51 pages • 1 hour read
Stacey LeeUnder a Painted Sky
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2015A 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 7-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Samantha and Annamae negotiate with the older boys, introduced as Cay, West, and Peety. Samantha agrees to share her food if she and “Andy” can ride the extra horse to the first river along the route, Little Blue. She decides to join up with Cay, West, and Peety because they are willing to share their water with her and Andy; they are not as racist as others who might be hesitant to share with a Chinese or Black person. Peety, who is the horse whisperer of the group, says that they can ride the extra horse only if she likes the boys. Samantha offers the skittish mare some of the candy that she has in her violin case and wins her over. Asked why they are travelling West, Andy cites the Missouri Compromise. Samantha claims to be an Argonaut, which is met by derision from the older boys, who identify themselves as cowboys from Texas. The older boys exhibit typical masculine behavior, arm wrestling for the snake jaw and getting riled up by being called “chicken.”
Chapter 8 Summary
Romance enters into the group, as Samantha realizes that she is attracted to West and imagines holding his hand. The cowboys teach the girls (posing as boys) how to ward off rattlers while they sleep. Andy tells a story about a harp, a prince, and a monk, which resonates with Sammy later in the novel. At this point, she realizes that it reminds her of Icarus and his cautionary tale about flying too close to the sun. Although Andy made up the story, she followed the classical Greek structure when telling it.
Chapter 9 Summary
Sammy is still trying to figure out how to act like a boy, but most of her thoughts go to the differences between the cowboys and Chinese people, rather than to gender differences. Although she hoped that she and Andy could ride Peety’s horse, Princesa, Sammy is told that she will ride double with West. Not only does this cause her anxiety because he might discover that she is female, but also because of her growing attraction to him.
Sammy tries to make sense of the cowboys and their differences in personality by guessing at their lunar horoscope, attributing certain behavior to the animal year in which they were born. This is something that she does for herself (Year of the Snake) and Andy (Year of the Dragon). West (Year of the Rabbit) seems most hesitant about the younger companions joining the group, Sammy hopes that she can catch up with Mr. Trask before the trail forks 950 miles west from where she is now. The chapter ends with a cliffhanger when some men show up at their camp.
Chapter 10 Summary
The men are federal marshals, looking for a gang of Black outlaws called the Broken Hand Gang. They are failed bank robbers who have taken to robbing and hurting pioneers and have murdered a small child. The marshals question Andy, implicitly wondering if “he” is an enslaved person who has escaped. They conclude that Sammy has enslaved Andy. Sammy retorts that Andy is a free man, resulting in the marshals demanding her papers. Peety, who is Mexican by birth, steps in and reminds the marshals that they are no longer in Missouri (therefore in a free territory). The marshals leave, and Sammy worries that she will never catch up with Mr. Trask. She also wonders why her father gave him her mother’s precious bracelet. Andy reveals that she vehemently dislikes onions. Sammy decides to challenge the boys to a fish catching contest to get them to take her and Andy further along the trail to Fort Kearny. She does not realize that she has agreed that the losers will sing naked.
Chapter 11 Summary
This chapter is dedicated to the fish-catching contest. The older boys decide to use a spear to catch the fish, while Sammy and Andy construct a fishing pole using catgut from her violin. Competition is fierce, but Peety declares that Sammy and Andy caught their fish first.
Chapter 12 Summary
The punishment for losing the wager is that Cay and West must strip naked and sing “Yankee Doodle.” Sammy, who has never seen a naked man before, thinks of zucchinis. She is asked to play her violin, something that she loves to do. She first performs a classical piece and then the more popular song “Oh! Susanna.” Sammy suggests that they all remain together until they reach Fort Kearny. Her sleep is troubled by nightmares of her father burning in the fire, her landlord’s lecherous winking, and the lawmen who are after her.
Chapter 13 Summary
To keep their male disguises a secret, Samantha and Annamae compare notes while pretending that they are doing “culturally required” private morning ablutions. Riding horses is difficult for both of them, although Andy has devised a way to pad her pants to avoid chafing. She also promises that she will not sneak off and leave Sammy and that she will tell her before she leaves. Back on the trail, Sammy’s mind drifts to her former life in New York and her plans to open a music conservatory. However, her daydreams are interrupted by a sound like thunder, which turns out to be an animal stampede. The cowboys spring into action after placing Andy and her horse behind a rock and Sammy up a tree. While the older boys initially corral the animals, a storm breaks out, which spooks the animals again. Andy falls off the horse and Peety rushes to save Andy from being trampled. The tree in which Sammy perched is hit by lightning and catches fire.
Chapters 7-13 Analysis
Lee cements the episodic structure of the novel in this section. While there is a macro plotline of escaping the law and finding Mr. Trask, these larger narratives are broken up into smaller episodes or adventures. Lee repeatedly uses cliffhangers at the end of chapters that often relate to strangers showing up out of nowhere. While many of the episodes with the cowboys (West, Cay, and Peety) are humorous, like arm wrestling for the snake jawbone, or singing naked after losing the fishing contest, there are also reminders of the dangers of the Oregon Trail. The characters have to be on guard against rattlesnakes, water contaminated by cholera, stampeding animals, and lightning storms. The trail is also punctuated by outlaws such as the Broken Hand Gang or the pursuing lawmen. The episodic structure hence oscillates between a serious and light tone in order to engage readers with both humor and drama.
At the beginning of the novel, Samantha mentions her mother’s jade bracelet, her only connection to her deceased mother. In this section, it begins to represent a mystery that forms a subplot. Sammy cannot figure out why her father gave this family heirloom to his friend, Mr. Trask. This generates a quest element for Sammy, as finding Mr. Trask and retrieving her mother’s bracelet motivates her to continue her trip. The next section of the book reveals more about the bracelet that Andy wears.
Lee uses linguistic devices frequently to construct character, the most common being the use of Chinese phrases in metaphors or similes. Samantha’s ability to speak several languages (“Latin, French, Cantonese, and enough Portuguese to start a conversation” [67], as she tells Cay) again mark Samantha’s cultural capital. The use of phrases in other languages (Chinese, French, and Spanish) also reflects the multicultural reality of the westward migration, during which emigrants from many countries interacted and communicated in a blend of tongues. Being able to understand, teach, and translate between languages is a skill that empowers Samantha on the journey. While the use of Chinese phrases and concepts contributes to Lee’s characterization of Samantha, the linguistic markings of Annamae’s English, seen especially in her use of “you’s” instead of “you are,” mark her racial and socio-economic identity.
Lee frequently uses foreshadowing to highlight the sense of mystery and danger in the novel. The most significant example is the mention of the dangerous Broken Hand Gang, whose leader turns out to be Andy’s brother, Isaac. Upon learning of the Gang, Sammy feels a kind of empathy with them, thinking, “I never thought I’d be on the same side of the fence as anyone known as the Broken Hand Gang. May Andy and I stay out of their reach” (82). The paths of the girls continue to cross that of the Gang throughout the novel, generating a sense of fatedness that Andy and Sammy do not “stay out of their reach.” The numerous mentions and intersections foreshadow the climactic meeting with what is left of the Gang.
