Warrior Girl Unearthed

During the guest presentations on Friday, Perry mentally runs through the roles for “Team Heist Misfits,” which includes her, Pauline, Shense, Lucas, Web, Stormy, Granny June, and Minnie.

At the end of the day, Claire speaks to Perry privately. For the last week of Perry’s internship, she’s being transferred to Tribal Police so that Erik can return to the casino, which needs a driver who has a commercial driver’s license. Perry feels like she’s “disposable.” Perry subtly fishes for information about Lockhart’s trip. Claire tells her how her mother disappeared after getting in a fight with Lockhart. When young Claire overheard this, she told her mother “she should go away so my aunt could be my mom instead” (303). Her mom disappeared shortly thereafter.

Perry goes fishing with the “old-timers,” who request a scary story from her. She tells a story about a wiindigoo who infects victims with evil. Her ancestor Netamop’s 13 daughters knew the secret to kill the wiindigoo. When one of the 13 died, they recruited a replacement and tested her. This continued through generations. There are always 13 “secret-keepers” who will take a man into the woods “if a guy hurts a woman in the family” (306). Perry knows that the scariest stories are the ones from the real lives of the women around her.

As she finishes her story, a storm starts. Shense calls Perry at midnight, saying that her uncle is headed to Lockhart’s property. However, her second call, which would begin the 60-hour timer, never comes.

Perry wakes up just after six o’clock in the morning; Shense still hasn’t called. She calls Shense’s burner, but no one picks up. She leaves her phone home and takes Lucas’ truck. She sees where Shense’s uncle cut the tree and felled the power lines. While she waits for an appropriate hour to text “G,” she checks the news and reads about a Black teen boy being killed by police. At 10 o’clock in the morning, she texts “G” that “Go Time” is 10 o’clock on Tuesday night.

Perry drops Pauline off at Granny June’s, where Lucas is house-sitting, and goes to Shense’s house. Shense’s father, Mr. Jackson, says that she didn’t come home last night. When the city police hear that Shense is a teen mother, however, they dismiss her disappearance.

Perry goes to Granny June’s and interrupts Pauline and Lucas’ “sneaky snag.” She tells them about Shense’s disappearance. They comb southern Sugar Island. Perry sees Shense’s car at the bottom of an embankment, upside down.

Pauline calls 911 while Perry goes down the embankment. Shense isn’t inside the car, but Perry sees her burner phone and takes it. She feels guilty, but knows if Shense is associated with the heist it could complicate her custody battle.

First thing in the morning, Perry makes a MMIWG2S flier for Shense. She spends the day putting fliers all over town. When she gets back, she thanks TJ for letting her complete her internship there. He says she was his first choice for an intern and lists the values he admires in Perry that make her a good “protector.”

That night, she and Lucas coach Granny June and Minnie on how to look for anyone coming down the road. They concoct several plans to delay and divert anyone who comes by; Minnie’s final plan is to fake a heart attack.

Perry has a nightmare about seeing Pauline’s face on a missing poster. Pauline’s face becomes hers, and then she becomes a crumpled up missing poster in a trash can. Shense, Darby, and all the other missing women are crumpled up next to her. When she wakes, she has a bad feeling about the heist, and Elvis Junior is acting strange.

At her internship, TJ asks her to post Shense’s missing poster around Mackinac and St. Ignace. As she goes past Teepees-n-Trinkets, she sees Fenton and a moving truck. She apologizes to Fenton for her outburst at Lockhart’s announcement. Fenton accepts the apology and admits that she’s been thinking about how she’d feel if their situation were reversed. She offers to write Perry a letter of recommendation for colleges and urges her to pursue anthropology.

Perry suddenly wants to admit the plan to Erik and goes to find him at the casino. He’s angry at her and says that Web extorted him into driving the van for the heist by threatening to contact Erik’s probation officer. Perry is shocked and says she didn’t tell Web about his probation and ordered him to leave Erik out of the plan.

Perry tells Erik that she’s calling off the heist and will confess to trespassing and to breaking and entering. They make up and kiss before she leaves. When she confronts Web, he says that he recorded Pauline discussing her role in the plan, and if Perry confesses, he’ll turn Pauline in as an accomplice. When Perry returns to tell Erik, they agree to complete the heist.

Erik and Perry don’t tell anyone they were extorted. Over three hours, Perry, Pauline, Lucas, Web, and Stormy remove their ancestors from the silo, including four babies and ceremonial objects. When they’re done, they get a message from Granny June saying, “Cop. Heart attack.” Pauline and Lucas head for their boat. Stormy, who is supposed to leave in the van, runs after them with a ceremonial pipe. Perry follows, but as she does she hears the moving van rumble. When she returns, it’s gone. She runs after the truck and sees Erik’s body in the road, covered in blood. She knocks on a nearby trailer door and asks them to call 911. She gives the man the numbers of her parents and Daunis. When she returns to Erik, she sees a wiindigoo approaching.

Perry wakes in a dark hole with other missing Indigenous women, including Shense.

Perry dreams that she and Warrior Girl walk through the hole. When she wakes again, she assesses the hole. Shense warns Perry to stay away from a certain section, where Razz’s corpse is. Shense says that their captor comes to sit by the edge of the hole and observe them every night.

Perry sleeps again; when she wakes, Shense is recording messages to Washkeh on her internship recorder. Perry thinks back to hearing stories from Elders about how some families kept hidey-holes to put their children in when people came to take children to boarding schools. She realizes that they’re in a hidey-hole in a dilapidated house on Lockhart’s property, which used to be Nodin land. Perry records what she knows so far and then hugs Shense and sings to her.

At night, she hears a creature scratching. She recognizes Elvis Junior, who followed her scent. She coaxes him to jump into the pit. Perry ties the recorder to him with his leash. She orders Elvis Junior to run home and throws him out of the hole. Later, their captor arrives, shining a flashlight down at them. In the light, Perry can see a skeleton under Razz. Their captor is Leer-wah.

Leer-Wah is trying to collect “Thirteen Grandmothers. One woman for each moon” (368), to “replace” the 13 ancestors being repatriated. Perry realizes that the skeleton is Caron, Claire’s mom, and goads Leer-wah into talking about her. Caron fell into the pit and broke her neck while wandering the property after an argument with Lockhart. Leer-wah found her and told his mother, who covered up Caron’s death by forging postcards from her. His mom is Ojibwe, but his dad wouldn’t let her enroll him as a tribal member. Leer-wah claims that he isn’t a “monster” like Edwards. Leer-wah heard Mr. Bailey stab Edwards for what he did to Mr. Bailey’s daughter, Robin. Mr. Bailey’s stab wasn’t fatal, so Leer-wah drove the knife deeper.

The next morning, Shense’s heartbeat is faint. Eventually, Perry hears a search party. TJ lifts Shense out, while Perry’s parents help her out. Later, she learns that Erik was unconscious but woke up the night before. When he woke, he said he left the van to go back for Perry and was hit on the back of the head. Web was later found in an empty van, also hit in the back of the head. Pauline and Lucas saw Stormy running away; he’s been gone ever since. Minnie’s heart attack was real, and she passed away.

Web, Shense, Erik, and Perry are all in the hospital. Claire comes to Perry’s room, followed by TJ. Perry gets a text from Pauline saying that Web’s assaulter likely had his burner phone, and she was sending a text to the group of burners. A phone in Claire’s bag goes off. Claire confesses that Lockhart recruited her and Web. Claire was supposed to come up with internship challenges to find the best team, and Web was supposed to recruit the interns to steal the items so that they could all split the insurance money.

The community gathers for a recommitment ceremony. Lockhart changed his mind and gave the Sugar Island Ojibwe Tribe their cultural items. Perry thinks he did this to look good before his coming trial. Perry’s dad invites Erik to tend the fire for the ceremony. Shense prepares food. Pauline dances in her Jingle Dress. As she stands with Daunis and TJ, Perry sees Cooper and Stormy handling the turtle shaker. Daunis says that a group chipped in to bid on it. Daunis adds that she can’t get too close to the ceremony because she and TJ are expecting a baby girl.

Perry tells Daunis that she wants to major in museum studies and eventually find a way to prove that Warrior Girl is their ancestor. She’ll enjoy her life along the way in honor of everything Warrior Girl gave for her to be able to live.