eBook Dead Man's Walk OME ePub

4 and 1 / 2 stars

In this novel, Woodrow Call and Augustus “Gus” McCrae are just young men who have joined the Texas Rangers. On their first ride out to survey a new road, they meet up with Buffalo Hump, one of the fiercest Comanche warriors on the plains. They lose two men, and are lucky to make it back safely to San Antonio.

On their next adventure, the troop heads out for Santa Fe, New Mexico – over a thousand miles away! They meet up with a tornado. Gus falls in love with practically every woman he sees. Gus loves to embellish his stories with outright fibs. Call has a cooler head and thinks Gus is more than a little lazy and spends too much time whoring and drinking. Call intends to save his money for better weapons. They finally get to the meeting place for this expedition and meet Caleb Cobb and his sidekick Billy Falconer. Caleb is not as Gus presented him and Billy is mean. Along for the ride is General Lloyd. He is a drunk and so out of it that he cannot ride his own horse, so he rides in a wagon.

Riding through the plains, Call had plenty of time to think about getting lost. The desolate countryside was daunting. The reader has to remember that there were no streetlights and no guardrails to help them along their way. There was nothing but blackness and the fear of losing one’s way at night. The fear of Indians and a horse going lame was another consideration.

I simply wouldn’t have made it. I’m not tough enough.

All of their little party is shocked when Caleb Cobb invites Buffalo Hump into camp to eat and parley. The men absolutely hate him and want to kill him. But they stay their feelings during the meeting. When Caleb wants to give Buffalo Hump Billy Falconer’s fine Holland and Holland rifle as a present, Falconer balks and threatens to quit. Cobb “resigns” Falconer and gives the rifle to Buffalo Hump who rides off without another word.

Later the Comanche set fire to the plains from three directions when the soldiers have their backs to a steep and deep canyon. Caleb Cobb dithers and the men just have time to leap over the edge of the canyon in order to save themselves. Several men die in the attempt and the horses run off. When the fire dies down, the men find themselves afoot with no food and very little water. The desert is unforgiving.

Call, Gus and Bigfoot are captured by the Mexican army. They are shackled and walking across the plains when the little camp was attacked by a grizzly. It scattered the frightened Mexicans, killed Captain Salazar’s horse and ran rampant through the camp. Call, Gus and Bigfoot got away and were lucky enough to find Caleb Cobb and a diminished troop of men. They marched without food or water for a while and were met by the Mexican army – hundreds of men, mounted soldiers and cannon. Captured once again, Caleb Cobb surrenders. Call is absolutely furious with Cobb.

They are escorted and on their way to Mexico City over a thousand miles away. The problem is that they have to cross an area called the dead man’s walk. Through sleet, bitter cold and without much food or water they march on. Then handed off to a humorless major and his soldiers for the remainder of their walk, they are told to bathe in the Rio Grande. It is very cold. Some of the younger of the Texans panic and start to flee. The Mexican soldiers run rampant on them, killing several despite the major’s yelling at them to stop, and Bigfoot as well yelling at the Texans.

When they get to the little town which is surrounded by feral dogs, they are told to pick blindfolded from a jar of beans. There are ten men left – and Mattie- and if they pick a white bean they will live. If they pick a black bean, they will be shot.

Gus and Call make it and then they meet a Scottish Lady Carey and her Viscount son Willy. The Lady has leprosy, but her son and maids do not. She proposes to the five men that they take her to Galveston. Since they are now housed in a leper colony and there are no soldiers about, they decide to go.

What follows is perhaps the most amusing and inexplicable journey yet. It is brilliant.

What a good novel this is. Across the plains of Texas and New Mexico and down the Dead Man’s Walk, Gus and Call manage to survive against all odds. It is a harrowing and scary journey of several thousand miles. (I wouldn’t have made it one in that environment.)

Definitely not your father's Louis Lamour or Zane Gray, Dead Man's Walk is almost a cross between McCarthy's Blood Meridian and Conrad's Heart of Darkness. A prequel to Lonesome Dove but written afterwards, the two heroes of Lonesome Dove are shown here at the outset of their careers as Texas Rangers. Set in the 1840's, they participate in an expedition (based on a true incident) to take Santa Fe from the Mexicans. Along the way, they meet every kind of violent death: wild animals, sadistic and utterly incompetent leaders, incredibly hostile terrain and weather, and most notably exceedingly homicidal Comanches and Apaches. The tale is very well done with one reservation: I'm not sure what I make of McMurtry's portrayal of Buffalo Hump and Gomez. While the chief protagonists and necessary to telling the story of Gus and Call's development, they are almost cartoon Indians in the John Ford style (albeit a lot more competent, murderous, and sadistic). In the end though, they are a big part of this epic flight from death and they will be in my nightmares for a long time as they are in Gus and Call's.

McMurtry is a great writer who knows how to tell a terrific yarn. I'd wanted to read Lonesome Dove for a while. When I got the book, discovered that there were three others. I considered just reading Lonesome Dove by itself as it had been written before the other two, but ultimately decided to go with the series. Lonesome Dove was written first, but Dead Man's Walk is the first in the chronology. It covers the early days of the careers of Texas Rangers Gus and Call. This is probably the most bleak of the stories in the series, as most of the action takes place in the context of brutal encounters between the Texas Rangers and the Comanche tribe fighting to recapture the land taken from them by settlers. It introduces important characters and lays the groundwork for the books that follow.

This book introduces the reader to the two Texas Rangers that one will follow throughout the Lonesome Dove series. It was engaging throughout the book until the very end...when it seemed to end quite quickly. Interesting character development, and it did a decent job of setting the stage for the ensuing books. If you are a fan of Western Genre novels, this should interest you. Lonesome Dove was the monumental novel in this series, and seemingly for books of this genre. Yet Dead Man's Walk (written after Lonesome Dove, but in terms of following the lives of the two rangers, is the first in the series), does a credible job in setting the stage for what's to come. If you're going to take on the series, I recommend that you read it. If you're a fan of this genre, by all means read it!

Larry McMurtry is a nonpareil writer. No one can create a character in all his (often quirky) dimensions like McMurtry. He is always enchants and entertains. In this book, like Comanche Moon, we meet, get to know, and often say "adios" to the characters that so many know and love in Lonesome Dove. I suspect that McMurtry wrote these two prequels to meet the demand ignited by the success of Lonesome Dove, and neither Dead Man's Walk nor Comanche Moon have the sheen of excellence that characterize Lonesome Dove and Streets of Laredo as well. But what would be hack work for another writer is not at all that for McMurtry. her is just a rich and fertile author. You will enjoy these books. Careful readers will note that the timelines and the characters' stories in these two prequels, and Streets of Laredo as well, do not match up exactly with what was written in Lonesome Dove. So What!