55 pages • 1 hour read
LeAnne HoweMiko Kings
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “Take Me Out to the Ballpark”
Back in 1969, Hope has a nightmare about the night he lost his hands. After the big game, he and Bo Hash travel for two days until they get to the Corner Saloon. When they arrive, Tom Bobbitt, one of the men they gambled with, arranges a cabin for them and a celebratory dinner. Since Hope threw the game and the Miko Kings lost, Bobbitt will “be taking over the Miko Kings and the Indian league, but only as a front man for a syndicate up north in Chicago” (213). He crudely boasts that Henri Day and Lonnie Johns never could have been successful with the team, anyway. Hope winces and asks for a jug of whiskey to numb the guilt he feels.
Hope finishes off the whiskey and wakes up drunk the next morning. He looks up to see “Blip Bleen standing over him with an ax in his hand” (214), alongside two other players for the Miko Kings. Blip drags Hope out of bed, and the three men stretch him out on the floor. When Bo wakes up and tries to charge them with a knife, they shoot him with a 12 gage. Then, Blip takes the ax and cuts off Hope’s hands. The men tie off his wrists so that he doesn’t bleed to death.
Suddenly, Bobbitt knocks down the door and shoots the other two men first before turning the gun on Blip “as the greatest Indian hitter in history swings an ax into Bobbit’s belly” (214). Hope is the only one who survives the ordeal.
A blonde woman who works at the saloon, the same one who had been found with her husband hanging from a tree on Henri Day’s prairie, is the reason Hope survives the wounds. She skillfully cauterizes his veins and sews him back up, massaging his hands for six months to keep them from withering further. In 1908, he leaves the Corner Saloon for good.
Back at the nursing home, Hope knows that “[t]he turquoise horse and warrior have returned to take him to the ballpark with all his skills and muster. His desire has never deserted him” (215). He tells John, who is checking his vitals, to let him go.
Chapter 11 Summary: “His Last Game”
In one final dream, Hope sees himself on the field during that last game in 1907. Blip, who has been watching him, approaches him on the pitcher’s mound and says, “The jig is up” (217). Hope insists that he’s okay and that the Miko Kings are his family and he wants to finish the game. He pitches, and Kearney, a batter for the Calvary, strikes out. The bases are loaded, and Hope has to face “Hugh Scott, the Calvary’s champion batter” next (218). Hope pitches, and Hugh strikes once, twice, and finally a third time. In this dream, Hope wins the game for the Miko Kings, and he doesn’t betray his family.
Chapter 12 Summary: “The Center of the Farthest”
For a final time in 2006, Ezol visits Lena, her descendant. She sits in her favorite wingback chair, and the two enjoy each other’s company for a moment. Lena tells her that posting about the game on her blog has been a success, and other descendants of the Miko Kings have “filled in a lot of the blanks about what happened to the team and the players” (220). They provide Lena with the team’s final line up, and she reads it aloud to Ezol.
Then, Lena reads something she wrote herself, an alternate ending to the game where the Miko Kings win. Ezol smiles, saying, “Blip will like that” (220). Lena senses that Ezol is about to depart and asks her one final question: “Why did I feel so abandoned?” (221). Ezol explains that her grandmother Cora never fully dealt with her grief. Ezol, however, has always been with her in spirit and has always loved her. She says, “That is the true story I came to tell” (222). Lena is touched by her ancestor’s words. They have to part ways for now, but the rules of time and space are not as linear as Lena once thought. Lena knows that they will still be with each other and that they will see each other again when the past and present come together once more.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
The final three chapters of Miko Kings include some of the most graphic acts of betrayal and revenge but also explore the power of forgiveness and truth. The story behind how Hope lost his hands is one of betrayal motivated by deep love and desperation. The end of the book finds resolution for each of the characters. If justice and forgiveness was not achieved during their lifetime, they receive it in the afterlife or the spiritual world where the past and the present meet.
Hope is faced with a difficult choice in the wake of his fight with Justina. He does not have the financial resources to make her feel secure enough to stay with him, so when Bo Hash makes his offer, Hope takes it. Afterward, Hope is riddled with guilt, even though Bobbitt assures him that “[t]hat five thousand of yours will ease the pain” (213). Underscoring The Intersection of Baseball and Indigenous Identity, the text reveals that Hope makes his decision hastily, but it isn’t until after the game that he feels the weight of what he’s done to the Miko Kings. Additionally, he and Bo plan to go to Louisiana to meet up with Justina, but Bobbitt tells Hope that he has to stay and play for the Miko Kings the next season, now under new leadership. Hope thought that he was trading the game for the freedom to be with his love, but he now learns that isn’t the case. Hence, his betrayal was in vain.
As Hope is dying, he descends into a dreamlike state, where he actually wins for the Miko Kings instead of betraying them. Blip, Lucius, and Albert, the three who cut off his hands, approach him and ask about his decision. Hope assures them that he can do it, saying, “I’m part of this team, this family. And I can do this” (218). In his alternative history, when he goes to pitch for Hugh Scott, he strikes him out, the last ball flying “straight into Hope’s glove” (218). In this version, Hope makes the right decision.
Lena also rewrites history on her blog post. Instead of recording the actual score, it reflects what happened in Hope’s dream state. Lena reads to Ezol, “Hope Little Leader gets a signal from Blip Bleen on the sidelines and throws his famous ‘in down’ to Fort Sill’s batter, Hugh Scott, who smacks it straight across the plate into Hope’s glove” (220). Ezol smiles and says that Blip will approve. In a final reflection on The Importance of Preserving an Accurate History, this time, they aren’t necessarily writing what’s accurate but what should have happened that day. In doing so, they are, in some way, setting right the wrong from all those years ago.
As Ezol prepares to leave, Lena asks her why she feels abandoned. Ezol tells her that her grandmother never dealt with her grief. Ezol saw the generational grief that had been passed down and came to let Lena know that she would always be there for her. In writing the book with Ezol, Lena is healing herself of the family’s grief that Cora tried so hard to hide. Lena is sad to see Ezol go but knows that “although they are intimately linked by the motion of story, [they] are also distinct equations” (221). Lena will always have the spirit of Ezol with her, but she must move forward in her own story now. She must find the space to grieve, heal, and tell her story in ways her grandmother never did.
