Where the Crawdads Sing: Chapter 46 Summary & Analysis

In October of 1969, Kya goes to Jumpin’s to look at the bus schedule. As she copies down the times, she tells him that she’s thinking of meeting her editor in Greenville. At one point, Jumpin’ looks closely at Kya’s face and asks what happened, and she realizes that the bruise from where Chase punched her hasn’t faded as much as she hoped, so she lies and says that she ran into a door. However, Jumpin’ tells her not to deceive him, pressing her to tell him who hit her. Finally, he guesses that it was Chase, and she admits that it was. This infuriates Jumpin’, but Kya implores him not to tell anybody, especially the sheriff. Still, Jumpin’ insists that something has to be done to teach him a lesson, though Kya reminds him that nobody will get a man like Chase in trouble for assaulting the “Marsh Girl.”