Solar Storms

The baby’s name is Aurora, and the residents of Tulik’s house have shared responsibility for her care and argue over which ancestor she most resembles. Tulik nicknames her Totsohi, after a man revered for his wisdom and prophetic powers. Angel, however, feels that Aurora would be “what [Angle] was not. She would know her world and not be severed from it” (258).

Husk and Tommy were supposed to visit, but upon reaching a roadblock, were turned back, to Angel’s great disappointment. Angel states: “in those days we were still a tribe. Each of us had one part of the work of the living. Each of us had one set of the many eyes, the many breaths, the many comings and goings of the people” (262). When Angel burns her arm, Bush uses speech to heal the burn and lessen the pain. 

At nighttime, Angel walks down to the water, to look at a little island in a lake. The protected island is called Ammah, “the one light that remained in the shadowy history that had nearly obliterated our world” (265). Ammah is a utopian place where no human is permitted to walk. 

While they are at the Fat-Eaters, electricity arrives in that part of the world, “a harsh and overly bright” light that confuses the migratory animals and gives the landscape an unreal look (266). Angel sees electricity as another symbol of colonialism, given that it represents “the desire of those who wanted to conquer the land, the water, the rivers that kept running away from them” (268). 

Angel feels lonely, not only because she is missing Tommy and Adam’s Rib, but because the river has been redirected “into such humdrum places as kitchens with stoves and refrigerators” (268). Due to human intervention, Ammah vanishes into the water, and both fish and waterfowl are sickening and dying at an alarming rate. 

Angel and Dora-Rouge are among forty people who attend a protest meeting in town. When a young white man from New York shows them plans for the dam expansion, which will extend to the creation of a new riverbed in the Salt River, “the magnitude of their proposed changes [is] almost beyond imagining” (278).There is also a staggering hydroelectric proposal. No one trusts the government officials, whom are all corrupt and would go to any length to get what they wanted. 

The contractor seems apologetic, but also states that he was hired to do the job and is almost certain that plans for the dam will succeed and that “the Indian people had no say on this matter, no power to reserve what had already been decided by men […] with other skins” (280). The contractor insists that the Native Americans are remnants of the past and that his job is to bring them into the 20th century. Auntie, Tulik’s daughter, demonstrates that her people do not want an imposed way of life by pulling out a lightbulb in protest. 

That night, poachers enter Tulik’s house and fill the air with “volatile tension” and unreal light (285). Two men have started digging nearby and the police do not stop them. When Angel tries to complain to the police, they put her in jail for the evening and take her truck away because she has been driving without a license. Angel reflects that while the police, some of whom are as young as her, admire Native Americans as historical figures, they cannot fathom that they are alive and are obstructing their vision of progress. Angel pities their tendency to follow commands, feeling that they “were in terrain they didn't know, one with forces and powers and beliefs beyond their understanding” (307).

A Native American activist, Miss Nett, who has heard about Tulik’s family from a radio program called Indian Time comes to help and offers to pay Tulik enough money so that he can reclaim the truck that was taken away by the police. Meanwhile, Tulik and Dora-Rouge have embarked upon a romantic relationship.

Native people attempt to blockade roads and railroads constructed by whites in the land of the Fat-Eaters. The police grow increasingly militant and are willing to fire at the protesters. Tulik’s house becomes the headquarters of an activist movement and is always filled with people. Bush spends her time typing up their story to send to newspapers in the United States and Canada. She has made a film of the flooding at Miss Nett’s farm, so that the world can learn about what is being done to the people and how they are being driven off their land. Bush’s stories are smuggled out by a man in a canoe. 

A group of Native American young men with “rock-hard” confidence, led by Arlie Caso House, come to help Tulik’s group organize their efforts and confuse the authorities. More blockades are established to stop the passage of goods that aid the construction efforts. However, in response, the government sends in its own special tactical unit. The Native Americans themselves are divided as to how militant their protests should be. There are threats to Tulik’s house, including shots fired through the window.

Retrospectively, Angel lies in bed, thinking about “what could have been won, [and] what was lost,” and also to admire the courage and persistence of her people (313). One night, the electricity goes off; the nights are dark again, and the people do not mind. Bush gets together with Arlie and Angel is resentful, missing “this woman who seemed most like a mother to me” (314). The Fat-Eaters continue their blockade and come face to face with the white people, whom feel they are getting in their way of their livelihoods: “They believed they were limited and could live in only one way and they wanted us to give up our way of life for theirs” (315). More flooding occurs and rivers disappear.

On a day that Dora-Rouge nearly gets shot by a policeman, Bush begins to talk to the police and soldiers, her idea being that “not to have peace […] was to invite violence” (324). This alienates her from some of the young Indian men from the city as well as Auntie, who advocates for militant resistance. 

LaRue appears on the scene and is disappointed when he sees Bush with Arlie. He causes further division among the people because the young men admire his background as a soldier and his aggressive manner. They resolve to follow him. 

Tulik’s house is burned down; Angel grows more acutely aware of the danger they are all in. One night, imitating Wolverine, a creature who destroys the food of humans and starves the people off their land, Angel decides to starve the soldiers off the Fat-Eaters’ land. She sneaks into the soldiers’ food store and steals the food.

Looking back on that time after so many years, Angel still recoils with horror when she reflects how her peoples’ “lives in that place were being taken from [them], the people removed from the land, water, animals, trees, all violated”; Angel adds that “no one lives in full humanity without these elements” (324). 

Tulik’s family have to move into the Quonset huts on Church Mound. One night, the police break into their home with assault rifles and machine guns and shoot at the dogs, the geese, the trees, everything. Aurora gets a fever and Bush and Angel are advised to leave and find a hospital for her. They do this, leaving the campaign behind. A flight and a stolen canoe later, they get help for her at the Indian Health Service Hospital. 

When Bush, Aurora, and Angel return to Adam’s Rib, the land is sinking, diminishing into the water as a result of the river diversion. Angel sees it as a result of their failure to end the first phase of the project. 

Angel reunites with Tommy and they become closer than ever. Fur Island, now surrounded by drowned animals, has also begun to shrink; Bush and Angel do their best to salvage the corn on the island. LaRue arrives on the scene to help them and Bush is pleased, attracted by his new, vulnerable side and his ability to weep for dead animals and the plight of the Native Americans.

A year later, Angel seeks Tulik in the city because he needs to testify in court. There, he is treated with derision and ridicule, as though he and his beliefs are a “remnant of the past,” romanticized in fantasy, but resented in human presence (343).

It takes over a year and a half for the dam building to cease. Tulik dies before he sees the end of it. Though there has been much destruction, Angel and her people believe that “one fracture was healed, one crack mended, one piece back in place” (344). This will lead to new dreams and more healing for the future, where they “remember the sacredness of every living thing” (344). 

Angel often thinks of Hannah, who hated herself and, as a result, also hated her daughter. Angel hopes that in death, Hannah will find the love that eluded her in life.

Angel receives an invitation to attend Dora-Rouge’s death and goes by train. When she finds Dora-Rouge, she has the smell of sickness and is beset with grief. Angel decides to stay with Dora-Rouge for a few weeks and goes in search of the plants she needs. One night, Angel dreams that Dora-Rouge is alone in the woods and she goes up and finds her “curled up like an infant waiting to be born” in the ferns and mosses of spring (348). It is Dora-Rouge’s chosen death place and she expires there. 

Angel and Tommy marry; Angel believes that she and Tommy are their “ancestors reunited in their search for each other” (350). The book ends with Angel’s invocation that “something wonderful” lives inside human nature, a kind of divine spirit that is present in all creation (351).