Lonesome Dove, Volume 1 by Larry McMurtry

IT TOOK JULY only a day or two to determine that Elmira was not in Dodge City. The town was a shock to him, for almost every woman in it seemed to be a whore and almost every business a saloon. He kept trying to tell himself he shouldn't be surprised, for he had heard for years that Kansas towns were wild. In Missouri, where he had gone to testify at the trial, there was much talk of Kansas. People in Missouri seemed to consider that they had gotten rid of all their riffraff to the cow towns. July quickly concluded that they were right. There might be rough elements in Missouri, but what struck him in Kansas was the absence of any elements that weren't rough. Of course there were a few stores and a livery stable or two in Dodge-even a hotel of sorts, though the whores were in and out of the hotel so much that it seemed more like a whorehouse. Gamblers were thick in the saloons and he had never seen a place where as many people went armed.

The first thing July did was buy a decent horse. He went to the post office, for he felt he owed Fort Smith an explanation as to why he had not come back. For some reason he felt a surge of optimism as he walked down the street to the post office. Now that he had survived the plains it seemed possible that he could find Ellie after all. He had lost all interest in catching Jake Spoon; he just wanted to find his wife and go home. If Peach didn't like it-and she wouldn't-she would just have to lump it. If Ellie wasn't in Dodge she would probably be in Abilene. He would soon catch up with her.