Hud has already beat Jesse unconscious, and he beats up Lonnie, then rapes Halmea. One night, Lonnie hears a commotion in Halmea's cabin and discovers that his uncle Hud is attacking Halmea. Some evenings Lonnie pesters Halmea, trying to get a chance to see her in her nightgown, since he has a crush on her. Mostly they just get drunk, and Lonnie longs for the day that he can leave this rural area and see the world.

In the evenings, Lonnie is filled with restlessness, and he sometimes drives into Thalia, the nearest town, to goof off with his friends, and see if they can scare up some trouble. Finally he relents, and the men go through a hellish day of blood and death, destroying every cow on the ranch. Granddad at first resists, insisting that he will not shoot his own healthy cattle. After a tense week, it turns out that the cows have the worst strain of the disease, and that they will all have to be shot and burned. The state vet brings in lots of men to test all of Granddad's cattle, so the entire herd has to be rounded up and quarantined. They call in the state veterinarian to consult, and he fears that they have an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease, an extremely contagious cattle disease. One day, one of Granddad's cattle drops dead for no apparent reason.

Their hired hands include Lonzo, Jesse, who has only recently been hired, and Halmea, the African-American cook. Lonnie lives with his Granddad and Grandma and his uncle Hud, who is Grandma's son from a previous marriage. Lonnie is a young man growing up on his grandfather's ranch in Texas, in the 1950s.

Horseman pass by by larry mcmurtry