Dread Nation

The trip to Summerland is hot and torturous, and Jane continues to stew in her rage over the course of five days. Jane, Katherine, and Jackson realize that the mayor and his cronies lied about Baltimore being safe. The train arrives in Kansas, and Jackson attempts to escape by punching Mr. Redfern and fleeing but fails when he is chased down.

Jane wants to escape as well but knows that “now is not the time or place” (194). Jackson is taken away to the jail, and Jane takes in the town of Summerland. The town is hot and flat. In the distance, Jane and Katherine see an impressive barrier wall. Jane and Katherine meet the sheriff of Summerland, Sheriff Snyder, who strikes Jane as “more dangerous than he looks” (200).

The sheriff explains that Jane and Katherine, along with all the other Black citizens, are responsible for patrolling the huge wall that surrounds the town and ensuring the safety of the white citizens. Jane realizes that her future will involve “toiling away, working in the fields or on patrols, killing the dead while people like the sheriff live a life of safety and leisure” (202). She decides to save Katherine from this same fate and declares that she isn’t Black. The sheriff summons a professor and instructs him to analyze Katherine up to find out if she is white or not.

On the way to the professor’s lab, Jane gets into an altercation with one of the sheriff’s men, who shoves Jane with his gun and calls her a racial slur. The professor breaks them up, reminding the white man to “show some restraint” (209), as Jane and Katherine are Miss Preston’s girls who could easily kill him. They meet the Duchess, the mistress of a brothel, and Jane learns that the professor’s name is Mr. Gideon. The Duchess asks if Jane and Katherine are new girls for her brothel, which insults Katherine. He dismisses the sheriff’s men and leads Jane and Katherine into his lab.

Mr. Gideon takes Jane and Katherine to his laboratory in which he tinkers with inventions and designs farming equipment, electric lights, and weapons. The girls are amazed, and when he comments that “everyone in Summerland has their place, and it’s important to remember what it is” (214), Jane senses that Mr. Gideon doesn’t want to be there any more than they do. He vaccinates Jane, insisting that he knows the sheriff’s plans for her (216). Jane hesitates because Professor Ghering’s vaccine failed, but she doesn’t want to get beaten like Jackson, so she allows Gideon to vaccinate her.

Gideon hints that he knows Katherine isn’t white, but he plays along and reports that she is. He warns Jane and Katherine that the sheriff’s father is the town preacher, and he “makes the final decision on all matters” (218). Gideon is polite and kind, and he takes pity on Jane and Katherine for being put in this situation. Jane and Katherine get clothes from the general store, and they are then sent to the church. Katherine is distraught about trying to pass herself as a white woman. Jane tells Katherine about a rabbit that used to steal from the garden at Rose Hill, and how before long, the rabbit became fat from the vegetables in the garden and “couldn’t fit through the same holes he used to” (225) and was captured. Jane assures Katherine that they must simply “be patient gardeners” (225) in Summerland, but she privately wonders if they aren’t the gardeners, but the rabbits in this situation.

Jane and Katherine arrive at the church and are greeted by the preacher who is the “whitest white man” Jane has ever seen, with “blue-veined hands shaky, his false teeth overly large in his mouth” (228). The preacher welcomes Katherine into the church while sending Jane away. He tells her that Katherine won’t need her as an Attendant anymore. He tells Jane that she must stay at the brothel. Jane goes there and meets the Duchess, who takes pity on Jane. The Duchess shows Jane to her room and fills her in about the power dynamics in Summerland: The sheriff and the preacher run the town, and Jane should watch her back.