Lonesome Dove

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1985

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Part 2, Chapters 36-40Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2, Chapter 36 Summary

Elmira is glad to have escaped, but the buffalo hunters and whiskey traders on the boat are a rough crowd. She only talks to a man named Fowler. Occasionally, she reflects on the fact that she never wanted her son and waited twelve years to get away from him.

There is a fight one morning. A buffalo trader called Big Zwey kills a man who has been talking about taking advantage of Elmira. Fowler says Zwey protected her because he wants to marry her. She never talks to Zwey, and he never speaks to her, but he watches her. She is annoyed that another man is already trying to own her.

Part 2, Chapter 37 Summary

Roscoe hates traveling as he follows July. A day after leaving, he meets a farmer named Louisa Brooks who is pulling stumps in the woods. She gives Roscoe an axe and tells him to work. She’s frustrated with his ineptitude and can’t believe he’s a deputy. Over supper, she tells him to stay and marry her. She proposes a test run. Roscoe demurs and sleeps in the shed. He wakes to Louisa straddling him. They have sex and he’s embarrassed that the chickens are watching. In the morning, he says that he will see her on the way back and make a decision. As he rides away, he fights tears in his eyes and isn’t sure why they are there.

Part 2, Chapter 38 Summary

Joe wishes that July would talk more. They meet two farmers who have seen Jake, so they are on the right track. Nevertheless, July feels that something is wrong, worse than he can explain. He feels bad that he isn’t talking to Joe more, but he can’t get over the vague worry.

They help a man pull his mule and cart from a stream. His name is Sedgwick and he’s collecting insects. He says that one day insects will cover the earth after mankind dies and that he can see a heavy shadow in July. He continues the eccentric conversation until they leave. July thinks the man is unwell, but he was insightful enough to see the burden that July is carrying.

Part 2, Chapter 39 Summary

The men talk about the snakes and Sean’s death for a week. Dish has exceeded everyone’s expectations as an expert hand. They’re all frightened about the next river, as well as the threat of Comanche warriors. Gus tells Call that they have to let the men talk about the death until it grows boring. When they reach the next river, the water is peaceful, and the crossing is easy. Even the pigs enjoy the swim.

Part 2, Chapter 40 Summary

Lorena enjoys the travel but grows increasingly exasperated with Jake’s attitude. He still wants to argue about San Antonio, but she refuses. He gets drunk and feels sorry for himself. In his stupor, he remembers Elmira and smiles at the thought of July marrying a sporting girl without realizing it. Jake wants to leave Lorena but can’t. Her beauty is so singular that it holds him in place. He tells her that a fortune-teller said he’d hang one day. He also tells her that Call used to visit a woman named Maggie, who had given birth to Newt. However, he says they don’t know who Newt’s father is.

Chapters 36-40 Analysis

Chapters 36-40 are largely logistical, moving the characters farther down their paths but without critical action. The men’s stories about the dangers of Comanche warriors serve as a reminder that the territories they will pass through are not peaceful and foreshadow the human violence that will soon follow the natural disasters of the preceding chapters. The next block of chapters introduces the terrifying character of Blue Duck, who will prove to be as villainous and cruel as any characters the men can imagine around the campfire.

July’s nameless worry is a foreshadowing device. He knows he is on a dangerous mission, but there is something else bothering him, and he can’t define it. His conversation with the eccentric entomologist, Sedgwick, is tinged with fatalism. Sedgwick speaks almost fondly of the day when mankind will be gone, and insects will cover any trace that humans ever existed. Even he notices the grave cloud that hovers over July.

Roscoe’s function thus far is to serve as comic relief. His interactions with Louisa are humorous. They also give McMurtry a chance to highlight the types of people who inhabit the isolated parts of the West. Louisa, Sedgwick, and others that Roscoe and July will meet are so eccentric that they almost seem unstable, but they are still able to survive—even to thrive—in their harsh environment. In keeping with the novel’s theme of The Flawed Dream of the American West, the plains are portrayed as the home not of freedom and self-sufficiency but of danger and extreme eccentricity.

Elmira’s experience helps develop the theme of men taking ownership of women. Big Zwey will prove to be spectacularly slow of thought, but he already believes that Elmira will belong to him, simply because it is what he wishes. The scene with Louisa and Roscoe is a humorous inversion of Elmira’s experience with the buffalo hunters. Louisa practically assaults the hapless Roscoe in her attempts to force him to marry her. Zwey is mostly silent but is still able to make his intentions known; he intends to marry Elmira, and her opinions on the matter do not factor into his primitive calculations.