Bosque River near Durand is both a vivid physical setting and a threshold in the story: its shallows give Johanna Leonberger room to act on her own terms, while its banks later frame Jefferson Kyle Kidd’s quiet preparations to leave Durand, Texas.

Setting and Physical Features

The river scene lies beyond a rail fence enclosing one end of a stave mill yard. Near the Carrizo cane, the water shifts from shallows and stony places to a deep hole at the lip of a small rapids. These details shape the action: Johanna runs through the shallow water, then throws herself into the deeper pool as the woman pursuing her closes in.

Johanna’s Bathing Encounter

Johanna is bathing in the river in the tattered corset and sagging drawers given to her by a woman in Wichita Falls. A local woman follows her with a wooden bucket, objecting to the naked bathing. Johanna answers in a continuous stream of Kiowa words and yells at her pursuer; the narration makes clear that, if she had the kitchen knife, she would have stabbed the woman. The river is therefore not a tranquil refuge: the encounter turns its shallows into contested space, where Johanna’s attempt to bathe meets the town’s rules and outrage.

Jefferson Kyle Kidd hears the shouts from the direction of the river and comes to intervene. Seeing the woman’s wedding ring, he addresses her politely and asks her to let Johanna bathe. His brief defense does not erase the conflict, but it changes the immediate course of the scene: he treats Johanna’s bathing as something to be permitted rather than a reason to punish her.

The Riverbank and Departure

Later, Jefferson Kyle Kidd collects Pasha and Fancy from the banks of the Bosque River by candle lantern. Rain still drips from his hat as he calls softly to the horses and leads them inside the stave mill. After changing into his traveling clothes and eating black beans and bacon, he calls for Johanna. The riverbank thus appears again not as the site of confrontation but as part of the practical, subdued work of preparing to leave: horses, weather, darkness, and the route away from town gather at its edge.