gus had fallen in love with Clara while still married to his second wife. Gus thinks about Lorena and knows that she’ll be in love with Jake within a week.

That afternoon, Call asks Gus why they should go north. He is obviously hungry for an adventure, perhaps their last. They’d been asked not to fight when the Civil War began; the governor asked the Rangers to keep peace on the border, which is what brought them to Lonesome Dove. Gus doesn’t like the thought of the cattle drive, but he knows they were never meant to settle down. Then Gus realizes that going to Montana would take them near Clara and suddenly finds the prospect more agreeable.

Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary

Call tells the men to stop working and rest; they are going to Mexico that night. Newt is excited to be included in the conversation, but he feels bad that Call never compliments him. A man named Wilbarger arrives with a request for 40 horses. He notices the Hat Creek sign and asks about it. Gus recalls the lengthy history of the sign, which includes the names of the men, a Latin motto whose meaning he does not know, and the phrase, “We don’t rent pigs” (90), a fact that has always baffled and annoyed Call.

Dish goes to see Lorena at the Dry Bean, but he is horrified to find her with Jake. He has never seen her smile before, let alone laugh the way she is with Jake. He gets drunk with them and wonders at the strange turn life has taken.

Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary

Gus and Call promise to have 100 horses for Wilbarger by morning. Gus doesn’t know where they’ll get them. After Wilbarger leaves, Call says they’ll need extra horses if they go to Montana, and that they’ll get the horses by attacking the Hacienda Flores, a ranch run by Pedro Flores. Gus tells Newt about the trip to Mexico. Newt is thrilled to finally be included.

Part 1, Chapter 10 Summary

That night, Call is annoyed that Gus keeps joking as they ride toward danger in Mexico. He wonders if Gus secretly wants to die since he has always been so cool under pressure. They see a campfire and hear singing. They find two men from Ireland in the camp, brothers named Allen and Sean O’Brien, with only a mule and a donkey between them. Call says they’ll be back with two horses for them. They can’t leave them on Pedro Flores’s land, or he’ll kill them.

Part 1, Chapters 6-10 Analysis

Chapters 6-10 introduce the complications that will eventually arise from Jake’s relationship with Lorena. Call’s uneasiness with him—and Gus’s conviction that Jake will most likely hang one day—foreshadow Jake’s tragic end. Jake’s ability to instantly charm Lorena shows that his confidence—at least with women—is well-earned, and it also demonstrates that Gus is an astute judge of human behavior. He knows the effect that Jake has on women, and he knows that Lorena will not be immune to it.

Once Wilbarger arrives, the reader gets to see Gus play off a character who enjoys a clash of wits. Wilbarger holds his own with Gus’s unflappable, argumentative nature, and he is more educated than Gus, as will be clearer later when he is found reading Milton. Wilbarger can appreciate Gus’s whimsical nature, most clearly evidenced by his amusement with the Hat Creek sign.

These chapters confirm that the cattle drive will happen. Call takes them to Mexico with a specific goal—to build the herd that they will take to Montana. Everyone who will suffer and die on the trip has now been set on their course. The raid to Mexico also highlights the theme of The Flawed Dream of the American West by revealing the hypocrisy in Call and Gus and in frontier justice in general. They are lawmen, but they are going into Mexico to steal cattle, which they justify because the cattle are most likely stolen from someone else. Pervasive corruption and an ongoing cycle of retribution make the lawmen who believe that they are defending justice as guilty as the criminals.

The appearance of the Irish brothers increases the scope of the novel. Call’s ambition not only commits his men to the journey, but even people from as far away as Ireland will join him through chance. Sean and Allen are a reminder that the hope of the American West and the American Dream was not limited to Americans. People crossed the seas to make their fortune, only to find that the American West was as inhospitable to them as anyone else.

Gus is initially against the drive if only for the sheer work of it. However, it is perfectly suited to his character that he commits to the prospect of thousands of arduous, dangerous miles because it will bring him near Clara Allen. His devotion to Call may have taken him on the trip anyway, rather than be separated from him, but his love for Clara makes him look forward to the journey.