Brookshire, Pea Eye, and Famous Shoes are back in Mexico searching for Joey. The mission feels pointless, and the group’s morale is low after the departure of Captain Call. As they cross the river, Plunkert considers abandoning the mission altogether to return to his wife. Famous Shoes brings a very large man named Olin Roy, too heavy for his horses, into their camp for the night.

Plunkert asks Olin for news from his hometown of Laredo. Olin reports that Sheriff Jekyll has been jailed for raping a young woman who had come to the jail asking about her husband. He laments that the woman later died after taking rat poison. Realizing the victim was almost certainly his wife, Doobie, a distraught Plunkert mounts his horse and flees into the darkness. The tragic news deeply disturbs Brookshire, who, remembering his own wife’s recent death, begins to feel the expedition is cursed. Famous Shoes, growing weary of the white men’s troubles, contemplates leaving the posse.

While riding near Crow Town, Goodnight encounters the notorious gunman John Wesley Hardin. Hardin informs him that Captain Call has successfully ambushed Mox Mox and his gang. He explains that Call wounded Mox Mox, who was then abandoned by Jimmy Cumsa and left to freeze to death in a gully. Hardin dismisses Call’s victory as sloppy and lucky, and he warns Goodnight that such luck will not work against Joey, who is far more dangerous.

Determined to see the body for himself, Goodnight follows Hardin’s directions. Two days later, he finds Mox Mox’s remains, confirming his death. He takes Mox Mox’s distinctive belt to give to Call as proof. After inspecting the battle site, Goodnight agrees with Hardin’s assessment of Call’s luck. Looking around, he finds a small rag doll and infers that Mox Mox had captives and had probably planned to burn them, but that Call arrived in time to wound him and rescue the children to safety. Goodnight buries the dead, including Mox Mox, and, feeling his own quest against the manburner is over, turns for home.

Captain Call and Lorena ride south, with Call suffering from a painful wrenched neck and a persistent feeling that they are being followed. On the evening of the third day, they encounter a small horse herd driven by two cowboys. The next morning, Call spots two horses standing in the distance and assumes they are strays from that herd. In a moment of carelessness, he rides out to check their brands.

The horses turn out to be a decoy set by Joey, who is hiding underneath one of the hobbled animals. Joey shoots Call three times, hitting him in the chest, arm, and knee, before killing his horse. Though grievously wounded, Call retrieves his rifle and crawls toward Joey’s position but quickly weakens from blood loss. In a final, desperate attempt to draw his attacker out, Call stands, but only manages to mistakenly shoot a passing mule deer. Overwhelmed by his failure and his injuries, he loses consciousness.

Hearing the shots, Lorena hides in a thicket, prepared to die by suicide rather than allow herself to be captured again by Mox Mox. After hours of silence, she emerges and finds Call, critically wounded but still alive. She catches the buckskin horse Joey left behind, moves their camp to Call’s side, and tends to his wounds as best she can. Call urges her to leave him to die, but she refuses.

The next day, she manages to lift Call onto her horse and tie him securely. That night, a semi-lucid Call insists that she must amputate his shattered leg, as he and Gus McCrae once did for Dillard Brawley, the barber in Lonesome Dove. He insists he must live to kill Joey. Angered that his only stated reason for living is to kill again, Lorena nonetheless agrees. In a brutal and exhausting ordeal, she saws through the bone with his Bowie knife. Traumatized and spent, she leaves the severed leg by the smoldering fire and continues her journey south, leading the horse carrying the unconscious Call.

After Plunkert’s frantic departure, his injured horse returns to camp alone. Famous Shoes goes out to investigate and returns hours later with Plunkert’s belt. He reports that the deputy survived a fall from a bluff with a broken hip, only to be murdered and stripped of his belongings by four passing vaqueros. Famous Shoes buried the body. Brookshire is horrified by the cruel death, and Pea Eye, fearing the vaqueros will return, suggests they move on. Famous Shoes, having tracked the killers heading south, assures him they are safe where they are.

Joey, who had been tracking Captain Call since leaving Judge Bean’s, followed him to the site of the ambush on Mox Mox’s gang, then found Mox Mox’s frozen body. After waiting three days outside Fort Stockton, he set his trap with the decoy horses. Disappointed by how easily he defeated the famous Ranger, Joey decides to let Call live, believing his severed limbs will serve as a warning to others. Through his spyglass, he watches Lorena tend to Call and even amputate his leg. Satisfied, Joey heads to Mexico, planning to kill Call’s deputies first, then go to Ojinaga to murder his own siblings, Rafael and Teresa.

Captain Call’s condition worsens, and he develops a high fever. Lorena presses on and eventually reaches the Rio Grande, but she sees no town and must choose a direction at random. Heading north, she nearly despairs before encountering an old woman who directs her to the nearby village of Ojinaga.

In the village, Lorena is met by Maria and Billy. Billy recognizes the barely conscious man as Call. Maria hesitates for a moment before offering Lorena and Call shelter. Inside her home, Lorena mentions that their attacker was likely Joey, prompting Maria to reveal that she is Joey’s mother. Maria reassures the frightened Lorena of their safety, saying, “I am Joey's mother, but I am not like him” (435). She sends her to rest while Teresa promises her a story.

Joey tracks Pea Eye, Brookshire, and Famous Shoes to their camp. Deciding to terrorize them, he shoots their horses and pack mules, leaving them stranded. The men take cover in a dry creek. When they return to camp at nightfall, they discover Joey has looted all of their supplies. As they try to leave, Joey fires shots to force them back. Fed up, Brookshire defies the killer and walks toward him, only to be shot and killed.

Famous Shoes finds Pea Eye the next morning and reveals that Lorena has brought the wounded Captain Call to Ojinaga. He also relays that Joey claims he will spare Pea Eye’s life in exchange for his boots, though Pea Eye considers this a poor dodge. Invigorated by the news of Lorena’s arrival, Pea Eye devises a plan. He gives his boots to Famous Shoes as a ruse and pays him to pause by Brookshire’s body, marking the location of the eight-gauge shotgun Joey had overlooked. As Joey is distracted, Pea Eye charges toward the gun in his stocking feet. Joey shoots him multiple times, but he reaches the shotgun and fires twice, hitting Joey in the back and legs and forcing him to flee.

A doctor from Presidio is finally persuaded to cross the river to operate on Call. He successfully amputates Call’s ruined arm but deems it too dangerous to remove the bullet lodged near his heart. The doctor tells Lorena that Call killed Mox Mox, citing the testimony of Goodnight, who saw the corpse himself.

Soon after, Famous Shoes arrives at Maria’s house. He tells Lorena that her husband, Pea Eye, has severely wounded Joey with a shotgun. As Lorena prepares to ride to Pea Eye, Maria offers Billy as a guide. Maria is privately tormented, having learned from her daughter Teresa that Joey was recently in the village and threatened to kill both Teresa and Rafael. Meanwhile, Teresa sits with the delirious Captain Call, feeding him spoonfuls of frijoles.

As Lorena and Billy prepare to leave, she informs Captain Call that he killed Mox Mox, but he is too delirious to comprehend the news, weeping only when told of Brookshire’s death. Billy, certain the wounded Joey is still in the area, guides Lorena cautiously up the Rio Concho. Meanwhile, Pea Eye waits in the creek where he fought Joey, his hip wound leaving him immobile. His hope fades as the days pass. When he hears approaching horses, he prepares for another attack, but he sees, with disbelief, that it is Lorena and Billy. Pea Eye and Lorena share an emotional reunion, and she tells him his fighting days are over.

Joey, weak and in pain from his wounds, stalks the scout Famous Shoes, but ultimately lets him live, reclaiming his knife and blanket before heading toward Ojinaga to force his mother to treat him. Meanwhile, Maria is called away to assist in a difficult childbirth. Fearing for her children’s safety, she takes Rafael and Teresa with her, placing a cowbell around Rafael’s neck so she’ll be warned if Joey comes to take them. During an important moment in the delivery, Joey abducts the children. After the baby is born, Maria discovers them missing. She returns home to find Call lying helpless outside the back door—he had hobbled out with a chair for a crutch and a pistol but was too weak to stop Joey. Guided by Rafael’s cries, she runs to the river.

Maria finds Joey in the river trying to drown Teresa. He’s beaten Rafael, who lies wounded nearby. Joey ignores his mother’s warning shots. Maria wades in and stabs Joey’s shoulders with her knife, forcing him to release Teresa. Enraged, Joey turns on his mother. She pleads with him to stop and let her nurse his wounds, but he attacks her with his own knife. Just as Joey is stabbing Maria, Gordo the butcher, drawn by the gunshots, arrives and shoots Joey with his carbine. Joey falls backward into the water. Mortally wounded, Maria collapses as she and Rafael drag his body to the bank.

Gordo carries the dying Maria home but refuses her pleas to help Captain Call or retrieve Joey’s body. Two drunken vaqueros, determined to steal credit for the kill, find Joey’s corpse, shoot it several more times, and drag it through the village. Maria insists on cleaning her son’s body for burial and, with help from the grateful father of the baby she’d delivered, manages to wash the corpse and put a shirt on it before she collapses. Maria knows she’s dying, but she’s determined to hold on until Lorena comes back.

When Lorena returns with the wounded Pea Eye, Maria asks her to take and raise her children. Lorena agrees without hesitation. After sending Billy Williams away with a final kiss, Maria dies. Lorena brings her husband inside, placing him on a pallet near Call, and then sits with her two new children.

The next morning, the vaqueros return with a photographer, but a grief-stricken Billy drives them off in a rage and smashes the photographer’s expensive cameras. He and Olin dig graves for Maria and Joey. At the small funeral, Lorena and Olin sing a hymn. That night, unsettled and fearful, Lorena joins Billy and Olin at their campfire and drinks whiskey. She asks them if Maria was ever happy, but their answers don’t provide much information.

Pea Eye’s hip is set by the doctor from Presidio. He makes a clumsy joke to Call about needing a “crutch factory,” which earns him a sharp rebuke from Lorena, who reminds him that Call has lost his limbs permanently while Pea Eye will heal. Pea Eye is ashamed of his remark. Call remains mostly silent and withdrawn, accepting care and companionship only from Teresa.