The Mighty Red

Charlie, Eric, Knievel, and Harlan gather outside. They have been playing football with Gary since they were young. They are easy with one another, but since the accident at the party, there is a new tension. They have a heated, veiled conversation about the night of the party and Eric’s bizarre wedding speech.

The second wedding cake, far less elaborate than the first, looks odd to Kismet. It is not the cake she and her mother picked out. She finds out that there was a mix-up, and this is a cake meant for a funeral. She thinks that this is a terrible omen, and her marriage will end in death. She feels ill at ease despite the party’s lively atmosphere. She finds Eric, and they talk about Gary’s disastrous proposal at the steakhouse. He mentions something cryptic about taking “a fall” for Gary and tells her that perhaps he can tell her the story another time.

Jeniver calls Crystal. Martin forged her signature on the mortgage application, and it will be difficult to prove otherwise. All kinds of people are trying to get out of dodgy mortgages because of the crash, and the government is bailing out banks left and right, but few individuals are getting their money back.

Back at her new home, Kismet thinks about what Eric said, and the “hit” he took for Gary. It could be a reference to the accident, although Kismet knows that no one wants to acknowledge what happened that night.

Hugo keeps the bookstore open on the night of the wedding party. When he closes the shop, he retires to a small room on the premises where he sometimes naps. Kismet gave him her quilt, made from all of her old tee shirts. He cuddles up underneath it. He hears a light rapping on the door. It is Kismet. She wants to get pizza and not talk about Gary.

Kismet wakes in the new house the morning after the party. She thinks of Hugo. He’d given her a copy of Madame Bovary, which she hid in her suitcase. She sighs and heads downstairs. She prepares coffee and breakfast for Gary, and then Diz and Winnie, neither of whom thank her or clear their plates. Winnie won’t even call Kismet by her name, claiming that it is too difficult to pronounce. Kismet reflects on the valley’s long history of land theft by families like the Geists. Her family, whose ancestors had first settled in this area, were always laborers, never landowners.

After breakfast, Diz and Gary head out to the fields. They are planting a newly approved variety of roundup-ready sugar beet seeds. Gary feels a slight sense of unease after a wedding night that he truly cannot remember from alcohol, but the fresh air and excitement of planting soon distract him.

Winnie calls back to Kismet from across the lilac bushes that separate her yard from Kismet and Gary’s. She wants Kismet to come over. Kismet tries to tell her that she must run errands, but Winnie tells her that she can do that later. At Winnie’s, it becomes clear that Winnie expects Kismet to clean the house. Each room is a wreck, and Winnie notes that no one has cleaned since the accident. Kismet complies but asks Winnie if she can use their phone or computer to contact her mother. Winnie says that both are on “the fritz.”

From her window, Winnie can see the site of her family’s old farmstead, bulldozed when the Geist family bought her family’s land. Her parents lost the farm after the Reagan administration accelerated loan repayments for countless farmers’ properties. She still felt the shame of having lost everything her family had worked for.

Winnie has two small dogs, Poots and Jester. They bark constantly, which seems to upset Winnie even though they are her dogs.

Kismet contemplates the beet fields that surround her new home. She realizes that her marriage is doomed, and if she remains married to Gary, her life will be miserable.

Kismet holds a handful of dirt outside the house. In it, she finds a tiny seashell, a remnant of when this region was part of the glacial Lake Agassiz.

Many years ago, in 1933, Sport Geist (Diz’s father) played an instrumental role in shifting the Red River Valley’s agricultural output from wheat to beets. No one realized at the time what a huge change this would bring to the region: Pesticide, industrialization, and the gradual corporatization of farmland would all be unintended consequences of focusing on sugar rather than grain.

Crystal once worked in the beet fields that now surround Kismet’s new home. An Indigenous worker died while working and was buried right there in the field. Kismet finds one of his bones sticking up out of the dirt while walking.

Even before sugar beets overtook the Red River Valley, the area was threatened by American expansion. Buffalo once roamed the area, providing a wealth of resources to the region’s Indigenous populations. Their slaughter at the hands of hunters, railroad companies, settlers, advancing army units, and a host of other white men fundamentally altered the landscape. This area has been under threat since the early days of colonization by Europeans.

Winnie tries as hard as possible to keep Kismet from returning to visit her mother or “her tribe.” She contemplates telling Gary to refuse to let Kismet borrow his car at night.

At this point in the year, many of the sugar beets are rotting, and work has become difficult for Crystal. She stays on though, even though some workers leave rather than deal with the odor. She likes her coworker Dale and enjoys the shifts that they have together.

Winnie will not loan Kismet her car, but Diz lets her borrow an old tractor. She drives to her mother’s house, where the two have a long talk about love and marriage. Crystal tells Kismet that she does remember loving Martin even if she does not love him anymore. She asks why Kismet loves Gary, and Kismet only says that she likes the way he moves. Crystal tells Kismet that when her marriage gets to be too much for her, Crystal will be there for her. Kismet admits that she is unhappy, but she is not ready to leave Gary yet.

Someone dressed like a “demon,” according to the teller, robs a local bank.

The bank robber (who was dressed as Rasputin) leaves the bank, changes clothes several times, and rides away on a bicycle.

Brothers Diz and Gusty head out into the fields. Despite their best efforts, the pesticide has not eradicated the lambsquarters that threaten their crops. Although these two men do not know it, lambsquarters is one of the most nutritious greens in the area—an Indigenous dietary staple for thousands of years before colonization.

Crystal organizes her finances and gathers objects from around the home to sell on eBay. She finds out from Jeniver that Martin must have hired or been secretly dating a look-alike: The bank reports that “Crystal” was there when Martin took out the mortgage.

Hugo takes one last walk around town and then leaves to find work in the oil fields. His parents, although sad to see him go, provided him with food, money, and a good set of work clothes and tools.

Kismet wants to garden, but Winnie explains that the dirt surrounding the house has been specially modified to grow sugar beets. To grow vegetables, they will need to order dirt from a garden store.

Kismet finishes the copy of Madame Bovary that Hugo gave her. She is disappointed that Emma dies by suicide. She begins building garden beds out of an old pile of boards she finds on the property. Diz drives her into town to see her mother but will not loan her a car: Winnie has forbidden it. After she builds the beds, she tells Winnie that she is going to go on strike and will no longer cook and clean.

Kismet and Winnie attend a party at the Pavlecky house. There, Eric shows Kismet a field that he and his father have been slowly allowing to return to prairie. Kismet is struck by how beautiful it is and realizes that the entire beet industry is robbing the Red River Valley of its biodiversity and history.

Eric has been finding reasons to stop by the Geist place and stare at the party barn since the accident, but now that Kismet is there, he stops by more often. One night, the two get to talking. They commiserate about Kismet’s father and chat about Eric’s desire to become a certified EMT even though he will likely remain on his family farm. Kismet asks if she can come over and watch the birds fly around above the fields that Eric and his father have let return to prairie grass, and he says yes.

Hugo leaves for the oil fields outside of Williston. He tries in vain to find a room to rent, but every available place is already packed with oil workers. He ends up renting a patch of driveway from a local farmer for $200 a week.

A series of three bank robberies makes the news. In the first, the robber is dressed as Darth Vader; in the second, an old man with a walker. The third robber wears a blue dress and a wig.

Kismet tells Gary that she thinks it was a mistake to get married straight out of school. He thinks they should give it more time. They speak in a veiled way about the accident. Gary does not think that he is completely absolved of blame, even though it wasn’t his fault.

Crystal continues to struggle. The bank harasses her, and her funds are dwindling. She feels hopeless.

Watching footage of the recent bank robberies, Crystal is horrified to recognize her clothing on the robber. In fact, the robber looks just like her. She knows that Martin must be involved somehow.