Dead Man's Walk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Dead Man's Walk | |
 |
|
| Author | Larry McMurtry |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Lonesome Dove series |
| Genre(s) | Western |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date | September 1995 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 488 p. (hardback edition) & 488 p. (paperback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-684-80753-X (hardback edition) & ISBN 0-7528-2778-2 (paperback edition) |
| Followed by | Comanche Moon |
Dead Man's Walk is a novel by Larry McMurtry. Though published third, it is chronologically first in the Lonesome Dove series.
Contents |
[edit] Plot introduction
Dead Man's Walk details the earliest adventures of the young Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call as they join up with the Texas Rangers on the Santa Fe Expedition.
[edit] Plot summary
In this first prequel to Lonesome Dove the reader finds McCrae and Call as young additions to the Texas Rangers. The two young rangers are introduced quickly and brutally to the rangering life on their first expedition, in which they are stalked by the Comanche war chief Buffalo Hump. After a narrow escape, the rangers return to civilization, only to quickly join an expedition to capture and annex Sante Fe, part of New Mexico (the part east of the Rio Grande) for Texas. The expedition, led by pirate and soldier of fortune Caleb Cobb, is ultimately a failure; of the 200 initial adventurers, only about 40 survive, falling to starvation, bears, and Indians (in one memorable chapter, the Comanche fire the grasses surrounding the ranger camp, forcing rangers to jump over the edge of a canyon to escape the flames), only to be swiftly arrested by the Mexican authorities. Those survivors are forced to march the Jornada del Muerto ("Dead Man's Walk") to El Paso, and many, Mexican and Texan alike, die along the journey. At their destination, they are forced to gamble for their lives by drawing a bean from a jar - a white bean signals life, a black bean death. Call and McCrae are among the survivors, but lose many friends. The surviving rangers then return to Texas, escorting an Englishwoman and her son who have also been held captive by the Mexicans.
During the course of this book, three other familiar and important characters are introduced. At a general store, Augustus McCrae meets Clara Forsythe, later to marry Robert Allen and become Clara Allen, Augustus's old flame in the original novel. In the same town, Call meets a prostitute named Maggie, later to become the mother of his illegitimate son, Newt. On their journey, they are tracked by Buffalo Hump, future father of Blue Duck, whom they will hunt during their later days as Texas Rangers and during the Montana expedition chronicled in Lonesome Dove.
[edit] Characters in "Dead Man's Walk"
- Augustus McCrae – Texas Ranger
- Woodrow Call – Texas Ranger
- Long Bill – Texas Ranger
- Colonel Caleb Cobb – pirate who leads the Santa Fe expedition
- Bigfoot Wallace – scout
- Shadrach – scout
- Matilda Roberts – whore, also known as "The Great Western"
- Captain Salazar – Mexican who takes the Texan prisoners across the desert
- Major Laroche – Frenchman in the Mexican military, who takes the prisoners to the leper colony
- Buffalo Hump – Comanche war chief
- Kicking Wolf – Comanche warrior, accomplished thief
- Clara Forsythe – young lady in a general store in Austin, who 'smites' Gus
- Lady Carey – Scottish nobility, leper
- Willy – Lady Carey's son
- Mrs. Chubb – Lady Carey's attendant
- Emerald – Lady Carey's attendant
- Maggie Tilton – a whore who loves Woodrow F. Call.
[edit] Allusions/references to actual history, geography and current science
Although the exact time frame of the story is not given, the historical context is authentic. The Republic of Texas did indeed attempt to annex part of New Mexico, in what historians refer to as the Santa Fe Expedition. As seen in this story, it was a failure, and the drawing of beans to decide who would be spared is accurately depicted. One can therefore probably assume that the events take place in 1841, when the actual Santa Fe Expedition took place.
In her attempt to unnerve the Comanches by playing to their superstitions, Lady Carey sings Verdi arias. She also claims to have studied singing under Verdi. In 1841, Verdi was 28, and his first major success, Nabucco, was a year in the future. The author is apparently stretching the truth to make the clever ending possible.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
It was later made into a miniseries starring David Arquette as Augustus McCrae and Jonny Lee Miller as Woodrow F. Call.
[edit] Trivia
McMurtry wrote a final and fourth segment to the Lonesome Dove chronicle, Comanche Moon, which describes the events of Gus and Call's lives between Dead Man's Walk and Lonesome Dove.
