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Chapter 46

Chapter 46

Summary

Augustus sends Newt to watch over Lorena — young and innocent, so Jake won't shoot him — over Dish's furious objection, and sends Deets to track Blue Duck. Deets loses the trail in a creek and comes back uneasy, warning that they should watch the horses. Call, disturbed that anyone can slip Deets, takes his bedroll up onto a bluff to watch. There, cleaning a rifle that does not need it, he goes back over Maggie: the two months he climbed her back stairs after dark, her constant nervous talk, her hair that would not stay fixed, and the question that has never left him — can't you just say my name? He walked away instead, sat by the river, and let her drink herself to death, and he has carried the claim ever since. He knows he should acknowledge Newt and cannot, because it would mean admitting he failed someone. He ties the mare's rope around his waist before sleeping.

Analysis

The Maggie chapter — the novel's deepest excavation of Call, placed at the exact moment his inattention is about to cost Lorena everything. Her question, can't you just say my name, is the key to every withholding he performs afterwards, including the one that ends the book.

Plates

Newt and the Rainey boys ride in from the drags white with dust, and Pea Eye makes his nightly remark about the flour sack.
00 Newt and the Rainey boys ride in from the drags white with dust, and Pea Eye makes his nightly remark about the flour sack.
Dish Boggett walks off in a sulk after Augustus tells him he is too good a hand to be spared, while Newt, already sent, dwindles toward Jake's camp.
01 Dish Boggett walks off in a sulk after Augustus tells him he is too good a hand to be spared, while Newt, already sent, dwindles toward Jake's camp.
Unsaddling the mare, Call stops with his hands on the rigging at the mention of Blue Duck.
02 Unsaddling the mare, Call stops with his hands on the rigging at the mention of Blue Duck.
At the cook wagon Augustus works through a beefsteak and a plate of beans while Pea Eye, listening to talk of Blue Duck, feels his appetite go.
03 At the cook wagon Augustus works through a beefsteak and a plate of beans while Pea Eye, listening to talk of Blue Duck, feels his appetite go.
Without thinking, Call ropes the Hell Bitch out of the remuda again, the mare he has only just turned loose, while one of the Spettle boys watches and says nothing.
04 Without thinking, Call ropes the Hell Bitch out of the remuda again, the mare he has only just turned loose, while one of the Spettle boys watches and says nothing.
Call rides around the bedded herd to see that all is in place; the cattle are calm and Needle Nelson dozes in his saddle.
05 Call rides around the bedded herd to see that all is in place; the cattle are calm and Needle Nelson dozes in his saddle.
Deets rides back out of the fading light to say he lost Blue Duck in a creek and never found where he came out.
06 Deets rides back out of the fading light to say he lost Blue Duck in a creek and never found where he came out.
Call and Deets sit together and watch the full moon come up over the bed-grounds while the Texas bull lows across the valley.
07 Call and Deets sit together and watch the full moon come up over the bed-grounds while the Texas bull lows across the valley.
The memory that comes back to Call on the bluff — Maggie in the doorway at the top of the back stairs in Lonesome Dove, asking him whether he can't just say her name once.
08 The memory that comes back to Call on the bluff — Maggie in the doorway at the top of the back stairs in Lonesome Dove, asking him whether he can't just say her name once.
On the bluff's edge Call lies back against his saddle to sleep with the mare's rope wrapped carefully around his waist, the rifle he cleaned for nothing lying beside him.
09 On the bluff's edge Call lies back against his saddle to sleep with the mare's rope wrapped carefully around his waist, the rifle he cleaned for nothing lying beside him.