Lorena Wood Parker

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Lorena Wood Parker is a fictional character who appears in two of the novels and films in the Lonesome Dove series

[edit] Lonesome Dove

She first appears in Lonesome Dove, the first book published, but the third chronologically.

Lorena was orphaned by the time she was seventeen. Her father, who had begun to sexually abuse her, died in Vicksburg, and her mother in Baton Rouge. Shortly afterwards, she met a man named Mosby Marlin. Though obviously a drunk, she was willing to believe his claim to be a Southern Gentleman, so she went with him to the town of Gladewater. Though he claimed to be willing to marry her, he truly wasn't, and she suffered greatly at the hands of Mosby's mother and sisters. Though Mosby himself didn't get treated much better, he swore to turn his hounds on her if she ever tried to run away. Eventually, Mosby began pimping her out to friends of his to pay off his gambling debts. Later he sold her as a trick to a man named John Tinkersley. When he discovered that she and Mosby were not actually married, he offered to take her with him to San Antonio. Since she found Tinkersley to be an attractive man, and he treated her better than Mosby did, she agreed, despite Mosby's objections. The only compensation Mosby received was the cost of a horse he managed to sell to Tinkersley.

Lorena had hoped that Tinkersley would take her further to San Francisco, but Tinkersley had no intention of taking her there. Instead, he made her work as a prostitute and made himself her pimp. She grew tired of turning tricks, and tried to save up some of her money to afford a life on her own. Tinkersley, however, found where she had been hiding the money, and brutally beat her, taking the money to make up for gambling losses. After failing at gambling in San Antonio, he decided he might have more luck closer to the Mexican border, so he took Lorena with him to the small town of Lonesome Dove. While staying in a hotel room during this trip, all her anger came to a head. While Tinkersley was passed out drunk, she tried to shoot him with his own gun. Being inexperienced, she didn't know the gun needed to be cocked. Unable to get it to work, she hit him across the face with it. This started a fight in which Tinkersley bit her upper lip, leaving her with a faint scar that would later become popular among her customers. Soon after, they arrived in Lonesome Dove, and Tinkersley abandoned her there. She continued to work as a prostitute, as it was the best living she could make.

Living nearby in Lonesome Dove were four former Texas Rangers: Augustus "Gus" McCrae, Woodrow F. Call, Joshua Deets, and Pea Eye Parker, along with Call's illegitimate son Newt Dobbs. Augustus soon became a regular customer of hers, though she was popular among all the men in the town. The owner of the saloon where she worked, Xavier Wanz, also harbored strong feelings for her. On one day, one of their former Rangering partners, Jake Spoon, rode into Lonesome Dove for a visit. He had traveled through Montana and Arkansas recently, and had a tale to tell from each place. In Fort Smith, Arkansas, Jake had gotten into a fight with another gambler and had pulled out his pistol to defend himself. When he fired, the bullet pierced the wall and accidentally killed a dentist who was also the mayor. Though everyone agreed the incident was an accident, the man's widow pressured his surviving brother--also the town sheriff--to arrest him and put him on trial. Jake had fled the town before the sheriff, July Johnson, had a chance. The story that interested Gus and Call, however, was his description of the unsettled land in Montana, which he described as a "Cattleman's Paradise." This inspired Call to start a cattle drive up to Montana, which forms the narrative thrust of the novel.

While in town, Jake also develops a romantic interest in Lorena, and she reciprocates, in the hopes that he will take her to San Francisco to begin a new life there. They leave Lonesome Dove together, separate from the cattle drive, but following them fairly closely. It soon becomes apparent, however, that Jake is in no hurry to get to San Francisco, and intends to go through San Antonio to gamble on the way. Lorena has no intention of revisiting San Antonio, and refuses to accompany him there. Furious, he leaves her behind. While riding through the Llano Estacado, she is captured by Blue Duck, who uses her as gambling collateral to get several other Indians and outlaws to kill Gus McCrae for him, since he expects McCrae to come after Lorena. Gus does come to rescue her, killing the other Indians in the process. He brings Lorie along with him for the duration of the cattle drive, until they reach Ogallala, Nebraska, home of Gus's old love, Clara Allen. Though she is afraid that Gus will leave her for Clara, Clara - whose husband has been rendered comatose by a horse kick -- has no interest resuming her romantic relationship with Gus, and in fact she and Clara become fast friends. Realizing the dangers to her if she accompanied the cattle drive all the way to Montana, and the impossibility of a truly stable relationship with Gus, Clara offers to let Lorena live with her and her family. She happily accepts, and the cattle drive moves on.

This proved to be the last time she saw Augustus alive. Gus was mortally wounded by Indian arrows in Montana, and his dying wish was for Woodrow to take him back to Texas, to be buried near a river where he and Clara used to spend time together. On his way back to Texas, he stopped at Clara's home. Clara had hoped that Call would allow Gus to be buried there, and Call himself had offered to do so. Gus, however, was so resentful of Bob Allen for marrying Clara, however, that he didn't want them to be buried anywhere near each other, and Call's loyalty was such that he would not violate Gus's wishes. Lorena spent one last night with Gus's casket, and kept a letter he had written to her on his deathbed.

When he finally reaches Lonesome Dove again, Call learns that Xavier Wanz was so heartbroken by Lorena's departure that he locked himself in his saloon and burned it to the ground.

In the film version of Lonesome Dove, Lorena is played by Diane Lane.

[edit] Return to Lonesome Dove

Lorena does not appear in the television movie Return to Lonesome Dove, but a letter that Clara receives from her establishes that she had made it to San Francisco. This film was not based on one of Larry McMurtry's novels, and was made without any major input on his part. As such, Return to Lonesome Dove is not considered to be part of the canonical continuity of McMurtry's books.

[edit] Streets of Laredo

Lorena appears again in McMurtry's official sequel, Streets of Laredo, the second book published but the last one chronologically, which picks up some twenty years after Lonesome Dove. Soon after the events in Lonesome Dove, Newt Dobbs is killed by one of the horses on his Montana ranch. The men who helped make the ranch all go their separate ways. Pea-Eye Parker goes back home to Texas, but on his way he stops by Clara Allen's home. Despite having had several younger suitors, Clara convinces her that Pea-Eye would make a good husband. She and Pea-Eye eventually marry and migrate to the Texas Panhandle, where Lorena finds work as a schoolteacher, and Pea-Eye takes up his old position again as lieutenant to Woodrow Call, who has found work as a bounty hunter.

Though Pea-Eye serves Call out of a sense of obligation and loyalty, Lorena puts pressure on him to stay home with his family. This conflict comes into play in the novel when Call is hired by a railroad company to find and kill Joey Garza, a Mexican bandit who has been robbing trains and killing their passengers. Call expects Pea-Eye to return to serve with him, but under pressure from Lorena, he begs off this assignment. Though Lorena is glad to have him at home, she knows that he feels guilty for leaving the aging Woodrow alone to fight a younger adversary. She finally relents and sends him to catch up with Call.

While he is gone, and she is alone to deal with her children, she receives a visit from Charles Goodnight, who brings her news that a pyromaniac named Mox Mox, who was long thought dead, is in fact alive. This part of the book slightly retcons the time she spent in Blue Duck's captivity, by establishing that Mox Mox was also one of Blue Duck's associates, and that she spent a brief period in his custody as well. In fact, Mox Mox would have burned her alive had Blue Duck not insisted that she be kept alive as bait for Augustus. Fearing for the safety of herself, her husband and her children, she sends her children to Arkansas to stay with Clara, and sets out to find Pea-Eye herself.

On the way, she comes across another town that Cpt. Call had passed through. In this town, Call had recruited a young deputy sheriff. The sheriff himself was furious at being left short-handed, and raped his deputy's wife for revenge. The young wife, believing that she had disgraced her husband by allowing the sheriff to rape her, committed suicide by drinking rat poison. This episode relates to Lorena because, as she passes through the town, she briefly meets Tinkersley again. He is still working as a pimp, and has allowed some of his whores to sing at the young girl's funeral.

Lorena is reunited with Woodrow Call when he arrives in town with two young children in tow. The children; who are the son and daughter of Jasper Fant, one of the ranch hands who went up to Montana with Call; were to be burned alive by Mox Mox, but Call rescued them by mortally wounding Mox Mox. Call had to leave Pea-Eye and the other members of his team behind in order to pursue Mox Mox, and soon learns that his departure left Judge Roy Bean defenseless against an attack by Joey Garza, who shot him and hanged him outside his own courthouse. This, and his failure to kill Mox Mox outright, leaves Call in doubt of his ability to effectively protect those under his care. Nonetheless, Lorena insists on traveling with him to find her husband.

On the way, however, the two of them fall victims to a trap laid by Joey Garza. Using a hobbled mule as bait, Garza tricks Call into entering his line of fire, and Garza shoots Call in the leg. Fortunately, Lorena herself is not in harm's way. Once it is safe, she goes to Call, and is faced with a difficult choice that also haunts her past. Like Augustus before him, Call must either allow a leg to be amputated or face certain death. Rather than refuse treatment, as Gus did, Call insists that Lorena cut his leg off for him. She does, and she has to drag him behind her horse as they head south towards the Mexican border.

They are eventually taken into the house of Maria Garza, who is none other than Joey's mother. Joey himself eventually comes in and nearly kills Call, but decides not to, since at this point it would be putting him out of his misery. Call is in no condition to kill Joey, so ultimately it is Pea-Eye who kills him, but not before Joey fatally wounds his own mother. As she dies, Maria asks Lorena to adopt her remaining children, a blind daughter and mentally retarded son. Lorena agrees, and also takes the disabled Call home to live with their family, including her other children, who have finally returned from Nebraska.

Her role in Streets of Laredo makes her an interesting counterpart to Maggie Tilton, the prostitute with whom Woodrow Call fathered Newt. Like Maggie, Lorena has worked as a prostitute, and has fallen in love with a Texas Ranger. She and Pea-Eye, however, are able to create a stable family unit. Call, for his part, never admitted his love for Maggie, nor even acknowledged Newt as his son until after his death. Pea-Eye has also been able to balance his family life with the demands of being a Texas Ranger, something neither Augustus nor Woodrow was ever able to do.

In the film of Streets of Laredo, Lorena is played by Sissy Spacek.