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THE WALKING DEAD: THE ROLE OF THE CORPSE IN WESTERN MYTHS by David H. Zimmermann  Modern Westerns seem rife with dead cowboys. Of course the bodies are going to pile up with all of the gunfights, Indian battles, rattlesnakes, stampedes, stabbings, battles, and general ill will. But a lot of them—the bodies that is—seem to malinger. Even John Wayne’s characters seem to hop back and forth across the edge of life and death. In The Cowboys, the old rancher, Wil Anderson , is slain, but he is not fully dispensed with until the end of the movie—after an intense and lengthy gun battle and the wrap-up of a cattle drive when his cowboys establish their manhood by burying him. In Big Jake, Jake’s appearance consistently prompts an “I thought you were dead” from friends, enemies, and passing acquaintances; Big Jake eventually embraces the comment before dispensing with the evil-doers. Clint Eastwood’s preacher in Pale Rider may be the walking corpse or ghost of a gunfighter gunned down by a group of renegade marshals; it seems unlikely that anyone—even Eastwood—could survive the multiple wounds the ring of scars suggests: a pattern of wounds he visits upon the crooked marshal. And finally, and perhaps most importantly since it is set in Texas, McMurtry’s summa, Lonesome Dove, concludes with the burial of both its main characters; Gus’s corpse has been carried back to Austin from the high plains, and Call, having dug the grave, emerges from it if not as a ghost or apparition then at the very least an anachronism of a dead past (a role he fulfills in the novel’s sequel The Streets of Laredo). The narrative hinges on the role of the corpse; the embodiment of the legend, the story of the hero, it roams the countryside, forcing the narrative to continue. It must be returned home. This vivification of the corpse may be an extension of Joseph Campbell’s notion of apotheosis: the hero acquires a god-like, transcendent stature. 217 Melquiades Estrada in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, then, follows a clear tradition of cowboys whose importance is not tempered by death or the grave. Indeed, in this tradition, Melquiades’ significance in the western is inextricably tied to his death, perhaps more accurately his corpse; the actual dying takes a secondary, supporting role; it is not as important as the questions posed by the presence of the corpse. Although the narrative thread is difficult to untangle, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada does appear to fit Campbell’s theory of the monomyth, which would provide a structure for analyzing the transformation from mere mortal to deity and might provide some insight into the Western’s—the West’s—preoccupation with the walking dead. The death of Melquiades confronts the Texas rancher, Pete Perkins, with Campbell’s call to adventure—a call Perkins answers. He does not wait to be tricked or forced: he acts. At first he acts within the bounds of his own society, addressing his concerns to the sheriff and the head of the Border Patrol. When these attempts to resolve the issue fail, he takes the necessary steps to realize justice; the kidnapping of the Border Patrol agent, Mike Norton, marks his response to the call. As he prepares to cross the border into Mexico, he reflects a clear, systematic awareness of the implications of the journey he is about to make. He is leaving his society. As he journeys through the desert of West Texas, with the body of Melquiades and the kidnapped border agent, Perkins is traveling in his world, what Campbell terms the world of the everyday. He knows the paths. He knows the sheriff and agents in pursuit. Indeed, he and the sheriff share the same lover. Perkins has responded to the call but has not yet crossed the threshold; he is still in the everyday. The river, still following Campbell’s model, may mark the boundary, the threshold, of the two societies. The trucks remain behind, as he shifts to horses—animals of a different world and time. Appropriately, his horse is that of a dead man (Melquiades) and a Mexican, an inhabitant of the world he is about to enter. Mexico is the land of Melquiades, the land of the past, and apparently the land of the dead. For Campbell, it is the land of the quest—the otherworld. Although perhaps not fully 218 Thoughts, Musings...

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