Lonesome Dove, Volume 2: Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry

IN THE NIGHT Newt knew that his mother must have died because he couldn't hear her breathing anymore. The room felt different-it had become a room in which he was alone. But he didn't know what he was supposed to do, so he lay on his pallet doing nothing until the gray light came into the windows by the street. Then he carefully got up, dressed, and put a few things of his into a shoe box-his top, his ball, his book full of pictures of animals, and a deck of cards the rangers had let him keep. Then he put on his hat-Captain Gus had given it to him-looked just once at his mother, dead in her bed, and hurried down the stairs and over to Mrs. Coleman, who began to sob the minute she saw him-Mrs. Coleman continued to cry all day. Newt was sad about the fact that Deets and Pea Eye and the other rangers were gone; he knew they would have wanted to say goodbye to his mother, but now they would have no chance. The grave was dug; that same afternoon they put his mother in it-there was a little singing and then they covered her up.

Mrs. Coleman gave him supper. There was a lot of food, but he wasn't very hungry. Mrs. Coleman had mainly got control of herself by then, though tears still dripped out of her eyes from time to time.