A death vigil serves as the opening scene in All the Pretty Horses. It is the year 1949, and John Grady Cole has returned to the ranch for the wake of his grandfather. It is dark and cold in the early morning when he learns from the housekeeper that his mother is also in the house. Wearing a black suit, John Grady walks down a hallway where portraits of his ancestors hang. A candle lights the room where his grandfather is laid in funeral cloth. The only sounds are a clock ticking and the whistle of a train. He goes to the kitchen and has coffee with Luisa.
At the funeral John Grady sees his father. A storm is brewing, with spits of snow and lots of wind, which cause the preacher’s words to be lost. That evening John Grady saddles his horse for a ride near the old Comanche road, which comes down from the Kiowa country on the western section of the ranch. He returns in the dark.
McCarthy provides John Grady’s family history, and we finally learn the protagonist’s name. The house in which John Grady grew up was built in 1872. The original 1866 ranch had 2,300 acres; the first house was one room made of sticks and wattle. The grandfather was the oldest of eight boys, the only one to live past the age of 25 and the first to die in the house. The Grady surname dies with the old man.
John Grady meets his father in the lobby of a hotel in town, and they go to the Eagle Cafe to eat. His father has little appetite and smokes too much, according to his son, who chastises him for the habit. They arrange a horseback ride for Saturday. In the next scene John Grady and his friend Rawlins have returned from a ride and are discussing John Grady’s mother, who has a boyfriend only two years older than John Grady. He rubs down his horse and goes to the kitchen for coffee. Then John Grady enters the study of his grandfather. His mother comes down the stairs and asks him what he is doing and he replies, “Settin.”
He spends some afternoons talking with his father about why he didn’t buy the ranch. The father at one time had money from work in the oil rigs and gambling but wasted it all. He is a veteran of World War II and hasn’t spoken to John Grady’s mother for seven years. The father gives John Grady a Hamley Formfitter saddle.
John Grady stays on the ranch with Luisa and Arturo after his mother returns to San Antonio and her acting engagements. When she returns, John Grady tries to get her to lease him the ranch. She says it hasn’t paid for 20 years and that he has to go to school. John Grady goes to see a lawyer named Franklin who does not give him any hope about the ranch. They also talk about John Grady’s father’s ill health.
After Christmas, when his mother is away most of the time, John Grady hitchhikes to San Antonio to see her in the play she is appearing in. He does not let her know he is there, but he watches her from behind a newspaper with her young boyfriend in the lobby of the Menger Hotel.
In March, he takes a last ride with his father. They discuss horses, John Grady’s girlfriend, and John Grady’s future. His father provides some explanation of his marriage to John Grady’s mother as well as their divorce. The father wants John Grady to make up with his mother. Closing on the ranch sale is scheduled to take place June 1. John Grady and his friend Rawlins make plans to run away on their horses. He sees his girlfriend, Mary Catherine, for the last time.
The last two-thirds of Chapter I follow the two young men on their horses to the border at Langtry and tell of their ride approximately 170 miles into Mexico to a large hacienda where they seek work as cowboys.
Their journey is filled with the details of riding and camping and finding food and water. Their brief discussions are often about horses and women.
A raggedy kid on a big horse attaches himself to John Grady and Rawlins. Rawlins wants to leave him, but John Grady is kinder, even though he joins Rawlins in teasing the country kid.
After their food supply is depleted, they occasionally buy food. But they also rely on the kindness of strangers. In one scene, they are invited to dinner with a Mexican family. The two little girls in the family enjoy laughing at Blevins when he leans back and falls off the bench at the table.
The three boys get some fermented drink from some migrant traders, which makes them very drunk and sick. They leave to continue their journey.
A storm comes and Blevins is afraid of lightning and tells stories about his relatives who have been struck dead. He tries to outride the storm. John Grady and Rawlins find him the next morning, naked except for undershorts. He has removed all of his clothes so that he is wearing no metal and will not attract lightning. His horse and pistol are gone, and all his clothes, except one boot, have washed away.
In a dangerous and comic scene, the three boys recover the horse they find in a village. Water becomes even more of a problem than it has been in the past, and the horses start to suffer. John Grady and Rawlins split ways with Blevins, whose horse is stronger; Blevins tries to get the pursuers to follow him.
Finally, John Grady and Rawlins come upon grass that has been described to them as part of a beautiful hacienda. The vaqueros, or cowboys, tending the cattle let them follow along, and the foreman takes them to the manager’s house. A young girl in English riding gear rides by from the marsh on a black Arabian horse. John Grady and Rawlins are hired on and sleep in the bunkhouse.
