Antelope Woman

Scranton Roy, a soldier in the United States Army, sees a dog run out of the village with a cradle board strapped to its back. In the cradle board is an infant, and attached to it is a string of blue beads. Horrified by the battle in which he is fighting and ashamed of having just killed an innocent old woman, Scranton takes off after the dog, following it deep into the woods. When Scranton kills a rabbit, the dog approaches him for handouts, and he is able to remove the child from the dog’s back. The child, a baby girl, is too young to eat rabbit, and at first, Scranton gives her only water. Her crying intensifies, and he puts her to his own nipple to quiet her down. He is successful and keeps her there for days. Eventually, to his surprise, Scranton begins to produce milk. He names the baby Matilda.

Peace McKnight is Matilda Roy’s teacher. She goes to stay with Scranton and Matilda when it becomes too cold for her to continue living in the schoolhouse. She and Matilda, separated in age by only 14 years (Matilda is now 6) become fast friends, akin to sisters.

Meanwhile, Blue Prairie Woman mourns the child, referring to Matilda, she lost in the raid on her village for more than a year. She had tied the girl’s cradle board to a dog, and the dog ran away. Eventually, she becomes pregnant again and hopes that her new offspring will remain safe with her in the village. She gives birth to twins, Mary and Josephette, but leaves them to go in search of her missing daughter. She travels for miles and miles, finally hearing of the white man raising a young Ojibwe girl. She finds Scranton’s cabin. Matilda wakes in the night, understands that her mother is near, and leaves with her. After Matilda leaves, Scranton and Peace marry, and she gives birth to a boy whom they name Augustus. The labor is long and intense, and Peace does not survive it.

Then, Blue Prairie Woman contracts and dies of a fever. During her final moments, a herd of mysterious antelope appears. Matilda sees them but does not fully understand their meaning. She leaves with them.

Augustus Roy is now 23 years old. He still lives with his father Scranton, and the two enjoy reading classic works of literature and philosophy together. Scranton has never been able to overcome his guilt over the role that he played in the skirmish that had resulted in his, albeit temporarily, adopting Matilda. He still sees the face of the old woman he killed in his dreams. One day, he decides to head back to the village and to give its inhabitants his entire life savings as a kind of restitution. When they arrive, no one lives in the village anymore, and Scranton asks Augustus to kill him. Augustus gently declines and suggests that they instead head in the direction likely taken by the villagers.

They encounter an Indigenous couple who know of the woman that Scranton killed. Their names are Shawnoo and Victoria Muskrat, and they adopted Blue Prairie Woman’s twin girls Mary and Josephette (who now goes by Zosie). They are watchful and seem to be constantly in motion. Augustus is shy around them. After he and Scranton have been staying with the couple for a few days, Augustus explains his father’s desire for forgiveness and gives them the money. Shortly after that, Augustus finds his father dead in his blanket, holding his knife in his hand.

Augustus remains with the Ojibwe family. He builds himself a small cabin next to Shawnoo and Victoria Muskrat, and although he marries Mary, he is sure that sometimes Zosie takes her place in his bed. The Dawes Act is passed, and land is parceled out to individual tribal members rather than to the tribe as a whole. Because of this, Indigenous lands shrink further as individuals are persuaded (and coerced) to sell their property. Augustus worries initially that Shawnoo and Victoria Muskrat will sell their land, but they do not, and he continues to live with the family. He remains unable to tell Mary from Zosie, and so he is, de facto, married to them both. Repeated attempts to tell one from the other fail, and even when his daughter is born, he is unsure which twin is her mother.

Augustus now understands that Mary and Zosie are the descendants of the woman Scranton killed, and also the daughters of Blue Prairie Woman, Matilda’s mother. His daughter, whom he names Peace, solves the riddle of her mother’s identity, and after Augustus hears Peace call Zosie mama, the two women suddenly seem strikingly different. He is unsure how he ever struggled to tell them apart. He does realize that he loves both women and that he loves their lives together, so he continues to pretend that he cannot tell one from the other. Mary bears him a son whom they name Charles, and Zosie a boy called Booch. One last son, named Shawnoo, is born. The family is happy.

The local Indian Agent, with orders to round up Indigenous children and forcibly enroll them in boarding school, attempts to take Augustus’s daughter and sons. The children manage to escape the man’s clutches, and Augustus takes them back home, vowing to educate them himself. He’d heard horror stories of the abuses that were common at such schools from Shawnoo and Victoria Muskrat, and he did not want to subject his children to such cruelty.

Determined to educate his children at home, Augustus begins a series of lessons for the children. Their mothers teach them traditional Ojibwe knowledge, and the children have a happy childhood. The boys are interested in their people’s warrior history, and Peace is joyful and hardworking. At the age of 12, she gets a job cleaning floors in the local bank. The boys, passionate about war and warriors, enlist in the US Army. Augustus, Mary, and Zosie are distraught, but there is nothing they can do. Augustus takes them to the station, and they set out for the battlefield.

It is 1918, and the war has ended. Augustus dies and is mourned by his wives and daughter. All three boys return from the war. Shawnoo was the only brother to see battle, and he comes home scarred. He is now known by the name Ogichidaa, meaning “warrior.” Ogichidaa talks with their neighbor, Asin, the man who had first introduced him to stories of Ojibwe warriors from the past. Asin recommends that he enslave a German person. Ogichidaa kidnaps a German man but is then unsure what to do with him. He and his brothers discuss killing the man, but the man offers to bake them a cake in exchange for sparing his life, and they decide to humor him. The German, whose name is Klaus, sets about baking his cake. When it is finished, everyone is astounded by its delicious flavor. Years later, Ogichidaa would father a son and name him Klaus, in honor of the German baker.