Summary

The story takes place contemporary to when it was written, in the early 1990s. The protagonist is a Native American named Victor, who lives on a Native American reservation in the pacific northwest. Victor has recently lost his job working at the Bureau of India Affairs (BIA). Victor learns that his father recently died of a heart attack in Phoenix, Arizona. Victor has not been close with his father, and their only contact over the last few years has been through a few phone calls. However, Victor still feels grief for his father’s death. Victor has no money, so he speaks to the reservation’s Tribal Council to see if they can give him money to transport his father’s cremated remains from Phoenix to the reservation. The council says that they do have some money set aside for the retrieval of tribal...