Lonesome Dove

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1985

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Part 2, Chapters 61-65Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2, Chapter 61 Summary

Gus and Lorena shelter from a storm in the ruins of Adobe Walls. Lorena still hasn’t spoken. She can’t stand to have Gus out of her sight and follows him everywhere. He finds a box of buttons, and they use them for gambling chips. Lorena eventually begins to talk. They meet Wilbarger with his herd. He brings them a tent, food, and a mule. He and Gus enjoy talking to each other.

Gus and Lorena camp by the river. He thinks Call will catch up to them with the herd in a week. Lorena can’t stop crying. She keeps repeating that they shouldn’t have taken her.

Part 2, Chapter 62 Summary

The men get caught in another storm. Lightning hits some of the cattle and the others stampede. In the morning, thirteen cows are dead, along with Bill Spettle, who was struck by lightning. They have to cross the Canadian River and Call is nervous. They strip naked to cross. Hailstones hit as they traverse the water. When it stops, Po Campo puts hailstones in a bucket, and Pea Eye sees Gus riding toward them.

Part 2, Chapter 63 Summary

Gus’s return and the rising sun put the men in a good mood. He tells Call about July and his group. The men all watch Lorena’s tent and wonder about her. He and Call talk about women and Clara. Gus encourages Call to go to town, sell the cattle, pay the men, and take Pea Eye and Deets to find Blue Duck, but Call is still set on reaching Montana.

Part 2, Chapter 64 Summary

Jake spends his time in a saloon run by a woman named Sally Skull. He blames Lorena for getting abducted. Sally learns about Lorena’s capture and demands to know why Jake let it happen.

Sally shoots a troublemaker with a derringer, then causes a fight in jail in which she and the deputy kill each other. Jake takes her money and leaves town, settling in Dallas. He learns that July is looking for him, and he meets Dan, Ed, and Roy Suggs. Dan tells him he should come with them to work as a “regulator,” someone who stops cattle and makes the cowboys pay a toll, which isn’t legal. Jake laughs at the idea of them stopping Gus and Call. Then Dan suggests robbing banks. Jake decides to travel with them and a Black man called Frog Lip, if only for protection against July. He plans to leave them as soon as they’re in Kansas.

Part 2, Chapter 65 Summary

The killings haunt July. He can’t imagine returning to his former life. After his horse goes lame, and he must shoot it, he considers suicide. He decides to find Elmira first if only to tell her about Joe. He finds a herd and buys a horse from the owner, riding for a while before arriving at Dodge City.

Part 2, Chapters 61-65 Analysis

These chapters begin the process of Lorena’s recovery from her abduction. She will manage to rebound more quickly than July. July’s torments begin to take on a biblical, cursed quality. His wife has left him and continues to evade him. His son, deputy, and Janey were all killed by Blue Duck while he was supposed to be protecting them. Now his horse goes lame, and he wonders why he should continue living. His desire to tell Elmira what happened to Joe—a son she didn’t want or care about—convinces him to keep going.

Lorena’s recovery is marked by an increased, relentless dependence on Gus. He saved her against impossible odds, so she does not believe that anyone but he can protect her. Her need for him will reach greater urgency as they draw closer to Clara, whom Lorena believes will take Gus from her. These chapters complicate the novel’s theme of Friendship and Loyalty. While Lorena’s loyalty to Gus grows, it does so as a form of dependency based on the trauma she experienced as a captive. In the brutal conditions of McMurtry’s West, even virtues such a loyalty can transform into unhealthy fixations and attachments.

Jake continues to make his life harder through terrible choices. In pure cowardice and spite, he blames Lorena for getting taken. Ironically, it is Sally Skull who calls him to account for not protecting her. After her death, Jake begins his involvement with the Scuggs group, a mistake that will eventually lead to his death. Despite his view of himself as a resourceful man who can forge his path, Jake is once again dependent on others. He proves that he needs to be taken care of, even if the caregivers are as dubious as the Scuggs outfit. This is the first time that Jake agrees to ride with blatant criminals; he fools himself that he will be able to find his way out of it, despite having little evidence to support his self-confidence.

Gus’s return cheers the men, but it also allows McMurtry to return to Call’s obsession with the cattle drive. Gus pleads with him to sell the herd, perhaps as an opportunity to spare them another encounter with Blue Duck and more deaths. Call is still set on going to Montana, but his reasons are no clearer now than at any other point, even as the costs mount. He does not want to endanger his men, but he cannot let himself abandon the drive. Likewise, Gus wants them to be safe, but he knows that he will not leave Call to make the trip on his own. Come what may, they will face the future together.