Summary
The next chapter begins with Thomas thinking about the hunt. He is living in Witka's old home, as it is the last place he feels welcome and knows he will be left alone. He recalls his deep reverence for the whale and is disturbed by the gross way in which the other men disturbed its body. A drought settles onto the reservation, as the elder had predicted. Thomas builds a fence near the house to put a gap between himself and the ocean.
One day, Ruth comes over. She says he clearly hasn't been eating and offers to bring him food and coffee. Ruth tells him to look outside at his "cousin" and he sees a seal. She tries to remind him that they are inextricably linked to the natural world. Later, Thomas receives a visit from the parents of one of the soldiers from his platoon, Murphy. He feels uncomfortable throughout the visit, as he mostly remembers Murphy as being violent and cruel but has to lie and say he was kind. Murphy's parents appear to be disappointed, as they don't get the catharsis they were expecting. Eventually they leave.
Thomas recalls what Milton said about someone holding Marco under the water. He has repeated his claim on multiple occasions, but no one believes him because his mother drank while she was pregnant and he has developmental problems. He thinks back on some of Murphy's nasty jokes and depraved behavior. He also remembers narrowly escaping an ambush. He also thinks about how he is now tortured by his memories of the war. The chapter ends with him thinking back to the image of his Vietnamese daughter running towards the helicopter that took him away. The narrator says that all of his memories run together.
The drought becomes dire, as the water turns too warm. Everyone suffers, as this greatly impacts people's ability to fish and make money. People also grow increasingly concerned about the looming threat of a tsunami. Ruth visits the elders and talks to them about what can be done to appease nature and bring about the end of the drought. They tell her it will require a sacrifice. She hesitates but then agrees to it. She offers up her boat, which she lives on, and they accept. However, they also ask about Witka's house, which Ruth says Thomas cannot give it up, as it is where he lives now.
At the same time, Thomas travels into town to make a sacrifice of his own. Concurrently, two young men are paid to start a fire and frame Ruth for it, leaving behind her identification at the scene of the crime. A Forest Service employee named Dick Russell investigates. Then, a mysterious stranger comes to town and rents a room at the local hotel. Russell talks to Ruth about the fires and initially she is nervous but then she realizes he doesn't think she's guilty. Russell hears about an injured boy with burns at a local hospital and follows up on it.
The mysterious man leaves his room one night and goes out to the beach. He boards Ruth's boat while she is sleeping. She wakes up and brandishes a knife. They talk and she realizes he is the rain priest that she is supposed to give the boat to. She goes outside and it is raining. Ruth moves in with her mother and the weather returns to normal. Thomas visits Dwight's home and tells him he is dishonest. Everyone becomes suspicious of Dwight's sudden influx of wealth, demonstrated in his purchase of a new Jeep. There is a mudslide during the period of rain and Dwight's house slides down the cliff. He lives but it is destroyed. People continue to talk about the rain priest, as they marvel at how they didn't notice what he really was until he was gone.
A local man named Vince tells Ruth they've found her boat. She travels to the marina and walks around inside it. It is very clean and she finds a pearl, belonging to Thomas's mother, on a pillow on the bed. She then visits Thomas, who is packing to travel to Washington D.C. Thomas also starts going to the beach at night and holding his breath for long intervals. He explores the ecosystem under the water. Unbeknownst to him, Ruth watches him as he does this.
Analysis
This section deals more specifically with the nature of Thomas's trauma. Following the visit from Murphy's parents, Thomas thinks back to the moment when his daughter, Lin, ran towards him as he was being taken away on a helicopter. The narrator notes that this memory blends together with many others including ones involving Ruth, bombings in the war, and his childhood, and that he experiences them as a kind of continuous present. He is unable to stop or forestall them. Thomas's inability to distinguish these moments from each other suggests the trauma of his past is too great to bear. He cannot move on from these moments, or even avoid thinking about them, as they are so painful. His lack of control over his memories shows how deeply they are etched into his mind.
Nature is a major theme in this section as well, as the tribe is beset with a terrible drought. As predicted in the earlier chapters, the drought brings about an immediate disruption to life on the reservation. Ruth and Thomas recognize that this is nature's response to the whale hunt and the murder of Marco. It is a sign that the people of the tribe cannot disrupt nature and expect no consequences. This retribution for the violence perpetuated by Dwight and his men shows how nature can push back on the harm that befalls it. In the world of the novel, the ocean must be respected, as failure to do so can have massive consequences. Once again, Hogan demonstrates the power that it wields, as the attempt to make a quick profit has devastating consequences for the tribe. These consequences take on even more weight as the people of Dark River worry about the possibility of a tsunami looming on the horizon.
Tradition plays a large role in these chapters, as the characters look for a means of resolving this natural disaster. Ruth knows that she must speak with tribal elders to seek out a resolution to this issue. She does so and learns that a sacrifice must be made. She offers her boat and it is later taken by a mysterious stranger. After this, the rain begins to fall again, as the balance has been righted. This moment shows Ruth's dedication to her tribe as well as the power of ritual. In the same way that tarnishing the rite of the whale hunt causes the drought, making an offering to the rain priest resolves it. Like nature, tribal traditions are revealed to be powerful forces within Dark River.
Loyalty also appears again as a prominent motif in the novel, as Dwight proves to be increasingly treacherous. While the two boys who set fire to part of the forest do not implicate Dwight in their attempt to frame Ruth, everyone knows it was him. Dwight profits off of the whale hunt and various other schemes, enough to purchase a new Jeep. Dwight's actions make it plainly apparent that he does not care about tribal unity but is instead focusing on amassing as much power and wealth as he can and taking revenge on those who oppose him. Ruth accurately perceives him, in his complete lack of loyalty, as doing as much harm to the tribe as white colonizers, as he only looks out for himself and poses an active threat to others.
This section of the book delves deeper into the damage done to each character individually and the harm that has befallen their traditions. At the same time, the drought demonstrates how there is retribution for Marco's murder and the disrespectful treatment of the whale. It establishes how, in the world of the book, the mystical elements are governed by a kind of invisible law that is perceived by some characters and not by others—much to their detriment.
