78 pages • 2 hours read
Edward AbbeyThe Monkey Wrench Gang
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1975A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 29-Epilogue Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 29 Summary: “Land's End: One Man Left”
Now on their own, Smith and Hayduke sit together on "the rimrock of the Fins" (385), looking towards Lizard Rock, the site of their cache. They see "a fresh and bigger helicopter" (384), a campfire, tents, and several bedrolls and men around the fire. It's dawn, and the sky holds "an unbroken mass of violet clouds, immanent with storm" (384). Smith says it's just "dumb luck" (384) their pursuers have camped right on top of their cache. He says they'll have to head to the other cache at Frenchy's Spring. Hayduke says they aren't heading that way; instead, they're going to the Maze. Smith says they probably shouldn't because it's hard to find "permanent water" (385) or game there. He thinks they should head north to Green River, to stay with one of his wives, Susan.
Hayduke says they'll arrest Smith if he tries to go home. Smith thinks Susan can handle Bishop Love but Hayduke reminds him it'll be the state police, FBI, and maybe even the CIA after them. Smith reflects and then says he thinks Hayduke could survive if he could reach the river in the Maze. Hayduke says if he can get a deer once a month, he'll survive. He can use the food caches until then. Smith gives Hayduke a sad smile and says it won't be the food or the weather that will get to Hayduke; it will be "the lonesomeness" (386). Hayduke says Smith might be right but he has to try it. Hayduke adds that he’s always wanted to live alone, "out in the wilderness" (386).
Hayduke says there must be some way to distract the authorities, but Smith says they should rest first. They "retreat five hundred yards into the darkness" (387) and hide under a ledge, behind some "fallen slabs of sandstone" (387). It begins to rain, and Smith falls into a deep sleep. Hayduke "schemes and dreams and cannot sleep" (387). He thinks about getting around his final obstacle, "the enemy camp beside his supply cache" (388), so he can finally be a “pure predator.”
Lightning and thunder begin striking; Smith, comforted by the sound, continues to sleep. Hayduke turns his "greasy, worn socks" (388) inside out so he can continue wearing them. He pulls on his boots and leaves the sleeping place. Hayduke carries only his rifle, his .357 revolver, and his rock rope. Pulling his cap down over his eyes, Hayduke "jogs into the storm" (389), towards Lizard Rock.
Smith wakes, "not surprised but a little hurt" (389), to find Hayduke gone. He wishes he could have said "so long (for now)" (389). Using the rain as cover, Smith thinks Hayduke can make his way to Frenchy's Spring, find the food cache, then "be ready for the sixty-mile walk home to Green River" (390). Smith, too, heads out, and up "the Golden Stairs" (391) to a plateau. He stops to rest, out of sight of Lizard Rock, then awakens to the sound of "gunfire, far away, remote, hardly within the realm of his consciousness" (391). He then hears "a rolling barrage" (392) of more gunfire. Smith can't believe Hayduke "could be dumb enough to get in a gun battle" (392) with whoever camped out at Lizard Rock. However, Smith knows it's too late to turn back and help Hayduke.
Smith continues walking until he reaches the Maze Overlook, in the national park. Stumbling, "exhausted, blister-footed, cold" (392), Smith passes a group of elderly women, using binoculars to look over towards the "panoramic ten-ring circus" (392) at Lizard Rock. They stare at Smith with "fear and suspicion" (392). Smith ignores them, knowing he has only ten miles to Frenchy's Spring. He passes the women's campsite, eyeing their ice chest. Smith "senses meat" (392) and can't help himself. He reaches into their ice chest and pulls out "two cool packages wrapped in white butcher paper" (393). One of the women spots him and yells. Smith runs into the woods.
Sinking to the ground, Smith opens one package and finds raw "lean red hamburger reeking with protein" (393). He eats it raw then falls asleep. He awakens to "some sonofabitch" (393) kicking his foot. Smith opens his eyes to see two young rangers, one holding "what appears to be a plucked chicken" (393) in one hand. Smith recognizes one of the rangers as the one who hassled Bonnie and Doc back at Black Mesa. The ranger tells Smith they got a complaint against him for stealing hamburger and chicken. Smith says he's never seen the chicken before. He admits that he stole the hamburger.
The rangers place Smith under arrest for theft and "camping in a nondesignated camping area" (395). Smith protests then begins to fall asleep again. The rangers pull him to his feet and handcuff him. They lead Smith, "smiling in his dreams, snoring softly" (395), to their vehicle. In their car, the young ranger, smiling, tells his companion that they "got Rudolf the Red" (396). He radios the chief to tell him. The chief congratulates them but says they didn't get Rudolf the Red. He explains that Rudolf the Red was shot an hour ago. They need to bring Smith in anyway, though. As they begin to drive away, a "tourist car" (396) pulls up alongside them. The anxious-looking couple inside asks for "the nearest comfort stations" (396). The rangers point out the directions and the visitors drive away. The young ranger comments to his companion that he likes their work. They get "so many opportunities to be helpful to people" (397). In his dreams, Smith laughs to himself about this statement and the comfort stations. He thinks that they sure need Hayduke now.
Chapter 30 Summary: “Edge of the Maze: The Chase Concluded”
Using the heavy rain as cover, Hayduke makes his way to a vantage point near Lizard Rock and, using his rifle's scope, surveys the scene. He sees a few armed men and the gray Department of Public Safety helicopter. Hayduke, imagining the food, clean socks, first aid kit, and ammunition stashed there, considers what to do next. Hayduke slinks off to a concealed spot and dozes into "quick, erratic and uncomfortable" (400) dreams. He awakens to the sound of "racing motors" (400). The rain has lessened, too. Using his rifle's scope again, Hayduke sees the men, including one official-looking man who reminds Hayduke of the officers in Vietnam.
The official-looking man and another get into the helicopter, which takes off into the mist. At the camp, two more men get into a four-wheel-drive pickup and leave. Hayduke sees "no humans apparent" (401). He waits a while then makes his move towards the camp. Within a few yards of the camp, "an Airedale puppy" (402) runs towards him, barking. Two men emerge from one of the tents and see Hayduke.
Hayduke begins running toward the rim of the Maze, his ribs "cracking from the pain" (402) of the previous night's fall into the juniper tree. He ends up in a finger-like canyon of slickrock that ends at a drop-off. He sees he's got six shots in his rifle and twenty-five in the .357. He's forgotten his rope. Below the drop-off, "a semiliquid red frothy mass of mud" (403) hurls itself through the canyon towards Green River, some miles away.
The helicopter approaches and Hayduke hears gunfire. He slips himself into a fissure in the rimrock so deep he can't see its bottom. He wedges himself in the crack, his back against one wall and his knees against the other. His eyes, arms, and rifle remain above the ground's surface. Terrified, Hayduke defecates in his pants. The helicopter "rattles in for the kill" (404). Hayduke fires his rifle at the helicopter, narrowly missing the pilot's face. The pilot turns the helicopter around and Hayduke fires a second shot at its tail, hitting "the gearbox of the rear rotor" (404). The helicopter, "more insulted than injured" (404), appears to fly back towards camp.
Hayduke waits as men on the ground surround him but hold their fire. Hayduke finds a more secure spot and "pulls off his stinking pants" (404). He uses a branch from the cliff-rose bush that conceals him to scrape the feces from his pants then lays them out to dry in the sun.
Sam Love arrives on the scene after dropping off Doc, Bonnie, and his brother, Bishop Love, at the Intensive Care Unit of the Moab hospital. "Merely an onlooker now" (405), Sam waits with a newspaper reporter from Salt Lake City. The reporter tells Sam where Hayduke is: "bunkered down in […] the rock, between those two bushes out there" (405). Sam wonders why, if Hayduke is "probably out of shells" (406), the men don't "rush him before it gets dark" (406). The reporter asks if Sam wants to lead the charge and Sam says he doesn't. Sam warns that "Rudolf has a funny way of disappearing over canyon rims" (406) but the reporter says they have him surrounded. Sam wonders Hayduke he doesn't surrender, and the reporter says he's not "a regular criminal" (406) but a "real weirdo" (406). Sam agrees.
Suddenly, a "fusillade of gunfire" (407) bursts from the firing line towards their singular target. Sam watches as Hayduke is "torn apart before his eyes" (407). Having never seen this kind of visceral violence, Sam feels "horrified, sickened and fascinated" (407) as Hayduke's "body ripped and fragmented, chips, rags, splinters, slivers flying off" (407). Hayduke's body hangs on the rimrock for a moment until the bullets push it over the edge and into "the foaming gulf of the canyon" (407).
No one finds the body, but they do find "the splintered remnants of a once-beautiful scope-mounted Remington .30-06" (408), with one cartridge left unfired. They wonder why Hayduke never used it. Some of the state police officers confirm they saw Hayduke fall into the canyon. All the men present walk back to the camp at Lizard Rock. Sam, though, lingers. He walks to the crack in the rock where Hayduke had hidden. He calls to Hayduke in the darkness, saying, "Rudolf […] are you down in there?" (409). Hearing no reply, Sam hastens after the others.
Epilogue Summary: “The New Beginning”
The trial proceedings begin for Bonnie, Doc, and Smith. They are arraigned in San Juan County District Court on several misdemeanor and felony charges each. The judge sets bail at $20,000, which "Doc promptly arranged to have paid" (410). After their release, the three next appear at the Federal District Court in Phoenix, Arizona. There, they receive several felony charges and one misdemeanor. Again, Doc pays their bail.
After a few months' delay, the state of Utah tries the gang's case first. The prosecutor, J. Bracken Dingledine, the "distant cousin" (411) of the prosecutor on whom Doc performed the hemorrhoidectomy, is also an old friend of Bishop Love. For the gang's defense, Doc has chosen a young graduate of Yale Law School, with family connections in the Southwest, and an elderly, highly-esteemed "descendant of Mormon pioneers" (411) named Snow. The defendants begin by plea bargaining, saying they'll plead guilty to the misdemeanors if the felony charges are dropped. The prosecutor refuses to bargain. Doc's attorneys get two "closet Sierra Clubbers" (411) and "a retired Paiute and active wino" (411) seated on the jury.
The prosecution, however, does not have "an airtight case" (411). The incriminating materials in Smith's truck and Hayduke's jeep haven't been brought in as evidence because the vehicles have never been found. Bishop Love, now with a heart softened towards the gang's cause, testifies that they saw and pursued someone driving Smith's truck twice, though they can't say for sure it was Smith. The only solid piece of damning evidence against the gang is their fleeing from the scene of a crime, and evading arrest at least twice. They all deny knowledge of "the rock-rolling incident north of Hite Marina" (411) and the shootout near the Maze. After three days of hearing testimony, the jury can't come to an agreement. A retrial gets scheduled for four months later.
Before the second trial, Doc, per their lawyers' advice, converts to Mormonism. He marries Bonnie at a ceremony performed by Bishop Love—"a new man!" (412)—and attended by Smith, his teenage daughter, and Sam Love. The defendants plead guilty to all misdemeanors and one felony each: "the conspiracy to destroy public property" (412). Bonnie and Smith refuse to recant their crimes, which leads to trouble with sentencing. Doc, however, says he "influenced, indoctrinated and knowingly misled his younger colleagues" (412). He pledges to "retread their brains, socialize their hearts and bring them back to Christ" (412). Doc also agrees to practice medicine for the next ten years in a southeast Utah town with a population of less than 10,000 people.
The judge sentences the three defendants to terms of less than one year and not more than five years, but suspends them considering their otherwise clean records. He orders them to serve six months each in the San Juan County Jail, then four and a half years each on probation. Smith is fined $299 for damaging Bishop Love's Chevrolet Blazer with rocks but Love "forgave the debt" (413). The Federal District Court in Phoenix drops charges against the defendants, given that the "prime suspect involved in those matters" (413), Hayduke, "was known to be dead" (413).
The Loves quit the Search and Rescue, and all but one of Smith's wives, Susan, "the Green River girl" (414), divorce him. Bonnie and Doc settle in a custom houseboat on Green River, next door to Smith and Susan's watermelon farm. There, Doc practices medicine and Bonnie grows "a floating garden of marijuana, easily launched downriver" (414). Doc tries to be a good Mormon though "his actual ambition was to grow up to be a jack Mormon" (414).
One evening, during the gang's second year of probation, they—Doc, Bonnie, Smith, Susan, and Greenspan, their "communal probation officer" (415—sit at Doc's houseboat, playing five-card stud. In the middle of the game, Doc hears "steady hoofbeats coming closer" (416). It seems Bonnie, "staring glumly at the table" (416), doesn't. Smith merely shrugs. Doc hears the hoofbeats stop and "human feet in boots" (417) stepping onto the houseboat's plank mooring. Doc pulls his cigar from his mouth and says he thinks they have a visitor. He excuses himself and goes to the door.
In the lamplight, Doc sees "a tall, thin figure" (417). The man, with a voice "soft and low but full of a practiced menace" (417), asks if he's Doc Sarvis. He tells Doc there's a friends of his out there who "needs some doctoring" (417). Doc tells the others he'll be back and goes out the door. He follows the stranger to the riverbank, where a horse stands. Doc notices the man has a bandanna over his nose and mouth and only "one dark eye" (418). Doc asks "who the hell" (418) the stranger is and he replies that Doc doesn't really want to know. Doc asks where "this alleged friend of mine" (418) is and the stranger asks if Doc believes in ghosts. Doc replies he believes in "the ghosts that haunt the human mind" (418) and the stranger says this one "ain't that kind" (418).
Doc follows the stranger up the riverbank and hears a familiar voice say, "I'm right up here, Doc" (418). Doc feels his skin crawl and looks up at "a stocky wide-shouldered brawny man with sombrero" (418). He recognizes Hayduke and sighs. Doc says he thought they shot him "to pieces at Lizard Rock" (419). Hayduke says it wasn't him but "a scarecrow" (410). Doc says he doesn't understand and Hayduke says he'll explain it if Doc will invite him in. Doc explains that their probation officer is inside. Hayduke says they'll leave. Doc says they should wait at Smith's house. Doc, staring at Hayduke, asks if it's really him. Hayduke invites him up to "feel the wounds" (419) and Doc walks up to shake Hayduke's hand. Doc finds Hayduke to feel and smell the same as he always did. Hayduke asks after Smith and Bonnie, whom he finds out if pregnant with Doc's baby. This makes Hayduke smile "sadly and happily and foolishly, all at once, like a liberated lion" (420).
Hayduke tells Doc his name is Fred Goodsell now. He got a job as a night watchman so he can "be a regular fucking citizen" (420) like Doc, Bonnie and Smith. From the houseboat, Bonnie calls to Doc. He tells Hayduke he has to go back but Hayduke should wait for them. Hayduke says they're not going anywhere. He compliments the job Doc and Seldom did on the bridge at Glen Canyon but Doc says it wasn't them and they have "witnesses to prove it" (420). This amuses Hayduke. He asks Doc if he's going to ask where he got a job as a night watchman. Doc says he doesn’t think he wants to know, but he can guess. With that, Hayduke and the stranger gallop off into the night.
Back in the houseboat, Doc returns to the poker game, "puffing vigorously on a dead cigar" (421). Bonnie asks who was out there and Doc replies, "Nobody" (421). Greenspan says it's the last game. Doc says to deal him in.
Chapter 29-Epilogue Analysis
The question of land ownership, or at least stewardship, recurs throughout The Monkey Wrench Gang. Like Doc and Hayduke, Smith refers to Utah and its surrounding landscape as his country. For Smith, there can be no trespassing, or "camping in a nondesignated camping area" (395), nor use for "comfort stations" (396). The whole landscape belongs to the public. While Smith feels like a patriot, he, like his fellow gang members, has no sense of history, nor concern for indigenous peoples of the Southwest. Because Smith was born and raised in Utah, he feels more entitled to the land than anyone else.
While Doc, Bonnie, and Smith have to straighten up to avoid harsh sentencing for their crimes, Hayduke gets to have things his way. Hayduke tries to hold onto both his dreams and dignity, even in the face of extreme hopelessness. When he soils his pants from fear, he shucks them: "willing to die today but […] not willing to die sitting in his own shit" (404). After the ordeal with the state police and a miraculous resurrection, Doc finds Hayduke in "the same smelly solid" (419) state as before, with "no improvement at all" (419). Doc seems disappointed that Hayduke has achieved no sense of transcendence or growth from their shared experiences. Hayduke has made some changes, though, as he's shifted tactics from explosive violence to infiltrating operations as "a regular fucking citizen" (420).
