Lonesome Dove: Chapter 56 Summary & Analysis

When Augustus lost Blue Duck’s tracks, he went west, assuming Blue Duck would head to his favored hiding grounds. But Blue Duck went straight north instead, and Gus’s assumption costs him time. And, he knows, it may cost Lorena her sanity, if not her life—the longer she’s in Blue Duck’s hands, the less likely she is to survive. He’s thinking about her when the first shots whiz past his horse. He turns and tries to outrun, but soon the band of Indigenous adversaries—about a dozen, including Blue Duck’s gang of five— begins to catch up.

Fortunately, Augustus discovers an old buffalo wallow. It’s not much, but it’s the best cover he’s likely to find on the plains. As he dismounts, he stabs his horse in the neck, hoping to use its corpse as a barrier and that the smell of its blood will spook his pursuers’ horses. This plan works. When his attackers’ horses begin to balk, he quickly shoots five men dead. Discouraged, the survivors fall back a little.

The lengthy lull that follows bores Augustus because he lacks anyone to talk to. For want of anything else to do, he mentally reviews the way the men he knows behave under pressure. Pea Eye hates wasting ammunition to the point that he almost never shoots anything. Call never backs down, no matter the odds, and never allows an enemy to escape, no matter how far he may run. Deets is so shrewd that he often senses ambushes coming days in advance.

Late in the afternoon, a white man with a large buffalo gun joins Augustus’s adversaries. The man isn’t a great shot, but the bullets that whack into the corpse of Augustus’s horse present a grave danger. Augustus gets a few shots of his own in when the man is reloading, and although he misses the men, he still sends them retreating to a safe distance. Then, there’s nothing to do but to wait for the cover of darkness, at which point he calmly starts walking toward the Canadian River. He hasn’t gone far before he hears shooting in the vicinity of the buffalo gun, then subsequently runs into none other than July Johnson, Roscoe, Joe, and Janey.

Amiably telling July that he’s about 300 miles too far north to catch Jake, Augustus explains that the men they encountered likely belonged to Blue Duck’s gang. He tells them he’s on his way to their camp to rescue a stolen woman and kill her captor. The idea that Elmira might also be their captive floods July’s mind. He insists on going with Augustus. Near the river, they find a spot where Roscoe, Janey, and Joe can take shelter. Augustus doesn’t really want an untested man on such a risky mission but knowing that he needs all the help he can get, he accepts July’s offer. Not long before they prepare to storm Blue Duck’s camp, they hear something—or someone—splashing across the river downstream from them.