Chapter 12

This chapter was good. Very gruesome, and very violent. There were good similes and lines in this chapter as well. One such simile is on page 151, "Like a patrol condemned to ride out some ancient curse." This just shows how the company is basically riding across the land, not really doing anything exciting or special. Just pure monotony.

I like how Glanton still kept the dog from last chapter. I think it shows that even the baddest of the bad needs a companion, and what's a greater companion than man's best friend? Also, later in the chapter, I thought it cool of Glanton to wonder where his dog went off to after the big fight with the Apaches. It kinda shows that this tough guy can have feelings too.

Another good simile is on page 152, "the hail leaped in the sand like small lucent eggs concocted alchemically out of the desert darkness." Alchemy is pretty much the ancient science back in the day. It's main goal was to turn any basic metal into gold, find something similar to the fountain of youth, and and obtain something known as the philosopher's stone. Here's the wikipedia page of Alchemy. It's got some pretty good information on Alchemy. I think this quote just implies how sudden the hail starts falling, as if the hail were created on the spot.

The dead argonauts they found were in extremely bad shape. I would hate to have been those guys. The quote on page 153 really says it all, "Some by their beards were men but yet wore strange menstrual wounds between their legs and no man's parts for these had been cut away and hung dark and strange from out their grinning mouths." Just wow. It's not really how this is so disgusting, it's more like it's so vivid that you can imagine this exactly. I feel for those guys, as getting castrated and being fed your own sexual organ is not a good way to go.

The big fight with the Apaches was just plain awesome. This quote on page 156 is great, "...one of the Delawares emerged from the smoke with a naked infant dangling in each hand and squatted at a ring of midden stones and swung them by the heeels each in turn and bashed their heads against the stones so that the brains burst forth through the fontanel in a bloody spew." I used the whole sentence, or the majority of it, to emphasize just what happened. This is going to sound sadistic, but bashing babies skulls on a stone is pretty hardcore. I don't think you can show that in a movie though.

I thought the death of McGill was pretty lame, which bothered me because obviously we have the same name. He had a lance and a sword through him, and Glanton shot him in the head. Really? McGill could've at least took someone with him, but no. He was even scalped!

I thought this quote about a dying Apache on page 159 was pretty interesting, "In those dark pools there sat each a small and perfect sun." This brings me back to whoever was saying a couple of days ago that there is death in perfection.

I was surprised the company allowed the judge to keep that little Apache kid, when he was going go scalp him anyway. It was sort of funny how he did it though, because Toadvine walked by when the kid was alive, then he turned and the little boy was dead and scalped. It made me think of the judge being child-like again. Also why did the judge bring him into the camp, and fed him do all that he did if he was just going to scalp him? Wouldn't it have been better to just scalp him where he was found? I thought it weird that Toadvine was pretty angry when the judge scalped the kid. It makes me think that even though Toadvine is ruthless in some ways, he does have boundaries, and I think killing children is past his. I mean he could've killed the kid in the beginning of the book, and he didn't. Sure he said he meant to, but I think he just said that to act tough.

Some quotes I didn't understand:

Page 159, "That gentleman is sangre puro." This is where the judge was telling Glanton that the guy he killed wasn't Gomez. The thing I don't understand is the sangre puro part. What is it?

Page 163, "Dont you know he'd of took you with him? He'd of took you, boy. Like a bride to the altar." This is where Tobin is angry at the kid for helping David Brown remove the arrow in his thigh. Why does Tobin feel that the kid did a wrong thing by helping him? I don't understand that.