Shoot an Arrow to Stop the Wind

Book excerpt: Every summer, Colin left his home in Oregon and lived with his mother's people, in Kinnikinick Valley, Montana. In 1926, Colin was 16 years old. That was the summer he came to terms with his Indian heritage with help from his 84-year-old great grandmother. Aunt Nora was a Pikuni, who rememered the days before the railroad came through. In 1859, Angus MacAntire came to the village and fell in love with Nora. They lived with her people until famine drove them to live in the white settlement. Angus became a rich man, whose children owned the finest ranch in the valley, but every summer, Aunt Nora returned to a lodge under the trees. As Colin and Nora begin to understand each other, Colin's view changes as he hears "breed" as a word of contempt, and as he develops a shy love for Marie Dupree, a Cree girl.