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Ojibwe contractors, he was a man deeply committed to observing and preserving Anishinaabe traditions. He’d run against George LeDuc for the position of council chairman, but his passionate—some said militant—rhetoric on many of the issues had ultimately worked against him. He was not yet forty, but his broad face was lined in such a way that he looked much older. He wore a black ball cap over long black hair that was pulled back in a braid. He had on a black T-shirt with HONOR TREATY RIGHTS printed in white across the chest. “What you’re all worried about but ashamed to admit is the casino,” he charged. “You’re worried about pissing off the white people who might decide not to come and throw away their money.”
    “We’re businesspeople, Isaiah,” LeDuc reminded him. “We’ve got to consider the impact of all this on the casino business. But that’s not our only concern, and you know it.”
    “You want to know what that casino is?” Broom took a moment for his eyes to encounter every face in the room. “A blanket with smallpox.”
    He shoved his chair back and slowly walked the length of the room. Through the long windows, a playground was visible. Half a dozen children were playing in the morning sunlight.
    “That casino kills us,” Isaiah Broom went on. “It makes us weak and afraid to fight like warriors for the things sacred to us. There is a warrior out there right now and he is doing what we should be doing. We should embrace him. We should honor him. But herewe are, ready to condemn him. Once, we were a people not afraid to fight with our bodies. For too long now we have fought only with words. We’ve crouched like cowards behind the false shield of laws we didn’t make but must obey.” He leveled an unkind gaze on Jo. “We have become just like the enemy.”
    “There’s no enemy here,” Heidi Baudette said, “except foolish action.”
    “Foolish? To act like a warrior is foolish?”
    George LeDuc responded, “To call up the ghost of a time none of us remember and can’t bring back anyway is about as useful as offering us all an empty quiver, Isaiah. Things change. The People have changed. We’re still warriors in the sacred fight to protect Grandmother Earth, but we fight as modern Shinnobs with the weapons Kitchimanidoo has given us—our brains, our determination, and our friendship with those who understand and use the law on our behalf.”
    “The law,” Broom said coldly. “The white man’s law is like the Windigo. You all know the Windigo. A cannibal with a heart of ice that feeds on the Anishinaabe people. And you remember how to kill the Windigo? A man must become a Windigo, too. If it is one of the People who did this thing at Lindstrom’s, then I am proud, because it means we have a Windigo on our side.”
    Thomas Whitefeather shook his head. His face was dark and wrinkled as a dry tobacco leaf. In his early years, he’d been a trapper; later, he’d been a photographer who’d chronicled Ojibwe life until arthritis crippled him so badly he could barely walk. “Sometimes, Isaiah, you remind me of a cicada. A very big sound from a very small thing.” With a gnarled finger, he tapped his forehead.
    Broom saw that others in the room were smiling at the old man’s remark. He looked as if he were about to snap at Whitefeather, but respect restrained him. He returned to his chair and sat erect and silent as the council voted to issue a statement disassociating the Iron Lake Ojibwe from the action at Lindstrom’s. Although Broom’s was the only vote against, Jo could tell by the looks on the faces of some of the council members that they believed there was a good deal of truth in the words Broom had spoken. Broom held back as the other council members left. He looked across the table at Jo.
    “You know the law, but you don’t understand war,” he told her.
    “What I understand about war,” Jo said, “is that usually a lot of innocent people end up hurt. I