unknown”—the same finding as delivered in the Whitehorn
inquest. The justice locked away in his office the little evidence
that he’d gathered, in case more information emerged.
Meanwhile, Lizzie—who’d once possessed the same energy and
stubborn determination as Mollie—had grown sicker. Each day,
she seemed to drift further away, to become more insubstantial; it
was as if she had the same peculiar wasting illness that had
consumed Minnie.
Desperate for help, Mollie turned to the Osage medicine men,
who chanted when the eastern sky was red like blood, and to the
new breed of medicine men, the Shoun brothers, who carried their
potions in black bags. Nothing seemed to work. Mollie kept vigil
over her mother, one of the last tethers to the tribe’s ancient way
of life. Mollie could not cure her, but she could feed her, and she
could brush her long, beautiful, silvery hair from her face—a face
that was lined and expressive, that maintained its aura.
One day that July, less than two months after Anna’s murder,
Lizzie stopped breathing. Mollie couldn’t revive her. Lizzie’s spirit
had been claimed by Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior, and by
Wah’Kon-Tah, the Great Mystery. Mollie was overwhelmed with
grief. As an Osage mourning prayer went,
Have pity on me, O Great Spirit!
You see I cry forever,
Dry my eyes and give me comfort.Mollie’s brother-in-law, Bill Smith, was one of the first to
wonder if there was something curious about Lizzie’s death,
coming so soon after the murders of Anna and Whitehorn. A
bruising bulldog of a man, Bill had also expressed deep frustration
over the authorities’ investigation, and he had begun looking into