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Dead Man's Walk is a novel by Larry McMurtry. Though published third, it is chronologically first in the Lonesome Dove series. 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.
[edit] Plot introductionDead Man's Walk details the earliest adventures of the young Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call as they join up with the Texas Rangers on a fictional expedition based loosely on the historical Santa Fe Expedition of 1841. [edit] Plot summaryIn 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. The Texas contingent is reduced to ten persons when the captives panic after they observe cavalry drilling, and are slaughtered in a blood lust as they flee. At their destination, the ten 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 five survivors. The last 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"
[edit] Allusions/references to actual history, geography and current scienceAlthough 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. The incident involving the drawing of beans to decide who would be spared, however, is actually loosely based on the fate of the so-called Mier Expedition prisoners. 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 adaptationsIt was later made into a miniseries starring David Arquette as Augustus McCrae and Jonny Lee Miller as Woodrow F. Call. [edit] External links | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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