Lonesome Dove (Lonesome Dove, #1)

by Larry McMurtry

The main problem with women was that they were always wanting something like San Francisco, and once they began to expect it they would get testy if it didn’t happen. They didn’t understand that he talked of pleasant things and faraway places just to create a happy prospect that they could look forward to for a while. It wasn’t meant to really happen, and yet women never seemed to grasp that; he had been in ticklish spots several times as their disappointment turned to anger. It was something, how mad women could get.

Those feelings hadn’t come to the boy yet. He was a good boy, as gentle as the gray doves that came to peck for gravel on the flats behind the barn.

Virtually all his life he had been in the position of leading groups of men, yet the truth was he had never liked groups. Men he admired for their abilities in action almost always brought themselves down in his estimation if he had to sit around and listen to them talk—or watch them drink or play cards or run off after women. Listening to men talk usually made him feel more alone than if he were a mile away by himself under a tree. He had never really been able to take part in the talk.

“I hope this is hard enough for you, Call,” he said. “I hope it makes you happy. If it don’t, I give up. Driving all these skinny cattle all that way is a funny way to maintain an interest in life, if you ask me.”

Some nights he would sit for half an hour, for he came to like her talk, though he had long since forgotten what she had said.

“It’s mostly bones we’re riding over, anyway. Why, think of all the buffalo that have died on these plains. Buffalo and other critters too. And the Indians have been here forever; their bones are down there in the earth. I’m told that over in the Old Country you can’t dig six feet without uncovering skulls and leg bones and such. People have been living there since the beginning, and their bones have kinda filled up the ground. It’s interesting to think about, all the bones in the ground. But it’s just fellow creatures, it’s nothing to shy from.”

“I need to cry, but I’ve got no tears,” he said. “This goddamn country has burned up my tears.”

it’s precious because it’s old. To us it’s exciting because it’s new.”

Call found he couldn’t speak at all. It was as if his whole life had suddenly lodged in his throat, a raw bite he could neither spit out nor swallow. He had once seen a Ranger choke to death on a tough bite of buffalo meat, and he felt that he was choking, too—choking on himself. He felt he had failed in all he had tried to be: the good boy standing there was evidence of it. The shame he felt was so strong it stopped the words in his throat.