Lonesome Dove is an engulfing western tale about more than just a cattle drive to Montana, which is one of the driving forces for the plot, by the way, but it is really about loneliness and regret. Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae are two retired Texas Rangers that take the advice their old rangering buddy, Jake Spoon, tells them of the riches they could make as the first cattle ranchers in Montana, which is only three thousand miles away from their small ranch in Texas. Captain Call, as they call him, decides to take Jake's advice and amasses a three thousand-headed herd of cattle and horses and a dozen or so green cowboys, and, along with the non-stop communicator Gus, they all make their way across almost three thousand miles of a mostly unsettled and completely wild frontier. None of the men had previously been that far north and none knew of the dangers that were waiting for them.