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Sister Mary Anita Buckendorf
Doctor Cordelia Lochren, first introduced by Judge Coutts only as “C.,” is the town doctor in Pluto and the first female doctor in the region. She is also the baby who is the sole survivor of the murders in the novel’s prologue. Cordelia is first introduced as Coutts’s older, married lover. But while the two have a deeply intimate relationship, Cordelia instead marries Ted Bursap, refusing to be seen with Coutts in public. Later, Coutts will realize that Cordelia’s hesitancy stems from her prejudice against Indians, though Cordelia insists in her own narrative that this is not the case. After Cordelia treats Warren Wolde, she discovers that he is actually the man who murdered her family. Along with Neve Harp, Cordelia runs the Pluto historical society, though she worries about the value of her work: “when all the remains of Pluto is our collected historical newsletters bound in volumes donated to the local collections at University of North Dakota,” she muses, “how shall have I depicted the truth?”
Doctor Cordelia Lochren (“C.”) Quotes in The Plague of Doves
The The Plague of Doves quotes below are all either spoken by Doctor Cordelia Lochren (“C.”) or refer to Doctor Cordelia Lochren (“C.”). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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8. Town Fever Quotes
As he entered the cabin, he saw a watery slur of movement. In the light from the open door an otter popped his head up and regarded him with the curious and trusting gaze of a young child. Slowly, not taking his eyes off the creature, Joseph aimed and shot. The otter died in a bloody swirl and Joseph found, when he fished it out, that his eyes had filled with tears. In a moment he was weeping helplessly over the gleaming and sinuous body of the creature.
[…] For he’d had the instant horror that he had committed a murder. And that conviction still filled him. The creature was an emissary of some sort. He’d known as they held that human stare. Joseph himself was part of all that was sustained and destroyed by a mysterious power. He had killed its messenger. And the otter wasn’t even edible.
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20. Demolition Quotes
The house was so real around me that I could smell the musty linen in the cedar closet, the gas from the leaky burner on the stove, the sharp tang of geraniums that I had planted in clay pots. I lay down on the exact place where the living room couch had been pushed tight under the leaded-glass windows. I closed my eyes and it was all around me again. The stuffed bookshelves, the paneling, the soft slap of my mother’s cards on the table. […]
I turned over and made myself comfortable in the crush of wild burdock. A bee or two hummed in the drowsy air. The swarm had left the rubble and built their houses beneath the earth. They were busy in the graveyard right now, filling the skulls with white combs and the coffins with sweet black honey.
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21. Disaster Stamps of Pluto Quotes
When Pluto’s empty at last and this house is reclaimed by earth, when the war memorial is toppled and the bank/caf stripped for its brass and granite, when all that remains of Pluto is our collected historical newsletters bound in volumes donated to the local collections at the University of North Dakota, what then? What shall I have said? How shall I have depicted the truth?
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We declare our society defunct. We shall, however, keep walking the perimeter of Pluto until our footsteps wear our orbit into the earth. My last act as the president of Pluto’s historical society is this: I would like to declare a town holiday to commemorate the year I saved the life of my family’s murderer.
[…] All who celebrate shall be ghosts. And there will be nothing but eternal dancing, dust on dust, everywhere you look.
Oh my, too apocalyptic, I think as I leave my house to walk over to Neve’s to help her cope with her sleepless night. Dust on dust! There are very few towns where old women can go out at night and enjoy the breeze, so there is that about Pluto. I take my cane to feel the way, for the air is so black I think already we are invisible.
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Doctor Cordelia Lochren (“C.”) Character Timeline in The Plague of Doves
The timeline below shows where the character Doctor Cordelia Lochren (“C.”) appears in The Plague of Doves. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
20. Demolition
Having sex with C. was athletic, Coutts reflects, especially because she was slightly bigger than him. To hide their...
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...Coutts needs to find a wife—and that her son needs to stop messing around with C. Coutts pushes back, reminding his mother that when he was a little boy, C. made...
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Soon, though, C. is the one to end things, telling Coutts that she has decided to get married:...
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For a year after C.’s wedding, Coutts avoids her. But one day, Coutts can stand it no longer, and he...
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Just as she had done in the early stages of their affair, C. often makes Coutts sandwiches after they have sex. As Coutts eats, he and C. talk...
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...taken up residence in the house’s walls, he fantasizes about living in this house with C. Then, in a flash, Coutts realizes something: “I had wasted my life on a woman.”...
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...to bones and beams.” Finally, when he can take it no longer, Coutts walks to C.’s house. When he arrives, C. is loading her new dishwasher. As C. puts coffee mugs...
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C. walks Coutts over to his house, which Ted is in the process of tearing down....
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...day, Coutts is standing on the empty lot where his house used to be when C. drives by. She looks surprisingly old now, and though Coutts wants to talk, she hurries...
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Years later, Geraldine casually mentions to Coutts that C. is known for refusing to treat Indians. At first, Coutts can’t believe it—after all, hadn’t...
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21. Disaster Stamps of Pluto
As Cordelia makes her way to Pluto’s town caf (cafeteria), she reflects that “the dead of Pluto...
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Cordelia was recently elected as president of Pluto’s historical society—though it is not easy to tell...
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Cordelia recounts what happened to the seven-month-old baby girl found at the murder scene. The baby...
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The only source of shame for this doctor—Cordelia herself—is her refusal to treat Indians. Though people assume Cordelia is bigoted, her refusal actually...
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As Neve and Cordelia walk around the town, they gossip about their neighbors and relatives. Neve talks about her...
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Neve and Cordelia spend their evenings quietly, watching T.V. and eating dinner alone. Both of them are amazed...
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Cordelia wonders why she does not have traumatic memories of the murders. People have told Cordelia...
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Sometimes, when Cordelia lifts her murdered family members’ clothes to her face, she feels a “wild upsurge” of...
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...Warren Wolde had been trampled on by his family’s bull, and the wound got infected. Cordelia had treated Warren—but every time she went to tend to his wounds, Warren reacted with...
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...Warren dies peacefully in his sleep, succumbing to a blood clot. Soon after Warren’s death, Cordelia receives a package. When she opens the box, it is filled with folded bills, like...
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Back in the present, Cordelia reflects that she and Neve will need to disband the historical society. Cordelia wants to...
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