Montana 1948

Sheriff Hayden goes out to the Native American reservation to gather evidence to support Marie’s accusations against Dr. Hayden. David also sees the Sheriff consulting with Ollie Young Bear, a respected local Native elder.

That evening, David’s father questions Marie again, while David and his mother wait outside. David’s mother tells her son how she has never gotten used to Montana and how she longs for the flatlands of her native North Dakota.

The following Sunday, David and his parents have dinner with David’s grandparents, Julian and Enid Hayden on their ranch. Wesley talks to his father, and his father mentions that Frank has been involved with Indian girls all his life: “You know Frank’s always been partial to red meat. He couldn’t have been any older than Davy when Bud caught him down in the stable with that little Indian girl” (Chapter 2, p. 63).

David interrupts the narrative to relate a story about Uncle Frank’s bachelor party before he married his wife Gloria. One of Frank’s college friends teased Grandfather Hayden about being a hick with cow dung on his boots. The elder Hayden threatened the loudmouth with a gun, and Frank’s friend ran away, eliciting great laughter from the Hayden brothers.

After dinner David goes out horseback riding. His grandfather had given him a .22 target pistol, and he enjoys firing many rounds with the new firearm. Before he returns to the ranch house, David shoots a magpie. “I needed that, I thought; I hadn’t even known it but I had to kill something. The events, the discoveries, the secrets of the past few days—Marie’s illness, Uncle Frank’s sins, the tension between my father and mother—had excited something in me that wasn’t released until I shot a magpie out of a pinon tree” (Chapter 2, p. 72).

David sees his father and his uncle talking outside and assumes that his Sheriff father is confronting Uncle Frank about his crimes. However, David sees the two brothers shaking hands.

David’s father tells his mother that the problem has been solved because Frank has agreed to stop molesting Indian girls.  David’s mother responds, “That’s not the way it works. You know that. Sins—crimes—are not supposed to go unpunished” (Chapter 2, p. 76).

That day, David sees Marie one last time before he goes to sleep; the next day he comes home after fishing with a friend to find Marie dead and the undertaker’s hearse at their house. Uncle Frank insists that Marie died of pneumonia, although both David’s mother and their neighbor Daisy McAuley believe Marie was getting better.

David is sent next door while Daisy and his mother commiserate. He finds Len, a recovering alcoholic, drinking whiskey. Len tells David, “’you know what your granddad said it means to be a peace officer in Montana? He said it means knowing when to look and when to look away’” (Chapter 2, p. 84).

Later, when David’s father returns home after breaking the news of Marie’s death to her mother, David tells his father that he saw Uncle Frank leaving their house that afternoon. David also reveals that he thinks Len saw Frank too.

David has trouble sleeping that night as he has a “strange half-dreaming, half-waking vision” of the local Native Americans mourning Marie and perhaps planning to take revenge.