Summary
As soon as she gets in, Ree slams the door and gets two long guns from deep in a closet. She tells her brothers it’s time they learned how to shoot. Outside they line up cans and milk cartons on the snowy slope. Ree instructs them to aim by looking down the sights of the shotgun and rifle. The boys shoot and make a ruckus until a handful of shells are left. Just after they finish, Gail walks up with her baby, asking what in the hell they’re doing with the guns out.
Inside the house, Gail explains that she left Floyd because he’s been cheating on her with Heather, the girlfriend he used to have and really loves. Gail raises a set of keys and says she has her in-laws’ truck if Ree wants to go to Reid’s Gap. They drive together, and Ree remembers how she and Gail used to practice kissing each other before either of them were with men. Ree’s first time kissing a boy was disappointing because he didn’t use his tongue like Gail.
Eventually they arrive at April’s. She is pleased to see Ree and welcomes her in. April suspects Ree is looking for Jessup, and explains that she’s had a bad feeling since the last time she saw him. It was three or four weeks earlier, and she’d happened upon him drinking at a bar on the state line. He was with three crusty-looking guys. The odd thing was that he pretended not to know her; he just looked through her. But she understood he was ignoring her to protect her from whoever those men were.
Gail and Ree get stuck behind a few other cars on the road home because a bunch of pigs are loose. Gail feeds her baby, and Ree comments on the size of her friend’s milk-swollen breasts. Gail insists they’ll “poof down” and won’t stay big. Eventually Ree gets out to help the farmer shoo the pigs. She hears the unmistakable sound of her father’s Capri driving. She tries to wave the car down, but it continues speeding off. She and Gail try to chase it down but lose sight of the red taillights.
At home again, Ree teaches her brothers how to shoot squirrels and skin them for cooking. Gail has stayed over. From a pleasant dream Ree wakes to Uncle Teardrop standing in the house. He tells her Jessup’s car was found burned out, but Jessup wasn’t in it.
With a cold feeling, Ree says: "he’s gone, ain't he?" Jessup says the court date was that morning and he didn’t show. He advises her to cut down all the timber on the property to get some money before the land is taken from them. He snorts some crank and offers her the bag, asking if she has a taste for it yet. She says hell no.
Ree dresses her mother and takes her out for a walk in the sun and pines where they both used to play. Her mother barely leaves the house these days. Eventually Ree pleads for her mother to help her, saying things are happening that she doesn’t know what to do about. Her mother stares blankly into the distance and doesn’t reply. They return home.
Analysis
In Chapter 15, Woodrell touches again on the themes of responsibility and survivalism. In what proves to be a far more exciting lesson than learning to wash and condition their mother’s hair over the kitchen sink, Ree teaches her brothers how to shoot a shotgun and rifle. With no budget for entertainment and no public facilities around, the three Dolly kids amuse themselves with blowing up recyclables in their backyard. Later, she teaches them to shoot squirrels—a survivalist meat if ever there was one—in order to fry them. Through the fun, Ree is imparting important skills that will keep them alive no matter how poor they are.
Receiving the most help yet in her quest, Ree is surprised to discover her best friend Gail has come over with the in-laws’ truck at Ree’s disposal. Ree continues her hunt for Jessup by visiting the girlfriend he used to see on side, an elementary school teacher named April. In contrast to most of the people Ree has sought information from, April provides a tip, telling Ree that she recently spotted Jessup with untrustworthy-looking men. At the time, April intuited that Jessup may have been involved in some trouble.
Another piece of the puzzle tantalizes Ree when, on her way home with Gail, she spots her father’s Ford Capri driving on the highway. Unfortunately, the car disappears, leaving it uncertain whether Jessup could have been driving. Teardrop arrives the next day and only adds to the mystery when he informs her that the Capri was found burned out and Jessup’s body wasn’t in it.
Although her father wasn’t in the vehicle, a cold certainty registers in Ree’s body and she knows, on an intuitive level, that Jessup is dead. While Teardrop can’t confirm whether it’s true, he reminds her that the court date has now passed and so the house risks being seized by the bail bond company. Although Teardrop is the closest thing Ree has, at this point, to a functional parental figure, he unsympathetically suggests she sell off the trees for wood on the property to extract as much money from the place before it is taken away. His only kindness is to offer Ree some of the meth he routinely sniffs from a bag. However, she has seen what crank dependency does to people, and she is responsible enough to reject the offer.
The next chapter builds further on the theme of responsibility. Unable to handle the burden of saving the property from seizure, and unsure what the family will do once they have nowhere to live, Ree attempts to break through her mother’s dissociative shell by seeking advice. Sadly, her mother is unresponsive to the plea, as though deaf.
