45 pages • 1 hour read
Paolo BacigalupiThe Water Knife
Fiction | Novel | Adult | 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 43-47Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 43 Summary
Angel and Lucy discuss how the water rights they’re after are in the copy of Cadillac Desert that Maria has with her. Lucy and Angel take the Cali’s SUV and trade it to Charlene. Afterward, Lucy and Angel travel to the construction area outside the Taiyang and wait for a dust storm to pass, looking for Toomie. While they wait in the car, Lucy and Angel talk about what humanity might look like in the future, or even if humanity will survive much longer into the future. Angel says that people will survive: “I’m not saying it’s going to be pretty. But someone…someone will adapt” (348).
Angel spies Toomie in the dust storm. Lucy and Angel approach Toomie to ask about Maria. Angel tells Toomie that there would be a reward for Toomie if he helped them, that he could put him in a Cypress development in Las Vegas. Toomie laughs in his face, unbelieving. When Angel doesn’t laugh, Toomie tells Angel that he can’t help him. Maria has left for Carver City to try to cross the Colorado River by herself.
Chapter 44 Summary
Lucy, Angel, and Toomie make their way to Carver City. They are forced to travel slowly because the roads are clogged with traffic. Angel observes all the people leaving the city because he cut their water supply. Toomie, Lucy, and Angel debate whether Maria could have made it through the mess that is Carver City. Angel and Toomie agree that Maria is tough enough to make it through. Lucy talks to Toomie about Angel’s role in setting up the Nevada Sovereign Militia and how Angel was the one who blew up Carver City’s water-treatment plant. Toomie believes that Angel has a lot to answer for.
Chapter 45 Summary
Before they can make it into the city, Arizona Highway Patrol turns them back. Angel tells them they’re trying to keep looters from going into the city. Lucy is forced to trade the truck Charlene lent her for a couple of electric dirt bikes. Together, they begin searching the desert for signs of Maria. After several hours, Lucy notices that the dirt bikes need to be charged, and they didn’t bring any solar panels to charge them. If they keep looking for Maria, they might not make it back out of the desert. After a while longer, Toomie spots some clothes and discarded Clearsacs that Maria had had with her. At first, they don’t see any sign of Maria nearby, but then Maria emerges from the weeds after recognizing Toomie. While Maria embraces Toomie, Angel races to see if the water rights are stuffed inside of the copy of Cadillac Desert. When Angel finds the papers, he hands them over to Lucy to inspect. Lucy comes to the realization that Phoenix is her home and that these papers could change Phoenix’s fate for the better.
Chapter 46 Summary
Angel reaches for the papers, but Lucy steps away from him and refuses to give up the water rights. She holds Angel at gunpoint. Angel attempts to talk Lucy down, but Lucy is convinced that she needs the papers to save Phoenix and herself. She has decided to give the water rights over to the city of Phoenix. Lucy plans to leave Angel, Toomie, and Maria in the desert and drop off Angel’s phone a few miles away so he can eventually call for help. Lucy begins to leave on one of the dirt bikes as Angel points a pistol at her. Eventually, Angel gives up and tells her to leave. He’s not going to shoot her. As Angel turns away listening to the sound of Lucy’s dirt bike driving away, a gunshot rings out.
Chapter 47 Summary
Maria shoots Lucy and asks Angel if he was serious about getting them all into an arcology in Las Vegas. Angel tells her that he’s serious and won’t leave anyone behind. Angel cradles Lucy and gets a phone from Toomie to call Las Vegas. Maria wonders whether she should feel guilty for shooting Lucy. If Lucy makes it to Las Vegas, she has a chance of surviving. Maria tells Angel, “She had old eyes […] My dad had that problem too” (371). In the distance, the group can hear helicopters approaching.
Chapters 43-47 Analysis
In the final chapters, Angel has a choice to make: He can either save Maria, Toomie, Lucy, and himself by turning the water rights over to Case and reclaiming his position in Las Vegas, or he can allow Phoenix to keep the water rights that belong to the city, and in a sense, atone for some of his past sins. Angel must confront the reality of the misery he’s caused as he travels to Carver City. He’s additionally burdened with the knowledge that he helped set up the militias that will be hunting Maria down as she prepares to cross the Colorado River.
Lucy shows that she’s on the side of returning the water rights to Phoenix, and she’s willing to risk everything to do so. However, in Maria’s eyes, it’s a quixotic idea that the water rights will help the city of Phoenix to recover. She’s no longer looking at the world through the rose-colored glasses of her father, and she knows that the reality of their situation calls for them to go with Angel to Las Vegas in order to survive.
The end of the novel shows us that Maria accepts what she believes to be the truth of their situation. Lucy is holding on to a hope that may in fact turn out to be a mirage, and Angel is caught somewhere in the middle. As readers, we still aren’t completely sure whether Case will bring Angel back into the Las Vegas fold and if what Angel is promising to the other characters is, indeed, the truth. Because the novel ends with Maria’s perspective, the sound of the helicopters approaching seems to indicate that handing the water rights over to Las Vegas was the only real option.
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