The Son

Eli explains the Comanche method for hunting buffalo. Each part of the buffalo is used by the band, leaving only the heart to seek the blessing of more buffalo.

Grandmother Sally returns from Dallas every so often to look after Jeannie’s grooming. When Jeannie is in eighth grade, Sally enrolls her in Greenfield, a Connecticut boarding school. She gives Jeannie a $20,000 set of pearls to wear at social gatherings at the school. Jeannie’s eldest brother Jonas meets her at the Connecticut train station.

The appeal of Greenfield is not lost on Jeannie, but her appreciation is tempered by her schoolmates’ behaviors. All of them belong to affluent families and have known each other since primary school. They ask Jeannie about life in Texas, but intimate that she will one day become someone’s wife like the rest of them.

During a sleepover at her friend Corkie Halloran’s house, Jeannie goes horseback riding. The other girls refuse to admit that Jeannie is one of the best riders among them, so they condescend to her technique. Later that night, she returns to the stable alone and is shocked by the differences between life there and life on the ranch. She bumps into Corkie’s father, a novelist whose family has links to Texas. He appears to have been crying. Corkie later tells Jeannie not to bother him again.

Jeannie spends the following weekend with Jonas, who assures her that she will get used to the Northeast. She meets Jonas’s friends, who mock her for being from Texas. Back at Greenfield, Jeannie is told she will need to bring a date to the fall dance, which she dreads.

She packs her things and looks for somewhere to sell her grandmother’s pearls. She insists upon selling them to a pair of Jewish pawnshop owners, who will only accept them for $1,000. She returns to Texas, pretending the pearls were stolen. This decision is the turning point of her life; if she had remained at Greenfield, she might have become like Jonas, who is comfortable and beloved by his family.

Peter secretly tends to the mass grave of the Garcias. Peter’s brother, Phineas, who takes after Eli more than Peter does, discourages Peter from visiting the Garcia estate. Phineas thinks that Peter is too sentimental to fit into the cutthroat environment around them. He suggests entering the oil business to meet the costs of maintaining the ranch. Peter is reluctant to accept his advice but later realizes that their family now owns the bulk of the surrounding land. He considers buying more to increase their yield.

Sally accuses Peter of preferring the Garcias to his son Glenn.

Epidemics of smallpox and cholera wipe out the Penateka, an affluent Comanche band. The Kotsoteka band moves to avoid illness, accepting refugees from other nations.

Many of the men join a massive raiding party to maintain the band’s upkeep. Young women visit Eli to tell him their secrets. Hates Work’s sister, Prairie Flower, visits him for sex. She later comments that he is too nice and pities him for having so few friends. Eli becomes enamored with her but realizes that because of her high bride price and her relationship with a warrior named Charges the Enemy, they cannot be together.

Eli realizes that he could make a clean escape with most of the men away. He remembers, however, that he has no one to return to—only his father, who failed to rescue him. Eli contents himself with the knowledge that he is experiencing the most enjoyable summer of his life.

The Kotsoteka people prepare for winter. They have yet to hear from the raiding party, which raises fears that something has gone wrong. A fraction of the original party finally arrives in December, many of them suffering from injuries sustained in a joint ambush conducted by the United States and Mexico. Charges the Enemy is among the dead, driving Prairie Flower into a period of grief.

Jeannie is summoned to Austin, Texas, by Great-Uncle Phineas, who runs the Railroad Commission that influences the movement of oil around the country. As a new high school graduate, Jeannie assumes that Phineas is going to offer her work. Phineas instead complains about the state of the McCullough ranch, which Charles is running into bankruptcy with his focus on the cattle business. Phineas suspects that Charles is waiting for his inheritance from Phineas to save the ranch.

Jeannie realizes that Phineas needs her help to usurp the ranch from Charles, transitioning to the oil business to boost their profits. While she is uneasy about betraying her father, she realizes that Phineas is right. The demand for oil skyrockets following the United States’s entry into World War II.

Returning home, Jeannie reflects upon her relationship with her controlling father, who has always preferred the ranch to her. When Charles suggests that Jeannie should attend Southwestern University, Jeannie is forced to reveal her conversation with Phineas and call Charles out on his poor business decisions. Sally later rebukes Jeannie and advises her to think about whether she prefers to be loved or respected. Jeannie is embarrassed by her family’s weakness. Sally encourages Jeannie to get married and escape life on the ranch.

Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa attacks New Mexico, emboldening the McCulloughs’ neighbors to kill more Tejano residents. Charles flees after he kills a man who has accused the McCulloughs of engineering the Garcia massacre to steal their land. Eli and Peter convince Charles to return and then convince the sheriff to let him spend just one night in prison instead of forcing him to stand trial for murder. Peter is torn, knowing that the guilt that plagues him is the same feeling that motivated Charles to kill.

The townspeople fear the McCulloughs. Anticipating the Mexican assault, Eli and Peter await the arrival of a Lewis gun—a machine gun—to defend themselves. Sally declares her intent to permanently move to the city for the safety of her sons.

Among the Comanche nations, it is customary for a famous person or close relative to give each child a unique name. These names can reflect interesting details or affirm personality traits. Eli discusses how various members of the Kotsoteka band were named.

Eli joins a raiding party in Escuté’s place. Nuukaru feels uneasy after the outcome of the previous year’s raid and the depletion of the Penateka band.

The raiding party finds a camp of dead Kotsoteka people, whom they bury. Toshaway suspects that the Texas Rangers are responsible, but Eli doesn’t believe it until he realizes that they used cannons to attack. Toshaway deduces that someone must have betrayed the Kotsoteka group. They later spot a camp of white army soldiers but decide to slip past them rather than attack, in order to preserve their numbers.

The party conducts a successful first raid on a town with 1,000 horses. The raiders praise Eli for his speed and bravery but teach him to improve his marksmanship. Soon, Nuukaru notices they are being followed by a large group. They split the party up to escape. Eli is placed with the group meant to bait their pursuers. The raiders win the ensuing gunfight, though Toshaway is mildly wounded. They realize that the white and the Mexican troops are working with the Apache nation to kill them.

Eli decides to lead the party through an open flat to ensure Toshaway’s survival. Toshaway discourages this, knowing that it will put their party at greater risk, but Eli insists. At a creek, Eli encounters a white man, whom he scalps. Later, Eli performs surgery on Toshaway to remove his injured muscle. Before reaching home, Toshaway affirms Eli’s formidable spirit, stressing that all Comanche people are descended from captives, which is how they remain strong.

Jeannie’s brothers Paul and Clint die in World War II.

Charles disappears while riding his horse out on a stormy night. He is found dead days later, having been swept away by a rush of water. With Jonas still away, it falls upon Jeannie to run the ranch and organize Charles’s funeral. Jeannie soon learns that she, not Jonas, has inherited Charles’s share of the estate. The funeral is well-attended. Jeannie is intimidated by the city men around Phineas.

Jonas returns from the war. He invites Jeannie to start a new life in Berlin, Germany, insisting that without any suitors, there is no point in Jeannie trying to maintain their property in Texas. Jeannie insists that she is happy at the ranch.

After several days of anxiety and grief, Jeannie realizes that Phineas will not come to help her. She takes on the work of managing the ranch herself. Soon, a man from the Southern Minerals Company makes an offer to buy her estate. Jeannie refuses and is intimidated by the man’s aggressive behavior. After threatening to call the sheriff, she arms herself in case he tries to break in. She only feels at ease after telling her ranch hands how the company man made her feel, intending to make them do something about him.

The McCullough ranch experiences drought. Eli organizes farmers to minimize its impact on the area. With Eli’s encouragement, Peter’s sons enlist to participate in the First World War. Peter urges them to wait until they can find workers to replace them, but that does little to convince them.

Eli and Peter test the Lewis gun. Eli muses on the damage Lewis guns might do in the war. Peter's bookishness makes him resemble Eli’s brother, Martin. Although that seems to underscore Peter’s failure to belong, Peter acknowledges that he likes being a McCullough. This turns Eli silent, prompting Peter to compare their relationship to that of the Greek hero Odysseus and one of his sons, either the heroic Telemachus or the forgotten Telegonus.

Sally prepares to move to Dallas, acknowledging the enmity between her and Peter. She gives him one last chance to share his honest thoughts with her, which Peter fails to do. She bargains to maintain their relationship as long as Peter can promise to spend some time in the city with her. Peter declines, citing the need to look after the ranch. Once Sally acknowledges Peter’s decision, they have sex and part ways. Conscious of his pronounced loneliness, Peter lets most of the house staff go.

The raid is considered a moderate success. Prairie Flower and Eli begin a public relationship.

Toward the end of summer, the Kotsoteka group captures a white buffalo hunter. They bring him to the camp to be tortured, slowly burning his hands and feet to extend his suffering. Eli takes pity on him and considers killing him, but Toshaway warns him not to frustrate the wishes of the band.

Eli goes hunting for a rattlesnake to milk its venom. That night, while everyone is asleep, he feeds the venom to the buffalo hunter. Prairie Flower catches him and confronts him, revealing that Eli is expected to become chief. She shares that when she was young, white men brutally murdered her family. Eli tries to relate this to his experience but is quickly reminded that the Comanche band does not permit him to speak about his previous family.

After the buffalo hunter dies, Toshaway gives Eli his permission to seek Prairie Flower’s hand in marriage. Eli is gifted a buffalo robe and a private tipi.

Illness soon begins to spread among the Kotsoteka people.

After World War II ends, oil remains an extremely valuable resource. Although the workers saw to it that Southern Minerals would not bother Jeannie again, a man from Humble Oil brings Jeannie a more generous offer for the McCullough estate. Jeannie will only accept if the company agrees to plow the entire area. She then counteroffers licensing her oil wells to their pipeline, which the man declines on the basis of competition. He tries to convince her that drilling her own oil will be more expensive for her. Jeannie abruptly leaves their meeting.

She calls Phineas to tell him about the oil companies. He offers to introduce her to someone who can help.

While entertaining guests, Eli falsely claims that their farm is profitable. He becomes furious when one of their neighbors mocks his claim in public.

A neighboring family, the Pinkards, sells their ranch. Because of the drought and the changes in the industry, the Pinkard family patriarch urges Peter to take his chances elsewhere. Eli buys a portion of the Pinkard estate for drilling purposes. To make up the capital, he sells the part of the ranch where they keep the bulls, which raises problems for Peter.

Eli brings in a rig to speculate for drilling sites. Some of the Tejano ranch hands leave for Mexico when the state government announces an expansion of the Rangers. Few of the area’s original families remain.

In June, Maria Garcia, who has returned, visits Peter.

The Kotsoteka people try to combat the epidemic spreading through the band, but it is useless. Eli is unaffected because of the vaccines he received as a child.

The successful raiding party that bears Escuté and Nuukaru is turned away from the camp to keep them from infection. Certain that he will die, Toshaway bids his son farewell until they are reunited in the afterlife.

Eli unwittingly passes the illness to Prairie Flower, who dies soon after she develops boils and a fever. Eli looks after Toshaway, who tells him the story of a purification ritual he once performed to ensure that one of his bandsmen’s sons would die bravely in battle. Eli refuses to fight Toshaway. Toshaway consoles him over the loss of Prairie Flower. Soon, most of the band dies.

Before he dies, Toshaway urges Eli to have the next band he joins killed by the whites instead of by an epidemic. Eli helps to bury the dead. While digging Toshaway’s grave, Eli finds the remains of an extinct, long-forgotten people. He tries to share his discovery with Toshaway, but Toshaway has already died.