Content Warning: The book describes incidents of extreme violence and hate-fueled violence.

Anna Brown, a 34-year-old recently divorced Osage woman from Gray Horse, a town in the Osage Territory of Oklahoma, disappeared on May 21, 1921. She was last seen at the home of her sister, Mollie Burkhart.

The land on which the Osage Nation lived had rich oil deposits beneath it and, as a result, its members had become very wealthy. Beginning in the early 20th century, registered tribe members received a quarterly check from the oil boom, leading many to inhabit a world of mansions, chauffeured cars, and servants: “The Osage were considered the wealthiest people per capita in the world” (6).

On May 21, Mollie had guests for lunch and asked Anna to care for their ailing mother, Lizzie, who lived with Mollie. Anna arrived drunk; after her divorce, she had adopted an increasingly raucous lifestyle, which included drinking alcohol—an illegal activity, as Prohibition had become US law the year before. Anna made a scene, pulling out a flask of bootleg whisky and arguing with some of the guests. Mollie was annoyed: Anna’s behavior would give her white guests fodder for their racist stereotypes of Indigenous people.