Plot
In the late 1870s,[1] Captain Woodrow F. Call and Captain Augustus "Gus" McCrae, two famous retired Texas Rangers, run the Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium in the small Texas border town of Lonesome Dove. Working with them are Joshua Deets, an excellent tracker and scout from their Ranger days; Pea Eye Parker, another former Ranger who is loyal and reliable, but unintelligent; Bolivar, a retired Mexican bandit who works as their cook; and Newt Dobbs, a 17-year-old boy whose mother was a prostitute named Maggie and whose father is widely thought by the outfit to be Call, though Call has never acknowledged this.
Jake Spoon, another former Ranger, arrives in Lonesome Dove after an absence of more than 10 years, during which he has traveled widely across the United States. He reveals that he is on the run, having accidentally shot a dentist in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The dentist's brother happened to be the town's sheriff, July Johnson.
Reunited with Gus and Call, Jake's description of the Montana Territory inspires Call to gather a herd of cattle and drive them north, to begin the first cattle ranch north of the Yellowstone River. Call, who has grown listless in retirement, is attracted to the romantic notion of settling pristine country. Gus is less enthusiastic, but changes his mind when reminded that the love of his life, Clara, lives on the Platte River near Ogallala, Nebraska, which would be on the route to Montana. The Hat Creek outfit rustles thousands of cattle from across the border in Mexico and recruits local cowboys in preparation for the drive.
Ironically, Jake Spoon soon decides not to go at all, having made himself comfortable with the town's only prostitute, Lorena Wood, who is smitten with him after he promises to take her to San Francisco. At Lorena's insistence, however, she and Jake ultimately trail along behind the cattle drive.
In Fort Smith, the young and inexperienced sheriff, July Johnson, reluctantly departs town on the trail of Jake Spoon, taking his 12-year-old stepson Joe with him, and leaving the inept deputy sheriff Roscoe Brown in charge. July's wife Elmira, who regrets her recent marriage to him, leaves shortly afterwards to search for her former lover Dee Boot. Roscoe is sent after July to inform him of her disappearance, and has many misadventures and strange encounters through Arkansas and Texas, assisted by a young girl named Janey, who escapes from sexual slavery to accompany him. Roscoe eventually reunites with July and Joe when they rescue him and Janey from bandits in Texas.
As the cattle drive moves north through Texas, the Hat Creek company encounters dust storms, dangerous river crossings, and many other adventures. Jake tires of Lorena and abandons her to go gambling in Austin. Left alone, she is abducted by an Indian bandit named Blue Duck, a notorious and mercilessly vicious old nemesis of the Texas Rangers. Gus goes in pursuit, and while traveling along the Canadian River, he encounters July's group. Gus and July attack Blue Duck's bandit encampment, killing the bandits and rescuing Lorena; however, Blue Duck has already made his escape, having murdered Roscoe, Joe, and Janey in the process. A devastated July continues his journey in search of Elmira, while Gus and Lorena return to the cattle drive. Lorena has been repeatedly raped, and, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, is frightened of interacting with anybody other than Gus. The two still follow the cattle drive north, and sleep in a tent some distance behind the other cowboys.
Meanwhile, Jake Spoon is in Fort Worth. Hearing that July Johnson has been looking for him, Jake leaves Texas in a hurry in the company of the Suggs brothers, who are, he soon realizes, cruel bandits. Jake becomes increasingly alarmed by the brothers' actions as they travel north into Kansas; the gang progresses from robbery to cold-blooded murder, but Jake is too frightened and outnumbered to either kill them or escape. When the gang attacks a trail boss known to Gus and Call, the former Rangers of the Hat Creek outfit go in pursuit of them. The ex-Rangers are dismayed when they apprehend the Suggs brothers and find Jake alongside them. Jake pleads with his former comrades that he had no choice but to go along with things for fear of his own life, but Gus and Call stand firm that he has "crossed a line", and they solemnly hang him alongside the Suggs brothers. Newt, who had idolized Jake as a child, is left deeply upset.
Meanwhile, Elmira, pregnant with July's child, has come into the company of a rough buffalo hunter named Zwey, a simple man who seems to believe he is now "married" to her. Arriving in Nebraska, they come across the horse ranch of Clara Allen, Gus' former lover, whose husband, Bob, has become a brain-damaged invalid after being kicked in the head by a mustang. Clara delivers Elmira's baby son, but Elmira and Zwey leave almost immediately afterwards for Ogallala.
Dee Boot is held in the Ogallala jail, scheduled to be hanged for his accidental murder of a young boy; Elmira collapses while speaking to him, and Boot is hanged while she recuperates in a doctor's house, leaving her heartbroken and depressed. July arrives at Clara's ranch, learns what has transpired, and goes to see Elmira, but she refuses to speak to him. Shortly afterwards, she orders Zwey to take her east, back towards St. Louis. Anguished and heartbroken, July feels compelled to follow her, but at Clara's insistence, he remains at the ranch with her family and his son, instead, whom Clara has named Martin. Word later reaches them that Elmira and Zwey were killed by Sioux.
The Hat Creek outfit arrives in Nebraska, and Gus takes Lorena, Call, and Newt to visit Clara. Lorena, who has fallen in love with Gus, fears that Gus will abandon her for Clara. Clara is happy to see Gus, but has no desire to rekindle their romance; however, she takes in Lorena, whose post-traumatic stress is easing and who quickly feels comfortable with Clara and her daughters. Gus, rebuffed by Clara and no longer Lorena's sole caretaker, decides to continue on the cattle drive and see the journey to Montana through to its end.
In Wyoming, several horses are stolen by half-starved Indians. Call, Gus, and Deets chase after them, and Deets is killed in the ensuing confrontation by the group's only remaining brave. Shortly afterward, Gus informs Newt that Call is his father, something Newt has always dreamed of, but he is too upset by Deets' death to give it much thought.
After a desperate crossing through the arid basins of Wyoming, the cattle drive arrives in Montana, which proves as lush and beautiful as Jake had described. Scouting ahead of the main herd, Gus and Pea Eye are attacked by Blood Indians, and Gus is badly wounded by two arrows to the leg. Besieged in a makeshift dugout in the bank of the Musselshell River for several days, Gus' wounds become infected, and his health declines. After a heavy rain, he sends Pea Eye down the swollen river to seek help, but Pea Eye loses his clothing, boots, gun, and food in the river and stumbles naked and unarmed for a 100-mile walk across the plains. Starving, delirious, and suffering from exposure, he is discovered by the rest of the cowboys on the verge of death. Call then sets out alone to rescue Gus.
Meanwhile, feverish and dying, Gus leaves the river shortly after Pea Eye, taking his chances and escaping the Indians. He makes it to Miles City, Montana, and collapses unconscious, waking to find that a doctor has sawed off his gangrenous leg. His other leg is also infected, but Gus refuses to let the doctor amputate it. Call arrives in Miles City and fruitlessly tries to convince Gus to have his other leg removed to save his life; Gus, however, would rather die than be an invalid. Gus asks Call to bury him in an orchard in Texas where he used to picnic with Clara, and Call begrudgingly agrees. After writing letters to Clara and Lorena, and urging Call to accept Newt as his son, Gus dies of blood poisoning. Call leaves Gus' body in storage in Miles City, intending to return him to Texas after the winter. He continues north with the cattle drive, despondent over losing his closest friend.
Eventually, the remaining members of the Hat Creek outfit establish a ranch in the fertile and ungrazed wilderness between the Missouri River and the Milk River. Call suffers from depression all winter, no longer caring about the cattle drive or the ranch, and contemplating what to do about Newt. Before leaving in the spring, he puts Newt in charge of the ranch and gives him his horse, his rifle, and his family watch, but still cannot bring himself to publicly acknowledge the boy as his son. Newt is inwardly upset, but accepts the gifts, nonetheless. Call, ashamed of himself, leaves the ranch.
Call retrieves Gus's body, packed in a coffin with salt and charcoal, and begins the long journey south in an old buggy. In Nebraska, he gives Gus' letters to Clara and Lorena, and explains that Gus has left his half of the cattle interests to Lorena. Lorena is devastated by Gus' death and refuses to open her letter; standing silently by his coffin day and night, she suddenly faints. Clara considers the journey a whimsical folly typical of Gus and urges Call to bury him on her ranch, instead, but Call refuses, having given Gus his word. Clara tells Call she despises him as a "vain coward" for refusing to claim Newt as his son,[2] and he leaves Nebraska haunted by her condemnation.[3]
The story of the cowboy transporting his dead friend's body spreads across the plains, and Call takes a circuitous route through Colorado and New Mexico to avoid the increasing attention. In Santa Rosa, he discovers that Blue Duck has been captured by a sheriff's deputy and is about to be hanged. Call visits Blue Duck in his jail cell, and Blue Duck taunts him, pointing out that he raided, killed, raped, and kidnapped with impunity throughout his life, despite the best efforts of the Texas Rangers. On the day of his hanging, on his way to the roof where the gallows await him, Blue Duck jumps out a third-story window, pulling along with him the sheriff's deputy who had caught him, killing them both.
Arriving back in Texas exhausted, despondent, and wounded from a bullet to his side, Call buries Gus by the spring in the orchard near San Antonio, true to his word. He then rides on to Lonesome Dove, where the cook Bolivar, who had abandoned the cattle drive before it left Texas, is delighted to see him again. In town, Call finds that the saloon has burned down; the proprietor, who had been madly in love with Lorena, committed suicide after her departure by burning down his saloon while he remained inside.
