Chapter 80

Elmira's fever breaks in the house of Dr. Patrick Arandel, a coughing, whiskey-smelling man who refuses payment because he came west to get away from money. Big Zwey stands at the window day and night, sleeping against the wall. When she learns Dee Boot was hanged on schedule a week after she arrived, she starts spitting out her medicine, wanting to die; the doctor's patience and Zwey's keep her alive anyway. She considers asking Zwey to shoot her and never does. Then July walks in. She will not look at him or speak — not when he tells her Joe is dead, not when he tells her about the baby. As soon as he rides away she tells Zwey to fetch the wagon, and they leave Ogallala eastward at sundown, into country the livery man says the Sioux are raiding. She no longer fears Indians. Her only worry is that July will follow, and that Zwey may have to kill him.

Elmira survives and finds it unbearable. The novel's bleakest joke: two patient men keep alive a woman with nothing left to want. Her refusal to look at July is the same refusal she has made all along, and she leaves east into Sioux country without fear, which is the point.