Winter In The Blood

Teresa is the narrator’s mother. She is described as a handsome and capable woman who has kept the ranch prosperous through times of hardship. A widow and mother of two, Teresa also cares for her elderly mother. The narrator does not attend to his mother’s grief, but she suffered an equal loss with the passing of her 14-year-old son, Mose, and her husband, First Raise. The old woman’s death, while not impactful for the narrator, marks the loss of Teresa’s mother. Teresa’s father’s identity is a mystery; the old woman claimed that she was sired by Doagie, a “half-breed drifter” who the old woman took up with, but the narrator comes to believe that her father is actually Yellow Calf, a blind old man who lives a few miles away.

The narrator notes that Teresa “always had a clear bitter look, not without humor, that made the others of us seem excessive, too eager to talk too much, drink too much, breathe too fast” (106). In Chapter 9, the narrator describes his mother as a cold person and wonders whether this coldness was why his father was rarely at home. He credits love for himself and Mose as the reason First Raise did not leave the family entirely, but he gives no credit to Teresa for having never left. While the narrator’s characterization of Teresa is of a distant woman who does not respect or affirm others, the reader sees Teresa taking care of her mother, worrying about her son’s future and trying to encourage him to do something with his life, and telling fond stories about the narrator’s childhood and the things he used to do with his brother and cousins. There is a stoicism to Teresa that the narrator perceives as indifference; this may be due to his own apathy and an assumption that others who remain quiet do so out of a lack of feeling, rather than an innate quietness or reservation. Teresa marries during the course of the novel and loses her mother, but the narrator is not attentive enough to his mother for the reader to determine whether she is a dynamic or static character, or much about her emotional state at all.

First Raise is the narrator’s late father. He is described as being aimless and restless, able to accomplish some things but never moving past the dreaming or planning phase on others. One example of this is the fantasy elk hunt that First Raise planned every year:

He figured out the mileage and the time it would take him to reach the park, and the time it would take to kill an elk and drag it back across the boundary to his waiting pickup. He made a list of food and supplies. He inquired around, trying to find out what the penalty would be if they caught him. He wasn’t crafty like Lame Bull or the white men of Dodson, so he had to know the penalty, almost as though the penalty would be the inevitable result of his hunt. He never got caught because he never made the trip. The dream, the planning and preparation were all part of a ritual—something to be done when the haying was over and the cattle brought down from the hills. . . He had everything figured out, but he never made the trip (5).

This interiority—a focus on the dream or a potential future over the concrete present—parallels the role of memory for the narrator. The narrator is unable to connect with those around him but can feel emotion vividly in his memories. In contrast to his feelings about Teresa, whose feelings he cannot grasp, the narrator identifies with First Raise’s rich inner life.

Teresa has a different vision of First Raise; she tells the narrator that he was around enough, accomplished enough, and was satisfied with his lot in life even if he was “a wanderer—just like you, just like all these damned Indians” (16). Despite his father’s frequent absences and his habit of drinking in town, the narrator holds him up as an icon of cleverness. He frequently notes that his father was good at fixing things, particularly machines, and tells a story about a time his father charged a white man “Twenty dollars to kick a baler awake—one dollar for the kick and nineteen for knowing where to kick” (5). Because First Raise exists in the novel only as a memory, his characterization is fixed, though it does fluctuate some when the narrator and Teresa present contradictory narratives about him. He seems to have been a loving, if often absent, father, who made his boys feel loved and respected. It is noteworthy that when First Raise assigns his sons the difficult task of rounding up the cows before winter, they are excited for the opportunity to make their father proud.

The narrator’s new stepfather, Lame Bull, is a crafty and ambitious man. The narrator believes that his marriage to Teresa is based in ambition rather than love, noting the property benefits that come to Lame Bull after the union: “Lame Bull had married 360 acres of hay land, all irrigated, leveled, some of the best land in the valley, as well as a 2,000-acre grazing lease.” (10). This acquisition visibly pleases Lame Bull, who is consistently the most emotive character in the novel, with the narrator noting that he smiles all day, even when he’s working. His new proprietorship is also one of his favorite subjects of conversation, as demonstrated in his conversation about the challenges of ownership with Ferdinand Horn and at Beany’s bar.

If he is calculating in his marriage to Teresa, Lame Bull still seems to take the responsibility seriously. In the incident with Long Knife, Lame Bull loses his temper and strikes the other man. Prior to the blow, Lame Bull attempts to use positive encouragement to get the man working again. After the incident, the narrator notes that Lame Bull stops smiling as much as he used to, thinking that his good humor tempted farm hands to cheat him. He seems very conflicted about the violent interaction, which comes out during the drinking and conversation with Ferdinand Horn and his wife; Lame Bull alternates between describing Long Knife and other “Indians” like him as “too damn tricky for their own good” and asserting that Long Knife is “not a bad worker,” asking, “where would we be without Long Knife?” (24).

Lame Bull is attentive to Teresa and to the needs of the property, lovingly caring for the sickles and other equipment. He accompanies Teresa on her errands to arrange her mother’s burial and offers a eulogy, albeit a clumsy and superficial one. He also attempts to create a paternal bond with the narrator, calling him “pal” and musing about fatherhood with Beany, the bar owner. Lame Bull is characterized as a somewhat oblivious and interpersonally clumsy man who has positioned himself well and does not take the privilege of land ownership for granted.