Holes

The entire town hears about how Same and Kate were kissing. Led by Trout Walker, the man that Kate refused to go on a date with, men and women from Green Lake come to the schoolhouse to burn it down. Kate escapes and runs to the sheriff to get help, only to find out that he plans on hanging Sam since it is illegal for a Black man to kiss a white woman. The sheriff harasses Kate and tries to get her to kiss him before she escapes from his arms and runs off to warn Sam. She finds Sam by his boat with his donkey Mary Lou and tells him they need to escape. They leave Mary Lou behind and get in Sam’s boat, but are crashed into by Trout Walker’s boat. Trout shoots Sam dead in the water and rescues Kate against her wishes. Back at shore, Mary Lou’s body is on the ground because she was shot dead. Since then, “not one drop of rain has fallen on Green Lake” (115). Three days after the incident, Kate shoots the sheriff and kisses him with a fresh coat of red lipstick: “For the next twenty years Kissin’ Kate Barlow was one of the most feared outlaws in all the West” (115).

Back in present times, the boys are giving Stanley a hard time for letting Zero help dig his hole. Stanley tries to make them understand that it was part of the deal for helping Zero learn to read, “but the other boys just mocked him (117).” They make it sound like a race issue because Stanley is white and Zero is Black. Stanley knows that if X-Ray were the one teaching Zero, nobody would have an issue with the digging. Zero is a quick learner and Stanley teaches him how to write out his nickname. Zero tells him that it’s not his real name and that his real name is Hector Zeroni (119).

In the past, Kate Barlow returns to Green Lake after 20 years. Everything in the land is dead and the water is dried up. She stays at an old, abandoned cabin until one day she is woken up by Trout Walker, the man who killed Sam. He and his wife want to know where Kate buried all the money she stole over the years. She tells him “You, and your children, and their children, can dig for the next hundred years and you’ll never find it” (122). Trout and his wife take her out on the wasteland that is Green Lake and try to force Kate to tell them where her treasure is, but Kate gets bitten by a yellow-spotted lizard and dies laughing at them.