How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Carson was a soldier under orders, and he did a soldier's brutal work. (9.7.3)
Kit Carson follows his duty as a soldier by killing and displacing thousands of Native Americans. Latour wants to think of him as a bad man, but he always lets him off the hook in the end because he's just a guy who's following orders.
Quote #8
[He] did not know just when [the New Mexico air] had became so necessary to him, but he had come back to die in exile for the sake of it. (9.3.8)
After he has lived in New Mexico for a long time, Father Latour realizes that he has a hard time being away from the place. This is where his sense of religious duty has taken him, and so it's only in this place that he feels truly fulfilled in what he has done with his life.
Quote #9
But the Spanish Fathers who came up to Zuñi, then went north to the Navajos, west to the Hopis […] they came into a hostile country, carrying little provisionment but their breviary and crucifix. (9.4.4)
The first priests who visited the Native American peoples of the southwest had almost nothing to live on except their sense of religious duty. Many of these men died long before their time. But Father Latour knows that they'll be remembered for the sacrifices they made.