Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove is about a cattle drive from Texas to Montana in about 1880. The novel includes the preparations for this 1,000-mile journey and a myriad of adventures along the way. A woman is taken on the drive: Lorena. This isn’t just out of the ordinary. It’s unique. She’s brought along by a man who abandons her. She’s then kidnapped and terribly abused by outlaws. Finally, Lorena is rescued and continues with the cattle drive, but she’s deeply traumatized and defenseless, far from settlements, and she can only cling to the man who’s rescued her and hope he’ll continue to care for her.

That’s all the romance and violence from the novel that we’ll talk about this morning (all the stuff that gets our attention); because, next something more un…