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"Matilda Jane Roberts was naked as the air. Known throughout south
Texas as the Great Western, she came walking up from the muddy Rio Grande holding a big
snapping turtle by the tail. Matilda was almost as large as the skinny little
Mexican mustang Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call were trying to saddle-break. Call
had the mare by the ears, waiting for Gus to pitch the saddle on her narrow back, but the
pitch was slow in coming. When Call glanced toward the river and saw the Great
Western in all her plump nakedness, he knew why: young Gus McCrae was by nature
distractable; the sight of a naked, two-hundred-pound whore carrying a full-grown snapping
turtle had captured his complete attention, and that of the rest of the Ranger troop as
well."
The momentum begun with a snapping turtle and a naked whore never loses its force
throughout this rollicking prequel to LONESOME DOVE.
DEAD MAN'S WALK fleshes out Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call, their friendship, and their first
adventures with the Texas Rangers, a motley group of men led by the unpredictable and
egotistical Colonel Cobb. On a fool's errand to steal the gold and silver of
Mexico, the Texas Rangers fight heat, cold, hunger, fire, a tornado, and
rattlesnakes. Their travels are made even more difficult --- and their numbers
are slowly dwindled --- by the deadly cunning of the warring Comanches, led by a war chief
appropriately named Buffalo Hump. As if that were not enough, Gus and Call,
along with the other Rangers, soon meet up with an Apache horse thief, the Mexican army,
and an angry grizzly bear. To make bad matters even worse, Gus is distracted by
thoughts of the uncooperative love of his life, Clara.
Larry McMurtry is at his very best with this adventure tale. A prequel to the
beloved LONESOME DOVE was a risky undertaking that he handles here with
aplomb.
--- Reviewed by Jami Edwards
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