Heya,
I thought I'd revive this thread! I'm here to report that I'm still reading Comanche Moon. I'm a couple hundred pages into it and still have a ways to go. Clearly, this one is going more slowly for me than the other two that I've read so far. But, that has a lot to do with my reading pace (for a while I was just reading one little section at a time) and the fact that I took several weeks off around the holidays. I took Comanche Moon up again in earnest this week.
And, as usual, my overall impression is that, wow, McMurtry really is quite a storyteller. Really impressive. And, my main lingering question as I read a lot of the scenarios he describes is... I'd love to know what his research and writing methods were. How many of the aspects of Comanche culture are based on some kind of real research that McMurtry did, and how much is pure fiction and just part of McMurtry's storyweaving? I imagine that all the Lonesome Dove books must have taken a great deal of research - about historic western culture, old cowboy habits, Native American history, etc. This one, in particular, with its goal of showing a lot more of the narrative from the Native American perspective I find this question particularly interesting.
Anyway, I also love learning more about Maggie and Clara. I think one of McMurtry's greatest strengths is shifting perspectives around from character to character. I love getting some first-person perspectives from Maggie and Clara, in addition to the rangers, the Comanches, etc.