Virgil Wounded Horse vowed to stop his work as an enforcer for the Rosebud Sioux, who were seeking payback for crimes committed against them. For a year, he’s refrained from violence. A flawed man, he nevertheless believes his new lifestyle can make a difference with his impoverished tribe.
Then his friend Pudge, a genial bootlegger, is attacked by members of a Pine Ridge gang hoping to take over Pudge’s territory. Virgil has no choice but to pummel the gang members to protect his friend.
Virgil’s ashamed he broke his promise, but like so many Native Americans, he lives on a reservation with few jobs, federal indifference and easy access to alcohol and drugs. Life’s struggles are not black-and-white; they are in shades of gray with no clear path to what is right or wrong. Virgil’s dilemma is what makes him so human. His problems and how he deals with them turn him into a sort of reservation Indian Everyman. Thatap why David Heska Wanbli Weiden’s “Wisdom Corner” is so compelling.
The violence on the Rosebud Reservation escalates into murder when Virgil’s mentor, Jerome Iron Shell, a beloved Sioux medicine man, is killed. Virgil suspects the Pine Ridge boys are responsible. If thatap true, “I [keep] coming back to the possibility that I could be forced to take out Jerome’s killer,” Virgil says. “They’d shown themselves to be vicious morons —guys willing to murder an elderly holy man in cold blood.”
Virgil isn’t completely convinced the gang is guilty, however. His girlfriend, Marie, is running for tribal council against long-time member Mitch Gagnon, who turns Virgil’s violence into a campaign issue. Gagnon is suspected of corruption, and Virgil wonders if the man could be guilty of murder as well. Gagnon proposed a law that could strip tribal citizenship from criminals and their families. The law could apply to both Virgil and Marie.
Then there is a group of greedy land developers constructing an apartment building and shopping mall on the site of a boarding-school burial ground. Virgil’s aunt, who died at age 16, may be interred there. The medicine man opposed the development and had plans to hold a ghost dance on the site, attracting media attention that could stop the project.
A Lakota Sioux himself, with connections to the Rosebud Reservation, Colorado-based Weiden is intimately familiar with the challenges that Native Americans face today. He’s written about them before in his acclaimed novel “Winter Count.” Reservation land is harsh and unforgiving, and housing barely keeps out the elements. Many Sioux, like Virgil, lead a hand-to-mouth existence.
Jobs on reservations are scarce, nutrition poor, education substandard and alcohol and drugs, particularly meth, are readily available. The federal government is ineffectual. Virgil wishes the feds would look into Jerome’s murder, but the FBI turns down the case. Even the tribal police force is skeptical until Virgil convinces the police chief, an old adversary, to step in.
Virgil is not just a sympathetic character; he’s fun. He laughs at some of the vagaries of life, such as being a role model for the nephew he’s raising. Like so many Native Americans, Virgil is no stranger to early death from car accidents, violence, and alcoholism that claim family members. He’s chagrinned that the nephew he hopes will go to college is instead following in Virgil’s footsteps as an enforcer on the school playground.
Weiden’s first-rate novel is a loving if critical look at reservation life today and a splendid story of grit and determination.
Wisdom Corner
Author: David Heska Wanbli Weiden
Pages: 320
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
