and Dr. Powell in to have some water. They converse about the history of the town, which sparks an account of Pomeroy. Dr. Powell relates it to Sidonie’s comment, “… I’d go away and I’d stay wherever it was I went.” Powell tells the story of Pomeroy’s son Catlett whom brought his ‘young beautiful bride’ to the town. She eventually went back to Virginia. “She just went back to have a baby and live while her husband was on frontier duty,” Powell voiced. She retorted, “I’d have divorced him.” At which point, Harris and Sidonie get into an altercation about her fancy to leave town. She holds her position very firmly, but she confuses herself just as Dr. Powell did when he left. Harris reassures himself that he can make Sidonie understand that she is but a flustered, young lady with honest intentions. He declares to Sidonie that she ‘can’t even spend a weekend in Dallas without wanting to come back.’ Just as Sidonie wants to leave the West, Dr. Powell wanted to leave twenty-five years prior.Dr. Powell’s attitude reflects the severity of that hot day of July. He states that it was ‘a bad day in a bad month in a bad season to make the trip.’ Irritation surfaces in everything he says. Even ‘the tires on the concrete highway [sound] …like sizzling flesh and [go] bumpity-bump, bumpity-bump as they hit the tar-filled joints. The sound took the place of the conversation [he] wasn’t having with Harris.’ From the beginning, Dr. Powell’s attitude reflects everything that he feels, but his mannerisms change. He comes to the realization that ‘the country [is his] too and [he is] its.’ He begins to defend the West by defending Cabe Ranch when Sidonie rebukes it. In a sense, Dr. Powell can relate to both Harris and Sidonie. Dr. Powell develops a similar love for the West as Ha...
