The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

Father Damien and Nanapush arrive at Kashpaw’s camp, which consists of both a cabin and a traditional bark lodge. They are greeted by Mashkiigikwe, one of Kashpaw’s wives. She fires a rifle and presents them with a freshly killed deer. Inside the dwelling, they meet Kashpaw’s other wives: the sharp-tongued, assertive Margaret; the psychologically fragile Quill; and the gentle, pregnant Fishbone.

Nanapush’s ulterior motive behind his wish to have the priest condemn the polygamous Kashpaw family is soon apparent to Father Damien, who scolds Nanapush and refuses to interfere with the Kashpaw family’s arrangements.

In the aftermath of the visit, Kashpaw feels the pressure of the situation and the priest’s presence, so he decides to send his son Nector Kashpaw to the church to learn Christian ways. Kashpaw sorrowfully comes to terms with the realization that the changing times will force him to break up his household. He debates which of his wives to give up, and he is especially concerned for Quill, whose mind is fragile and easily unbalanced. Eventually, the acerbic Margaret goes to Nanapush’s household, and when the bold huntress Mashkiigikwe also leaves, Quill’s mental health suffers as she struggles to run the household alone and take proper care of her shy daughter, whom she has given the Christian name of Mary. Quill also experiences a transcendent experience when she attends Holy Mass.

As time goes on, Father Damien regrets his interference in the Kashpaw household, and he also learns about a swindler named John James Mauser, who is exploiting the Ojibwe people and stealing their land through fraudulent means.

During a religious ritual on the reservation, Father Damien leads a procession in which Kashpaw, a mentally troubled Quill, and their daughter Mary Kashpaw also participate, driving a wagon that displays a statue of the Virgin Mary. Suddenly, Damien stumbles and drops the Sacred Host, creating chaos among the participants. The situation escalates when Pauline Puyat suddenly appears, dragging a chain of animal skulls, and startles Kashpaw’s horses. The wagon veers out of control and crashes violently, mortally wounding both Kashpaw and Quill and injuring Mary, who is pierced by nails in both her arms and her legs. When Pauline approaches and gives Quill water, Quill feels her mental health improving. Before dying, Kashpaw and Quill inexplicably begin to prophesy as Mary looks on in anguished silence. Kashpaw delivers a prophetic warning about a great illness that will soon befall the community. Quill urges the various family-based factions of Ojibwe (Pillager, Morrissey, Kashpaw, and Lazarre) to give up fighting one another and live in harmony.

Afterward, Mary is deeply traumatized by her parents’ deaths. Quill’s cousin Bernadette Morissey and Bernadette’s brother Napoleon briefly take Mary into their household, but she violently attacks Napoleon whenever he comes close. Mary then finds an outlet for her distress by obsessively digging hundreds of holes in the ground. To try to reach the grieving girl, Father Damien digs alongside her, and he intuits that Napoleon must have “done something terrible to the girl” (117). He insists that Mary live at the convent from then on, where she can receive care and support.

The narrative then jumps to 1918, when Kashpaw’s prophesied influenza epidemic strikes the reservation with devastating force. During the plague, Father Damien and Mary work with Pauline to care for the sick and dying. Damien is surprised to see the often-cruel Pauline showing such compassion. As the epidemic rages, the holes that Mary once dug are used as graves for the seemingly endless dead. One day, as Mary breaks a path through the snow for the despairing Damien, the priest sees in her visage echoes of the Christlike figure who saved Agnes in the aftermath of the flood.

After the epidemic subsides, Pauline, now a novice at the convent, confesses to Father Damien that she was once raped and then gave birth to who she claims was a stillborn child. (The narrative will later reveal that the child—Marie Lazarre—lived and that Pauline abandoned her.) After confessing, Pauline pretends to trip and reaches for Damien’s chest, but he instinctively steps out of the way, protecting his secret.

Soon afterward, a nun finds Pauline “in a state of collapse, naked, prostrate before the altar, covered with muck and raving” (127). Isolating herself and maintaining a rigid posture, Pauline insists upon fasting in order to do extreme physical penance for an undisclosed sin. Her entire body rigid, she clamps her jaws closed and clenches fists over inexplicably bandaged and wounded palms, which some interpret as stigmata. Her suffering and apparent holiness lead many people to revere her as a living saint; they flock to her door in search of miraculous healing even as she lies motionless, fed only by a tube and kept alive through the dedication of the nuns. She eventually recovers.

In 1996, Father Jude interviews the elderly Father Damien about the potential sainthood of Sister Leopolda, who was formerly Pauline Puyat. Damien receives a brief visit from his caretaker, Lulu, who is described as being Jude’s “downfall, his comeuppance and destiny” (133), although Jude does not meet her at this time. Later, Damien provides his testimony to Jude about Leopolda’s supposed miracles and reputation for holiness.

During the interview, Father Damien reveals crucial information that contradicts Sister Leopolda’s saintly reputation. He testifies that her famous stigmata were actually fabricated and that she had violently stabbed a young novice named Marie Lazarre with a fork, creating wounds that were later claimed to be miraculous. During their conversation, Father Jude is startled when he briefly glimpses the woman Agnes beneath the elderly priest’s disguise, though he does not fully comprehend what he has seen. Jude’s subsequent attempt to interview the now-elderly Marie proves unsuccessful, as she refuses to discuss Leopolda at all.

Father Damien later presents Father Jude with a historical document that details the Puyat family’s legacy of violence, connecting it to broader themes of the buffalo extinction and the resulting despair that affected the Ojibwe community.