- Arrowboy follows a woman into the hills and spies on her as she joins a bunch of witches in some sort of ceremony.
- We're not really sure who Arrowboy or the woman are.
- One of the witches calls out that he will become a wolf. He steps through a hoop, but only his upper body becomes wolflike. His lower body stays human.
- Something's wrong, he says.
- The Ck'o'yo magic won't work if someone is watching them.
- Let's get back to the prose.
- Headlights appear in the northeast.
- Tayo is startled, but he tries to tell himself that lots of reservation people and white ranchers use that road. It could be anybody.
- He'll know to be scared if the vehicle turns onto the road leading to the mine.
- It does. OK, he's scared now.
- Tayo hides behind a boulder. He's warm and he has a good view.
- Tayo is expecting Leroy's truck, but it's Emo's car that comes around the last curve.
- Leroy, Pinkie, and Emo get out of the car and start a fire. Harley isn't with them.
- The three men throw dry tumbleweeds onto the fire, holding them high over their heads and circling the fire before throwing them in. It's like they're performing some sort of ritual.
- They're also passing a bottle around, and Leroy is stumbling. Clearly they've been drinking.
- Tayo's former friends are now the destroyers. Tayo knows they'll be there all night, working their witchery.
- Here's a recap of how the witchery works. It's like an evil chain reaction: The drought kills off the livestock. The people become weak and vulnerable to lies. The young people grow dissatisfied and move to towns like Gallup, where they grow bitter and lose themselves in drinking.
- The witchery perpetuates "The Lie" that everything is white people's fault and not the fault of the witchery.
- It makes people forget the stories of creation and the five worlds that are part of Laguna mythology.
- And it scares the priests into clinging to ritual instead of adapting and creating new ceremonies like they used to.
- So there you have it: that's everything Tayo has learned about witchery over the course of the novel.
- Back to the boys by the fire. They're still doing their thing, but every once in a while they point toward the mine shaft and the rocks where Tayo is hiding.
- Tayo wonders if they know he's there. Maybe they tracked him down, figuring they'd find him by the only source of water in the area.
- Tayo's in no shape to confront them. He hasn't eaten since Ts'eh left, and he's starting to get cold. He'll be lucky just to make it home that night.
- If he hadn't known about the witchery, these guys would have fooled him. After all, people had been drinking out in the hills for years. This is actually pretty normal behavior.
- Tayo starts to doubt himself again. Maybe he's wrong about them.
- He's so tired, and he can't feel anything, not even for Josiah or Rocky or Ts'eh.
- Maybe those other Navajos were right about old Betonie—maybe he is crazy.
- But Tayo keeps hidden, thanks to Emo and Pinkie. Those dudes are just creepy.
- Pinkie keeps banging on the hood of the car with a tire iron. The sound sets Tayo's teeth on edge. It's the sound of witchery.
- The pounding stops with a scream. Uh oh.
- The trunk is raised, and the men are standing around it. The screaming is coming from inside the trunk.
- Tayo recognizes the voice. It's Harley.
- His hands and feet are tied. They strip off his clothes and throw them into the fire.
- Tayo is so freaked out, he climbs out from behind the boulders. (This makes us nervous. Stay in your hiding place, Tayo!)
- The men are laughing as they hang Harley's body from the barbed-wire fence. Harley is pale and bleeding.
- Tayo reaches into his pocket for the rusty screwdriver he found in Leroy's truck. He squats close to the ground and follows the long shadow cast by the mounds of mining debris.
- Tayo knows what the guys are doing. They're doing to Harley what they would have been doing to Tayo if Harley hadn't failed them.
- It's all good from the witches' perspective. They still have a corpse.
- The guys are berating Harley for letting Tayo escape.
- Pinkie holds Harley's leg while Leroy cuts a piece from the bottom of his big toe. Harley screams.
- Emo tells Harley to scream louder so Tayo can hear him. Do they know he's here?
- Emo is holding a paper bag soaked with blood. It's full of chunks of Harley's skin. Gross!
- Emo holds his bloody hands up to Harley, but Harley has his eyes closed and seems unconscious.
- Emo screams for Tayo to look at what they're doing to his buddy Harley, calling him a "half-breed" and a "white son of a b****." (XXVI.19)
- Tayo clenches the screwdriver. He doesn't feel strong enough to stand by and watch anymore. He has to stop them.
- Tayo figures he can kill Emo before Leroy and Pinkie can stop him. They're all drunk, and Leroy and Pinkie are wrestling on the ground.
- Tayo visualizes the delicate bone of Emo's temple and imagines breaking it with the screwdriver.
- Emo is looking more disgusting than ever. He has a double chin, and the fire is reflected maniacally in his glasses. He's laughing because Leroy is kneeling on Pinkie's throat.
- This is the moment. Will Tayo kill him or won't he?
- Page break.
- The moon goes behind a cloud, and Tayo steps back into the boulders. Close call!
- Tayo had almost jammed the screwdriver into Emo's skull, which is exactly what the witchery wanted him to do.
- If he had killed Emo, the witchery would have ended the story according to its plan. Tayo would have been just another victim. The Army doctors would say the signs were there all along, ever since they released him from the mental hospital.
- People back home would blame liquor and the war, but they'd save the greatest bitterness and blame for themselves. It would be the same old pattern all over again.
- Tayo looks up at the stars, which have been the same ever since people came into the world and will last until they go out of it again. And the story goes on with the stars.
- Emo, Leroy, and Pinkie throw Harley's body in the truck and drive away. There's nothing left but broken bottles and scorch marks on the ground where the fire had been.
- Page break.
- What will Tayo do now? He feels like going back to the place where Ts'eh showed him the plant. He'll gather seeds and plant them in new places so the rain will come.
- The rain will make new plants grow. These delicate plants will thrive and grow as strong as the stars.
- Tayo is exhausted but he keeps moving. He dreams he's wrapped in a blanket in the back of Josiah's wagon, and Josiah is driving. Old Grandma is holding him, and Rocky whispers "my brother" (XXVI.31). They are taking him home.
- Page break.
- Tayo wakes up and realizes he's walked almost the entire way back. He reaches the yellow river in the yellow light of dawn and starts running towards the yellow cottonwood tree. (OK, we get it—yellow is a good color!)
- He's made it through the night. The transition has been completed.
- As if that weren't enough, the sky is filled with rainclouds. It's like the icing on the cake of Tayo's victory.
- Tayo thinks of "her" then. She had always loved him and had never left him. Who does he mean? Ts'eh? Thought Woman? Mother Corn? Could they all be different versions of the same person?
- Tayo crosses the river at sunrise.