40 pages 1 hour read

Jim Harrison

Legends of the Fall

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1980

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“Revenge,” Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

Content Warning: The source material contains descriptions of physical abuse, sexual assault, human trafficking, drug use, and murder. In addition, it utilizes offensive stereotypes of Indigenous Americans. Characters are also frequently referred to by their ethnicity. These terms are replicated in the guide only in direct quotes from the source material.

“Revenge” opens from the perspective of animals (a vulture and an old coyote among others) observing a man’s body in the desert. He has been beaten but is still alive. A man named Mauro and his daughter find the beaten man and summon Diller, the local Mennonite missionary who also acts as a doctor in this rural community in Mexico. Diller brings the man home and nurses him, but the man remains unresponsive. Diller calls Hector, the local head of the Federales (the national police) to report finding the man but, as with his other patients, he offers his own fingerprints to obscure the man's identity. Diller decides that if the man does not wake up by morning, he will take him to the hospital. As Diller leaves the room, the man watches him through partially closed eyes. As it turns out, he has been conscious all along, feigning unconsciousness until he can see who these people are and whether they can be trusted.