Montana Western Bookmark | Friendship | Western Literary Art

Some things between men don't need saying. They both knew what they were.

For every reader who has loved Lonesome Dove and understands that this novel is not really about a cattle drive.
It is about two men who have been the most important person in each other's lives for thirty years and who will never once say so directly because that is not how either of them was made and both of them know it and it has never mattered because they both know it.
For every reader who finished this novel and sat very still for a long time before they could say anything about it.
For every reader who knows that the campfire in the enormous dark is the whole story and always was.
This bookmark is for all of you. The fire is still burning. The coffee is still terrible. The stars are coming out.

✦ ABOUT THIS BOOKMARK
A richly illustrated scene of the Hat Creek camp on the open plain at deep dusk — not the cattle drive in motion but the stillness around it, the hour between the day's riding and the night's sleep when the campfire is the primary warm light in the enormous dark and the men sit in the silence that has always been their primary language with each other.

The western horizon fills the upper portion of the composition in the extraordinary color of a plains sunset going to dark — deep amber and rose and the particular blue-violet that the sky turns in the last fifteen minutes of light on the open plain, the colors saturated and completely without obstruction because there is nothing on the horizon to obstruct them. The sky is enormous the way the sky is only enormous on the open plain where the land is flat enough to let it be everything.
The last light fades as the eye moves through the composition — the amber band deepening to rose deepening to violet deepening to the deep blue-black of the night sky where the first stars are already sharp and cold. The evening star hangs over the western horizon — Venus, the first and brightest, warm gold in the last of the amber light, the star that Gus McCrae would notice and say something beautiful about and that Call would listen to without responding.

The great plains stretch away in every direction — the dry grass moving from warm amber in the last of the light to blue-silver in the deepening dark, the flat vastness suggesting the enormous distance already traveled and the enormous distance still remaining.

The campfire is the center and heart of the entire composition — a working fire banked down for the evening, burning with the steady warm amber of a fire built by people who know how to build fires and have been building them every night for months. A coffee pot at the fire's edge. Its steam rising in the cold night air. The coffee is always terrible. It is always welcome.

Two bedrolls near the fire — the same relative position to each other that they have been in every night for months because after enough nights on a cattle drive you always unroll in the same place relative to the person you trust most even if you would never say so. Two saddles — one set down with a slight careless ease and one placed with unconscious precision, the saddles of two men suggesting their characters without depicting the men themselves.

A battered book near one of the bedrolls — because Gus McCrae always has a book. Because Gus McCrae has always been the kind of man who brings his mind with him wherever he goes. Because one of the things about Augustus McCrae that Woodrow Call has never said aloud is that he finds this completely unsurprising.

A battered hat on the ground near the fire. The character present through the object.
The stars are coming out in the upper right — sharp and numerous and cold, the Milky Way beginning to resolve itself in the darkening sky. The campfire is the only warmth in an enormous dark.
Both men know what they are to each other. Neither of them says so. That is the whole story and it always was.

✦ BOOKMARK DETAILS
— Size: 2.15 inches wide by 6.75 inches tall
— Printed on premium card stock
— Full color illustration front with matte finish
— Arrives in a kraft envelope with protective sleeve
— Ready to use in your copy of Lonesome Dove — or Dead Man's Walk or Comanche Moon or Streets of Laredo — this bookmark belongs in all of them

✦ PERFECT FOR
— Every reader who considers Lonesome Dove one of the greatest American novels ever written
— Western literary fiction devotees who know the difference between a genre Western and a great American novel and value both but love this one most
— Readers who love the Pulitzer Prize winners and know this one deserved it completely
— Anyone who has finished this novel and been unable to explain to someone who has not read it why they are sitting very quietly looking at nothing
— The friend who put Lonesome Dove in your hands and changed your reading life — they deserve this
— Book clubs reading McMurtry — this novel generates conversations about friendship and loyalty and masculinity and the American West that go places most book club conversations never reach
— History and Western Americana lovers who want literary merchandise honoring the tradition with genuine knowledge and love
— Readers who love stories about friendship — this is one of the great friendship novels in American literature and this bookmark honors the friendship specifically
— Gifts for the reader who loves big American novels and big American landscapes
— Pairs beautifully with our Lonesome Dove cattle drive bookmark — the drive in motion and the evening camp at rest, the day and the night, the journey and the friendship at the heart of it

✦ THE CAMPFIRE
The campfire in this bookmark is the center of everything.
It is the warmest element in the composition. It is the only warm element in the enormous dark of the open plain. It is the small human circle of warmth that has been here every night for months and that both men return to at the end of every day and that neither of them has ever once commented on as the thing it actually is.

This is what the friendship of Gus and Call is in this novel. The campfire in the enormous dark. The only warmth for miles. The place everything comes back to.
The fire is still burning. The coffee is on. Both men know what they are to each other. Neither of them says so. The stars are coming out.

✦ GUS AND HIS BOOK
There is a battered book near one of the bedrolls in this bookmark.
It is Gus McCrae's book. He brought it on the cattle drive because Gus McCrae always brings a book. He would bring a book to the end of the world and he essentially has.
Woodrow Call has never once commented on this. He has noticed it every single time. He has noticed it tonight. He will notice it tomorrow night. He will never say a word about it.
Some things between men don't need saying. They both knew what they were.

✦ A NOTE ON THE TAGLINE
The tagline is not a direct quote from the novel. It is the emotional truth of the friendship between Augustus McCrae and Woodrow F. Call — thirty years of it, the whole of it, the thing that makes this novel something more than the greatest American Western and makes it one of the great novels about friendship in all of American literature.
McMurtry never needed Gus and Call to say it directly. Neither did his readers. They both knew. So did we.

✦ ALSO IN OUR SHOP
This bookmark pairs beautifully with our Lonesome Dove cattle drive bookmark — the drive at full energy and the evening camp at rest, the journey and the stillness around it, the action and the friendship. Both bookmarks together tell the complete story of the novel more fully than either one alone and make the perfect gift set for the devoted McMurtry reader.
See our shop for both Lonesome Dove bookmarks and our complete American literary collection.

✦ SHIPPING
Ships within 3 to 5 business days. Arrives in a kraft envelope so your bookmark comes to you simply and beautifully — ready to use immediately. The coffee will still be terrible when it arrives. The stars will be out. The fire will be burning. Both men will know what they are to each other. Neither of them will say so.

✦ ABOUT OUR SHOP
Every bookmark in our shop is designed and produced professionally by us — made with care in our own studio and printed on premium materials we stand behind completely. We are a small passionate operation and we treat every order like it matters because it does.

We are committed to five star service on every single order — from the moment you click to the moment your bookmark arrives at your door flat and perfect and ready to live inside your favorite book. If anything is ever less than exactly right please reach out and we will make it right immediately. We respond to every message promptly and we mean it — real people, real responses, no automated runaround.

Thank you for supporting a small independent bookmark maker. It means everything to us and we do not take it for granted. We hope this bookmark finds exactly the right book and exactly the right reader.

Michelle and Julie
The Luna and Loom 📚