“Wi’-gi-e,” which means “prayer” in Osage. Narrated from Mollie
Burkhart’s point of view, the poem is about the murder of Anna
Brown:
Because she died where the ravine falls into water.
Because they dragged her down to the creek.
In death, she wore her blue broadcloth skirt.
Though frost blanketed the grass she cooled her feet in the spring.
Because I turned the log with my foot.
Her slippers floated downstream into the dam.
Because, after the thaw, the hunters discovered her body.The poem ends with these lines:During Xtha-cka Zhi-ga Tze-the, the Killer of the Flowers Moon.
I will wade across the river of the blackfish, the otter, the beaver.
I will climb the bank where the willow never dies.By the time Margie drove on, the prairie was shrouded in the
dark of night. Only the beams from the headlights illuminated the
dusty road. Margie said that her parents first told her what Ernest
and Hale had done when she was a child. “I used to worry
whenever I did something naughty, ‘What if I’m the bad seed?’ ”
Margie recalled. She said that occasionally The FBI Story would air
on local television, and she and her family would watch it and cry.
As she spoke, I realized that the Reign of Terror had ravaged—
still ravaged—generations. A great-grandson of Henry Roan’s once
spoke of the legacy of the murders: “I think somewhere it is in the
back of our minds. We may not realize it, but it is there, especially
if it was a family member that was killed. You just have it in the
back of your head that you don’t trust anybody.”
We emerged from the prairie and headed into downtown
Fairfax. Although still officially a town, it seemed on the verge of