Content Warning: This section contains mentions suicide and descriptions of substance use and addiction.

The book begins with an untitled conversation between two unnamed people who are meeting again after one of them has traveled a long time. They reminisce about their time together.

Amelia One Sky narrates her background. She grew up on an Ojibway reserve, and her family went back far in tribal history. She was the only girl among five siblings. Her oldest brother, Irwin, drowned when she was a young child; that same winter, her parents died in a house fire. Subsequently, social workers sent Amelia and her remaining brothers to a missionary school far away. Harley, the youngest brother, was unable to adapt and ran away from school. He was found days later, frozen to death in their old house.

Amelia retreated into herself, while her brothers John and Frank began to rebel. John grew especially tough and hard, and he left school at 16. He returned a year and a half later, taking Amelia and Frank to live with their uncle Jack in the city. Life was good for a while.

John joined a gang and was stabbed to death when Amelia was 14. Frank then disappeared, and Amelia found him a week later, drinking at the Regal hotel with John’s old gang.