Dead Man’s Walk was published by Simon & Schuster in 1995, the first of two prequels to Lonesome Dove. Set in the early 1840s, it follows Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call as green recruits in the Texas Rangers — boys, essentially, thrown into a frontier that will test them far beyond their capacity and either kill them or forge them into the men they will become.
The novel is built around two historical events: the Texan Santa Fe Expedition of 1841, in which a force of over 300 Texans marched across the Staked Plains (the Llano Estacado) to claim New Mexico for the Republic of Texas and were captured, imprisoned, and brutalized by the Mexican army; and the Mier Expedition of 1842, another catastrophic Texas adventure that ended with the infamous “Black Bean Episode,” in which Mexican authorities forced captured Texans to draw beans from a pot — white beans meant prison, black beans meant execution.
The Desert
The Staked Plains dominate the novel as completely as any human character. The Llano Estacado is one of the most hostile landscapes in North America — flat, waterless, featureless, and enormous. McMurtry describes the expedition’s crossing with the methodical precision of a naturalist documenting extinction. Men die of thirst, of heatstroke, of snakebite, of despair. The Comanches under Buffalo Hump — who reappears in Comanche Moon — harry the column, picking off stragglers. The Texans, who set out with the confidence of men who had beaten Mexico at San Jacinto, discover that the desert is not an enemy that can be fought or defeated. It simply exists, and those who enter it unprepared die.
Young Gus and Call
The novel’s principal interest lies in its portrayal of Gus and Call before they became legends. Young Gus is recognizable — charming, talkative, interested in women — but also frightened, uncertain, and prone to errors of judgment that the older Gus would never make. Young Call is already stoic and determined but lacks the competence that will later make his stoicism impressive rather than merely stubborn. Watching these characters being formed by experiences that would destroy weaker men is the novel’s strongest element.
The supporting cast includes Bigfoot Wallace, a legendary frontiersman based on a historical figure; Long Bill Coleman, a genial giant; and Buffalo Hump, whose portrayal as a Comanche war chief of terrifying intelligence and cruelty is controversial but compelling.
Collecting Dead Man’s Walk
First edition (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1995): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $20–$50
- Very good: $10–$25
- Signed: $50–$150