ATDTDA (8): More than he'd ever seemed to be, 217-218

[Paul Nightingale]

Back in Nochecita "the baby [is] imminent" (218): Reef
has "blow[n] up a few company outbuildings on the way
back just for drill" (217), so his impending 
fatherhood is juxtaposed here to his authoring of the
ongoing myth of the Kid, although Reef wonders if he
can "pull of successfully the guise of a respectable
wife-and-kids working stiff the way Webb had" (218).

In this passage it is difficult to separate dynamiting
(inheriting Webb's role as activist) from fatherhood
(a relationship with Stray and Jesse). Hence the
question, what does he tell Stray? To others,
fatherhood means normality ("[n]o more hellraisin for
you, Reef"); to Reef it adds up to a 
"guise", as though the only point to buying into a
life with Stray and Jesse is that it provides him with
cover. He has earlier alluded to this when 
telling Lake that the less she and the others know the
better (216-217).

At the start of this section, "Stray [is] in a
peculiarly serene state" (217); and Reef knows he
should say nothing and "let whatever'd been under way
without him just keep on like that" (218).

Other times when Reef is reticent: One is reminded of
the way he refused to explain himself to Frank at the
start of the previous chapter (199-200). Any
communication he does have with Frank is likely silent
or monosyllabic (a "nod", 208; "a fast, silent look",
217). All of which is in contrast to the relationship
he enjoys with Webb's "damaged and redolent corpse":
"more talk than he'd ever had with Webb alive" (214).

In the middle of this section, Reef's growing
awareness (self-serving, perhaps) that "Webb was more
than he'd ever seemed to be" (218).