Why does inman kill junior

And we've a hayloft that's good for sleeping. Fifty in state scrip, Veasey said, perking up. No fee. Junior raised up his face and looked at him but seemed not to recognize him. Inman stepped to Junior and struck him across the ear with the barrel of the LeMat's and then clubbed at him with the butt until he lay flat on his back.

There was no movement out of him but for the bright flow of blood which ran from his nose and cuts to his head and the corners of his eyes. Cold Mountain. Plot Summary. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts.

The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of every Shakespeare play. Sign Up. Already have an account? Sign in. Stobrod holds his fiddle and Pangle gives them a smile. Teague is unnerved by the smile and tells Pangle to hold his hat in front of his face. The guards shoot both of the men. The boy from Georgia manages to hide during the fight and rushes to Ada and Ruby to tell them what has happened.

Ada asks him to show them to the bodies. When Ruby hears of this, she displays no emotion and says that they should be buried. They women decide to travel up the mountain and bury Pangle and Stobrod. They find Pangle and bury him but when they find Stobrod, he is still breathing, and Ruby removes the bullet from his chest.

They bring him back down the mountain and set up camp in an old Cherokee village. As night is setting in, he decides to rest there and not to eat any food until he sees Ada again. On the way into the mountains, he found the boy from Georgia who told him what had happened and where the women were. He takes shelter in a hemlock grove and despairs.

Eventually, however, he hears a nearby gunshot and sees Ada shooting turkeys. At first, she does not recognize him but as soon as he speaks she realizes that it is Inman. The next day Inman helps to take care of Stobrod.

When Ruby comes back, Inman leaves. That night, Ruby stays with her father and Inman, and Ada sleeps together in a cabin. Instead, he describes his journey and all of the people that he met. They discuss their marriage plans and where they want to live. Inman does not want to return to the army, although they both agree that the war will not last much longer.

They decide that he should surrender to the Federals and they promise to stay faithful to each other until he returns. Stobrod recovers quickly and is mostly healed by the fourth day. That day, Ada and Ruby leave and Inman and Stobrod wait so as not to endanger them further. Before long, they are intercepted by Teague and Inman realizes that they will not be able to reason with these men. He sends the horse away and shoots a hunting dog and two guards.

Teague comes at Inman with a knife and Inman shoots him in the chest. Inman goes after the final guard, a boy who tells him that he will come looking for Inman if they both survive. Inman tells him to put his pistol down and the boy shoots him. Ada hears these shots and returns to find Inman lying on the ground, dying.

She holds him in her lap as he dies. In the epilog, Ada has a nine-year-old child presumably by Inman , and Ruby has married the boy from Georgia who is named Reid. Stobrod lives on the farm with them and works every day. Inman — the male protagonist of the novel. Inman is a former soldier who wakes up in a military hospital horrified at what his regiment has done in battle. He decides to desert the army and return home to his long lost love, Ada.

The novel follows his long journey on foot where he is nearly killed several times and meets many unsavory people along the way. In opposition to the things that he has seen and done in the war, Inman is an intelligent, sensitive man who is often emotionally reserved. He often seeks solace in his memories of Ada and the spiritual world when he is at his most troubled. Inman stops many times on his journey to help stranded and helpless people.

He attempts to maintain a better view of the world even though it has shown him so much cruelty. Inman seems to truly love Ada and want nothing more than to return to her. Ada Monroe — the female protagonist of the novel. She is educated and somewhat high-bred, given her schooling in Charleston. Although when the novel begins, she is penniless and distraught at the loss of her father.

Ada is a thoughtful, private woman who often takes time to think about the natural world. She writes to Inman and wishes to see him when he is away but when he returns she seems awkward and reserved around him. She agrees to him turning himself over as a prisoner readily and leaves without much of a fuss, perhaps realizing that she is not ready to be with him just yet. However, when she hears Inman get shot she returns quickly and holds him as he dies.

When the novel ends, she is raising their child with Ruby and her family on the farm. Despite the fact that Ruby is illiterate and uneducated, she is a driven, street smart woman who immediately begins planning on how to keep the farm running by starting new ventures and bartering in town. Ruby hates money and chooses to barter for some unspecified reason. Ruby reveals after a while that she learned to be self-sufficient as a child because her drunken father would often leave for days at a time on binges.

When her father, Stobrod finds her on the farm, Ruby does not seem to like having him around. She later admits to Ada that although he never physically abused her, her father neglected her care for many years when she was a child. She has a gruff exterior but a very warm heart and cares about Ada like she would a sister. His family moved to Andrews, North Carolina when he was a boy, and it was there that he attended school.

In he finished up his education by earning a Pd. It also became a New York Times Bestselling novel. Frazier still lives in Asheville, North Carolina today. Your email address will not be published. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Home Summaries Biographies About. JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser.

Parents Home Homeschool College Resources. Study Guide. By Charles Frazier. Previous Next. There's a well-maintained saw lying next to it. Veasey wants to steal the saw and sell it, but Inman says that it's not abandoned, and the woodcutters will be back as soon as they eat to work on the tree. Veasey disputes that and takes the saw anyway. More proof he's not that bright, and not that trustworthy.

They debate for a while, then Veasey asks to see Inman's pistol. Inman refuses. Not so surprising, really. Veasey asks for his own pistol back, and Inman says he's not planning to give it back until they part. Doesn't look like they'll be making a buddy movie about the two of them anytime soon. As they continue, they see a man in a field, looking at a dead bull. He asks for their help. Turns out the bull is in the water source used by the man, and since its body is decomposing he really wants to get it out.

No kidding. The man and Veasey come up with several impractical plans involving pulling the bull's body out with a rope and moving it with levers. Finally Inman solves the problem by cutting the bull into smaller pieces and moving those.

It works, though it isn't very pleasant. Another example of Inman's smarts. The man invites Inman and Veasey to have supper with them as a way of saying thank you for the help, and he also offers to let them sleep in his hayloft.

Inman says they'll come if the man will take the saw off their hands. Veasey asks for two dollars in Federal or fifty in Confederate money, which shows how bad the exchange rate has gotten by this point in the war. Inman says they won't charge. As they're walking back to the man's house, he shares some liquor he's been hiding in a hollow tree with them. Then he starts telling stories about when he was a young man working on the cockfighting circuit.

The man's name is Junior, and we learn that he's unhappily married and that his wife isn't very faithful. After their marriage, his wife had a child with someone else. It seems fair for Junior to be upset about this. But it's totally unfair that he's prejudiced against the child because her father happened to be African-American. They arrive at Junior's house, which is in poor repair.

Inman feels threatened by a dog on the property and kicks it. It is stunned, but not dead. The floor of the house is on a tilt because it's so poorly cared for, and this makes doing normal things in the house a bit awkward.

Junior serves up more alcohol. He's not exactly an advertisement for good health. Veasey wants to use levers to even out the house, but Junior says he thinks it would seem weird to live in a house with normal angles after getting the hang of this one. Metaphor alert! Is Junior as crooked as his house? A little girl arrives, apparently the one born to Junior's wife.

Inman thinks he's rarely seen a prettier child, but Junior describes her using racial slurs. It's becoming obvious that Junior is a terrible guy. Veasey passes out about this time, probably from alcohol consumption.

We learn that Junior and his wife are fighting over what the child's name is. Her mother calls her "Lula," but Junior calls her "Chastity. Not so great if you're still miles and miles from home.

A girl comes, apparently Junior's wife. She seems to be named Lila.