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Chapter 48
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lonesome Dove, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
American Mythology
Family
Luck, Fate, and Chance
The Good Life
The Meaning of Masculinity
Feminine Strength
Summary
Analysis
One minute, Lorena is sitting under the tree wondering when Jake will show up—three nights is a long time for him to go without sex—and the next, Blue Duck appears as if from thin air. Casually, he tells her to get up. Terrified, she climbs into her saddle, and he ties her ankles to the stirrups. They ride straight through the stampede, then onward through the night. He stops briefly, around dawn, to relieve himself and drink water from a stream. Lorena is too scared to do either. She regrets this after the sun rises and the day gets hot. For hours, her fear and thirst grow unbearably painful.
Newt has been beating himself up for failing to protect Lorena, but the ease and silence with which Blue Duck approaches suggests that he wouldn’t have been able to do anything, anyway. Her sending him away was a stroke of luck because it allowed him to live another day. Lorena’s clock for how long Jake will stay away, incidentally, doesn’t say anything good about his character either. She’s well aware that he only keeps her around for sex and has no interest in her as a person.
Themes
When they finally stop, late in the afternoon, Lorena immediately drinks her fill from the next stream. Blue Duck prepares himself for a nap, casually telling her that if she tries to run away, he will subject her to a gruesome punishment. But she’s too tired to run, and she has nowhere to go anyway. The hope that Jake will ride in and save her has long since died. For four nights and four days, they ride, stopping only for short rests and to drink from streams they cross. Lorena’s mare and the packhorse both die of exhaustion, and Blue Duck steals her a fresh mount. Finally, they reach a broad, muddy river. On the far bank, four Indigenous men wait for them.
Blue Duck has the advantage of surprise, and he uses it well, putting an incredible amount of distance between himself and any possible pursuers over the course of this death ride. If Lorena had only Jake to protect her, she would be totally lost—nothing in his character thus far has suggested he'd be willing to pursue her this far. But Gus, like Call, appreciates a challenge, suggesting that he won’t stop no matter how far Blue Duck runs.
Themes
The six of them ride until a little after sunset, when Blue Duck abruptly stops and tells Ermoke—the leader of the band—to “have a taste.” He and his companions take Lorena down from her horse and rape her over and over.
Blue Duck showed no personal interest in Lorena, even telling her that he stole her to sell her to his men. As soon as she crosses the river, she gets a taste of the brutal future in store for her in their company, something far worse than any other indignity or suffering she has endured.
Themes
