If you read “Lonesome Dove” by Larry McMurtry or watched the mini-series adaptation of it, you’re familiar with the characters who formed the first full service cattle drives including the chuck wagon, scouting, guiding and moving.
The main characters of “Lonesome Dove” were inspired by Charles Goodnight, Oliver Loving and Bose Ikard of Weatherford, Texas. These men were big in every way. Pioneers. Brave. Tough, but not mean—they were generous of spirit, but did not demure of doing something tough when it was required. They didn’t throw it off to someone else. They had a code of right and wrong—and you did “right” even when it was personally hard.
Thanks to the Fort Bend library, I listened as I drove to Oklahoma recently to McMurtry’s first book “Horseman, Pass By” on audio disk. You may remember it as the movie “Hud.” So I not only found the abandoned cemetery of some of my ancestors in Weatherford, but also discovered many connections of how this entire part of the country fits together in my family’s past.
Goodnight, Loving and Ikard made big footprints on Weatherford, Texas. It was rodeo week and the memory of these men is prominently featured in town history and establishments.
About mid-way between Weatherford and my home town in Oklahoma is McMurtry’s home town, Archer City, Texas. I always enjoy seeing how many more buildings McMurtry has taken over for his antiquarian book business . . . it’s now four, with number four being on the same block as The Royal—the movie theater in “The Last Picture Show. “
The Royal is no more than a front now like on a movie set. Most of the building has collapsed, and it’s painted red, white and blue.
“The Last Picture Show” played in Archer City, July 1, courtesy of Texas Monthly and Alamo Drafthouse Movie Theaters. According to the Wichita Falls Times Record, McMurtry spoke about the book and film. John and I attended the movie shortly after we moved to Houston in the early 70’s. He had never seen me so emotional at a movie. I was re-naming the characters as individuals I knew-- many of them moving through life much like the tumbleweeds blowing down the desolate, cold streets in winter. Lonely, no purpose.
McMurtry has thankfully captured many of the stories about the West I heard as a child and made them live through memorable characters.
As I was driving west out of Archer City, “Horseman, Pass By” is nearing the end, with protagonist Homer Bannon’s funeral. It speaks of the big sky and the big horsemen that made the West including Charles Goodnight, their code disappearing to the likes of Hud and the unscrupulous.
And there before me was the cloudless big sky stretching as far as I could see in this stark and unforgiving country. It was 110 with little shade, dry as a bone.
I felt very small, insignificant, and soft compared with the accomplishments settling this “wild territory” that was home land to the Kiowa, Apache and Comanche Indians. Toward the end of his life, Charles Goodnight saved one of the last herds of buffalo, which slaughtered indiscriminately for sport alone, had gone from millions and sustaining a way of life, to almost extinct.
Like I said, Charles Goodnight was a big man in many ways.
Illustrated from Musings column in Fort Bend Independent 07/06/2011 edition by Janice Scanlan.
. . . More stuff . . . .
Who's the Western Artist who created the "iron work mural" in the picture above? I don't know, but the work is the left "rail" on the entry to The Iron Trail, a retail store in Archer City pictured to the left. They had stepped out or I would have gone inside.
And here's the "right railing panel. 
PS. I listened to McMurtry's "All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers" on the way home. But don't be a stranger, let me know what you think.
Please click on pictures if you wish to enlarge the view.
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