Part 18 begins with the ear­ly morn­ing depar­ture of a group from the Yuma camp. They set off in the dim light, guid­ed only by the con­stel­la­tions, such as Can­cer and Cas­siopeia, shin­ing above the vast desert. The group’s goal had been set the pre­vi­ous night, as they had worked along­side the Yumas to plan the seiz­ing of the fer­ry. As dawn broke, the locals found an “idiot” trapped in a cage, cre­at­ing a stir, espe­cial­ly among the women at the cross­ing. Their reac­tion, how­ev­er, was not one of shock but of curios­i­ty, as they gath­ered around the man to exam­ine him. It was Sarah Borgin­nis, a woman known for her large build and strik­ing red face, who took the ini­tia­tive to help the pris­on­er. She ques­tioned Cloyce Bell, who iden­ti­fied the man in the cage as James Robert, though he point­ed out that no one called him by his full name.

Sarah’s inquiries became more direct as she pressed Cloyce about James Robert’s back­ground, ask­ing if he had a moth­er. Cloyce, with­out show­ing much emo­tion, respond­ed that his moth­er was dead, but his tone sug­gest­ed indif­fer­ence, even lack of remorse, which prompt­ed Sarah to scold him. Despite the awk­ward­ness of the sit­u­a­tion, the women began prepar­ing to tend to the man. They moved him from the cage, wash­ing and dress­ing him. Despite the care being giv­en, James Robert appeared dis­tant, as if lost in his own thoughts, giv­ing lit­tle reac­tion to the actions of the women. As they car­ried out their task, the dis­com­fort of the moment was pal­pa­ble, with the man’s errat­ic behav­ior draw­ing sym­pa­thy and con­cern from those around him.

Toad­vine and a young boy watched the women work from a dis­tance, observ­ing how they moved the cart clos­er to the riv­er. The women final­ly unlocked the cage, allow­ing James Robert to step out. Although he hes­i­tat­ed, Sarah coaxed him into the water, guid­ing him into the riv­er with gen­tle encour­age­ment. The women cheered as he slow­ly wad­ed into the water, and Sarah, seem­ing­ly unaf­fect­ed by her soiled state, insist­ed they burn the cage. As James Robert entered the water, he began grab­bing at the skirts of the women, his behav­ior increas­ing­ly errat­ic, which prompt­ed mur­murs of sym­pa­thy from the crowd. Though his actions were unset­tling, Sarah remained calm, tak­ing on the role of care­tak­er, even as she nav­i­gat­ed the dis­com­fort of the sit­u­a­tion with remark­able grace.

As the evening descend­ed, James Robert, now clean and dressed, was seen sit­ting by the fire. His pos­ture was slouched, and he seemed dis­ori­ent­ed, lost in thought. Sarah con­tin­ued to care for him, offer­ing com­fort in the form of food and warmth, try­ing to soothe his dis­tress. How­ev­er, as dark­ness enveloped the camp, James Robert slipped away from the group, aim­less­ly wan­der­ing along the river­bank. His errat­ic move­ments sug­gest­ed he was still grap­pling with an inner tur­moil that none around him could ful­ly under­stand. Even­tu­al­ly, he ven­tured into the riv­er, seem­ing­ly unaware of his sur­round­ings, as if drawn by some invis­i­ble force. Just then, the judge, appear­ing from his night­ly patrol, inter­vened. Unclothed like James Robert, the judge rushed into the water and lift­ed him out with sur­pris­ing ten­der­ness, as though res­cu­ing him from a spir­i­tu­al drown­ing rather than a phys­i­cal one. The act, though prac­ti­cal, felt charged with sym­bol­ic mean­ing, restor­ing James Robert to the group with an unspo­ken acknowl­edg­ment of their shared fate. The judge’s inter­ven­tion seemed to sig­nal not just the res­cue of the man, but also a deep­er, unspo­ken recog­ni­tion of the fragili­ty of life in this bru­tal world. It was a qui­et moment that spoke vol­umes about the nature of the jour­ney they were all on, both phys­i­cal­ly and exis­ten­tial­ly.