Summary
The next chapter begins as Thomas travels to Washington D.C. to visit the Vietnam War Memorial Wall. He goes with Dwight and some other Native American veterans. He thinks back to the war, remembering the time he was pushed out of a helicopter and into a dangerous mission. He also thinks about drinking coffee at one of the camps. He sees some names of the men in his platoon and eventually finds his own. He doesn't see the name of the man, Michael, who he pushed to safety. He takes that as a sign that he survived. He looks around and sees other grieving families.
Later in the hotel, he is drinking with some of the other men. He notices that Dwight has a rather large ring and realizes that Dwight killed Marco. The other men go down to the pool. Dwight comes into Thomas's room later to see why he didn't come to the pool and why he's still in his room. Thomas says that he killed the men in his platoon. He tells Dwight to hit him, because he, Thomas, is a killer. He hits him once but won't do it again. Thomas accuses Dwight of killing his son. Dwight seems to brush off the accusation but becomes nervous. Thomas says he doesn't want to be remembered as a killer and plans to leave the hotel.
Meanwhile, in Dark River, Ruth watches whales from the shore and thinks about how Marco has now joined them. She also thinks back to when she and Thomas were kids and they walked along the beach together. She returns home and talks to her mother about Thomas. They speculate about the future and her mother says she thinks Thomas has a chance at healing. Ruth thinks about their community and how intertwined everyone's lives are. She looks at the sunset and feels that the ocean is like the landlord of the town, as everyone eventually has to pay tribute to it.
In the next chapter, Thomas plans to return his medals. He puts on his uniform and takes a cab to the Pentagon. He wanders through the halls and is eventually stopped by two security guards who restrain him. They pull up his file on a computer and ask why he wants to return his medals. He says he didn't earn them. Later, after he calms down, Thomas finds himself sitting with a doctor and talking about his experience in the war. He tells the doctor that he killed his own men and doesn't deserve these medals. The doctor says that as long as he survived he should count himself lucky and that, in his opinion, Thomas did the right thing. Thomas leaves without his medals and feels right about his choice to leave them. He takes a final look at the Potomac River.
Thomas returns home and feels slightly better. He visits Ruth, hoping to apologize and reconcile. He says that he knows that Marco was his son and says that he was wrong about many things. He also tells her about his experience of the war. Additionally, he says that Dwight is the man who killed Marco and shows her the ring. Ruth says they should seek justice. Thomas tells Ruth that Marco didn't want to kill the whale that day. This makes Ruth furious, as she feels that Thomas betrayed Marco by not supporting him in a pivotal moment. She tells him he went against their son and asks him to leave. Thomas apologizes again and says that he did love Marco and thought he was a wonderful son. Thomas leaves that night. The following morning he paddles far out to the island where the tribe's elders live. The elders take him in and say that they will teach him the old ways. Thomas lives with them and helps them with daily chores. He begins to feel a newfound sense of peace, as if he is returning to the way he was before leaving for Vietnam.
The next chapter begins with Thomas in the water near the island. He examines the marine habitat before him and takes note of how beautiful it is. He maintains his sense of internal serenity, feeling more and more connected to the past each day. He takes his canoe out into the water and is surprised to see Dwight there as well. Dwight shoots him in the chest and he falls in the water, dead. In the moment that he dies, he is overwhelmed by a feeling of connection with nature, as he feels the history of the place surrounding him.
Thomas washes ashore and experiences mystical visions. He is revived by an elderly woman. He is taken in and spends months recuperating. Back in the main part of town, some of the men begin talking and decide to turn Dwight in for what he did. They go to the police and report the murder. They begin to build a case against Dwight, something that had not occurred in the past, as no one would testify in court against him. Dwight is arrested and charged. Thomas eventually returns to town and visits Ruth. He shares a meal with her and Dick Russell on her boat. They reconcile and acknowledge that they will both always be in each other's lives. The book ends with a description of all the fantastical things people claimed to see when Thomas's soul returned to his body, including whales and octopus tentacles. The narrator says sometimes nature just wants people to listen when it speaks.
Analysis
War is a major theme in this part of the book, as Thomas struggles with how to view his time in Vietnam. He doesn't want his medals and feels ashamed of what he did in the war. He feels that he is a traitor to his country, as he killed the men in his platoon. However, the doctor he speaks with at the Pentagon tells him that he thinks he did the right thing. Thomas feels compelled to return his medals because he feels that he is not actually a hero, but this moment makes him reevaluate what he did. While he still decides to return his medals, he walks away with a sense that he did the right thing. Given the choice between allowing for the slaughter of innocent people—whose lives resembled his much more than those of the white members of his platoon—and committing murder, he feels he made the best of an impossible decision. This moment is important in that it shows him resolving certain aspects of his trauma from war.
Loyalty is a major motif in the novel's conclusion. The novel's climax occurs at the end of the book, when Dwight shoots Thomas in the chest. In this moment, Dwight reveals that he will truly do anything to protect himself. When he realizes that Thomas knows that he killed Marco, he decides that he must eliminate him to keep that information from spreading. It is also reflective of the lingering jealousy that Dwight feels towards Thomas, as he was always much more in touch with the traditions and better at things like swimming and breathing underwater. Where there was some degree of doubt surrounding Marco's death, this instance of terrible violence fully cements the impression that Dwight has no sense of loyalty and can justify any wrongdoing. He feels no obligation to Thomas and holds nothing above himself; for this reason he continues to cause harm as he seeks to avoid retribution for his crimes.
Tradition is also a major theme in this final section of the book. Thomas recuperates with elder members of the tribe on a nearby island. He familiarizes himself with various traditions, learning tribal songs and spending long periods of time exploring the ocean. He begins to feel healed from his time in Vietnam and more grounded in the history of the tribe. Later, when Dwight attempts to kill him, Thomas briefly dies but is saved by the mystical forces of the ocean and the tribal elders. In this way, the book shows the importance of these traditions as they are ultimately able to heal Thomas both emotionally and mentally, returning him to the way he was before the war. These moments emphasize how Thomas is able to come back to himself by embracing tradition and ritual.
Family is another important theme in these chapters. Thomas and Ruth finally reconcile at the novel's end, as he is able to articulate all of the horrors he witnessed in the war and admit that he believed Dwight's lies about her infidelity. Similarly, Ruth is finally able to forgive Thomas for abandoning her. While she does not want to get back together with Thomas in a romantic context, she says she will love and care about him as a brother. The durability of their bond suggests that for both Ruth and Thomas, family is something that transcends individual conflicts and is more about holding onto the people who are important in times of great strife. Both of them lose so much—a child, a home, a sense of self—but manage to hold onto each other in the end, as they see themselves as permanently tied together.
The novel's ending revisits earlier themes and shows how the characters' values inform their futures. Thomas's later embrace of nature and tradition ultimately saves his life and allows him to let go of the trauma of the past. Ruth's sense of family allows her to forgive Thomas and care about him, while also finding new happiness in a relationship with Dick Russell. In contrast, Dwight's incredible cruelty eventually backfires on him; his men grow tired of his domineering attitude and decide to turn him in for murder. As the novel's final lines suggest, nature will always prevail, so it serves best to simply listen to it.
