Read "Lonesome Dove, Volume 1" by Larry McMurtry online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
MONKEY JOHN HATED IT that she wouldn't talk. "By God, I'll cut your tongue out if you ain't gonna use it," he said once, and he knocked her down and sat on her, his big knife an inch from her face, until Dog Face threatened to shoot him if he didn't let her be. Lorena expected him to do it. He was the worst man she had ever known, worse even than Ermoke and the Kiowas, though they were bad enough. She shut her eyes, expecting to feel the knife, but Dog Face cocked his pistol and Monkey John didn't cut her. He continued to sit on her chest though, arguing with Dog Face about her silence.
"What do you care if she talks? " Dog Face said. "I wouldn't talk to you either, you goddamn old runt."