Blue Duck (Lonesome Dove series)

Blue Duck is a fictional character, a biracial Indian appearing in two books in the Lonesome Dove series. He is the son of Buffalo Hump and a kidnapped Mexican woman. There is some evidence that there was a real Blue Duck, but his character was fictionalized for the Lonesome Dove Saga. Buford 'Blue' Duck, a Comanche, was a confidant of Bell Starr who was convicted of murder in the 1880s and died around 1894.

Comanche Moon

Blue Duck begins this story as a member of his father's Indian band, showing himself to be repeatedly defiant of this father. Eventually, Buffalo Hump banishes him from the tribe. Blue Duck then gathers his own group of bandits, committing attacks against the white man on his own. Several years after he is banished, his uncle visits him to tell him that Buffalo Hump has left the tribe to find a good place to die. Determined to take revenge, Blue Duck tracks him down and kills him by piercing his hump with a spear.

In the film version of Comanche Moon, Blue Duck is played by Adam Beach.

Lonesome Dove

The cattle drive led by Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call passes through the Comancheria. Blue Duck happens to spy the campsite used by Jake Spoon and Lorena Wood. Jake had gone to San Antonio to gamble, but Lorena refused to go with him. When Blue Duck first came by the camp, Lorena hid and Gus, who was visiting her, tried to draw Blue Duck's attention. After Blue Duck leaves, Gus sends Newt to protect Lorie. Blue Duck knocks the youth unconscious and captures Lorie. When Gus discovers what has happened, he sets out to find her. Blue Duck uses Lorie as collateral in a poker game, tricking his men into betting with her and losing her, so that he can get them to kill McCrae for him. Gus meets up with July Johnson, an Arkansas sherriff tracking Jake Spoon, and rescues Lorie. Gus manages to kill many of Blue Duck's men, and rescue Lorena, but Blue Duck himself gets away.

He does not appear again until close to the end. Woodrow Call is bringing Gus's body back to Texas to be buried, and passes through a town where Blue Duck has finally been captured, tried, and sentenced to hang. Before he can be hanged, though, Blue Duck attacks his captors and falls through a top-story jail window, killing himself and his guard when they hit the ground.

In the film version of Lonesome Dove, Blue Duck is played by Frederic Forrest.

Streets of Laredo

Though Blue Duck is long since dead at the time this novel takes place, this volume does some retconning regarding his appearance in Lonesome Dove, making the pyromaniac Mox Mox one of his associates, having Blue Duck leave Lorena Wood Parker in his custody and, later, having to stop him from burning her alive so he can use her to lure Augustus McCrae into a trap. In the film, a flashback scene is included, in which Blue Duck is played by Bill Gribble.