Lonesome Dove, Volume 2: Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry

ONCE HE HAD become a rich man, Blue Duck began to think of killing his father. Getting rich had been easy-the whites were on the roads in great numbers, and they were careless travelers. They traveled as if there were no Comanches left-most of these whites did not even post guards at night. Blue Duck supposed they must be coming from lands where the Indians were tame, or where they had all been killed. Otherwise the whites would long since have been robbed and killed. They drank at night until they passed out, or else lay with their women carelessly. They were easy to kill and rob, and even the poorest of them had at least a few things of value: guns, watches, a little money; some of the women had jewels hidden away. Often there would be a horse or two Blue Duck could add to the herd he was building at his camp near the Cimarron River.

Few of his father's band hunted that far east; Comanches didn't bother him, nor did the Indians to the east, the Cherokees or Choctaws or other tribes that the whites had driven into the Indian Territory. Those Indians were not raiders anyway: they tried to build towns and farms. They hunted a little, but they had few horses and did not go after the buffalo. A few renegades from those tribes tried to join up with Blue Duck, but the only one he allowed into his band was a Choctaw named Broken Nose, who was an exceptional shot with the rifle. Blue Duck wanted only Indians who were skilled horsemen, like his own people, the Comanches. Sometimes he liked to strike deep into the forested country, where the whites had many little settlements; for such work he needed men who could ride. He wanted to raid as the Comanches raided, only in the eastern places, where the whites were numerous and careless.