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.
WHEN CALL FOUND THE DEAD BOY, and the tracks of twenty horses going north, he knew there would not be a simple trek back to Austin. The Indians were not far-piles of horse turds were still warm, and the blood from the boy's crushed skull had only just coagulated. Call was less than a mile ahead of the troop, scouting. The boy was no more than six years old, skinny and pale, and the raiders who killed him had only just passed. Probably he had been too sickly to travel; they had hit him in the head with a rifle butt and left him, dead or dying.
Call pulled his rifle out of its scabbard and got down to examine the tracks. It was annoying that Scull had taken Famous Shoes-the Kickapoo could have read the tracks easily, told them what band the raiders belonged to, and, probably, how many captives they were carrying into captivity. Call was not so skilled, nor was anyone else in the troop.