Read "Lonesome Dove, Volume 2: Comanche Moon" by Larry McMurtry online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
THE CAPTIVES, three men and a woman, were brought in a little after sunrise, in an oxcart. Muñoz, the bandit Ahumado had assigned to do the job Tudwal once did, ambushed them in their fine coach three days to the east. All their finery, rings, watches, and the like he put in a little sack, for Ahumado to inspect. The first thing the old man did, before he so much as glanced at the captives, was take the sack from Muñoz and carry it to his blanket. He emptied the sack and carefully inspected every item before he turned his attention to the prisoners, all of whom were large and fleshy, as hidalgos and their women tend to be, and all of whom, with good reason, were terrified.
Scull watched the proceedings from his cage, shielding his eyes with his hands. On days when they tied him to the skinning post his vision became a blur-he could distinguish motion and outlines but not much else. The rains had stopped and the sun was blinding, but Ahumado only now and then tied him to the skinning post. Often he would be left for three or four days in his cage-when free to shade his eyes, his vision gradually cleared.