Lonesome Dove

Zwey doesn’t understand why Elmira doesn’t want the baby. He thinks that they are married and that the baby is his. Elmira gets feverish and hallucinates. A man in town says Dee is in jail. Zwey carries her to the jail, where a deputy named Leon takes her to Dee. He says they’re going to hang him for killing a boy. She starts to bleed again and Zwey carries her out as she loses consciousness.

July feels cursed all over again. His new horse cripples itself quickly, and he walks back to Dodge City. He remembers an incident from Memphis, years earlier. A man named John Fisher had returned to town to see his wife being buried. The telegram informing him of her death was never delivered. He died a year later, wondering if he could have saved her.

Red ants and a snake bite his leg in the night. He grows delirious and talks with Roscoe. Five days later, he eventually reaches the house where Clara lives. Clara realizes that he is Elmira’s husband. She is already attached to the baby. He starts to cry when she says Elmira was there. The crying shocks Clara’s girls. She tells July the baby is his, and that she calls him Martin.

Gus returns to Lorena after three days. He tells her about Jake, but she doesn’t care. She is more worried about the constant presence of death. That night she dreams that Gus dies, but she can’t find his body. She is also worried that he will marry the woman in Ogallala, but he tries to reassure her that Clara is married. She tries to get him to go into the tent with her, thinking that if she can please him physically he might forget about Clara. Instead, he pulls their mat outside and holds her under the stars.

Newt can’t forget about Jake’s final moments. The men speculate about him constantly. Deets talk to Newt and tries to make him feel better. Newt hates that Gus and Call hadn’t even heard Jake out before hanging him. Call also thinks about Jake and the various ways in which he could have saved him. He hopes Gus will leave Lorena with Clara. The men are excited to go to Ogallala, but they’re worried that Call won’t pay them. He says they’ll receive half wages, and they celebrate.

Elmira’s fever ends. A doctor who has been treating her tells her that Dee is to be hanged for killing a nine-year-old boy. Zwey says Luke left. One day July walks in. She doesn’t care when he tells her about Joe and Roscoe, or when he says that Martin is alive. She says nothing, and neither does Zwey when July thanks him for helping her.

Elmira tells Zwey they are going to St. Louis after July leaves. The postman tells her that they will lose their scalps if they go east. She decides that if July follows her, she’ll ask Zwey to kill him. Zwey worries about the Sioux, but she insists on leaving.