Outlawed

“And so I began my criminal career there in the house of God, with a leaky pen instead of a pistol and books instead of silver for my reward.” 

This quote denotes a major transition in Ada’s life: Now that she is safely in a convent with nuns, she begins to actually break the law. The irony here is that Ada and the other nuns are in the convent due to their communities’ religious superstitions, but they are in fact creating an underground world of illegal but scientifically important study. Ada doesn’t have a gun, but with her studies on abortion and infertility are just as dangerous as the men who rob banks and wreak violence.

“One horse in particular took to me, a dappled grey mare named Amity. She was alert, always the first horse to notice when someone new came into the barn, or when a field mouse skittered across the floor. She reminded me of Bee, the way she seemed to be always watching and listening.”

The relationship Ada forges with Amity foreshadows the close bonds she will develop with the Gang. Amity’s name means “friendliness,” a symbol of the community Ada has joined. That Amity reminds her of her sister Bee is even more symbolic; Ada has replaced one house of women with another group of women. Though she misses her sisters, Ada is back in a sisterhood.

“I had never longed to hold a revolver […] But now, the gun smooth and heavy in my grip, I felt like Justice herself, the blindfolded woman who stood cast in bronze outside the courthouse in Fairchild. I would not sentence barren women to fie like Judge Hammond, whose mind was addled by drink and age and who did whatever the mayor and the sheriff told him to do. My gun would protect the innocent. I would be dangerous only to the wicked.” 

Unlike many of the other women in the Gang, Ada did not grow up with a father or in a context that would teach her how to handle a gun. When Ada finally holds a gun, she taps into a feeling of power usually reserved for men in her society. She instinctively and immediately wants to use that power for good, but ironically, “the innocent” Ada wants to protect are her new friends—the ones committing crimes.

“I stood. Again all their eyes were on me, and I wondered what they saw: an interloper, a greenhorn, a little girl, and maybe, in at least one case, someone with enough wisdom to make something of herself. I lifted my chin and met the Kid’s eyes. The Kid smiled.” 

In her new Gang, Ada gets the opportunity to grow. Raised by a mother who believed in the inherent worth of women, Ada internalized her community’s sexism and specific expectations about how the women and girls should carry themselves. At Hole in the Wall, Ada has the freedom to re-develop her self-worth. She feels appreciated, supported, challenged, but ultimately respected. Though the other women see her as a “little girl,” Ada can sense that she is growing into wisdom.

“We may be barren in body, dear Doctor, but we shall be fathers of many nations, fathers and mothers both. You see, when we found this land, I knew it was promised not just for us, but for the descendants of our minds and hearts, all those cast out of their homes and banished by their families, all those slandered and maligned, imprisoned and abused, for no crime but that God saw fit not to plant children in their wombs. I knew that we would build a nation of the dispossessed, where we would be not barren women, but kings.”

The Kid believes God’s will excuses the Gang’s criminal activity. The Kid sees the Hole in the Wall as a rightfully earned sanctuary, a gift from God. The Gang are the rightful heirs to the land, and they can reproduce in their own way, if not biologically then philosophically. The Kid calls the Gang fathers and mothers, subverting gender norms. In blurring these gender binaries, the Kid further emphasizes the Hole in the Wall as a safe haven to rebuild a better society.

“But now I was the cause of someone’s pain, and I was the only one who could stop it, and that made me afraid.” 

This moment represents a major turning point in Ada’s character development. As a practiced midwife and healer, Ada is no stranger to death, blood, and pain. However, she has never had to grapple with causing someone pain. Now that Elzy is in her care because of Ada’s poor decision-making, Ada must save a life knowing that she bears the full responsibility of what could happen to this person. The Gang relies on Ada to be their doctor; this will help Ada grow, but it will also stress to her the value of life.

“He shook his head and said something in Arapaho. Mrs. Spencer at school had said that the Indians did not value children the way Christian people did. Thinking about it now, far from the school house, I realized it was likely Mrs. Spencer had never spoken to an Indian person […] I did not know what they thought about barren women […] perhaps barren women were not hanged for witches everywhere.” 

Now that Ada is with the Hole in the Wall Gang, she sees things that staying in Fairchild would never have afforded her. Ada realizes that she doesn’t truly know anything about the Native American tribes in the West; she never learned in school to think about non-white-Christians. The more Ada learns about others, the more she realizes that her rejection by Fairchild signifies more about Fairchild than it does about Ada. 

“‘Plenty of cowboys like other cowboys,’ News said. ‘But this is serious, Doc—if you let them know you’re really a girl, you don’t know what they’ll do. My advice: you do whatever you want to them, but your clothes stay on. And sometimes while you’re drinking together, you mention a horrible accident you were in a while back.’” 

Although Ada has witnessed women attracted to one another in the Gang, it doesn’t occur to her that men could feel attraction to other men too. This makes heterosexual relationships while a member of the Gang dangerous. Men caught engaging in sexual intimacy with other men face such vicious punishment that revealing herself to be a woman in men’s clothes might trigger a closeted cowboy into a desperate act of self-defense. 

“Black and white people lived together in Elmyra, they had for generations. Abolitionists founded our town, before the Flu—those were our ancestors. Then Mayor Miller got it into his head that racial mixing cause barrenness. Next thing we knew he has annulled a dozen marriages. The sheriff showed up at my parents’ house at night and made my mama move out. And of course, as a barren woman and the child of a mixed marriage, I was the mayor’s new favorite science experiment.” 

News grew up in a town that was an integrated community, until bigotry and prejudice tore it apart. News’s past emphasizes the precariousness of tolerance and acceptance—all it takes is one powerful preacher to disrupt racial harmony. People are gullible, especially if they lack education, and eager to retreat into in-groups whenever threatened by the unknown.

“But maybe you should try breaking bread with people from time to time instead of fighting them. It’s a good deal safer.” 

The bookseller, who has met Sheriff Branch, recommends that the Gang try to get to know people who they swear are their enemies, instead of embracing violence. This challenges to the reader to consider our allegiances in the novel. On the one hand, Sheriff Branch will hang Ada, but on the other hand, it is true that the Gang is perpetually at war. This is the essential moral quandary of the Gang.

“I saw how the valley, now blooming into beauty after the long winter, could feel like home […] But if I stayed in the valley, I would learn no more about myself or people like me than I had known when I left the convent. I would die without knowing what made me the way I was.” 

Although Ada is growing homier and more comfortable at Hole in the Wall, she cannot escape thoughts about working with Mrs. Schaeffer. Meeting other women who have been made to suffer because of their “barrenness” and knowing that there are others, Ada wants answers about the biology of women’s bodies.

“It made me smile to think of myself as a wife to myself, the woman I could’ve been and the man I was pretending to be. Both of them luckier in life than the person I really was.” 

Ada reflects on the value of her pretend life. Coming to terms with her outlaw status and grappling with the idea that she’ll never see her mother or her sisters again, Ada still mourns the life she would have led in Fairchild. The bliss that comes with security is no longer Ada’s to have.

“You know what surprised me? When people came to cast their stones and shoes and whatnot at Caroline, the women were twice as savage as the men. If it weren’t for the women, she might have survived.” 

The sheriff who arrests Ada and Lark tells the story of Caroline, a woman disguised as a man who seduced other women in town, who viciously turn on Caroline once her ruse is discovered. This reveals how internalized misogyny works: The seduced townswomen need to work hardest to prove themselves to be nothing like Caroline, and thus still acceptable to their community. 

“‘I have five sons, each one more good-for-nothing than the last,’ she said. ‘But my sisters-in-law, neither of them could have babies after I married their brother. So they pointed the finger and here I sit, twenty years next month.’” 

The old woman, jailed for 20 years for being a witch, has a striking story, even by the standards of this unempathetic society. North includes it to emphasize the sheer absurdity and cruelty of the blame women carry. How could it be justice to jail a mother of five sons for so long? 

“I hated my uselessness, the way my body had taken my family and my calling from me. I had thought the gang might give me a purpose, but here I was in a jail cell while the others, no doubt, readied themselves for Fiddleback without me.” 

In her loneliness and suddenly urgently desperate situation, the part of Ada that still blames herself for the way her life has turned out re-emerges. Being with the Gang gave her confidence, but without them, she again questions the unfairness of her life. Because it is still so difficult to grapple with how easily her society cast her away, it is easier for Ada to hold on to a fierce self-hatred. This is a regression in Ada’s character development.

“But then it got strange. The Kid was talking about how once we took Fiddleback, then we could take Casper, then Telluride, then Chicago. We’d remake America, the Kid said, but we’d do it right, and no Flu or fever would harm us, because we’d be protected by God.” 

Agnes Rose reveals to Ada that the Kid has been acting irrationally. Ada knows this is the sign that the Kid’s mania has manifested itself. This development signals a significant challenge to the group: Without the Kid, they cannot go on. The Kid has so much influence that even though this new plan is obviously impossible, the other members of the Gang do not feel that they can correct or disagree. 

“‘What does that matter?’ News asked. ‘Out in the world, I’m as much a man as he is. I don’t see you kicking me out.’” 

When Cassie says Lark should go because the group doesn’t include men, News argues that her masculinity is equivalent to Lark’s. News’s argument is striking because, while the Gang subverts gender norms and embraces sexual and gender fluidity, they still see their group as women-only. To News, who prides herself on her masculinity, the dichotomy between male and female is easily blurred, a performative marker. 

“I was not sure where I stood with him. I believed he had meant at least some of what he said in the jail—he had not kissed me like someone merely playing a role. But I knew, too, that he was a thief who made much of his living fooling people.” 

Ada and her Gang are the ones fooling others and thieving, yet ironically, Ada doesn’t trust Lark for doing the same. The more Ada dives into the outlaw lifestyle, the harder it is to trust other people. What Ada has learned throughout this experience is that everyone is pretending. That Lark and Ada continue their relationship, demonstrates North’s overarching message of hope. It is possible, and worth it, to trust some people.

“Hole in the Wall might feel like home to me now, but I did not belong at home yet. I had work to do, and as I saw the possibility of doing it recede into the brightening distance, I grew ever more afraid that I would lose myself—not in the way the Kid had, but slowly, every day blanking out a piece of my heart and mind, until I faced some sheriff’s gun or executioner’s gallows with no fear or sorrow, because that which was worth protecting had already ebbed away.” 

Ada’s has a deep-seated reason for wanting to leave Hole in the Wall for Mrs. Schaeffer’s: She is not ready to fully commit to this lifestyle. She doesn’t want to give up her dreams of discovering more about the female reproductive system, and doesn’t want to dull her curiosity, her passion for changing society’s attitude about barren women, and her scientific talents. Ada recognizes that dying without a care is not a life worth aspiring to. This reveals Ada’s mature sense of self and desire for autonomy.

“I was surprised by the force of my fear for him. I had never felt such a thing for my first husband, my spouse before my family and the law. But of course, I had never had cause to fear for him—I could not imagine him in Lark’s place now, just as I could not compare any aspect of my old life to its counterpart in the new. The two were connected only by my body, and the failing within it that had made the old life impossible and ushered the new one in.”

Ada acknowledges the disparity between her two lives. She has changed so much that the only commonality is her body, not her mind. Ada finally acknowledges the gift her body gave her: a life with more love, independence, and adventure. Though her new life is dangerous, Ada is free. If Ada’s body produced children, she would have stayed in Fairchild, ignorant to the world around her. 

“The sound that went up around me was one of exultation—high and musical, almost like singing. It would have been beautiful had I not been the injured animal at its center, the prey whose fear-smell set the wild dogs racing through the grass, baying with joy.” 

The natural beauty of the American West goes hand in hand with the constant danger of living in the wild. One cannot exist without the other. Of course, the idea of the West as an unsettled wilderness is a lie: White settlers drove Indigenous peoples off their land, and now humans encroaching on territory that was once exclusive to the coyotes. Chapter 11 includes many moments of this juxtaposition, a striking inclusion of setting and imagery in the most perilous moments of the Gang’s existence.

“‘It’s such a hard world,’ the sheriff said. ‘People need some way of making sense of it. You know that as well as I do. […] half the time the patient got better just from knowing what was wrong. […] When a child dies, or two people in love can’t conceive, or a man loses his wife in childbirth—these things aren’t bearable, Ada, not without help. But if you know why it happened, if you have someone or somebody to blame, then sometimes that’s enough to keep going.’”

Sheriff Branch admits to Ada that he knows she did nothing wrong. This major plot twist highlights the severe cruelness of Ada’s community. Sheriff Branch admits that he simply needed a scapegoat, so he ran Ada out of town despite her innocence. He made a choice not to protect Ada, who had helped care for so many of his citizens. This moment implies that the men in charge of these highly authoritarian communities happily sacrifice truth for power.

“Another woman came the next week, and two the week after that. By the end of August, we had half a dozen people staying with us, most barren but some run out of their towns for lying with other women or otherwise corrupting moral character. All of them carried the poster in their hands or in their heads. The Kid sent Agnes Rose to Nótkon for enough flour, lard, and ammunition to feed and garrison an army for the winter. We did not have a town, but we had money, and we had land, and now, it seemed, a town might be coming to us.”

The Kid finally gets to build the town they’ve always wanted, a refuge for women seeking sanctuary. Best of all, the Gang no longer has to forcibly take over an already-existing town. The Kid won’t need to change the minds of the new citizens of Hole in the Wall. Instead, the town will already be on the same page because of their shared experiences and traumas.