The Son

Eighty-six-year-old J.A. “Jeannie” McCullough reflects on the solitude that has plagued her successful career as an oil tycoon.

In her earliest memory, her father, Charles, invited her great-grandfather, Eli, to church. When the Sunday school teacher explained that Eli would go to Hell for refusing the invitation, Jeannie thought of joining Eli. Charles later admitted that he resented going to church because he survived the war only to watch his wife die.

Jeannie remembers an important set of papers she had forgotten to burn.

Peter McCullough turns 45 years old and soberly realizes that he has failed to live meaningfully. He is the least favored of Eli’s sons.

That summer, Mexican insurgents conduct frequent raids against white landowners. Eli vouches for the vaqueros who work on the McCullough estate to maintain their loyalty. The McCulloughs’ cattle stock is nevertheless dwindling, leading them to suspect that their neighbors, the Garcias, are responsible. Peter refrains from supporting these allegations because he pities his old friend, Pedro, the Garcia patriarch.

Pedro’s sons-in-law are declared outlaws by the Mexican government, which bolsters the McCulloughs’ suspicions. When Peter’s youngest son, Glenn, is shot in the shoulder, Eli blames Pedro’s sons-in-law. He gathers a mob to ride for the Garcia estate.

Armstrong rides off to retrieve two stolen horses, leaving Eli and his brother Martin to guard the estate. Young Eli is a seasoned hunter who aspires to join the Texas Rangers. He is more capable of mounting a defense than his bookish brother, who aspires to travel east.

Eli comes across a spear while fishing. After taking home his catch for the day, Eli climbs into his hammock and shoots a white wolf crossing nearby. He leaves it instead of collecting its skin since it is nearly dark. The family has a bountiful dinner and then retires for the night.

At midnight, the family is alerted to the presence of Comanche raiders approaching the house. When someone kicks at the door, Eli’s mother, Natalia, panics and lets them in. Martin is too stunned to act, so Eli tries to fight the raiders off. The Comanche attackers overpower him and comb the house for valuables. They rape Natalia and Elizabeth. When Natalia attempts to crawl back to the house, the raiders shoot and scalp her. Elizabeth is also mutilated.

The raiders burn the house, taking Eli and Martin as hostages. When the party reaches the Colorado River, Martin tells Eli that Elizabeth was killed by accident. Martin is learning Comanche words and has identified the chief raider as Toshaway. Toshaway is opposed to killing their captives. Throughout the journey, Martin voices his musings. Eli begs him to stop.

The Comanche group becomes worried, which causes the McCullough brothers to speculate that the Rangers are pursuing them. After a brief gunfight, the party continues its ride, moving past a caravan whose passengers the Comanche men have already either killed or bound. The raiding party splits up to throw off other pursuers.

The Comanche men raid another estate and take two more hostages, both German women. Eli and Martin resent them for weeping so much. Martin explains that he froze up during the raid on the house because he feared what the attackers would do to Elizabeth and Natalia.

While camping at a canyon, Toshaway starts speaking directly to Eli. Martin informs Eli that they are to be split up and enslaved by different raiders. Eli understands that Toshaway will be his enslaver.

They soon reach the Llano Estacado. With nowhere to escape, the McCullough boys are unbound. The Comanche group kills a buffalo calf and forces the boys into its stomach. They are pleased when Eli starts to eat the calf’s liver. Martin refuses and instead recites a poem that he has written to honor Elizabeth’s memory. He then starts talking about his unfulfilled aspirations before revealing that he would rather die than be enslaved. Martin loudly insults their captors to provoke them into killing him. Martin’s enslaver, Urwat, kills him for sport. Toshaway later tells Eli that the Comanche men believe that Martin was a trickster spirit and that Urwat is now cursed for killing him. They bury Martin with some of the raiding party’s fighting tools and spoils.

Jeannie resents that her descendants will never have to worry about money. Growing up, she learned to leverage her possessions for their value. She recalls when Eli caught a baby rabbit for her, which she cherished.

Jeannie grew up at odds with her father, Charles, who understood cattle better than he understood women. To prove herself, Jeannie rode out with her brothers and helped them with their ranch work. She became a skilled rider by age 12.

In the present, Jeannie resents that the wealthy no longer feel the obligation to master technical skills. Although she could have grown up without fulfilling that obligation herself, the impulse to tend to her cattle and her oil wells became instinctive to her. She is embarrassed by her children’s lack of constitution and how they condescend to workers.

Jeannie reflects on the afterlife. While she hopes to reunite with her late husband Hank, she wonders how he will react to her long-term relationship with another man named Ted. She suspects that she will not fit in Heaven and starts to fear death.

Glenn is shot during a raid to recover the stolen cattle from the Garcia estate. Although Glenn’s wound is nonfatal, his brother Charles seeks retribution. Peter resolves to bring in the Rangers, though he knows they are biased against the Garcias.

At the Garcia house, Pedro declares his intent to bring his sons-in-law to justice, though they have already fled the estate. Just as Peter is about to enter the house, someone fires a gun, emboldening the mob to begin shooting at the Garcia household. Pedro is instantly killed. The Rangers move indoors with the intent to shoot on sight. Charles gives the call to cease fire once the house is cleared.

Peter identifies each of the Garcias among the casualties and is disgusted. It is confirmed that Pedro’s sons-in-law are not among the dead. Pedro’s eldest daughter, María, is the only survivor. Peter has her safely taken away. A photographer takes pictures of the Rangers with the dead bodies. The townspeople arrive to scavenge the Garcias’ valuables.

The raiding party divides the spoils among the different Comanche bands. Eli and one of the German girls ride off with Toshaway’s group. After several days of continued movement, the raiders stop to clean themselves, their hostages, and their horses. They then parade their spoils into the village.

Toshaway bargains with the family of a raider Eli had killed to keep Eli as his property. Eli is brought before the village to be pierced, wrestled, and taunted with guns. Toshaway declares that Eli is brave enough to face death, earning the villagers’ approval.

At a dinner party, Eli beholds the wealth of the Comanche band. The warriors take turns telling stories of bravery and dancing. Eli is given a turn to join the dance. Later that night, Eli resolves to take revenge against Urwat and his band, the Yap-Eaters, for killing Martin. He does not hold the same contempt for the group he is enslaved by, the Kotsoteka, knowing that Toshaway saved Eli’s life and tried to save Martin’s.

Jeannie dreams of the past, and then reflects on how her legacy will be vilified by progressive people. As an oil industry leader, she believes that she must have improved the efficiency of medical services and food supply cycles, thereby increasing human life span.

Jeannie remembers that most of her family are dead. Had she taken the opportunity to retire several years earlier, she would have gotten the chance to know them better. This opportunity was disrupted by the entry of Arab industrialists into the United States oil industry.

The Garcia massacre sparks off a series of attacks on the local Tejano population. Peter tries to share his perspective of the events but is dismissed because of anti-Tejano bias. Many Tejano families soon flee Texas. Without the army to reinforce their efforts, the Texas Rangers try to contain the violence by imposing a curfew. Peter offers his house as a Tejano refuge. This angers his wife, Sally, who thinks the Tejano people they’re sheltering might steal from them. She is also upset that Peter hasn’t visited Glenn at the hospital.

Toshaway teaches Eli, whom he has renamed Tiehteti-taibo (which means “Pathetic Little White Man”), the history of their nation and band. The Kotsoteka migrated to the Canadian River after white Texans broke an agreement to settle outside Austin. Unlike the Indigenous nations, who recognize that they must take their lands from others to claim them, the white settlers feel entitled to the land they steal. Toshaway then reveals that he has been watching the McCulloughs for a long time and attempted to dissuade the Yap-Eaters from attacking.

Eli tries to escape twice but does not get very far either time. Eli spends most of his days doing errands like filling water jugs, gathering fruits, making buffalo robes, and cleaning game. Sometimes he is asked to help Toshaway prepare for raids. He soon becomes accustomed to the Comanche way of life, which is marked by close kinship to their surroundings and lazy days.

A young raider named Nuukaru urges Eli to refuse to do women’s work. The next time he is asked to retrieve water and firewood, Eli refuses. He is chased away by one of Toshaway’s neighbors. Escaping to the river, Eli momentarily remembers his mother and thinks about the six months that have passed since his capture. He is later found by Toshaway’s father, who affirms his decision to stop doing women’s work. The following day, Eli joins the children who are learning to hunt. Several weeks later, Eli is taken to hunt a doe. He shoots poorly, so the older hunters teach him to improve his form. Eli soon becomes familiar with different types of bows and their materials.

Eli avoids talking to the other captives except for the German girl, now referred to as Yellow Hair. When Eli encounters her, he learns that some of the men continue to rape her. Eli offers to help her. Yellow Hair asks to either be killed or freed.

Jeannie remembers how lively her house had been during her childhood when many people would come to see Eli. Unlike Charles, who was preoccupied with raising cattle, Eli maintained an interest in oil and in Jeannie’s destiny. Through her grandmother Sally, Jeannie came to learn about her family history. Her grandfather Peter was known as the Great Disgrace.

Eli had attempted to teach Jeannie to make arrowheads but stopped after she pricked her palm. He then taught her the importance of putting her name to things, so that she could be remembered for their discovery.

A mob arrives at Peter’s house. Charles scatters them with an automatic rifle, but braces for more violence. Most of the Tejano people there look to Eli as their savior, rather than Peter. Once it is safe, they flee south.

Glenn recovers from the illness brought about by his wound. Over the next few days, order returns. Peter is nevertheless haunted by memories of the dead Garcias. María soon runs away, making her the only living witness of the massacre from the Garcia side.

A year after his capture, Eli learns to break horses and to use shields against firearms. Toshaway teaches him that the key to bravery is to love others more than yourself. Eli improves his shield-bearing technique and is given a shield as a graduation present.

Eli joins Toshaway on patrol. On one such ride, he contemplates riding out to the frontier. The patrol shoots down a Tonkawa scout and lets Eli kill him. Later, while retrieving the scout’s belongings, Nuukaru observes that the scout received his weapon and horse from white men.

The following day, the Comanche warriors smell something rotten in the nearby canyon. The patrol finds a camp filled with dead people. Eli intuits that the camp must have died of a fast-acting illness. Toshaway suggests that the camp, all of them Comanche people from another band, were fleeing white men. Eli is vigorously cleaned afterward.

Several weeks later, the patrol investigates reports of Indigenous buffalo hunters. They identify the buffalo hunters as members of the Delaware nation, acknowledged to be some of the best at this activity. The patrol patiently conducts an assault on the Delaware hunters. Eli shoots a hunter, and Toshaway encourages Eli to scalp him. The Comanche group celebrates Eli’s victory. Later that night, Eli dreams about his capture.

Now that Eli is considered a man, Toshaway’s eldest son, Fat Wolf, permits him to talk to his wife, Hates Work. Later that night, Hates Work visits Eli to have sex with him. Toshaway’s younger son, Escuté, is jealous of Fat Wolf for being married to Hates Work, even though Escuté works harder to join Toshaway on raids. Nuukaru tries to reassure him by reminding him he will become chief one day. They both advise Eli to refrain from sharing his experience with Hates Work in public because their encounter was permitted by Fat Wolf. In their band, the women are free to have sex with anyone they want until they are married. To attract other women, Eli will need to perform more acts of bravery.

Jeannie is 12 when a neighboring farmer and his two sons disappear while on the McCullough ranch. The sheriff visits to ask if the authorities can search the ranch, but Charles refuses. This provokes a mob to gather outside the ranch. Charles mobilizes the ranch hands to defend the estate. Soon, the defensive forces are joined by the Texas Rangers. Though Charles eventually allows the sheriff to search the property, the neighbors remain missing.

Charles tries to mend community relations by becoming a benefactor. A dying Eli spends most of his time indoors, recording an account of his life. Jeannie keeps him company, sometimes walking with him whenever he has the energy. Outside of schoolwork, Jeannie is tasked with milking cows.

Jeannie regularly visits the abandoned Garcia house, aware of what happened to the family after Charles tells her the story of the massacre. At the Garcia house, she pretends to be a princess in a tower or a fighter against the communists.

Jeannie’s brother Clint tells her that she was responsible for killing their mother in childbirth. This makes Jeannie feel lonely among the men in her family. One summer, she, Clint, and their other brother Paul visit the Garcia house to look for treasure. They find a human skeleton with a gold necklace and deduce it was a girl around Jeannie’s age. Later, they watch a bull mate with a cow. Clint and Paul suggest that men will want to do the same thing to Jeannie, which makes her conscious of her body.

Jeannie does not have a strong relationship with her mother’s side of the family. Instead, she grows closer to her father’s side, including to her uncle Glenn. After Eli dies, Grandmother Sally returns to Dallas. This leaves Jeannie unprepared to experience her first menstruation. When Charles meekly explains that her body is preparing her for marriage, she stops trusting him. She takes the matter into her own hands, cutting up a makeshift liner from an undershirt.