“You are two minds, two hearts, two souls. But this day you begin a journey of one. Where it will lead, I cannot tell you. Only the Creator knows. But I can tell you this. On your journey, you will never be alone. In the cold, you will have another body for warmth. In times of uncertainty, you will have a hand to hold for comfort. In the dark, you will have the whisper of love to assure you that the light will return.” He took their hands and placed them between his own. “Go in peace, Grandchildren. May you find the way to bimaadiziwin, the good life. And know that the love of all the hearts here today goes with you.”
Then, as if Kitchimanidoo, the Creator, the Great Mystery, was pleased, the rain ceased, the sun broke through the clouds, and its bright rays poured into the broad doorway of the barn and illuminated the gathering.
Stephen and Belle chose to delay their honeymoon. There was still the protest at Spirit Crossing. They worked together until Stephen left to begin law school in the Twin Cities, and soon thereafter, Belle joined him. Within a few weeks, greed and the insatiable hunger for oil moved the pipeline forward across the Jiibay River and on to its inevitable completion.
Still, life can be quite generous in the blessings it offers. Many weeks after the wedding, there was a surprise for those in Tamarack County who’d feared the worst for the missing young woman named Crystal Two Knives. A few days before Thanksgiving, she came home, bringing with her a young man she called her soul mate. She told the story of how she’d met him by accident when the old jalopy she was driving to the Twin Cities broke down and he stopped to help. He was an acrobat, on his way to Las Vegas to join Cirque du Soleil. On a whim, or as Henry Meloux might have said, blown by the breath of the Great Mystery, she’d gone with him. She was sheepish and apologetic when questioned about not communicating with anyone. She explained that she was afraid Red LaGrange, her abusive ex-boyfriend, might track her down and do harm to her and her new love. But she’d been keeping tabs on things back home, checking out the Aurora Sentinel online, and when she read that LaGrange had been arrested in Duluth and was facing significant jail time, she decided to return home. In the end, she was forgiven because she was no longer one of the missing.
Annie O’Connor stayed in Aurora, eventually in hospice care in the house where she’d grown up. Maria was always at her side, tending to her needs with loving hands. In that same way, all the O’Connors ministered to her. For what little time Annie had left, she was surrounded by an aura of love. Then one snowy winter morning, she took quietly to the Path of Souls. Maria’s face was the last beautiful thing of this earth her eyes beheld before she closed them forever. She was laid to rest next to the grave of her mother, Jo O’Connor, in a lovely spot beneath a linden tree. Cork complied with her last wish, that on her headstone be written these three words: BE NOT AFRAID.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In my story, the chief of the Iron Lake Tribal Police force is Monte Bonhomme. Bonhomme is modeled after a good friend in the Anishinaabe community, an ininiwag named Monte “Awan” Fronk of the Makwa (Bear) Clan. Monte, a member of the Red Lake Nation, has been a tribal first responder for thirty-five years with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and currently oversees tribal emergency management operations. At fourteen years of age, his adopted daughter, Nada, whose Ojibwe name is Aakwaadizi Neshkaadizishkid Ikwe (She Is a Fierce Passionate Woman), went missing.
Early in her life, Nada was diagnosed with second-generation fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. The situation became apparent as Nada grew older and her behavior became more erratic. Her lack of impulse control was due in large measure to permanent frontal lobe damage caused by the disorder. This led to frequent outbursts, eventually reaching the point of requiring out of home placement for her own safety. Because of the lack of services for children who suffer from the syndrome, Nada experienced multiple placements, and eventually she began to run away. At first, she was gone for short periods but was located with the help of the exceptional resources provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or NCMEC. Then, in 2013, she disappeared completely.
Her non-Native social worker made little effort to locate the missing girl. Monte reached out to his brothers and sisters in the public safety community in the Twin Cities. Eventually, Monte received word that his daughter’s photograph had been seen circulating on adult websites, and the devastating realization hit him that Nada was being trafficked. When the photographs suddenly dropped off the internet, Monte feared the worst. But one day, a human trafficking investigator with the Saint Paul Police Department reached out to him. Thanks to a NCMEC poster, a possible sighting of his daughter had been reported. In an extreme rarity within the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW), the police conducted a search of the suspected house and located Monte’s daughter. She was alive.
Nada was placed in a group home for older teens in Bemidji, but she refused to talk about her experience, which is not at all uncommon for victims of human trafficking. She became more stable. Eventually, she reached out to a sensitive resource officer at the alternative school she attended, who arranged for a properly trained investigator to take Nada to an advocacy center, where she was finally able to tell the truth of her traumatic two-year experience.
At eighteen, Nada aged out of the system. She moved to the Twin Cities, where she completed the work for her high school diploma, got a job, and lived independently. She was in a long-term relationship and was planning to marry. But the effects of being trafficked still haunted her, evidenced in periods of extreme anger or heavy drinking. Eventually, she and her fiancé broke up.
On May 26, 2021, Monte received the devastating news that Nada had been killed by another boyfriend, a murder-suicide in her Twin Cities apartment.
Monte arranged a traditional four-day Ojibwe funeral. Through the spiritual guidance of a respected Ojibwe elder named Baabiitaw Boyd, and with the support of family, community members, and Monte’s uniformed brothers and sisters in public safety, all of whom had gathered to grieve with him, Nada’s spirit began her journey to the place the Ojibwe call Gaagige-minawaanigoziwining, a place of everlasting peace.
According to a 2018 study undertaken by the Urban Indian Health Institute, homicide is the third-leading cause of death for Indigenous girls and teens.I More than half of American Indian or Alaska Native women (56.1 percent) have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime. The murder rate of AI/AN women is almost three times that of non-Hispanic White women.II In 2020, there were 1,496 American Indian or Alaska Native people recorded as missing in the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, 578 of whom were female. Because of reporting difficulties or omissions, this is probably a gross underreporting of the actual number.III
These are statistics, horrible in their implications of the threat to Native women in this country. But the numbers often mask the tragic individual stories of the women who have been victims of violence or who have gone missing. And the numbers say nothing about the grief suffered by their families and their communities.
After Nada’s death, Monte was approached by members of the MMIW movement and asked to speak about his daughter’s situation from the perspective of a Native father. He speaks openly now and publicly about the tragedy of his daughter’s life. Along with others whose loved ones have gone missing or been murdered, Monte continues to give voice to the victims, to seek justice, to do his best to open the eyes of people who refuse to see the enormity of the situation for those who live in Indian Country.
The horrific treatment of the Indigenous people on this continent goes back centuries, beginning with the perception of those earliest of our European ancestors who viewed the Native people here as savages and who, from the very beginning, treated them in savage ways. Ignorant misconceptions, destructive stereotypes, human avarice, persistent prejudices, all have contributed to the ongoing struggle of Native people to preserve their cultures, their languages, and their right to the freedoms that both our Constitution and lawful treaties are supposed to ensure.
The violence against Native people continues, as the statistics demonstrate. But the statistics are only part of the story. Another important part is the perception that still lingers in the hearts of so many Americans of European ancestry that somehow Native people are different from us.
I have no Native blood running through my veins. I’m aware every time I sit down to write a novel in my Cork O’Connor series that I’m intruding on a culture that is not my own. If I err in my evocation of the Anishinaabeg, it’s not intentional and, I hope, not detrimental. My wish is that in writing stories like this one, I may in some small way open the hearts and minds of readers to the enormous struggles our Native brothers and sisters face every day.
I. “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls,” Urban Indian Health Institute, 2018.
II. “Research Policy Update: Violence Against American Indian and Alaska Native Women,” Policy Research Center, National Congress of American Indians, 2018.
III. “2020 Missing American Indian and Alaska Native Persons Data,” U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, 2021.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’m grateful to my friend Sergeant Chet Carlson of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office in northern Minnesota. Chet has been both supportive and helpful over a lot of years. I’m especially appreciative of the help he gave me in writing this story. Not only was his advice regarding specific law enforcement details invaluable but he aided a good deal in my understanding of the complicated issues surrounding crimes that involve the interface of local, federal, and reservation jurisdictions. If I’ve made any errors in the story I’ve told, the blame lies fully on my shoulders. Chet did his best.
Thanks also to my many Anishinaabe friends who, when I broached the idea of writing a story about missing and murdered Indigenous people, encouraged me to go forward. I’m grateful and honored to have their trust.
And finally, to the Anishinaabeg here in Minnesota, I owe a deep debt of gratitude for the inspiration that comes from their continued courage and determination in the face of so many obstacles. Chi miigwech.
More from this Series
Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4
Book 5
Book 6
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The River We Remember (a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Novel), This Tender Land, and Ordinary Grace (winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel). Spirit Crossing is the twentieth book in his acclaimed Cork O’Connor mystery series, which includes Fox Creek, Lightning Strike, and Iron Lake. He lives in the Twin Cities with his family. Learn more at WilliamKentKrueger.com.
www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/William-Kent-Krueger
@AtriaBooksALSO BY WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER
THE CORK O’CONNOR SERIES
Fox Creek
Lightning Strike
Desolation Mountain
