- Thirteen years after Golden Gray's arrival in Vienna, the pregnant naked chick that Golden Gray found in the woods apparently roams around the countryside by Vienna for quite some time, scaring grandfathers. She's nicknamed Wild.
- Hunter's Hunter (the guy that mentored Joe Trace when he was a boy, remember) thinks that if he had tended the girl he named Wild, she would have been a better mother.
- Ah-ha: Hunter's Hunter is Henry LesTroy, and he's one of the only people in Vienna to have seen Golden Gray. The other, of course, is the young man that sees Golden Gray hanging out in Hunter's/Henry's house.
- When Hunter's Hunter first came back to his house, he thought Golden Gray was white—everybody does, apparently.
- Hunter's Hunter goes in and checks out the unconscious, pregnant Wild. He notices that Golden Gray drank some of his liquor, and this peeves him because it violates the code of conduct: going into a hunter's unoccupied cabin is totally cool, but touching his bottle is not.
- Hunter challenges Golden Gray, and Golden Gray looks back at him levelly and calls him "Daddy," which throws Hunter's Hunter for a loop.
- Luckily, Wild starts going into labor, causing a diversion. While she's giving birth, Golden and Hunter have a terse conversation about how Golden knows that Hunter is his father. It's not a sweet father-son reunion in the least, and Hunter essentially tells Golden that he needs to man up, while Golden seriously contemplates shooting Hunter in the head. Not the kind of stuff you put on a father's day card.
- And flash-forward: Joe and his step-brother Victory work in the fields, but also spend quite a bit of time with Hunter's Hunter.
- Hunter's Hunter alludes to Joe that Wild is Joe's mother. This is deeply unsettling for him, and we find out that he's made a few trips to find her and actually talk to her.
- It's doubly upsetting because he finds out that Wild is his mother when Victory and Joe are joking about finding Wild and killing her. Oh, yeah, that woman you wanted to murder? She's your mom.
- Joe is, er, wildly ashamed about having a wild woman as a mother and thinks that having a prostitute or a drunk would have been better.
- Nevertheless, he goes and tries to find her.
- Remember when Joe had a convoluted memory about trying to see someone's hand in a bunch of bushes? Yeah, that was one of the attempts he made to find his mommy and talk to her. He didn't have any luck.
- He tries to find her several times, but he also drowns his sorrows in working like a maniac. This is a pretty productive use of sadness, if you ask us.
- He recalls how his work-mania eventually led him to New York. In a flash-forward to 1926, Joe looks back and wonders where Hunter's Hunter is, and where Victory is. Are they even alive? Joe hasn't got a clue.
- Ah, yes. Joe is thinking about all of this as he tracks/stalks Dorcas through New York. This is January, shortly before he kills Dorcas.
- He's walking around in a daze in the awful cold; he sees some young women and resents them and their dates for being young and in love.
- A pattern starts now where paragraphs of Joe stalking Dorcas through New York alternate with paragraphs of Joe, already married to Violet, looking for Wild in Virginia. This is important: A parallel is being established.
- Joe in New York wonders what Dorcas would want with a young man when he, Joe, could treat her much better than a young man could.
- Joe in Virginia finds a little cave, enters it, and is greeted with the smell of cooking oil. Weird: cooking oil in a cave.
- Joe in New York thinks about how Dorcas will change her mind, want him back, and want only him. Delusional much, Joe?
- Joe in Virginia finds a pretty homey little set-up in the cave. It's obviously Wild's. Although Joe can't recognize the following articles of clothing, we can: A pair of Golden Gray's trousers are in the cave, as is the green dress that Golden Gray covered Wild in when he took her into Hunter's Hunter's house.