Chapter 87

Summary

A soldier brings word that a woman and a buffalo hunter were killed by Indians sixty miles east; July knows it was Elmira and is useless for days. Clara tells her daughters plainly that it is a sickness to grieve too much for people who never cared a fig for you, and that a bond has to work both ways. Then Augustus rides in with Call, Lorena and Newt. Clara walks off the porch and kisses him on the mouth, to her daughters' astonishment. She is warm to Lorena, hands the baby to Gus, drives a hard bargain on horses that leaves Call silent and put out, and takes them all on a picnic by the Platte. Walking back, she tells Gus flatly to leave Lorena with her rather than take her to Montana — and that Newt is plainly Call's son, whatever Call refuses to admit. She makes the boy a gift of a sorrel with a white star, and tells him he can come back for work any time.

Analysis

Every thread the novel has been running arrives at one kitchen. Clara kisses Gus in front of her daughters, out-trades Call, and identifies Newt's paternity at a glance — doing in an afternoon what the men have avoided for seventeen years. The star-faced sorrel is her verdict on Call.

Plates

00 Clara stands at the upstairs window with a clean sheet in her hand and watches four riders come down the far north slopes of the Platte.

01 July Johnson stands white-faced at the horse lot fence after the soldier's news, and tells Clara he has no doubt the dead woman was Ellie.

02 At the kitchen table Clara tells her daughters that it is a sickness to grieve too much for people who never cared a fig for you, and that a bond has to work both ways.

03 Clara walks straight off the porch into Augustus McCrae's arms and kisses him on the mouth, to the astonishment of her daughters and the despair of Lorena.

04 Clara hands July's baby to Augustus as if it were a package and goes back to her potatoes; Lorena reaches to take the child off him.

05 At the lots Clara names her price for the horses and does not come down; Call stands silent and put out, and Newt watches, shocked that anyone would stand up to the Captain.

06 Alone in the kitchen, Clara lays a hand on Gus's shoulder and tells him she lost three boys and needed a friend, and that it rankles Woodrow Call got so much of him.

07 The picnic three miles west on the Platte — Gus wading with the girls, Call sitting apart with the buttermilk, July refusing to take off his boots.

08 Walking home behind the wagon, Clara tells Gus to leave Lorena with her and that Newt is plainly Call's son — and a big grey wolf lopes up out of the riverbed, looks at them, and lopes on.