“Maybe tonight Blond Milton’ll bring us by one to eat.”
“That could be.”
“Don’t kin ought to?”
“That’s what is always said.”
“Could be we should ask.”
She looked at Harold, with his easy smile, black hair riffling in the wind, then snatched his nearest ear and twisted until his jaw fell loose and he raised his hand to swat at hers. She twisted until he bore up under the pain and stopped swatting.
“Never. Never ask for what ought to be offered.”
In the novel's first chapter, Ree and her younger brother Harold look across the creek separating their property from that of their relatives, the Miltons. With hungry stomachs, Ree and Harold smell drying deer meat in the air and speculate about whether Blond Milton will share some with them. In this exchange, Ree physically and verbally reprimands her brother for suggesting that they could ask him to be charitable. Harold has yet to learn that even the most impoverished people in their milieu should retain their dignity by never having to beg food from those who are more fortunate; the expectation is that Blond Milton recognizes their need and gives to them without them having to demean themselves by asking. Although Ree imparts this lesson on etiquette with aggression, she shows her concern for her brother by ensuring he learns never to sacrifice his pride, no matter how desperate he is.
Ree’s grand hope was that these boys would not be dead to wonder by age twelve, dulled to life, empty of kindness, boiling with mean. So many Dolly kids were that way, ruined before they had chin hair, groomed to live outside square law and abide by the remorseless blood-soaked commandments that governed lives led outside square law.
In this passage, taken from Chapter 2, the narrator comments on Ree's desire to guide her young brothers, Sonny and Harold, toward a better life path than the one laid out for so many Dolly men. Ree has seen enough of her relatives follow the examples shown by their elders. By twelve, too many Dolly kids have lost their childlike curiosity, innocence, and optimism—traits replaced by aggression and anger. Seeing no other options, these Dolly kids are taught how to become criminals, and soon find themselves trapped within a mafia-like hierarchy. To provide an alternative for her brothers, Ree teaches them everything she knows and makes sure they keep going to school.
She sat with her long legs close beneath her, booted feet spread wide, pulled headphones from a pocket and clamped them over her ears, then turned on The Sounds of Tranquil Shores. While frosty bits gathered in her hair and on her shoulders she raised the volume of those ocean sounds. Ree needed often to inject herself with pleasant sounds, stab those sounds past the constant screeching, squalling hubbub regular life raised inside her spirit, poke the soothing sounds past that racket and down deep where her jittering soul paced on a stone slab in a gray room, agitated and endlessly provoked but yearning to hear something that might bring a moment’s rest.
In Chapter 3, Ree splits and stacks firewood until she has a pile tall enough to sit on. In this passage, she takes a break from chopping to listen to an ambient recording of waves lapping at a shoreline in some distant place. In this moment of meditative tranquility, the recording helps Ree ease the stress that comes with protecting her family with little help or money. Briefly, the sounds transport her out of her frigid, impoverished environment, and it is as if she is relaxing on a tropical beach.
“Maybe he does. That could be. But where you-all come into this is, he put this house, here, and those timber acres up for his bond.”
“He what, now?”
“Signed it all over. You didn’t know? Jessup signed over everything. If he don’t show for trial, see, the way the deal works is, you-all lose this place. It’ll get sold from under you. You’ll have to get out. Got somewhere to go?”
In this exchange between the local sheriff and Ree, Woodrell introduces the novel's major conflict: Because Jessup signed over the Dolly house as part of his bail, Ree's property will be seized if her father doesn't arrive in court to face drug charges. Having dealt with Ree's antagonistic, unhelpful attitude since he arrived, Baskin delivers the bad news with no sympathy. He even condescendingly reminds Ree that she and her impoverished family will have nothing without their property. To track down Jessup, Baskin knows he has to secure Ree's cooperation by threatening her with homelessness.
“If Jessup’s court day ain’t ’til next week, I kind of wonder why was the law out huntin’ him for a talk today? Wonder why that would be.”
After dropping by to give Ree a box of food and some venison, Sonya asks about Sheriff Baskin's visit to the property earlier in the day. While Sonya already knows Jessup hasn't been seen since he was freed on bail, she questions why Baskin would look for him given that his court date isn't until the following week. With this question, Sonya implies there is something suspicious about the fact Baskin already knows Jessup is missing. It will take Ree the rest of the novel to uncover the truth Sonya must know in this scene: Because Jessup is Baskin's informer, Baskin knows he's missing because he hasn't been able to probe Jessup for more incriminating information about other drug dealers.
“Shit, Jessup’s just about the best crank chef these Dollys and them ever have had, girl. Practically half famous for it. That’s why he pulled them years away up in the pen, there, you know. It was sure ’nough proved on him that time.”
When Sheriff Baskin visits Ree to inquire after Jessup's whereabouts, he reminds her that her father is facing another significant prison sentence for methamphetamine ("crank") production. In this line of dialogue, Woodrell establishes for the reader that the men in Ree's family are notorious meth producers and dealers who have a long history of run-ins with the law. The casual language Baskin uses with Ree suggests a familiarity has grown out of the decades-long antagonist relationship between law enforcement and the extended Dolly family.
Mom’s head bent into the kitchen sink and her hair billowed to fill the basin. She seemed lost to an episode of splendid pleasure, given up entirely to the joys of being fussed over by a daughter, mewling as Ree’s fingers scrubbed her scalp, raised a shock of white lather, rinsed with water poured from Mamaw’s ancient lemonade pitcher. Ree’s fingers were strong and drew blood tingling to the roots. The boys sat on the countertop close enough to be splashed, wrapped in quilts, watching her scrub, lather, rinse. Ree glanced their way frequently to keep their attention. She’d nod toward Mom’s head in a gesture that asked, Are you getting this?
In a rare moment of intimacy and joy, Ree washes her mother's hair over the kitchen sink, teaching her brothers as she goes. In contrast to her usual blank, dissociative self, Ree's mother is tickled with pleasure at the sensation of Ree's fingers running over her scalp. This passage is significant because it conveys Ree's sense of duty toward her family. Beyond looking after her mother's grooming with a gentle attentiveness, she is teaching her brothers how to be just as caring and responsible as she is.
“Nothin’ unless you can prove he’s dead. That’d sure ’nough turn things around. Dead men can’t be expected to show in court.”
Late in the novel, after Ree has concluded that Jessup must be dead, the bail bondsman comes to visit Ree and inform her that the Dolly property will be seized within a month unless she can prove that Jessup is dead. This revelation means Ree's hunt for her father hasn't ended, even though all signs indicate he was murdered for becoming a police informer. If she wants to secure her family's future, Ree must risk her safety and try to break the brutally enforced silence of crime boss Thump Milton's extended criminal network.
"Listen . . . the way it is . . . the way I feel . . . is, I can’t know who killed Jessup. I can suspicion a man or two, have a hinky feelin’, but I can’t know for a certain fact who went’n killed my little brother. Even if he did wrong, which he did, why . . . it’ll eat at me if I know who they sent. Eat at me like red ants. Then . . . there’ll come a night . . . a night when I have that one more snort I didn’t need, and I’ll show up somewhere’n see whichever fucker done it sippin’ a beer’n hootin’ at a joke and . . . shit . . . that’ll be that. They’ll all come for me then . . . Buster Leroy . . . Little Arthur . . . Cotton Milton, Whoop Milton, Dog . . . Punch . . . Hog-jaw . . . that droopy-eyed motherfucker Sleepy John. But, anyhow, girl, I’ll help you some, take your back so you can find his bones, but the deal is, even if you find out, you can’t ever let me know who did the actual killin’ of my brother. Knowin’ that’d just mean I’ll be toes-up myself purty soon, too. Deal?”
After rescuing Ree from the ambush at Thump Milton's, Teardrop drives quickly and agitatedly back to the Dolly home. While snorting crank, he monologues to his niece about the predicament her investigation into Jessup's death has put him in. In this passage, Teardrop explains that he will help Ree find Jessup's body, but he must never know which of Thump's cronies killed him. Teardrop makes this deal because he hopes to protect himself from his own erratic behavior. As long as he stays ignorant, Teardrop will not be inclined to avenge Jessup's death and incur the retaliation of Thump's men. But if he knows who killed his brother, Teardrop will be forced to act.
“The fella with no name? He never gave a name and, hell, I couldn’t say for sure the man was ever even all the way awake, but he was sure ’nough good news for you-all when he put this down on Jessup.”
In the novel's final chapter, the bail bondsman shows up at Ree's house with a sack of crinkled bills he says belongs to her. Ree is dumbfounded by the windfall, which turns out to be the bail money an anonymous man posted for Jessup's release. Now that Jessup has been confirmed deceased, the bail money needs to be returned, and the "fella with no name" can't be reached. This passage is significant because the bail bondsman says he "couldn't say for sure [if] the man was ever even all the way awake," an unintentional hint to Teardrop that it must have been the droopy-eyed Sleepy John. After hearing the bail bondsman say this, Teardrop stands and goes outside to process the information. As soon as the bondsman leaves, Teardrop tells Ree that he knows who killed Jessup now. The two hug, and Teardrop leaves to exact his revenge against Sleepy John, even though he knows Thump and his men will come after him because of it.
