Read "Lonesome Dove, Volume 1" by Larry McMurtry online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
JAKE SPENT MOST of his days in a place called Bill's Saloon, a little clapboard place on the Trinity River bluffs. It was a two-story building. The whores took the top story and the gamblers and cowboys used the bottom. From the top floor there were usually cattle in sight trailing north, small herds and large. Once in a while a foreman came in for liquor and met Jake. When they found out he had been north to Montana, some tried to hire him, but Jake just laughed at them. The week after he left, the Hat Creek herd had been a good week. He couldn't draw a bad card, and by the time the week was over he had a stake enough to last him a month or two.
"I believe I'll just stay," he told the foreman. "I like the view."