Summary

Chapter 38 is titled “But We Don’t Have Any Weapons.” China and the community, which she now refers to as “my people” (173), start traveling to a new home early in the fall. As they travel, they frequently meet among themselves to try and figure out what they are going to do when they are attacked, particularly because they do not have any weapons. Eventually, they travel to an island in the North, where they settle in peace and prosperity. They make a new life for themselves, staying self-contained and respectful and compassionate. They treat the animals as though they are human members of the community. “Our rivers are alive,” China comments in narration, “and the streams are animals, they know that we live as one, that we only kill what we need to eat” (174). They grow plants and families and...