... In the spring of 1867, Loving and Goodnight returned to Texas, ready to start a new drive. This third drive was slowed by heavy rains and Native American threats. Loving went ahead of the herd for contract bidding, taking only Bill Wilson, a trusted scout, with him.
Although he told Goodnight that he should travel at night through Native American Indian country, he pushed ahead during the day. In a Comanche attack, he was seriously wounded at Loving Bend on the Pecos River.
The weakened Loving sent Wilson back to the herd, eluded the Indians, and, with the aid of Mexican traders, reached Fort Sumner, only to die there of gangrene.
Before he died on September 25, 1867, Goodnight assured him that his wish to be buried in Texas would be carried out.
... his death was borrowed by novelist Larry McMurtry for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove. In the book, Augustus "Gus" McCrae is injured by Indian arrows and sends his companion Pea Eye Parker to retrieve Woodrow F. Call. McCrae makes it to Miles City, but dies of blood poisoning, despite having one of his legs amputated. Call, like Goodnight, brings him back to Texas to bury him. Continued
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