Summary

The story, narrated in third person, begins with this sentence. “Regarding love, marriage, and sex, both Shakespeare and Sitting Bull knew the only truth: treaties get broken” (1). The narration then describes how Mary Lynn, a “lovely and intelligent” Coeur d’Alene Indian (5), became obsessed with the idea of having sex with an Indian man. The narration describes how she had married a handsome white man after years of only dating and being intimate with white men. The narration also describes how she had become increasingly disgusted with the Indian men, “those liars, cheats, and thieves” with whom she had grown up on “the rez” (5). Acting on her desires, she picks up an overweight Indian man in a grocery store and takes him to a hotel room. There, she admits to herself that she is doing what she is doing only because she wants to...