Shayne > Recent Status Updates

They all go back to the studio, where Gordon shows Patricia, Mrs. Maurier’s niece, the piece he’s working on, wherein she sees her own likeness. The ladies leave with a declined invitation. We then learn about Mr. Talliaferro’s tragic marriage, the jobs he has held, most notably at a women’s department store, and his bachelor status of 8 years.

Mr. Talliaferro observes Gordon in his article studio while claiming to know so much about sex. Gordon, not really paying attention, asks him to go change out his milk bottle. On the way back from the store, he runs into Mrs. Maurier, who asks if he has invited Gordon to the yacht cruise.

The troop buries the burned bodies of the mule skinners.

The Man, weeping all the time, admits to Liza that his encouraging words three days prior were a farce; he really thinks her pathetic. After finishing his manifesto, he assaults her in a vengeful act of un-love. After they both recover from the encounter, he gives her money which she throws back to him. He never sees her again.

A few weeks after the return to San Antonio, the troop, minus the Major who who had died of a fever, decides to join the expedition to capture Santa Fe under the command of Caleb Cobb.

The Man enters a state of absolute paranoia as he waits anxiously to find out whether Liza will call on him, taking his wrath out on Apollon, whom he still has not paid his wages. At the pinnacle of his breakdown, Liza knocks on the door.

The Man explains to Liza that she is fated to live a short, miserable life and die alone and unloved if she does not change her course of actions. He leaves the den after she shows him a letter she received from an old school friend she believes is in love with her. She explains she is just trying to pay off a debt so she can be with him.

The Underground Man wakes up in a daze next to Liza, a prostitute. He condescendingly argues with her about whether a life of staying with your parents until you get married, a life full of love, is better than the life she was sold into.

The Man arrives at the dinner at the appointed time of 5, but is informed the time has been changed to 6 without his being notified. Later, he greatly embarrasses himself and offends the party with his unpopular opinions and tendencies. He challenges Ferfechkin to a duel and resolves to slap Zverkov in the face as he follows them to their next destination. He surprisingly finds out he was expected upon arrival.

The Underground Man interrupts Simonov and his fellow schoolmates planning a dinner for Zverkov, a pretentious schoolmate the Man has particular contempt for. He invites himself at the cost of pitching in towards the cost of the festivities. He dreams of his miserable time in school, wakes up, and hastens through the day, avoiding his servant whose pay he is using to contribute to the dinner.

The Underground Man talks about his fanciful dreams and then recounts visits to his regrettable acquaintances Setochkin and Simonov.

The Underground Man goes through daily life with contempt for his peers and detachment from society. He splits his free time between reading and debauchery. One day, after seeing a man thrown from a tavern window, he enters looking for a fight. An officer disrespects his ability. He sees the officer frequently and revolves to bump him on the shoulder in the street; he eventually succeeds but the officer does nothing.

The Underground Man believes in nothing, wants nothing, yet wants everything. He believes inaction to be the best action. Finally we learn that he expects no one to read his confession, although he addresses his readers directly. He is recording his thoughts and memories out of boredom.

The troop veers off the trail after what they believe are goats on top of a nearby mountain. While trying to find a way up, Buffalo Hump silently kills Josh Corn and then he and his cronies parade his body just out of range of the Rangers’ firearms. Zeke Moody goes after the Comanche and gets himself scalped alive. The “goats” turn out to be Comanches who ambush the troop, who, after the attack, turn back east.

After much bellowing, the troop is able to get the lance out of Gus’s hip. Shadrach is finally able to communicate with the old woman who warns that a battalion of Comanches is headed their direction to raid Chihuahua City. The major makes the decision to pack up camp and head west at sunup.

The Underground Man argues for wanting over reason and asserts that man may not have full control over his destiny. He argues that man has always behaved badly, that chaos endures, and that consciousness is higher than mathematics and statistics.

We meet the Underground Man, about his wickedness and how he revels in it, about his former profession as an official and how he retired from it after receiving an inheritance but now lives in squalor, about his vanity, and the apparent pleasure he receives from not only others’, but his own, discomfort. It seems too he lacks a moral compass and any “normal” sense of right and wrong, beautiful and wretched.

The troop continues to try to interrogate the old woman and the boy to no avail. Gus and Call are assigned to first watch that night. We learn about their upbringings and how they met. Gus sneaks off from their position and is chased back to camp by the fearsome Comanche Buffalo Hump and gets lanced in the hip.

As the sandstorm rages, the old woman and the boy sit unbothered by the fire, which eventually goes out. The Rangers have a scuffle with the “Indian” scalp hunters. After the storm, Gus mounts the mare and is almost immediately bucked off.

Ed Tom and Uncle Ellis talk God, fate and determinism, and their biggest regrets over a cup of rancid coffee.

The troop throws on some additional clothes to prepare for the blue norther rolling in, which causes chaos just as Gus and Call are saddling the mare, Matilda slaughters and cooks the turtle, and the boys are talking torture and how to dispatch of oneself in the event of capture by the allied forces of the Comanches and Apaches.

Chigurh delivers the case to its owner and kills Carla Jean.

Matilda, the Great Western, snatches a snapping turtle out of the river, or off a rock according to Long Bill. Most of Major Chevallie’s troop lie around drunk from the previous night’s spoil of Mescal. All except Gus and Call, who are trying to break a mare.

Moss and the girl travel west Texas together talking about their plans. He encourages her to improve her situation, giving her money to help get her to California safety after he drops her off on El Paso. Neither of them makes it there. They are shot down outside of their motel. Bell and other deputies investigate the scene. Chigurh retrieves the case from the air duct.

The duo make it back to the village and reunite with their families.

On the way back to their village, the duo encounters the company of Don Álvaro, a major player in the forged second volume of Don Quixote’s history. They compel him to swear legally that they are the real Quixote and Panza, and that the men he travelled with were imposters. Sancho also “fulfills” his penance, and Quixote looks to every girl they pass in hopes of encountering Dulcinea.

Chigurh kills the man who sent Wells and then squats at Carla Jean’s mother’s home. Meanwhile, Carla Jean and her mother go to seek refuge in El Paso. Moss grabs the case, takes a cab to San Antonio, buys a vehicle, and picks up a young hitchhiker.

The duo make their way back to their village. Along the way, Quixote offers Sancho money in exchange for his whipping himself to disenchant Dulcinea. Sancho gets underway but comes up with the scheme of whipping the trees in the Don’s hearing to save himself some pain.

The events involving Sansón Carrasco scheming with the Duke and Duchess to put Don Quixote out are revealed. Altisidora weaves a tale of her seeing devils playing ball with the forged second volume of Don Quixote’s tale at the gates of hell. Don Quixote rejects her advances and almost immediately quits the Duke and Duchess’s castle.

Bell and other law enforcement scope out the hotel scene. Wells tracks down Moss to a Mexican hospital.