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Chapter 87
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
Call and Newt ride back to camp with the horses, leaving Lorena and Gus behind. Clara takes Gus upstairs to Bob’s room. She asks Gus why he came. He says he hoped to find her a widow. But he’s too early and too late: Bob’s still breathing, and Lorena is in love with him. Gus tells Clara that he’d smother Bob and send Lorena away, but that’s not what either of them wants, really, even though they still have feelings for each other. Suddenly, he kisses her. It’s been a long time since anyone has kissed Clara, but this one doesn’t move her like she remembers.
The impasse between Gus and Clara—who still clearly love and respect each other, but who both acknowledge that they cannot successfully be together—confirms what the book has suggested elsewhere about the nature of fate and chance. Clara chose to turn Gus down many years ago, but now it’s circumstance keeping them apart. And, in the end, they’re both independent and strong. They may want each other’s friendship, but neither needs the other anymore.
Themes
When Clara and Gus go back downstairs, Clara immediately—and simply—invites Lorena to stay with her until the cattle drive is done. Montana, she says, is no place for a lady. Lorena accepts immediately. She admires Clara, and the house reminds her of the last place she felt truly safe and happy: her grandmother’s house back in Mobile. The only thing that makes her pause is Gus, but he’s pleased to know that she’ll be safe and with Clara. He promises that he will be back for her. With Lorena’s future settled, Augustus plans to ride back to camp immediately. Clara spends five minutes trying to change his mind, then gives up. When he rides off, she cries. Lorena is too shocked to cry.
Clara is as perceptive about people as Gus is—perhaps even more so, because she sees immediately what it is that Lorena wants (a family to make her feel safe) and Gus’s inability to give that to her. That’s why she’s confident in her invitation, even though Gus can hardly believe that she so easily convinces Lorena to leave his side. This moment confirms the importance of family—especially as a bulwark against the vagaries and difficulties of life. And the ease and grace with which Clara effortlessly adds people to her family strongly contrasts with Call’s difficulty acknowledging his family, even though it should be easy—Maggie’s already dead and can make no more claims on him, and Newt is becoming a man he can be proud of.
Themes
