59 pages • 1 hour read
Patrick D. SmithA Land Remembered
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1984A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 28-33Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 28 Summary
On March 12, 1883, Glenda gives birth to Solomon “Sol” MacIvey. They name him this because Solomon is known in the Bible for his wisdom, and he will be the first MacIvey to receive a proper education, via Glenda.
While grazing ahead of the summer drive, six riders approach Tobias and command him to turn around his herd. One of the men says, “This is Disston land. Mister Disston bought four million acres here” (257). With 150 armed men guarding the land, Tobias has no choice but to retreat.
Later, Zech tells his father, “The railroad companies are buying everything they can get. The lumber companies and turpentine men are doing it too. Someday it’s coming to an end, Pappa, and there’s nothing we can do about it” (258).
Chapter 29 Summary
By 1888, the MacIvey drives occur only once every two years. As range wars intensify and grazing land becomes scarcer, the family puts more and more of its energy into growing oranges.
Meanwhile, Skillit uses some of his share of the gold doubloons to buy a plot of land for himself, Pearlie Mae, and their five children. He tells Tobias that he put down “MacIvey” as his last name on the deed. Tobias responds, “Hell, that’s fine, Skillit! We’re proud you took the name. You’re welcome to it” (263). When Zech learns of Skillit’s departure, he is overcome with grief and excuses himself from the table to cry.
Chapter 30 Summary
The year is 1892, and the Allister family to the north persists in encroaching on MacIvey land. Even though he knows it may lead to violence, Zech decides to build a fence around their land.
The MacIveys start that year’s drive with only 1,100 cows. While crossing the prairie, the herd encounters phosphate miners who force them to redirect their route. Zech contemplates the rapidly changing landscape of the range:
Perhaps animals are smarter than men, he thought, taking only what they need to live today, leaving something for tomorrow. Even the hated wolf kills only for food and only for immediate need. Maybe it is man who eventually perish as he destroys the land and all that it offers, taking the animals down with him (270).
Chapter 31 Summary
In Punta Rassa, Zech inquires about buying land south of Okeechobee. While Tobias rests for a week at the cabin, Zech rides Tiger to a remote land office where he buys 60,000 acres of land in the area at $0.15 an acre.
While waiting for the land office to prepare the deed, Zech rides to the Seminole village, finding his way there on his own this time. There, he learns that Tawanda gave birth to a son, Toby, nine months after his visit and that she has been with no other man. Tawanda makes Zech promise not to interfere with Toby’s life and to let him grow up with the Seminoles.
That night, Zech and Tawanda have sex. Zech says that while he loves her, he will not leave Glenda. Tawanda accepts this, telling him, “You have already given me the one thing I sought since the first time you rode into this village...your son” (282).
Over the next two days, Zech and Toby bond with one another. Zech gives Toby his knife and Winchester rifle, teaching him to shoot. In turn, Toby teaches Zech how to fish with a spear. Zech notes the similarities between his two sons despite their disparate lives:
Rather than comparing Tawanda and Glenda as he often did in the past, he now compared Sol and Toby, finding them alike in many ways. Had they been allowed to grow up together as a pair, they would have been unstoppable, capable of accomplishing anything they desire; but because they were born of different races and cultures they were destined never to share the same hopes and dreams, or to even know each other. This saddened Zech, and he pondered the why of it (284).
Chapter 32 Summary
Near the end of the return trip, the caravan stops so that Tobias can rest. Emma walks on her own, collecting berries and enjoying the solitude. On her way back to the others, she suffers a massive heart attack. Rather than surrender to death without seeing Tobias one more time, Emma forces herself up and manages to reach her husband, dying in his arms. Her last words are, “I’m sorry” (288).
Later, a grieving Tobias tells Zech, “With all the gold in them trunks I could ‘a bought her fancy dresses and shoes and such as a woman likes, but all I ever gave her was that goddam cook stove. And now it’s too late to do anything. I waited too long” (290).
Chapter 33 Summary
On December 28, 1894, a cold snap hits the homestead, dropping the temperature from 75 degrees Fahrenheit to 20 degrees in less than 24 hours. While the family has already harvested one-third of the oranges, the rest of the harvest is ruined. Fortunately, the trees themselves survive, just barely.
On February 6, 1895, another cold snap arrives, this time with an ice storm that lasts for days. As the family carefully rations its dwindling supply of firewood and food, Zech notices that Tobias is missing. He finds his father outside in the 11-degree cold, trying to maintain a small fire in order to generate enough heat to keep at least one orange tree alive. He tells Zech, “If I don’t save one tree there won’t be nothin’ left to take cutting’s from and start the grove again. I’ve got to save one tree” (304). A few hours later, Tobias dies of pneumonia.
Chapters 28-33 Analysis
While range wars, cattle rustlers, and bushwhackers have long endangered the MacIveys’ lives and livelihoods, the family now faces a new threat: interstate capitalism. With the arrival of railroad and lumber tycoons with virtually limitless resources at their disposal, the prospects of lone frontier families like the MacIveys begin to dwindle. While Tobias is in denial, Zech tells him, “Pappa, this is just the beginning. Someday there won’t be any open range left” (258).
From a historical perspective, the MacIveys got off relatively easy. As tycoons like Hamilton Disston purchased millions of acres, drovers waged bloody battles over what precious grazing land remained. The deadliest of these range wars was the Barber-Mizell feud of 1870. Cattle baron Mose Barber—who built his empire by rustling cows from Seminoles—defended his land and inventory with an aggressiveness that frequently resulted in death to those who crossed him. When rival cattle baron David Mizell became sheriff, he used his power to take cattle from Barber as taxes. One day, Barber’s men shot and killed Mizell, resulting in a range war that took the lives of 41 people over the course of three months.
In the face of big tycoon takeovers of Florida land, the notion of the MacIveys as a family business—emphasis on family—becomes more important than ever. For Tobias, being a MacIvey is about more than blood. This is illustrated most poignantly in Chapter 29, when Skillit reveals he wrote down “MacIvey” as his last name on the deed for his new property. While Skillit expects a bit of awkwardness if not outright hostility, Tobias is thrilled, telling Skillit, “Hell, that’s fine, Skillit! We’re proud you took the name. You’re welcome to it” (263). Emma agrees, making no distinction between Skillit’s children and Zech’s: “You’ve given me six grandsons instead of one. I’m right proud too” (263). The idea of the MacIveys as an improvised family that transcends flesh and blood is one of the book’s most powerful themes. Even though it is only explicitly referenced here, the theme infuses many parts of the narrative, including the scene in which Tobias threatens the cafe proprietor for refusing to let Skillit eat inside. It’s also echoed later in the book when Sol laments that the MacIvey name has become little more than a brand.
Tragically, this poignant scene of family unity is followed shortly by the death of Emma. Considering that the MacIveys survived bears, starvation, hurricanes, swarms of malarial mosquitoes, and bushwhackers, Emma’s demise by way of a heart attack feels doubly unfair. The MacIveys’ long history of survival also gives Tobias a sense of invincibility that causes Emma’s death to take him completely off-guard, leaving him full of regrets over things unsaid. He tells his son:
‘You know something, Zech. It was your mamma who held this family together when times was roughest. Hadden been for her you and me would ‘a probably starved. She could cook pine tree roots good enough to keep a man alive. And I never did nothin’ for her. With all the gold in them trunks I could ‘a bought her fancy dresses and shoes and such as a woman likes, but all I ever gave her was that goddam cook stove. And now it’s too late to do anything. I waited too long’ (290).
This expression of deep regret is made even more tragic later in the novel, when Glenda dies and Zech feels a similar sense of remorse over missed opportunities.
Finally, Zech’s sojourn into Seminole territory gives Smith another opportunity to explore the dual sides of Zech’s personality. This duality is made flesh by the discovery of Toby, Tawanda’s son, whom Zech compares to Sol:
Rather than comparing Tawanda and Glenda as he often did in the past, he now compared Sol and Toby, finding them alike in many ways. Had they been allowed to grow up together as a pair, they would have been unstoppable, capable of accomplishing anything they desire; but because they were born of different races and cultures they were destined never to share the same hopes and dreams, or to even know each other. This saddened Zech, and he pondered the why of it (284).
From this perspective, the two sides of Zech’s personality are not inherently incompatible. Rather, society forces his psyche into two separate parts, much like society forces apart Toby and Sol because they belong to different races.
