54 pages • 1 hour read
LeAnne HoweShell Shaker
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2001A 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 12-14 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary: “Suspended Animation”
Talihina,
Rocky Road
Auda dreams of following Redford to his vacation home “on top of Bengal Mountain” (loc 3657). When she arrives, she asks Redford for “the names of the Choctaws he bought off in order to sell the casino project to the rest of the tribal council” (loc 3666). Redford replies that he paid off Nitakechi, Koi Chitto, and Choucououlacta before realizing that he does not know who those men are. Then he seems to remember that he had them all killed, and begins to weep, saying he did it only “to make our tribe strong again—like [they] were in the old days” (loc 3678).
Auda asks him to explain his trips to Ireland, and he claims they were to get revenge on the English for what they had done to his people, especially the English trader who had been seated beside him when Anoleta and Haya found him. He then shows Auda the money he stole from the Mafia and asks her to “make good use” of it (loc 3689). He hopes it will be enough “to buy the Nanih Waiya from the state of Mississippi” (loc 3689).
Auda and Redford are in the car again, and Redford explains what happened: Carl discovered that Auda was making copies of the documents, and the D’Amato brothers wanted Auda dead. Redford insisted he could take care of her, but when she refused to wear the red dress, he knew he could not. Auda cannot wait to get to Mississippi, where they will “sleep on top of the mound at the Nanih Waiya” (loc 3701-3712).
Chapter 13 Summary: “The Nanih Waiya”
Mississippi
Thursday, September 26, 1991
Isaac and Delores, accompanied by “other Oklahoma Choctaws” arrive at the Nanih Waiya. They have brought Redford’s body along with his “clothes, ties, shoes, golf clubs, magazines, a computer, and an office copier” to bury with him, as well as the bag full of money that Redford showed to Auda (loc 3746). Representatives of the Mississippi Choctaws, people from “Zwolle, Louisiana; Home, Louisiana; Lexington, Texas; and Mobile, Alabama” greet them (loc 3779). Delores and “the other Chahta women of the Southeast” begin chanting and Delores prepares to sing the songs for the dead (loc 3801). Everyone believes that by burying Redford here will “put [his] spirit at peace” and reunite as well “the Chahta people who’ve been split apart by circumstances beyond us” (loc 3779).
Chapter 14 Summary: “Road of Darkness”
Talihina,
Rocky Road
Auda is both in her hospital bed where her mother prays for her, and in the car with Redford. Redford is both himself and Red Shoes, and Auda is both herself and Anoleta. Redford explains that “whether it was Bienville and the Filanchi, or the D’Amato brothers and the Italians, it’s just the trappings of time that have changed for the Choctaws” (loc 3834). He reveals that Red Shoes murdered his Red Fox wife to protect Anoleta, and she remembers that after Haya pushed Red Shoes into the fire, she and her sister were killed by the English trader.
Both Auda and Redford then remember when she killed him. Red “begins to change” and “transforms back into the sophisticated big-time Indian politician she remembers” (loc 3858). He brags about how much the money he stole will help the Choctaw, and Auda asks him how he can “[m]ake [her] love [him] one moment, and love [his] dying the next” (loc 3870). Auda suggests they shut their eyes, and she tells him [t]his is an awful story” as “the car dissolves along a blood clot of darkness” (loc 3870).
Chapters 12-14 Analysis
In this section, past and present become one: Auda is both herself and Anoleta, and Redford is similarly himself and Red Shoes. The two lovers come together in this liminal space as they journey to Nanih Waiya, where Redford/Red Shoes’ hungry spirit will be interred. During this journey, the lovers talk, and Redford explains that he only wanted “to make our tribe strong again—like we were in the old days” (loc 3678). However, it is not his desire to be Imataha Chitto that tethers Auda/Anoleta to him, but his love for her. Ultimately, his punishment is not death but separation from his one true love.
Here, Howe explores the specific crimes Redford/Red Shoes has committed against his people. However, the real problem is that Redford never recognizes how wrong he was. His thirst for revenge, which led him to donate money to the Irish Republican Army, used in terrorist attacks against the English, led to the betrayal of his people, much as Red Shoes’ desire to drive out the English and the French instead ended with his own people plotting against him. Both men lost sight of both truth and morality.
Redford and Auda are “floating on a black ribbon” (loc 3702) toward Nanih Waiya, as Isaac and Delores along with many other Oklahoma Choctaw arrive in Mississippi. Their arrival signals a rebirth, a rejuvenation of the Choctaw people, and the coming together of the Oklahoma Choctaw and the Mississippi Choctaw. As the Oklahoma Choctaw leave their vehicles and walk the earth surrounding Nanih Waiya, Isaac hears “the ghosts of red children […] playing toli”; indeed, “the wind laughs, and streamers of ancient songs rise from the ground and dance” (loc 3735). This symbolizes how order and harmony have been restored by returning Redford/Red Shoes to Nanih Waiya, protecting his people from his greed and corruption.
As Delores and the Mississippi Choctaw women begin the death ritual, Auda and Redford remember their deaths as Anoleta and Red Shoes. Anoleta intended to kill Red Shoes, though it was her sister Haya who pushed him into the fire. Anoleta then planned to kill herself; she still loved Red Shoes and wanted to spend eternity with him. Auda, however, recognizes that this cannot be, that they must be separated. Indeed, it is his love for Auda/Anoleta that led Redford/Red Shoes to commit the crimes that set them on this path. Unlike Anoleta, Auda can finally recognize that they cannot be together, neither in life nor in death. She tells Redford that he does not understand what he has done wrong, but that she “will know it for [him].” She turns away from him, and everything “dissolves along a blood clot of darkness” (loc 3870).
