Firekeeper's Daughter

Mike and Levi show up to the trailer, where they fill Daunis and Jamie in on how the entire business with the meth began. Levi tells Daunis that he tried to approach her about a “business opportunity” when she confronted him about the money in the account, but she didn’t understand what he was asking and he never fully explained. According to Mike, Travis’s mom got addicted to the meth that her new boyfriend from Las Vegas was distributing. The Las Vegas boyfriend saw an opportunity with Angie because she could sell his drugs on the reservation and he wouldn’t get caught. According to Levi, Travis started pushing and doing the meth once he was kicked off the hockey team and shunned completely. At some point Angie’s sales went down, and the boyfriend started beating her up. That’s when Travis became more involved, making his own meth and adding other drugs to it.

This entire business plan began when Mike, Levi, and Stormy were writing a business plan for Coach Bobby’s class—the three had the idea that if people on the reservation were going to buy drugs, why let all that money go to out-of-town “city slickers,” why not instead have that money go to locals. Daunis asks if they turned in a different business plan to Coach Bobby, but they don’t respond. During this conversation, Daunis realizes that it’s Mike, not Levi, who is the brains behind this entire operation. Levi couldn’t make the meth right, so he started hanging around outside of Uncle David’s classroom, listening to him and Daunis talk about chemicals. That’s when Levi knew that in order to keep making the meth, they needed Daunis to help them. Mike tells Daunis that she has 24 hours to decide if she’s going to help them, otherwise something horrible will happen to Jamie and she will be responsible. Before Mike leaves the trailer, he makes a comment to Daunis that hints he knows what his Dad did to her and that he’s proud of his dad for taking what he wants. 

Before drifting off to sleep for the night, Jamie places his tracker on Daunis’s ankle. Jamie believes that Levi and Mike will take Daunis to another location, most likely their meth lab. She’ll then be in a place where Ron can find her location. Daunis gets up in the middle of the night, after having a dream that Jamie was killed by a monster that was a mutation of Levi, Stormy, and Mike. When Daunis went to help Jamie in the dream, she couldn’t get to him because she was chained to the bed. When Jamie wakes up, Daunis tells him what Grant Edwards did to her. Jamie’s response is for her to leave with Mike and Levi if she can, to tell Ron everything, including what happened with Grant. While Daunis’s thoughts are racing from wondering what Dana had to do with her uncle’s death to how Robin and Heather were involved, she realizes that Levi is the weakest link in this operation. If she’s going to get out of this, she needs to operate with that understanding. As the two hear someone fumble with the lock to the trailer, she assures Jamie that she will come back for him. Jamie tells Daunis that he loves her. No matter what, she needs to just save herself. Referencing his scar, Daunis tells Jamie that she loves him, adding Ojibwe that translates as “scar on his face.” 

Daunis turns against Levi, pretending to have some kind of alliance to Mike, born out of her being betrayed by Levi. She brings up the scarf she found in his room. Levi looks visibly shaken, and Mike takes the opportunity to tell everyone that Daunis cheated on Jamie with his dad, which he seems to think was consensual. Daunis, instead of telling the truth about what happened, uses this to her advantage. Levi is upset that Daunis cheated on Jamie, Jamie is upset that Daunis cheated on him, and Daunis is pissed at Levi—Mike likes rattling people, so he then decides to send Daunis with Levi to the meth lab, which is exactly what Daunis wants. Daunis knows the only way she might be able to talk sense into her brother is if she is able to talk to him alone. 

Levi leads Daunis to the truck in which Dana brought her to the island. During the ride, Daunis takes every opportunity to penetrate Levi for answers and to get him to question why he’s doing what he’s doing. The first thing Levi asks Daunis is about sleeping with Grant Edwards. When Daunis tells Levi that Grant raped her, Levi doesn’t believe her at first, but then blames her for going somewhere alone with Grant when everyone knows he’s a “creepy” guy. When Daunis asks Levi about what happened to her uncle, Levi tells her that he wasn’t there when he died but that Mike told him Uncle David OD’d on bad meth and seemingly did it on purpose. When Levi spouts off things that Mike had guided him on in their plan to get Daunis’s help, Daunis begins to wear Levi down by getting him to see that Mike is not his real friend.

When Levi turns right to go north, Daunis is relieved because it means she will get service soon, and also that they are headed for the ferry to the mainland. Levi fills Daunis in on who else is involved with the meth operation. It isn’t a bunch of Native kids like Daunis had thought: It’s Mike, Levi, and some other poor white guys who need the money. When Daunis presses Levi as to why he would possibly want to be involved in this, Levi fires back that she doesn’t have to worry about money in her future, but he and Dana are dependent on the tribe for financial security which is unstable at best. Daunis next confronts Levi about the scarf he kept from her. He says the reason he didn’t give it to her was because it was a present from her mom to their dad and it always made Dana sad to see it. Dana had told Levi that when their Dad wore it, it was to remind Dana that he should have been with Daunis’s mom and not her. Levi gets very emotional when talking about this, and Daunis uses her own mother’s words to her just a few days before to comfort him. Daunis tells him that they don’t need to live in their parent’s choices, that they can love them and still not be okay with things they’ve done. Daunis tells Levi that she doesn’t regret what Dana did to be with their dad, because it gave her Levi. Levi follows this tender moment by telling Daunis how great it would be to be in this meth business together. At this, Daunis’s heart breaks. She realizes that the Levi she knew is gone and something has shifted in their relationship indefinitely. On the ferry, Daunis looks around and sees an elder from the center, Seeney Nimkee. Daunis decides to try to make her face and eyes look like she needs help. When the ferry docks, another elder pulls in front of Levi’s car so he can’t move. When Daunis looks over to Seeney, she sees that Seeney is telling Daunis to get out of Levi’s car. 

Daunis calls Ron to tell him where Jamie is as soon as she gets in Seeney’s car. Levi has been blocked in by Minnie, Seeney, and Jonsy. When Levi is finally able to get out of his car, Seeney runs out of her car to block his path and Levi tramples her. While everyone else helps Seeney, Daunis tries to chase Levi down. Coach Bobby catches up to her in his car and she asks him to take her to Levi, who she thinks just jumped in Grant’s car. When Daunis reaches for Coach Bobby’s phone and he pulls it away from her, she realizes that he isn’t following Levi at all. “Bet you wish you were playing D-1 hockey right now” (442), he says to her. She then realizes that the three boys did propose their meth business to Coach Bobby, who is their business teacher, a gambler, and a failure at many small business ventures—until this one. 

Coach Bobby picks up Levi and tells Daunis that she shouldn’t worry about her boyfriend because he’s “done,” and that she will cook the best meth for them, or her mom will be the next one to go. Daunis sees police lights in her rearview mirror and takes the opportunity to pull the wheel toward her, causing them to hit a tree. TJ gets out of the cop car and arrests Coach Bobby, while Levi is lying on the ground yelling for Daunis to “tell TJ the truth. Coach forced us to be in his business” (446). Levi asks Daunis to comfort him and help him, and she remembers how in the car he squeezed her left shoulder from the backseat as a warning. Daunis turns to TJ and tells him everything she knows. TJ tells her that Tribal Police know about the FBI investigation, but not as much as they wished they did. Daunis sprints back to the ferry, where she hops in one of the elder’s cars with Ron. Daunis leads the police to the trailer. She arrives just in time to witness Stormy bringing down an axe on what appears to be Jamie’s ankle. 

Daunis tackles Stormy, only to realize that Stormy was using the axe to cut Jamie free. Jamie tells Daunis and Ron that he scared Mike into leaving by telling him if he got out of the situation now he still had a chance to experience minor consequences for the drug ring with his wealth and connections, and so Mike took Jamie’s advice and left him in the trailer alone. Later that day when Stormy showed up, he tried to break Jamie out. Daunis is surprised to see Teddie show up, until Teddie tells her that Seeney called her. They all knew that Daunis and Jamie were missing, but no one took it seriously because they thought Daunis and Jamie ran off together. Daunis’s mom was the only one who said that something bad had to have happened to Daunis. Teddie also tells the group that she knew what was going on with the meth because TJ told her that Dana Firekeeper was letting people go in tribal court who had been involved in a way that seemed suspicious to him. Daunis asks how the elders knew to save her in the way they did. Teddie tells her that they had a group text going on the ferry and that’s how they were all able to block Levi in when Seeney saw her. Daunis is incredibly moved by this story and remembers, yet again, that the elders are always her and her community’s greatest gift and resource. As the four of them are still talking, Daunis passes out from internal injuries she sustained in the car crash.