Days Without End

As the winter stretches on, John becomes convinced he is near death. Various illnesses tear through camp, killing many. An exchange of prisoners mean Thomas and John are sent north, but FitzGerald is left in camp. When Thomas and John return to Michigan, they’re greeted warmly by Winona (who is horrified by their appearance despite how happy she is to see them), Noone, and the members of the minstrel troupe. John jokes that they could be an act, “The Incredible Skeleton Men,” but Noone is upset by the joke (155). Slowly, Thomas and John recover, though their ordeal leaves them looking haggard and older than they are. The war ends, which Thomas considers bittersweet, considering how many died. Noone’s minstrel show disbands for lack of money.

Thomas puts on a dress and he and John go and get married by a “half-blind preacher,” registering Thomas as Thomasina McNulty. They receive a letter from Lige, whose farm is struggling, asking for them to come help him with a harvest. He says John and Thomas are his only family and recommends coming armed, as his neighbors threaten him for having sided with the Union. They ask McSweny to come with them, but he is unwilling to go south as a Black man and decides instead to stay with Noone in Michigan. Thomas, John, and Winona make their farewells and head to Tennessee with their meager fortune sewn into the hem of Winona’s dress for safekeeping.

They travel south. They encounter travelers who make racist comments against Winona, which they ignore, except for one man who implies that the relationship between Winona and her adoptive fathers is sexual. This causes John to threaten the man, who backs off quickly. Thomas misses wearing dresses, but thinks he doesn’t mind being “a matron,” the first time he refers to himself as a woman (as opposed to just preferring women’s clothing) in his internal monologue. They meet a Shawnee man (who uses the name “Joe” to pass among white people, though he says this is not his real name, which he doesn’t reveal) who is happy to meet Winona, as she reminds him of his past, and the group pass a pleasant evening together, though the man speculates that Native Americans “ain’t going to be around much longer” (161).

Joe helps Thomas, John, and Winona cross a river from Indiana into Kentucky despite a freezing rain. Thomas changes into his dress at first because it is dry, but likes it enough that he doesn’t change back. They encounter signs of the war and of regrowth, and Thomas is pleased that he passes as a woman and that their group is seen by passersby as “just another family.” They pass bodies of victims of lynching.

They pass into Tennessee and encounter four well-armed men, one wearing a Confederate coat. They have a tense conversation, John holding his gun, while the men ask questions about their destination, Winona’s relationship to the family, and whether or not they are Northerners. John, Winona, and Thomas stay quiet, and Thomas thinks of how he can kill one of the men while John handles another, hoping to use the element of surprise that “the wife” of the family would know how to fight. John shoots two of the men, Thomas one, and Winona the fourth. Winona is shot. They flee on their mules and when they stop, John and Thomas are terrified that Winona has been killed, but the bullet was stopped by one of the gold coins sewed into her dress.

Thomas must wear pants again, but finds this does not change his self-image, musing that “a man can wear trews and be womanish still” (167). When Winona regains consciousness, John asks where she got her gun; it was a going-away present from McSweny. They ride through the night, Thomas feeling peaceful and grateful for his family. By morning, Winona is sore enough from being shot that she can’t ride, and Thomas makes a stretcher from two poles and his dress. They quietly skirt Paris, Tennessee, per Lige’s instructions, and approach the farm.

John, Thomas, and Winona reach Lige’s farm, which is badly in need of work. Lige is very pleased to see them and says he knows the leader of the man who attacked them. His name is Tach Petrie, formerly of the Confederate army. He and the other men he was with were responsible for the lynchings in the area. Lige is living with a Black woman named Rosalee, who sees Thomas’s dress and asks after “Mrs Cole,” for which Thomas and John have no answer. Lige relays news from Starling, who has written that the situation on the plains has “all gone to pot” (172). Caught-His-Horse-First has been seen with a new group and FitzGerald survived the war and has gone to Alaska; this latter piece of news surprises and pleases Thomas, who assumed FitzGerald had died in the prisoner camp.

John, Thomas, and Winona settle in at the farm. John finds a wounded mourning dove, which Thomas nurses and names General Lee, as an insult to the man’s looks. They spend the winter planting tobacco and gathering with Lige, Rosalee, and her brother Tennyson in the evenings to sing and dance. They describe their act with Noone and Thomas dons his women’s wear to show them. Summer comes and the group defends the crop from attackers. When the harvest arrives, they sell the crop profitably and begin the cycle of planting again.

John and Thomas reflect on their life together and plan how to make things better for Winona. They want to send her to school but can’t find one that will take a Native girl, which upsets John in particular. Tach returns with a group of men and attacks the farm. Lige, Tennyson, John, and Thomas shoot from inside the house, then Thomas sneaks around back to flank the remaining men, praying for Winona’s safety. Thomas is shot and thinks he is about to be killed when suddenly Starling arrives, saving him. He worries that John isn’t present outside shooting and wonders where Starling came from before passing out.

Thomas and Starling go inside to find John shot in the thigh but alive. They cauterize John’s wound as the group decides the men are unlikely to come back, due to the many injuries and casualties they were dealt. Starling reveals he has come because Caught-His-Horse-First has abducted Mrs. Neale and her daughters. Supposedly he has killed Mrs. Neale and one of the children, according to the stories that reached Major, but is willing to trade the other girl for Winona, his niece. Winona, who feels she owes Mrs. Neale, wishes to go back, but John forbids it. They argue.

The next morning, Winona and Starling are gone. John is too injured for pursuit, so Thomas chases after them, stopping as infrequently as possible but not catching them. A five-day blizzard slows his travels. He is surprised to see houses in western Nebraska, which was uninhabited last time he was there. Though he feels sympathy for Major, he longs for his daughter. He reaches Laramie, and Major, who thinks Thomas came with Starling, thanks him effusively. Major reports that they will depart to make the trade—Winona for Angel, Major’s daughter—the following day. Major offers to sign Thomas for a 90-day commission and rescind it after the exchange is over so that Thomas can stay at the fort. Thomas finds Winona, who hugs him fiercely, even as Starling threatens to shoot him. As Thomas dresses in uniform, he flashes back to the first time he ever met John and worries he is betraying him.

The next morning, 200 soldiers plus a German translator named Sarjohn ride to meet Caught-His-Horse-First. Winona wears a drummer boy’s uniform and jokes about not getting a drum, but Thomas is too upset and worried to laugh. He muses that nobody is thinking about what will happen to Winona after she’s traded. He thinks about the hypocrisy of calling the Sioux murderers for killing Mrs. Neale when the army first killed Caught-His-Horse-First’s wife and children, and about the possible injustice of him and John adopting Winona, no matter how much they love her.

When they encounter the Sioux, Thomas notes that more of them wear European-style clothing than when he was last on the plains. He muses that once this land was occupied exclusively by Native American peoples, but now “a hundred thousand Irish roam this land and Chinese fleeing from their cruel emperors and Dutch and Germans and boys born east” occupy the plains (187). Winona and Angel switch places with little fanfare, Winona placidly and Angel weeping.