Streets of Laredo
First edition
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| Author | Larry McMurtry |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Lonesome Dove series |
| Genre | Western |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
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Publication date
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1993 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 589 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 40347807 |
| Preceded by | Lonesome Dove |
Streets of Laredo is a 1993 western novel by 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.
The book follows the adventures of Captain Woodrow F. Call as he tracks a Mexican bandit who is preying on the railroad. It was later made into a television miniseries of the same name starring James Garner as Captain Call. Streets of Laredo takes its name from a famous cowboy ballad. The title was originally used by Larry McMurtry for a screenplay that he wrote with Peter Bogdanovich, but which never materialized as a movie. He then rewrote it as the original Lonesome Dove.
Between the events of the two books, quite a bit has happened. Lorena, lover of Gus McCrae, has left Clara and married Pea Eye Parker, of the former Hat Creek Outfit. They have several children, and own a farm in the Texas Panhandle. Pea Eye is thoroughly devoted to Lorena, and Lorena has learned to reciprocate and become almost equally attached to Pea Eye. Lorena teaches in a nearby schoolhouse. The cattle ranch (set up by the Hat Creek outfit in Montana) has collapsed. Newt is dead, fallen on by the Hell Bitch. Call has finally admitted to himself that Newt was his son. July Johnson is dead, and Clara lives alone. Call has gone back to being a Ranger and a gun-for-hire. Trains have greatly expanded the reach of civilization and have pushed back the frontier. The American West is no longer rough and tumble and Captain Woodrow F. Call has become a relic, albeit a greatly respected one. Nineteen-year-old Joey Garza and his deadly German rifle (capable of killing a man at a distance of half a mile) are not about to let law and order close the book on the Wild West just yet.
The book opens with former Ranger Captain Woodrow F. Call (now a bounty hunter) and Ned Brookshire, the "salaried man" of the title. Brookshire has been sent to Texas from New York City by his boss, railroad tycoon Colonel Terry, to contract Call's services in apprehending a bandit. The bandit in question is a young Mexican named Joey Garza, who has cost Terry significant business and money through his deadly train robberies. Brookshire is surprised that the old man he encounters has such a reputation, though he notes that Call does have a rather dangerous and respect-demanding aura about him. Brookshire himself does not strike a particularly imposing figure, and soon proves not to be cut out for train or horse travel, inexperienced in the ways of the west or violence, and very homesick for his bossy but loving wife, Katie. Call, on the other hand, is the very picture of experience. Though he is old and seems almost to have trouble lifting his foot into the stirrups, his reputation speaks for him. He has spent forty years on the border and the frontier, many of those with his more talkative but equally respected late partner, Gus McCrae. Protecting settlers in innumerable skirmishes with hostile Indians, rustlers, and dangerous gangs has earned him a great deal of respect and a reputation that generally strikes fear into the hearts of criminals.
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