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.
Working with them are Joshua Deets, an excellent tracker and scout from their Ranger days; Pea Eye Parker, another former Ranger who is loyal and reliable, but unintelligent; Bolivar, a retired Mexican bandit who works as their cook; and Newt Dobbs, a 17-year-old boy whose mother was a prostitute named Maggie and whose father is widely thought by the outfit to be Call, though Call has never acknowledged this.
Gus is less enthusiastic, but changes his mind when reminded that the love of his life, Clara, lives on the Platte River near Ogallala, Nebraska, which would be on the route to Montana.
Ironically, Jake Spoon soon decides not to go at all, having made himself comfortable with the town's only prostitute, Lorena Wood, who is smitten with him after he promises to take her to San Francisco.
Roscoe is sent after July to inform him of her disappearance, and has many misadventures and strange encounters through Arkansas and Texas, assisted by a young girl named Janey, who escapes from sexual slavery to accompany him.
As the cattle drive moves north through Texas, the Hat Creek company encounters dust storms, dangerous river crossings, and many other adventures.
Jake pleads with his former comrades that he had no choice but to go along with things for fear of his own life, but Gus and Call stand firm that he has "crossed a line", and they solemnly hang him alongside the Suggs brothers.
Meanwhile, Elmira, pregnant with July's child, has come into the company of a rough buffalo hunter named Zwey, a simple man who seems to believe he is now "married" to her.
Arriving in Nebraska, they come across the horse ranch of Clara Allen, Gus' former lover, whose husband, Bob, has become a brain-damaged invalid after being kicked in the head by a mustang.
Gus, rebuffed by Clara and no longer Lorena's sole caretaker, decides to continue on the cattle drive and see the journey to Montana through to its end.
Before leaving in the spring, he puts Newt in charge of the ranch and gives him his horse, his rifle, and his family watch, but still cannot bring himself to publicly acknowledge the boy as his son.
Lorena is devastated by Gus' death and refuses to open her letter; standing silently by his coffin day and night, she suddenly faints.
Clara tells Call she despises him as a "vain coward" for refusing to claim Newt as his son,[2] and he leaves Nebraska haunted by her condemnation.
[3] The story of the cowboy transporting his dead friend's body spreads across the plains, and Call takes a circuitous route through Colorado and New Mexico to avoid the increasing attention.
On the day of his hanging, on his way to the roof where the gallows await him, Blue Duck jumps out a third-story window, pulling along with him the sheriff's deputy who had caught him, killing them both.
Arriving back in Texas exhausted, despondent, and wounded from a bullet to his side, Call buries Gus by the spring in the orchard near San Antonio, true to his word.
[10] A television miniseries adaptation produced by Motown Productions was broadcast on CBS in 1989, starring Robert Duvall as Augustus McCrae and Tommy Lee Jones as Woodrow F. Call.
[11][12][13][14] According to McMurtry, Gus and Call were not modeled after historical characters, but similarities exist with real-life cattle drivers Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving.
(Goodnight himself appears as a minor but generally sympathetic character in this novel, and more so in the sequel, Streets of Laredo, and the prequels Dead Man's Walk and Comanche Moon.)
"[15] Other books of the Lonesome Dove series feature other prominent historical events and locations such as the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, the Great Raid of 1840, and the King Ranch, and characters such as Buffalo Hump, John Wesley Hardin, and Judge Roy Bean.