Comanche Moon

Last updated
Comanche Moon
LarryMcMurtry ComancheMoon.jpg
First edition
Author Larry McMurtry
Cover artist Chip Kidd (designer)
LanguageEnglish
Series Lonesome Dove series
Genre Western
Publisher Simon & Schuster
Publication date
24 Nov 1997
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Pages752
ISBN 0-684-80754-8
OCLC 39144173
Preceded by Dead Man's Walk  

Comanche Moon (1997) is a Western novel by American writer Larry McMurtry. It is the fourth and final book he published in the Lonesome Dove series. In terms of chronology, it is the second installment of the narrative. A Comanche Moon in Texas history was a full moon in autumn which permitted Comanche warriors to ride by night journeying southward to raid Mexico for livestock and captives.

Contents

The novel was adapted as a three-part television miniseries of the same name, first aired in January 2008.

Plot introduction

In this bridge novel between McMurtry's Dead Man's Walk and Lonesome Dove , Woodrow Call and Gus McCrae are in their middle years, still serving as respected Texas Rangers.

Plot summary

Texas Governor Elisha Pease sends a small troop of Texas Rangers, under the leadership of Captain Inish Scull, to the Llano Estacado in pursuit of Kicking Wolf, a celebrated Comanche horse thief. The Comanche steals Scull's horse Hector and takes it to the Sierra Perdida as a gift for Mexican bandit Ahumado. Scull promotes McCrae and Call to captains and orders them to lead the Ranger troop back to Austin. He sets off on foot after Kicking Wolf and his horse, accompanied only by Famous Shoes, a Kickapoo tracker.

Ahumado captures Kicking Wolf and his companion, Three Birds. The latter man leaps off a cliff to avoid Ahumado's plans for his death. Scull finds Kicking Wolf being dragged by the horse, and cuts the Comanche's bonds. Kicking Wolf survives to return to his tribe. Scull is captured by Ahumado, and placed in a cage for a slow death.

Having returned to Austin, McCrae learns that his beloved Clara Forsythe intends to marry his rival, horse trader Bob Allen. Call learns that his lover, Maggie Tilton, is pregnant with his child. Governor Pease sends Call and McCrae out with a typically small Ranger troop to rescue Captain Scull. While they are on this mission, Comanche chief Buffalo Hump takes his warriors on the warpath. They attack Austin. Prepared by Call, Maggie hides under a smokehouse and escapes their notice. The Rangers turn back to Austin as soon as they hear of the raid there.

Scull handles the cage so well that Ahumado has him taken down, and inflicts more pain. Ahumado sends word to Austin that he will return Scull for a ransom of one thousand cattle. Governor Pease sends the Rangers out again, to collect the cattle and exchange the herd for Scull. The Rangers go to Lonesome Dove in search of cattleman Captain King. Realizing they won't be able to collect that many cattle nor persuade King to sell them, Call and McCrae try to rescue Scull on their own terms. Bitten by a venomous spider, Ahumado goes South to die. Call and McCrae find Scull going insane in a pit, but they rescue him in time for his nearly total recovery. Scull returns to Austin and later becomes a general with the Union army.

Meanwhile, Buffalo Hump banishes his half-Mexican son Blue Duck. Blue Duck goes East and acquires wealth and notoriety as the leader of a gang of bandits. The novel moves more quickly, covering the period leading up to the sequel, Lonesome Dove . Maggie gives birth to Call's son Newt, but Call refuses to acknowledge the boy. Maggie goes to work at the general store, and Jake Spoon moves in with her. The Civil War takes most of the soldiers away from the frontier, enabling the Comanche to push back the white settlers. After the Civil War, Call and McCrae are sent in pursuit of Blue Duck and his band of renegades. Buffalo Hump has gone off to die. When Blue Duck learns of this he pursues his father. The Rangers attack his band, but Blue Duck has already left. He finds his father at his chosen place of death and kills him there. Maggie dies while the Rangers are on this expedition.

Characters

Book ban

In 2023, the book was banned, in Clay County District Schools, Florida. [1]

Miniseries

A television adaptation of the novel first aired on CBS January 13, January 15, and January 16, 2008. It features actors Karl Urban as Woodrow F. Call, Steve Zahn as Augustus McCrae, Val Kilmer as Inish Scull (often given top billing), Elizabeth Banks as Maggie, Wes Studi as Buffalo Hump, Adam Beach as Blue Duck, and Jake Busey as Tudwal. Other stars include Linda Cardellini as Clara Forsythe, Rachel Griffiths as Inez Scull, and James Rebhorn as Elisha Pease.

Related Research Articles

<i>Lonesome Dove</i> 1985 novel by Larry McMurtry

Lonesome Dove is a 1985 Western novel by American writer Larry McMurtry. It is the first published book of the Lonesome Dove series and the third installment in the series chronologically. It was a bestseller and won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 1989, it was adapted as a TV miniseries starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall, which won both critical and popular acclaim. McMurtry went on to write a sequel, Streets of Laredo (1993), and two prequels, Dead Man's Walk (1995) and Comanche Moon (1997), all of which were also adapted as TV series.

The Lonesome Dove series is a series of four Western fiction novels written by Larry McMurtry and the five television miniseries and television series based upon them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry McMurtry</span> American novelist (1936–2021)

Larry Jeff McMurtry was an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas. His novels included Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966), and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films. Films adapted from McMurtry's works earned 34 Oscar nominations. He was also a prominent book collector and bookseller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Goodnight</span> American rancher (1836–1929)

Charles Goodnight, also known as Charlie Goodnight, was a rancher in the American West. In 1955, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peta Nocona</span> Comanche chief (c. 1820–1864)

Peta Nocona, also known as Puhtocnocony, or Tah-con-ne-ah-pe-ah, the son of Puhihwikwasu'u, or Iron Jacket, was a chief of the Comanche Quahadi band. He married Cynthia Ann Parker, who had been taken as a captive during the Fort Parker massacre in 1836 and was adopted into the tribe by Tabby-nocca's family. Among their three children was Quanah Parker, the last war chief of the Comanche.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comanche Wars</span> Conflicts over Comanche lands, 1706 to 1870s

The Comanche Wars were a series of armed conflicts fought between Comanche peoples and Spanish, Mexican, and American militaries and civilians in the United States and Mexico from as early as 1706 until at least the mid-1870s. The Comanche were the Native American inhabitants of a large area known as Comancheria, which stretched across much of the southern Great Plains from Colorado and Kansas in the north through Oklahoma, Texas, and eastern New Mexico and into the Mexican state of Chihuahua in the south. For more than 150 years, the Comanche were the dominant native tribe in the region, known as “the Lords of the Southern Plains”, though they also shared parts of Comancheria with the Wichita, Kiowa, and Kiowa Apache and, after 1840, the southern Cheyenne and Arapaho.

<i>Streets of Laredo</i> (novel) 1993 novel by Larry McMurtry

Streets of Laredo is a 1993 Western novel by American writer Larry McMurtry. It is the second book published in the Lonesome Dove series, but the fourth and final book chronologically. It was adapted into a television miniseries in 1995.

<i>Dead Mans Walk</i> 1995 novel by Larry McMurtry

Dead Man's Walk is a 1995 Western novel by American writer Larry McMurtry. It is the third book published in the Lonesome Dove series but the first installment in terms of chronology. McMurtry wrote a fourth segment to the Lonesome Dove chronicle, Comanche Moon, which describes the events of the central characters' lives between Dead Man's Walk and Lonesome Dove. The second novel in the Lonesome Dove series was the 1993 sequel to the original, called Streets of Laredo. Dead Man’s Walk was later adapted into a three-part miniseries of the same name, which aired in May 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William A. A. Wallace</span>

William Alexander Anderson "Bigfoot" Wallace was a Texas Ranger who took part in many of the military conflicts of the Republic of Texas and the United States in the 1840s, including the Mexican–American War.

Buffalo Hump was a War Chief of the Penateka band of the Comanches. He came to prominence after the Council House Fight when he led the Comanches on the Great Raid of 1840.

<i>Comanche Moon</i> (miniseries) 2008 American TV series or program

Comanche Moon is a 2008 American Western television miniseries, an adaptation of the 1997 novel of the same name. Woodrow Call and Gus McCrae are in their middle years, serving as Texas Rangers. In terms of the Lonesome Dove series' storyline, this account serves as a prequel to the Lonesome Dove miniseries, and a sequel to Dead Man's Walk. It first aired on CBS beginning Sunday, January 13, and continuing Tuesday, January 15, and Wednesday, January 16, 2008.

The Battle of Plum Creek was a clash between allied Tonkawa, militia, and Rangers of the Republic of Texas and a huge Comanche war party under Chief Buffalo Hump, which took place near Lockhart, Texas, on August 12, 1840, following the Great Raid of 1840 as the Comanche war party returned to west Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Raid of 1840</span> Largest raid mounted by Native Americans on white cities, now the US

The Great Raid of 1840 was the largest raid Native Americans ever mounted on white cities in what is now the United States. It followed the Council House Fight, in which Republic of Texas officials attempted to capture and take prisoner 33 Comanche chiefs and their wives, who had earlier promised to deliver 13 white captives they had kidnapped. Because of the small amount this Penateka band of Southern Comanche received for the ransom of nine-year-old James Putnam weeks before, they brought with them only one captive, 16-year-old Matilda Lockhart. Just as they had done to Mexicans and Santa Feans for nearly a century, the Penaketa wanted to ensure they would receive a higher payment before ransoming the other whites they had abducted. This tactic, together with the terrible treatment they had given Lockhart, backfired, and the Indians found themselves taken hostage for a prisoner exchange. An attempt to escape followed by the brandishing of tomahawks the Comanche had secreted between their wives' blankets led to the massacre of all the male Indians except two elderly men, who along with the women were taken hostage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Pease River</span> Raid against Comanche Indians by Texas Rangers and militia

The Battle of Pease River, also known as the Pease River Massacre or the Pease River fight, occurred on December 19, 1860, near present-day Margaret, Texas in Foard County, Texas, United States. The town is located between Crowell and Vernon within sight of the Medicine Mounds just outside present-day Quanah, Texas.

The Texas–Indian wars were a series of conflicts between settlers in Texas and the Southern Plains Indians during the 19th-century. Conflict between the Plains Indians and the Spanish began before other European and Anglo-American settlers were encouraged—first by Spain and then by the newly Independent Mexican government—to colonize Texas in order to provide a protective-settlement buffer in Texas between the Plains Indians and the rest of Mexico. As a consequence, conflict between Anglo-American settlers and Plains Indians occurred during the Texas colonial period as part of Mexico. The conflicts continued after Texas secured its independence from Mexico in 1836 and did not end until 30 years after Texas became a state of the United States, when in 1875 the last free band of Plains Indians, the Comanches led by Quahadi warrior Quanah Parker, surrendered and moved to the Fort Sill reservation in Oklahoma.

<i>Return to Lonesome Dove</i> 1993 film

Return to Lonesome Dove is a 1993 American four part television miniseries, written by John Wilder involving characters created in Larry McMurtry's Western novel Lonesome Dove which was broadcast by CBS and first aired on November 14–17, 1993. The story focuses on a retired Texas Ranger and his adventures driving mustangs from Texas to Montana. It was nominated for an Emmy Award, and followed by Lonesome Dove: The Series.

<i>Lonesome Dove</i> (miniseries) 1989 TV mini-series

Lonesome Dove is a 1989 American epic Western adventure television miniseries directed by Simon Wincer. It is a four-part adaptation of the 1985 novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry and is the first installment in the Lonesome Dove series. The novel was based upon a screenplay by Peter Bogdanovich and McMurtry. The miniseries stars an ensemble cast headed by Robert Duvall as Augustus McCrae and Tommy Lee Jones as Woodrow Call. The series was originally broadcast by CBS from February 5 to 8, 1989, drawing a huge viewing audience, earning numerous awards, and reviving both the television Western and the miniseries.

Larry McMurtry's Streets of Laredo is a 1995 American Western television miniseries directed by Joseph Sargent. It is a three-part adaptation of the 1993 novel of the same name by author Larry McMurtry and is the third installment in the Lonesome Dove series serving as a direct sequel to Lonesome Dove (1989), ignoring the events of Return to Lonesome Dove (1993). The series is set in the 1890s.

<i>Dead Mans Walk</i> (miniseries) 1996 American Western adventure television miniseries

Dead Man's Walk is an American epic Western adventure television miniseries starring David Arquette as Augustus McCrae and Jonny Lee Miller as Woodrow F. Call. It was directed by Yves Simoneau. It is a two-part adaptation of the 1995 novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry and is chronologically the third book of the Lonesome Dove series, but regarded as the first events in the Lonesome Dove franchise. In this prequel to Lonesome Dove, it is 1840s Texas, and two young men join the Texas Rangers unit that is on a mission to annex Santa Fe. While the miniseries has been broken up into 3 parts for the DVD release, the series was originally broadcast by ABC over two nights in May 1996, and was later nominated for several awards.

Yellow Wolf, Spirit Talker 's nephew and Buffalo Hump 's cousin and best support, was a War Chief of the Penateka division of the Comanche Indians. He came to prominence after the Council House Fight, when Buffalo Hump called the Comanches and, along with Yellow Wolf and Santa Anna, led them in the Great Raid of 1840.

References

  1. "District Reconsideration List". Google Docs. Retrieved 2024-09-28.