Lonesome Dove: Chapter 1  Summary & Analysis

Augustus McCrae walks out onto the porch to discover his two pigs fighting over a dead rattlesnake. He shoos them from the porch then heads for the springhouse. There’s no natural shade at the offices of the Hat Creek Cattle Company or for miles in any direction. The interior of the springhouse is cool, but that just attracts rattlesnakes and other creatures. Augustus politely waits for a rattler inside to slither off, then carefully checks the burlap around the whiskey jug before he takes a swig—Lonesome Dove’s white barber, Dillard Brawley, lost one of his legs to a centipede bite. Following his daily routine, Augustus takes the whiskey jug to the porch where he sits and drinks, waiting for the sunset and the cool of nighttime. When the sky begins to turn pink, he rouses the cook, Bolivar, to make supper.

Just before Augustus strikes up a conversation with the pigs—animals he maintains are smarter than horses and most humans—Woodrow Call and Pea Eye return from their day’s work. Call, Pea Eye, and the teenaged Newt have been digging a new well. Pea Eye reveals that Call’s in a bad mood because his horse, an ill-tempered but beautiful mare known as the Hell Bitch, bit him. Newt stumbles onto the porch, utterly exhausted from the day’s work, just before Bolivar begins to beat the dinner bell with a crowbar. Bolivar is a former horse bandit and a figure of some interest to Newt, who desperately wants to join Call, McCrae, Pea, and Deets on their raids into Mexico for horses and cattle. But Call maintains that he’s still too young.

As the men walk into the house, Augustus immediately begins to pick on Call. He’s the only one who dares to argue with the Captain, and he does it in part because arguing is his favorite activity. Eating is a close second, and Augustus helps himself to generous portions of pork and beans while keeping up an incessant stream of chatter about his days as a waiter on a steamboat. Call isn’t really listening; he’s considering whether conditions are favorable for a raid into Mexico. He does start listening when Augustus begins describing the attention the steamboat’s sex workers paid him. Call doesn’t like that kind of talk, especially around Newt. But he knows better than to argue with Augustus.

With Call refusing to give him the satisfaction of an argument, Augustus turns on Bolivar, chiding him about how he rings the dinner bell. Bolivar sulkily replies that “Gen-eral Lee freed the slaves.” Newt and Pea Eye correct him: it was Abe Lincoln who freed the slaves, and he freed Americans, not Mexicans. Augustus retorts that Lincoln freed “Africans” who were no more Americans than Call, who was born in Scotland but came to America as an infant. In response, Call puts on his hat, picks up his rifle, and heads outside.