David Edward Walker

Growing up in a Yakama Indian family of ill repute, it's not surprising to discover Tessa Miyanashatawit lingering with the orchard orphans by a campfire in the backcountry of the reservation, drinking and smoking 'tweak.' What is surprising is that she would ever tell Indian Health Service psychologist Dr. Ret Barlow painful secrets she vowed no one could ever know, not even her sisters. When she's caught intoxicated by her grandfather Arnold and Barlow pushes her into a chemical dependency program, she realizes her mistake and refuses to ever speak to him again. An irascible elder, Elisi, leans hard on Barlow, teaching him how Yakama spiritual tradition and Amashitum, a wild horse, can heal wounds carried for generations and, perhaps, even help him rebuild trust with Tessa. But a perverse killer and former boyfriend of Tessa's mother, 'Cowboy' Jack Brie, drops his calling card on the family, looking for her baby sister, CeCe. Tessa makes a confused and desperate call to Barlow, and then she disappears. As Barlow frantically searches for her, Elisi challenges him to choose between following a path of dreams or moving back behind the cultural boundary he's crossed.