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Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Summary

Elmira's history and her contempt. She eats apart from July and her son Joe, sitting in the sleeping loft with her legs dangling over the table, and no longer hears a word her husband says. She was a sporting woman in Abilene and Dodge for fifteen years; her long attachment was to Dee Boot, a gambler who invented the smallpox story that made her a widow and told her to go be respectable. She married July out of fright after a buffalo hunter used her brutally. She knew Jake Spoon in Kansas, had thought of running off with him, and gave that up when he shot Benny. When July says he will go after Jake, she tells him to take Joe — and privately grasps the opening: with the pair of them gone, nothing stops her from taking a boat up the Arkansas to find Dee. She is also carrying a child she does not want and has not told July about.

Analysis

Backstory as indictment of the marriage rather than of Elmira. Her detachment from Joe is stated flatly and early, so his death later reads as her cost rather than her grief. Dee Boot is installed as the destination that makes her plot run — and he is already doomed.

Plates

July rides home at dusk and finds little Joe in the horse pen, his rope on the milk-pen calf again.
00 July rides home at dusk and finds little Joe in the horse pen, his rope on the milk-pen calf again.
Inside the cabin — Elmira sits up in the sleeping loft with her feet dangling over the table, the supper already cooked and set out below her.
01 Inside the cabin — Elmira sits up in the sleeping loft with her feet dangling over the table, the supper already cooked and set out below her.
Joe sets down the milk pail and lays his rope by his pallet on the dirt floor — the found rope that is his most prized possession.
02 Joe sets down the milk pail and lays his rope by his pallet on the dirt floor — the found rope that is his most prized possession.
July at the crock offering Joe buttermilk, and Elmira's sharp voice from the edge of the loft telling him to stop asking.
03 July at the crock offering Joe buttermilk, and Elmira's sharp voice from the edge of the loft telling him to stop asking.
The silent meal — July and Joe eat their cornbread and bacon while Elmira hangs her feet in the air above them and no one says another word.
04 The silent meal — July and Joe eat their cornbread and bacon while Elmira hangs her feet in the air above them and no one says another word.
Sent out for water, Joe stays outside in the stuffy dark catching fireflies and letting them flicker in his hand.
05 Sent out for water, Joe stays outside in the stuffy dark catching fireflies and letting them flicker in his hand.
July says he had better go and catch Jake Spoon; Elmira comes down from the loft, dips her face in the cool water and tells him to let Jake go.
06 July says he had better go and catch Jake Spoon; Elmira comes down from the loft, dips her face in the cool water and tells him to let Jake go.
Elmira sits down at the table opposite July and tells him to take Joe with him — the opening she has been waiting for.
07 Elmira sits down at the table opposite July and tells him to take Joe with him — the opening she has been waiting for.
Outside in the firefly dark, July sits saying nothing and then turns the chambers of his pistol one by one, the small metallic clicks that set her teeth on edge every night.
08 Outside in the firefly dark, July sits saying nothing and then turns the chambers of his pistol one by one, the small metallic clicks that set her teeth on edge every night.
July gone to make his rounds, Elmira sits alone on the stump as the moon rises over the pines and she smiles at the thought of going up the Arkansas to find Dee Boot.
09 July gone to make his rounds, Elmira sits alone on the stump as the moon rises over the pines and she smiles at the thought of going up the Arkansas to find Dee Boot.