The Son

“Of course it was going to happen this way; even as a child she’d been mostly alone. Her family had owned the town. People made no sense to her. Men, with whom she had everything in common, did not want her around. Women, with whom she had nothing in common, smiled too much, laughed too loud, and mostly reminded her of small dogs, their lives lost in interior decorating and other peoples’ outfits. There had never been a place for a person like her.”

Meyer uses Jeannie’s first chapter to root the conflict of her story in her sense of loneliness. Jeannie believed that by rising to the occasion of upholding her family legacy, she could finally fit in with the men who surrounded her all her life. In her old age, Jeannie reflects that she is still lonely, which drives the reader to wonder what she discovers about her initial assumptions to perpetuate her loneliness.

“This journal will be the only true record of this family. In Austin they are planning a celebration for the Colonel’s eightieth birthday, and what will be honestly said about a man who is lionized in capitols, I don’t know. Meanwhile, our bloody summer continues.”

Peter’s storyline begins with the implication that the accepted history of his family is untrue. This raises questions about family mythology and who gets to decide what is remembered. By juxtaposing this statement with the brutality that surrounds Eli’s celebration, it is suggested that history is determined by those who prosper from bloodshed, making this passage a comment on Violence as the Catalyst of History.

“Her father didn’t want her working among the men and her grandmother found it embarrassing. The Colonel, had he been alive, would have supported her; he had always seen in her what no one else did, her unshakable sense of her own perfectibility, her certainty that if she set her mind to something, she would master it.”

Jeannie contrasts Charles and Eli as father figures. Charles expects Jeannie to fit into the role that early 20th-century society has determined for her as a woman—staying in the domestic sphere and occupying the roles of wife and mother. On the other hand, Jeannie supposes that Eli would have seen her as a viable candidate for succession, owing to their relationship when he was still alive. This emboldens her to look at Eli as an aspirational figure and dismiss the pressure coming from Charles or her grandmother, Sally.

“The vaqueros formed a flying squad around him; the Colonel has no great respect for the Mexicans and yet they are all willing to die for him. I, on the other hand, consider myself their ally—no patrón has ever been more generous—and they despise me.”

Peter reflects upon the irony that the Tejanos revile him and admire Eli. The patronage system causes working-class people to look positively upon their rich benefactors, hoping to benefit from their generosity and ignoring the dynamics that perpetuate their hold on power. Peter is reviled because he is not seen as the figurehead of the family and has not made strong attempts to court the workers’ favor the way Eli has, even though Eli is leading the charge to eliminate a prominent Tejano family from the county.

“I knew what anyone looking at the pictures would think, or rather not think, of the Garcias, whose remains were so matted with dust and dried blood that they were barely distinguishable from the caliche. The audience would notice only the living men, who had done a brave thing, while the dead would not even register as men. They were props—like a panther or dead buck—they had lived their entire lives in order to die for just this moment.”

This passage builds the theme of Violence as the Catalyst of History, especially as the images described recur in Ulises’s storyline toward the end of the novel. Although the “pictures” serve as direct evidence of the Garcia massacre, future generations will misinterpret the photographs as evidence of the valor of the Texas Rangers. The dead Garcias, on the other hand, will become the foundation for the Rangers and the McCulloughs’ fame.

“The industrialists built the country, the oilmen made it run. Now it was just the oilmen. The industrialists, or whatever they called themselves these days, led lives based on destruction, closing down factories and moving them abroad. She did not expect to be loved but there were bastards and there were bastards; those men had taken apart the country brick by brick and if there was anything she hated more than unions, it was people who couldn’t work.”

Meyer introduces resonance between the titans of industry who dominate Texas and the communities that once occupied it, from the Apache and the Comanche nations to the Americans. As the 20th century progresses, industrialists fade from the world, leaving only their ruinous impact on the terrain and its people as signs that they once existed. Jeannie similarly reflects on the impact she will leave as one of the oil tycoons who have outlasted the industrialists.

“Toshaway was still talking: ‘Of course we are not stupid, the land did not always belong to the Comanche, many years ago it was Tonkawa land, but we liked it, so we killed the Tonkawa and took it from them…and now they are tawohho and try to kill us whenever they see us. But the whites do not think this way—they prefer to forget that everything they want already belongs to someone else. They think, Oh, I am white, this must be mine. And they really believe it, Tiehteti. I have never seen a white person who did not look surprised when you killed them.’ He shrugged. ‘Me, when I steal something, I expect the person will try to kill me, and I know the song I will sing when I die.’”

Toshaway outlines the difference between the Comanche nation and the white American settlers. The Comanches acknowledge that what they are stealing belongs to somebody else, while the Americans feel entitled to the property they take with little regard for its previous owners. This underlines why the Comanche warriors see every raid as a challenge. It also hints at the Americans’ materialism and greed: Their lack of boundaries eventually results in the ruin of Texas.

“‘They have told me there is a German named Hertz,’ he said, ‘who has given his name to, among other things, the way flint breaks when you strike it. It is always the same way.’ He held up a chip. ‘Though of course Hertz did not discover this. In fact the man who did discover it has been dead two million years. Which is how long people have been knocking rocks together to make tools.’ He took another flake. ‘Remember that,’ he said. ‘None of it’s worth a shit until you put your name on it.’”

In a formative moment, Eli impresses the importance of reputation upon Jeannie. His observation is based on his experiences of the American takeover of Texas and his family’s claim to the Garcia estate, as well as all the other properties that have resulted in the McCulloughs’ dominance in the county. This is ultimately another way that Eli teaches his descendants to bend history in their favor.

“‘The difference between a brave man and a coward is very simple. It is a problem of love. A coward loves only himself […] a coward cares only for his own body,’ Toshaway said, ‘and he loves it above all other things. The brave man loves other men first and himself last.’”

This passage outlines the most important lesson that will define not only Eli’s journey but also the journeys of each of his descendants. By privileging Toshaway’s message that bravery consists of living for others, Meyer gives the reader criteria for evaluating the McCullough family legacy. This choice will extend to Jeannie’s storyline, where she will realize that she has only lived for others in her later life while choosing to live for herself most of the time.

“‘Well, from a scientific point of view you are a female. And your body is preparing itself so that eventually, many years from now, as a grown woman, you can get married.’

She knew he did not mean married. As she looked at him, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, his white shirt stained with sweat, it occurred to her that she could no longer entirely trust him.”

This passage represents a turning point in Jeannie’s relationship with her father. Although she has been conscious of the difference between her and the men in her family, this moment allows Jeannie to realize that none of them will ever truly understand the challenges and circumstances she must live through as a woman. This emboldens her to take responsibility for herself, connecting to the theme of Taking Ownership of One’s Destiny.

“‘I don’t have to tell you what this land used to look like,’ he said. ‘And you don’t have to tell me that I am the one who ruined it. Which I did, with my own hands, and ruined forever […] But that is the story of the human race. Soil to sand, fertile to barren, fruit to thorns. It is all we know how to do.’”

Eli doubles down on his unsentimental character by acknowledging his impact as a white settler on Texas. Unlike the previous passage, this passage affords Eli some pathos as he realizes that his ruthlessness was never something he chose to embody. It is instead a natural byproduct of living on the frontier, which is why he has tended toward violence all his life.

“‘What’s the point of having all this?’ I said.

‘Because otherwise it would be someone else. Someone was going to end up with this land, maybe Ira Midkiff or Bill Reynolds or maybe Poole would have gotten half and Graham would have gotten a quarter, and Gilbert would have gotten the other quarter. Or some new oilman. The only sure thing was that Pedro was going to lose it. His time had passed.’

‘It did not just pass of its own accord.’

‘We are saying the same thing, only you don’t realize it.’

‘It did not have to happen that way.’

‘Matter of fact it did. That is how the Garcias got the land, by cleaning off the Indians, and that is how we had to get it. And one day that is how someone will get it from us. Which I encourage you not to forget.’”

This passage highlights the differences between Eli and Peter, which hinge on The Tension Between Hard and Soft Natures. Eli acknowledges the violence he felt was required to usurp the Garcia land from Pedro’s grasp, but where Peter tries to argue for the negative moral implications of this action, Eli stresses that surviving on the frontier demands amorality. Eli’s lack of guilt speaks to the normalized violence he has experienced all his life.

“Regardless, her father was part of a dying breed, for better or worse, most of the old-time ranching families had gone bankrupt. Most people now lived in cities—she could still not get her head around that one—the days of the frontier were gone, long gone, though there were those who preferred not to admit it. As for her father, with his heavy face, his big hands, he had finally become what he had hoped for since childhood, the representative of a bygone era, an emissary from a lost time. That he himself had not lived during this time was irrelevant—he would take the reporters out to the corrals and put on a show, rope and cut for them, he had begun to keep older, gentler horses just for visitors, which would have been unthinkable in the old days, because horses cost money and they were for work, not play.”

Jeannie observes that when an age dies out, its members are turned into caricatures. She notices this in her father, Charles, who never lived up to Eli’s status, but is revered as though he did simply because he still possesses the skills required for ranch life, which comes across as a novelty to later generations. Charles cements himself into the mythology of the family merely by performing the role of a cattleman for reporters.

“But when I decided to move here, I found I had a choice between being liked and having a say. That’s the choice you’ll have to make as well. They will either love you and not respect you, or they will respect you and not love you.”

Sally urges Jeannie to think about the difference between love and respect, which resonates with Toshaway’s advice to Eli about the difference between bravery and cowardice. Because the pursuit of respect abandons love, it essentially aligns with the self-centeredness that marks the coward. Jeannie misinterprets Sally’s advice to mean that respect is always preferable to love, seizing on this way of fighting back against the ways she has been undermined and undervalued throughout her early life.

“While digging the grave for Toshaway and Situtsi, in a place far from the camp, an overlook I’d spent weeks thinking about, I found a small black-and-white cup. It was made of pottery and beneath it, as I dug deeper, I came to a flat stone and beneath that was another stone, and the more I dug, the more stones I found, until the stones turned into a wall, and then a corner of two walls, and then I stopped.

Neither the Comanches nor the Apaches before us had ever built houses of stone, and no horse people would have made pottery. The Caddo and Osage had never lived this far west, and neither had the whites or Spaniards, and I realized I had come on the remains of some ancient tribe that had lived in towns or cities, a tribe so long extinct no one remembered they had ever lived.”

Eli uncovers the remains of a long-forgotten people, which resonates with the novel’s prominent symbol of the Garcia house (see Symbols & Motifs). The life that belonged to the lost village is no longer known to the Comanches, hinting at the ways they will be forgotten by the white American settlers who will eventually claim their land. This foreshadows the way the true history of the Garcia family will also be obscured by the account the McCulloughs feed into the historical record.

“‘That is what you think, isn’t it? Your child injured, my family exterminated, we are even. And of course you are the best of them; the others think okay, a white man was scratched, there is no amount of Mexican blood that can wash out that sin. Five, ten, one hundred…it’s all the same to them. In the newspapers, a dead Mexican is called a carcass’—she held up her fingers—‘like an animal.’”

María calls Peter out for his desire for absolution, stressing the fact that the McCulloughs’ offense against the Garcia family continues beyond their deaths. In the grand scheme of American expansion, the Mexicans who inhabited the land before the Americans have been reduced to something less than human. No matter how hard Peter may try to repay what was lost, the mechanism that works to drive the Tejanos out of Texas is much bigger than him.

“‘I don’t feel like a person anymore,’ she said.

‘Well, that is nice to hear from the mother of one’s children.’ Now he would not look at her.

‘I feel like it’s me or them,’ she said.

[…]

Of course she began to cry. The truth was much too far. She should never have said it. She went out into the yard and sat in the green darkness. What he wanted, what everyone wanted, was that she stay at home and never have a meaningful thought again while they all kept doing exactly as they pleased. It was insane. Hank, Jefferson, Milton Bryce—she hated all of them, actually hated them at that moment—she didn’t care what they thought of her.”

Jeannie speaks up against her relegation to domestic life and the pressure for her to fulfill only the domestic roles expected of women in the 20th century—wife and mother. Her complaint not only speaks to the subversion of her choice to steer the ranch back into profitability, but it also underscores how her partnership with Hank has undermined her personhood. She once again feels the loneliness that plagued her as a child, surrounded by her brothers and her father.

“When the Spanish came there were the Suma, Jumano, Manso, La Junta, Concho and Chisos and Toboso, Ocana and Cacaxtle, the Coahuiltecans, Comecrudos…but whether they had wiped out the Mogollons or were descended from them, no one knew. They were all wiped out by the Apaches. Who were in turn wiped out, in Texas anyway, by the Comanches. Who were finally wiped out by the Americans.

A man, a life—it was barely worth mentioning. The Visigoths had destroyed the Romans, and had themselves been destroyed by the Muslims. Who were destroyed by the Spanish and Portuguese. You did not need Hitler to see that it was not a pleasant story. And yet here she was. Breathing, having these thoughts. The blood that ran through history would fill every river and ocean, but despite all the butchery, here you were.”

Jeannie outlines the history of Texas through the lens of violent upheavals, pushing forward the theme of Violence as the Catalyst of History. Her perspective suggests that violence goes back even further than most people can remember. This implies that land never originally “belonged” to anybody but was simply taken and redefined to fit the agenda of those who wanted to claim it.

“Toshaway had been right: you had to love others more than you loved your own body, otherwise you would be destroyed, whether from the inside or out, it didn’t matter. You could butcher and pillage but as long as you did it for people you loved, it never mattered. You did not see any Comanches with the long stare—there was nothing they did that was not to protect their friends, their families, or their band. The war sickness was a disease of the white man, who fought in armies far from his home, for men he didn’t know, and there is a myth about the West, that it was founded and ruled by loners, while the truth is just the opposite; the loner is a mental weakling, and was seen as such, and treated with suspicion. You did not live long without someone watching your back and there were very few people, white or Indian, who did not see a stranger in the night and invite him to join the campfire.”

Eli expounds on Toshaway’s advice about the difference between bravery and cowardice by superimposing it onto the difference between the Comanche people and the white American settlers. Key to this passage is the emphasis on community, which the Americans and the Comanches approach in different ways. The Comanche nation fights to defend their communities while the Americans discover community in the process of sating their thirst for violence.

“It had become clear to me that the lives of the rich and famous were not so different from the lives of the Comanches: you did what you pleased and answered to no one. I saw myself finishing out the war as a captain or major, at which point I’d go into cattle or shipping. One thing I knew: I was done working for other men.”

Eli likens the white American settlers to the Comanche bands they’ve displaced in this passage: Both communities enjoy lives of leisure. However, it is important to note that in white society, only the rich settlers can have this kind of lifestyle. The Comanche nation, on the other hand, ensures that the entire population gets to enjoy this privilege.

“I am sorry for your loss of two men, but when this war is over, you three will be able to do whatever you like. But I will be stuck on the reservation, along with my family, paying the price for supporting the wrong side. As will all my men. Who, when they are finished burying their brothers, will likely come to the conclusion that the best action is to kill the three of you. Both because you led us to this gun, which you did not bother to tell us about, and also because when whites steal something, it is no problem—whites can steal from each other—but if Indians steal something it is another matter. Do you understand? Indians who steal gold will not be forgiven.”

One of Eli’s Cherokee comrades in the Civil War speaks up against US exploitation of Indigenous nations. Though the Cherokee people joined the Confederacy on the promise of equal treatment, they withdraw their support once they realize that the Confederates will treat them the same way as the Union. For this Indigenous group, the Civil War is thus a lost cause that represents a fight for the rights of white Americans, but not one about the rights and equal treatment of Indigenous peoples.

“There is nothing wrong with my father: he is the natural. The problem is those like myself, who hoped we might rise from our instinctive state. Who hoped to go beyond our nature.”

Peter ends his life resigned to the fact that he can never change the perspectives of those who commit themselves to the brutalities of life on the frontier. He moreover acknowledges that the same ruthlessness exists within him too because he is his father’s son. Nevertheless, he has also made it his mission in life to become something better because he can imagine a different way of being. This resonates with Jeannie’s character journey and its connection to Taking Ownership of One’s Destiny.

“Perhaps he had sown the seeds of his own ruination. He’d provided for all of them, and they’d become soft, they’d become people he never would have respected.

Of course you wanted your children to have it better than you had. But at what point was it not better at all? People needed something to worry about or they would destroy themselves, and she thought of her grandchildren and all the grandchildren yet to come.”

Jeannie realizes the futility of Eli’s efforts to build a family legacy. In choosing to sustain that legacy, she ultimately replicated the conditions that caused Eli’s descendants to contradict him. She wonders then if the way to ensure that future generations can look after what she has built is to ironically threaten it, the way Charles had done so when Jeannie rose to the occasion.