77 pages • 2 hours read
James McBrideSong Yet Sung
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 24-26Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 24 Summary: “liz’s discovery”
Patty shelters from pouring rain in an old hunter’s lean-to near Blackwater Creek when Stanton enters. They both wonder where Joe is. Patty lies and says that Odgin was injured and Hodges took him to a doctor. Stanton is disturbed by Patty’s fury and the dead calm look in her eyes.
Stanton explains that Joe left a note to meet him at the Indian burial grounds, where he went with the slave who had harbored Liz. Patty says they have to move fast, since there are other search parties around.
Patty and Stanton head off down the trail and soon Stanton finds Joe dead in a clearing. Patty’s fury increases and her face takes on a look Stanton has never seen on a woman before, that oystermen call “bay face” which “usually described a man who’d had a horrible life change and was waiting on the bay to swallow him […] Such a man did not fear death but welcomed it” (325).
Patty puts on Joe’s boots. Stanton finds a damaged gun and recognizes it as Denwood’s pepperbox. Patty refuses to bury Joe and says that Stanton is welcome to whatever money Joe has in his pockets. Patty rides away, thinking that Stanton will likely be dead soon the way things are going, and she can get Joe’s belongings when she picks over Stanton’s body.
Meanwhile, Liz wakes under the rock outcrop and finds the Woolman standing by her. Liz tries to stand but she cannot: “She was exhausted and feeling worse. Her chest felt as if it were going to break apart. There was something wrong inside her. Deep inside” (327-328). The Woolman pulls her to her feet and leads her through the trees.
Liz says to the Woolman that it is no wonder nobody ever found him, since the way to his hut is complicated. From the water, the tiny sliver of land is completely hidden. His hut blends into its surroundings. Liz steps into the hut and sees a white child asleep tied to a chair. She gasps and asks whose child he is. Jeff Boy wakes and asks for a drink of water.
Chapter 25 Summary: “denwood meets the woolman”
Denwood and Amber strike out to find Jeff Boy. Denwood thinks about how to hunt down Liz but looking for Jeff Boy first would feel like his redemption. When they reach Sinking Creek, Denwood asks Amber what is beyond the swamp. Amber does not know, so Denwood decides to check it out.
Denwood sees that the rock outcrop hides more land behind it. He finds a sack, which Amber recognizes as Liz’s, and asks Amber what the knots in the rope mean. Amber is shocked, thinking it impossible for Liz to be there, and says that the knots mean two people are missing.
Denwood asks Amber what he knows about the Woolman, but Amber knows nothing. Denwood believes the Woolman threw the hatchet into Joe and had something to do with Jeff Boy’s disappearance. This worries Amber, since Denwood would be no match for the Woolman, who seemed to not be human, or at least so knowledgeable of the woods that he could not be caught. Amber knows Denwood has not thought of any of this: “Like most white men, Amber thought bitterly, he thought he had the answers to everything” (334).
Denwood and Amber come upon the Woolman’s hut. Amber thinks he must be dreaming, because he sees Liz in the doorway, looking tired and ill. Amber calls out to her and she looks fearfully above his head. Denwood looks up and the Woolman crashes down on him from the rock outcrop. Denwood gets up and scrambles to the beach and the Woolman charges towards him.
Denwood tries to pull out his gun, but the Woolman knocks it out of his hand and lands on him, a knife in his hand. Furiously they grapple with one another. Denwood experiences the familiar calm he feels when his internal rage gets the better of him. The Woolman fights like he is possessed. As Denwood looks into the Woolman’s eyes, he sees perfect calm and purpose. The Woolman raises his knife again and Denwood reaches for his gun on the shore next to him.
Amber and Liz run to the rock outcrop as soon as the Woolman jumps Denwood. Amber asks Liz if she is hurt and she looks at him so tenderly that he feels he would do anything for her. Amber tells Liz to follow the creek to the west, where he has a canoe tied up, with everything she will need. Liz tells Amber that there is a white boy in the hut and Amber realizes it is Jeff Boy. Nearby, Patty and Stanton hear gunshots and Patty recognizes the sound of Joe’s gun.
The Woolman is too strong for Denwood, despite being injured. Denwood sees Amber and bitterly faults Amber for not coming to his aid. Denwood knows that it is Liz by Amber’s side and can’t help but think: “His money was right there! He would remember them if he survived” (339). The Woolman stabs Denwood in the side of the head, then in the shoulder. Denwood pummels the Woolman on his injured arm. The Woolman stabs Denwood in the side twice and Denwood thinks that he is taking the blows for his son and for his wife. As the Woolman moves in for the final blow, Denwood grabs his arm and yells out, “All them things I done for you colored bastards. All the kindness I showed. I ain’t sorry, neither! ’Cause you’re slaves! All of you! Slaves to an idea! Which I ain’t!” (341).
Denwood waits for the blow that will end his suffering, but instead he hears his gun go off and the Woolman sob. The Woolman falls away from him and Denwood sees Liz with the gun in her hand. She bends down to the Woolman, who says something unintelligible in her ear: “Yes, I’m magic, Liz sobbed. I’m magic and I release you now, she said. You’re free, Mr. Woolman. G’wan home. Your tomorrows is all better. I dreamed it” (342).
Chapter 26 Summary: “showdown”
Patty waits behind the rock outcrop for the Woolman and Denwood to finish their battle. Afterwards, she and Stanton can ride in and get their money.
Stanton draws his gun and Patty greets Denwood. They banter a bit and then Patty dismounts her horse and kicks Denwood repeatedly. Patty whispers that she knows he killed Joe. Denwood protests that Joe drew on him first and that Amber was a witness. Patty says she will deal with Amber next and points her gun at Denwood’s ear.
Denwood tells her to go ahead and that he will see her in hell. Patty says that she thought he did not believe in God. Denwood answers, “I don’t. But I hear if you believes in Him, He believes in you back” (345). Patty turns to Liz and accuses her of killing Little George. Denwood tells Patty to take her money and go, but Patty wants to settle things first.
Denwood says there are too many witnesses for her to kill him, but Patty counters that there are none of consequence. Denwood tells her about the white boy in the cabin who would be a witness, so Patty tells Stanton to go in and get whoever is inside. Stanton protests that he does not know what is in there. Patty raises her gun and shoots Stanton dead. When Denwood objects, Patty says she never liked Stanton.
Denwood tells Patty to leave again, but now she is interested in the person in the hut, though Denwood now tries to convince her it was a ruse. She sweetly calls to Jeff Boy and he starts to come out, but Amber shouts for him to run, so the boy freezes. Patty swings her gun towards Amber, though Denwood tries to dissuade her from risking her reward money. Patty puts her knee on Denwood’s chest and aims at Jeff Boy. Denwood silently prays to God to make his hands work again, and “felt a great power lift his hand up. Felt his arm, deadened by the Woolman’s knife, rise and grab the hot barrel of Patty’s pistol” (347).
A rifle shot rings out and Patty falls, landing on the Woolman’s chest. She calls out to Amber and Liz to lift her up, but they are looking up at the rock outcrop. Denwood looks up as well and sees a small figure with long hair—Kathleen. Kathleen calls out to Jeff Boy. Denwood dies with her voice in his ears.
Chapters 24-26 Analysis
These chapters erupt in climactic violence that is ultimately about the ushering in of the next generation. The novel’s characters face life and death struggles, as they either voluntarily give up what has been driving them all along or are forced to do so, so that the novel’s children can survive and becomes the progenitors of the people in Liz’s visions.
During his battle with the Woolman, Denwood struggles internally as well as physically. The Woolman embodies all the inequality and sorrow found in the lives of the people of the eastern shore of Maryland, black and white alike. In the Woolman, Denwood also senses the kind of emotionless, invincible force he himself had been when he had been a renowned slave catcher. In his pursuit of wealth and through his need to prove himself to both his father and to the upper class who had looked down on him, Denwood had become damned and corrupt.
Contradicting his avowed atheism, Denwood prays to God to give him the strength in his deadened arm to stay Patty’s gun, giving Kathleen time to shoot her. In the end, Denwood finds his redemption in saving Kathleen’s child. Through his romantic longing for Kathleen and his solicitude about Jeff Boy, Denwood reclaims his humanity as he dies: “the tiny ache in his heart became a pounding in his ears, growing and growing until the rage—the white noise that had drowned his hearing as a young man and carried him from one end of the nation to the other to destroy all that was within him that did not work—dissipated” (348). Denwood dies at peace.
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By James McBride
