63 pages • 2 hours read
James WelchWinter In The Blood
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1974A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 18-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2
Part 2, Chapter 18 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual assault.
Back at the farm, the narrator saddles up old Bird, the horse. Bird makes it difficult by moving around and holding a deep breath to keep the narrator from tightening the saddle. When the narrator finishes saddling the horse and mounts, Bird promptly attempts to buck him off, circling in the paddock, and the young calf flees ahead of him, crying for its mother in terror. Lame Bull opens the gate and Bird, the narrator, and a calf race through it. The narrator allows Bird to run wherever and as fast as he wants. Eventually, the horse calms down and the narrator steers him across an irrigation ditch and to a “log-and-mud shack set into the ground” (50). There they find a man, whom the narrator calls Yellow Calf.
The men converse and establish that they already know each other. Yellow Calf invites the narrator inside, at which point the narrator realizes that he is blind. They go into the shack and Yellow Calf pours them both a cup of coffee. The narrator observes that, despite his blindness, Yellow Calf moves confidently around his home. The two men have a meandering conversation: They agree that possessions can be sorrowful, they discuss how much easier life would be with a car, and the narrator teases Yellow Calf, asking after his secrets and what he has “in his pants.” Yellow Calf reveals that he is not alone and that he converses with the deer who come by in the evening. He tells the narrator that the deer are not happy because the world is “cockeyed” (54). He challenges the narrator, asking if he believes him or the deer; the narrator replies that he cannot believe them, because if he does, then the world is cockeyed. The narrator leaves, promising to relay Yellow Calf’s greetings to his mother and late father.
Part 2, Chapter 19 Summary
Lame Bull, Teresa, and the narrator take the truck to Harlem. On the way, Teresa fondly remembers a day from the narrator’s childhood, when he, his brother Mose, and their cousin Charlie got trapped in a lightning storm. The narrator remembers the day—they’d ridden Bird, who ran away home when the storm started. Mose built a lean-to and then a small fire, which the narrator remembers as more smoky than warm.
When they reach Harlem, Lame Bull and the narrator drop Teresa off at the priest’s house for a visit. Lame Bull leaves the narrator at the store and goes to run an errand. The narrator walks to the mechanic’s shop and asks Larue Henderson if he’d like to go get a drink. Larue protests that he’s working, but relents when the narrator offers to buy him a beer. They go together to the bar, Beany’s, where they find Lame Bull already drinking and talking to Beany, the proprietor, about the difficulties of being “an owner” (60). Beany agrees that it is difficult, and then agrees again when Lame Bull says that he is trying to be a good father to the narrator.
There is a woman at the bar. Lame Bull playfully flirts with her; when she asks why “[his] boy” doesn’t come talk to her, he tells her that the narrator is studying to be a priest. The narrator asks Larue if he knows the woman; he replies that he’s seen her around and that she’s from Havre. The narrator tells Larue that the person he’s been looking for is also in Havre. Larue confirms that the woman has a car and then leaves the bar, ignoring the woman’s attempts to call after him. The narrator strikes up a conversation with the woman, telling her that he’s making his way to Havre to start a new job in the morning. The woman spots this as a lie and speaks bitterly about how she studied to be a secretary but could never get a job. The narrator feels guilty about lying, but the woman agrees to give him a ride to Havre.
Part 2, Chapter 20 Summary
The narrator wakes up on a couch with a rubber-backed rug draped over him like a blanket. He does not recognize the location, but he notices a glass of diluted whiskey and cigarettes. There is a young boy, maybe five or six, eating cereal at a table in the kitchen. The narrator gets up and finds a closed door; he opens it and finds the bedroom, where the woman from the night before, named Malvina, is asleep. The room is full of ruffles—on the curtains, bedding, and even on the top of the dresser.
The narrator removes the covers and looks at Malvina’s naked body. She has large breasts, and the narrator is suddenly struck by desire as he looks at them. He fondles her breast and nipple, but when he reaches for her pubic area, she tells him to stop. The narrator freezes, and Malvina repeats the order twice. The narrator considers sexually assaulting her, but he remembers the child eating in the next room and does not. Instead, he goes to the bathroom to pee. He walks by the child on the way out and calls him “Sport,” but the boy hisses that his name is not sport.
Part 2, Chapter 21 Summary
The narrator gets to town before most of the businesses open. He goes to a restaurant and orders milk and a slice of cherry pie. A man sits next to him and asks if the narrator remembers him. The narrator recognizes the man as the one who had left his wife and daughters at the airport. The airplane man hints that he’s involved in some kind of trouble and pretends to be reluctant to share details with the narrator. The narrator encourages him to talk, but before the man can share anything, an old man enters the restaurant and the airplane man says they need to go elsewhere. They agree to meet at the Legion Club nearby. The airplane man tells the narrator to wait several minutes before following and makes a big show of leaving. The narrator tries to engage the old man in a conversation about whether or not there are any fish in the river, but the old man replies to all attempts with “Heh, heh” (70). A crashing noise, like someone has dropped a great pile of dishes comes from the kitchen, and the old man drops face-first into his oatmeal, obviously dead.
Part 2, Chapter 22 Summary
The narrator goes outside and thinks about looking for Agnes at the local bars. He knows she won’t be there yet and feels an odd relief, realizing that she likely has already disposed of his belongings. The narrator is not sure why he is looking for her so hard, but he knows he will continue. At the Legion Club, he finds the airplane man and tells him that the old man from the restaurant is dead and will not be able to follow him anymore. The airplane man says he’d never seen the old man before but that someone else is tailing him.
He’s working on a punchboard, which was a popular gambling game in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in small businesses like pharmacies and bars. The game involves punching small, folded strips of paper through a grid of holes in the board. Each piece of paper has a number written on it. If a player finds a number that matches those listed at the top of the board, they win a prize. The airplane man finally finds a number that matches the list at the top. He tells the bartender that he’s won and the bartender brings him a box of chocolate-covered cherries. He asks how many tries it took the airplane man to find a matching number and the airplane man says about 30. Each try costs a nickel, but neither the bartender nor the airplane man can do the math. The airplane man pays for another try and wins again. The narrator orders a beer and goes back to the toilet. When he comes back, there is a large purple teddy bear sitting on his stool and the airplane man is working on a new punchboard.
Part 2, Chapter 23 Summary
The airplane man tells the narrator that he is planning to flee to Canada to avoid the FBI and needs his help. He alludes to having stolen something. The narrator asks if the story about tearing up his airplane ticket and leaving his wife was a lie, but the airplane man says it was true and that it was his wife who, in an act of revenge, alerted the FBI to his crime. The narrator tells the airplane man that he does not have a car, and he proposed that he will buy one the narrator will drive him across the border and take him to his plane, and then return, keeping the car. The narrator asks when he wants to do this, and he says that night.
Part 2, Chapter 24 Summary
The narrator and the airplane man leave the bar with the teddy bear and the five boxes of chocolate-covered cherries the airplane man had won; they are going to buy a car. The narrator complains about having to bring the teddy bear, but the airplane man says he’s going to send it to his daughter and criticizes the narrator for his lack of sentiment. The airplane man offers two boxes of cherries to two girls they encounter on the street. He says, “to give is to be blessed” (77). The narrator says anyone can give away candy, but the airplane man insists that he made the girls happy and that’s what counts. They go to a sporting goods store where the airplane man looks at fishing poles and guns before buying a hunting knife.
They continue to walk towards the car lots; on the way, the airplane man agrees to carry the teddy bear and gives the chocolate-covered cherries to the narrator. The narrator asks about the man’s daughter, and he replies that she is beautiful, has a birthmark on her neck, is married to an astronaut, and lives in Houston, Texas. The narrator brings up the barmaid from Malta, but the airplane man claims she is a liar and insists that he doesn’t know her. He calls the barmaid’s knowledge of the birthmark a lucky guess and insists that she’s trying to get money from him.
At the car lot, the narrator points out several good options, but the airplane man finds a $250 car that’s so old and broken that “the salesman wasn’t even happy about selling [it]” (79). A mechanic helps get it running, but it has to be push-started. They go back to the hotel, where the narrator keeps asking the man about the barmaid from Malta but gets no response. The narrator spots Agnes on the street, and then Dougie. They look in his direction, but he hides. Agnes goes into a bar, Gable’s, and the narrator wants to follow her, but the airplane man comes back. They go to dinner and the airplane man explains their plan: They will leave at midnight and agree to meet at the Palace Bar at ten o’clock so that the narrator can go take care of “some business” (82). Instead of going directly to Gable’s to find Agnes, the narrator walks through town and ends up at the movie theater, which is playing a John Wayne double feature. The narrator has a vivid memory of standing in front of a movie theater with his late brother, Mose, talking about the skills of the gunslingers in the films.
Part 2, Chapters 18-24 Analysis
This section marks one of the narrator’s returns to the outside world from the home space of the ranch. Newly determined to find Agnes, he joins Lame Bull and Teresa on a trip to Harlem, then makes his way to Havre, where he believes Agnes to be. Welch’s narrative world is populated by idiosyncratic characters whose quirks give them more presence than briefly mentioned side characters typically have. One example of this is the woman, Malvina, with whom the narrator rides to Havre. We see her home, full of ruffles, and both her and her son’s ability to stand up for themselves; Malvina makes the narrator stop touching her, and her son tells the narrator not to call him “Sport.” Welch’s sparse but detailed development of the novel’s one-off characters adds to the slightly surreal tone of the novel.
This tone is reinforced in the recurring fish motif throughout the text. The narrator has repeated conversations about fishing in the local area; in many of these conversations, outsiders or strangers insist that the waters are full of multiple species of fish, while the narrator argues that there are famously no fish to be found in the rivers at all. As with fallible memories and the grandmother’s partially shrouded stories, the opposing views of the local fishing scene add a sense of instability to the narrator’s—and the reader’s—understanding of the truth.
When the airplane man reappears in the narrator’s life, the novel deepens its exploration of the ways in which the past continues to shape the present. The narrator has traveled to Havre to find Agnes, even though his reasons for doing so are getting thinner; he knows that she has certainly sold or discarded his belongings by now, and he still claims to not be interested in her. The lack of focus he has on his future is reflected by the broken-down car the airplane man buys for him. The idea of buying a car has been raised multiple times in the text—by Lame Bull and Yellow Calf—and is something the narrator finds exciting, but in this case it’s dependent on the whims and generosity of the white airplane man. Ultimately, it results in a disappointing purchase; the Ford Falcon is a car, but it barely runs. The airplane man intends for the narrator to drive the car to and from Canada, but the vehicle is unreliable and likely to break on the way, leaving one or both men stranded far from home. This is a risk the airplane man, who claims to have a lot of money, may be comfortable taking, but one that could be a far more significant obstacle for the narrator. In this way, the freedom and autonomy that is generally represented by cars is subverted; this car leaves the narrator indebted to a white benefactor, in service to another man’s plan and unsure that the car will carry him to a better future of his own.
With the car purchased and the plan for the airplane man’s escape that night underway, the narrator is poised between the focus of his past (finding Agnes) and the focus of tomorrow (transporting the airplane man). This contrast is brought forward quite literally; In this moment, the narrator finally sees Agnes. He notes that the sighting “had sparked a warmth in me that surprised me, that I couldn’t remember having felt in years. It seemed funny that it should happen now, since I had felt nothing for her when we were living together” (83). He is conflicted and worries that if he goes through with the airplane man’s plan he will be fundamentally changed, that he would be leaving Agnes and his past self behind.
Feeling as though he is in a liminal space between his past and his future, —the self he was and the self he will become—the narrator walks away from both the girl and the airplane man. Time contracts and he finds himself lost in a memory of his brother, Mose, outside of a movie theater: “The twenty years slipped away and I was a kid again, Mose at my side” (82). Losing his brother at a young age, and then his father not so many years later, has had a profound impact on the narrator’s relationships with memory, reality, the present, and the past; uncertain of what to do in the moment, the narrator retreats to the safety of his childhood relationship with his brother.
