Family is a focal point of McMurtry's book, with the emphasis on two very different families. One is that of Pea Eye Parker, Call's corporal, a fellow former-ranger who assists Call in his bounty-hunter duties. Pea Eye is now married to Lorena Wood (Lorie), the whore heroine of "Lonesome Dove" and now a school teacher and mother of five. Pea Eye is increasingly pressured by his wife and children to stop following the captain in pursuit of bandits, but his loyalty and devotion to Call usually prevails. Though he initially refuses to accompany Call and Brookshire in the hunt for Joey Garza, his guilt wins out and he soon sets out after Call, accompanied by the celebrated Kickapoo tracker, Famous Shoes. The second family that dominates the plot of "Streets of Laredo" is the family of Joey Garza. Joey's mother, Maria, is the midwife of a small Mexican village on the Rio Grande. She has had a string of brief, failed marriages and has three children, of which Joey is the oldest. Of the other two, her daughter, Teresa, is blind from birth, while her other, Rafael, is very slow.