Lonesome Dove

Call orders a coffin. He plans to store Gus in salt and wait until spring for the trip. He is lonely back at the camp, and the men are annoyed at Call’s brusque story about Gus’s death. They cannot believe he is dead, and they are just as stunned that Call has so little to say about it. Dish is sad but wonders if this will improve his chances with Lorena.

They sell two hundred cattle at Fort Benton. During the trip, Call is quieter than usual as he contemplates the need to build a house before winter. He dreams that Gus teases him about traveling onward forever. Call doesn’t want to stop now that he is in Montana; Gus’s death has taken his sense of purpose. Work no longer matters to him. Dish asks for his wages so he can return to Texas—via Nebraska and Lorena. Call says he must help build the house, which annoys Dish.

Soon, an unexpected blizzard arrives; it is colder than the men thought possible. They have a house after ten days, but Call won’t live in it. He sleeps in Wilbarger’s tent, instead. He gives Dish his wages and Dish leaves. That night, Call wonders why he let Dish go. He admits that he is sick of leading the men. He goes to Fort Benton. Newt shows an aptitude for breaking horses while Call is gone. Over the winter they make several trips to sell cattle. He leaves Newt with an army major for a month to break horses.

July proposes to Clara. Instead of answering, she asks him to taste the cinnamon on a cake she is baking. When Martin gets a serious cough, Clara hugs July and cries. She believes that something about her won’t allow boys to survive in her life. She tells him later that he needs to be more useful. She asks why he didn’t come and sit with her when she was up all night with Martin. Finally, Clara says to propose again in a year, because he deserves to suffer for a year after leaving her alone with the sick baby.

Dish arrives with the news of Gus’s death. Lorena barely speaks after she hears it. July is jealous of Dish’s competence and ease with the girls. He also thinks Clara is too fond of him. Clara doesn’t grieve deeply for Gus but feels that she has lost her “ultimate ally” (907). She is helpless to ease Lorena’s suffering, however. Gus had been Lorena’s only happiness. She tells Lorena that Gus had looked relieved when she married Bob; neither of them could have held him. He wouldn’t have wanted the difficulty of winning her. She doesn’t talk all winter, but Dish decides to stay on in the spring.

Call is annoyed that Gus left half of the herd to Lorena in his final letter. Every time he sells any of the stock, he must mark half of the profits for her. They kill Gus’s pigs at Christmas. Shortly after, they suffer a horse theft and catch the thieves: a man and his son. Call shoots the man, but Newt asks Pea Eye not to let Call hang the boy, Tom. He takes Tom back to camp and lets him work, but no one likes him. Ten days later they catch him stealing their wallets. Then they hang him and no one argues.

After branding, Call knows it’s time to take Gus for burial. He is proud of Newt. He makes him the range boss before leaving and gives Newt the Hell Bitch and his rifle. He wants to tell him that he is his father but can’t make himself speak. He is ashamed for being dishonest about his son. Newt doesn’t understand why Call is suffering so badly. He just wants him to leave. Call squeezes Newt’s arm and walks away. Before he leaves for good, he gives Newt his father’s watch. That evening, Newt says he never wants to be part of anyone’s family.

An animal broke into the shed where Gus’s body was stored and took his amputated leg. After collecting the body, Call takes Gus to Clara’s house. She tells him to leave Gus and go back to Newt. She says that Call disgusts her as she takes the letters. Her letter asks only that she look after Lorena, mentions his missing leg, and wishes her and her girls good luck. Lorena can’t read, but she keeps her letter and doesn’t let Clara read it to her.

Clara is furious with Gus. He made an insane request of Call on his deathbed, which separated Call from Newt again. Clara tells Call that his live son is more important than his dead friend, but Call can’t break a promise. She says she’ll write to Newt and tell him the truth. She scolds Call and says he and Gus ruined each other. One of the reasons she never married Gus was so that she didn’t have to fight the pull that Call exerted on him. She says she has always despised him and calls him a coward as he leaves.

Word about Call and his trip spreads across the prairie. In Denver, he telegraphs Wilbarger’s brother. He leaves the road to avoid people. He learns that Blue Duck is hanging in Santa Rosa the following week. Call visits Blue Duck two days before the hanging. The outlaw has bullet wounds in the shoulder and leg and is heavily chained. He says an old woman taught him to fly, and if Call waits, he will see it.

On the day of the hanging, Blue Duck jumps through the glass on the third story of the courthouse. The deputies hang him anyway. A young newspaperman pesters Call with questions and says he’s considered a man of vision. “A hell of a vision” (938), says Call. After many hardships, he buries Gus at Clara’s Orchard, using the last remaining plank of the sign as a marker. He reaches Lonesome Dove in August and sees Bolivar banging the dinner bell. The Dry Bean burned down a year ago after Xavier started the fire and locked himself inside. A man tells Call that the rumor is that Xavier missed Lorena too badly to continue living.