Book excerpt: “If Chaucer were a Texan writing today . . . this is how he would have written and this is how he would have felt.”— New York Times In Leaving Cheyenne (1963), which anticipates Lonesome Dove more than any other early novel, the stark realities of the American West play out in a mesmerizing love triangle. Stubborn rancher Gideon Fry, resilient Molly Taylor, and awkward ranch hand Johnny McCloud struggle with love and jealousy as the years pass.