Mean Spirit Characters
Some of the main characters in Mean Spirit are Belle Graycloud, Nola, Stace Red Hawk, and John Stink.
- Belle Graycloud: Belle is the deeply spiritual matriarch of the Graycloud family and becomes Nola's guardian. At the end of the novel, she and her family are forced to flee Watona.
- Nola: After inheriting her mother's oil fortune, Nola marries Will Forrest but eventually suffers a mental breakdown and murders him. She flees to the Hill Indians and has a daughter.
- Stace Red Hawk: Disguised as a medicine man, Sioux federal investigator Stace Red Hawk comes to Watona to conduct a secret investigation.
- John Stink: John Stink is a deaf and mute hermit whom the Osage believe, for most of the novel, to be a ghost.
Characters
Michael Horse
An older member of the Osage tribe, Horse is a foreteller and watches over the tribe’s sacred eternal fire. He writes down the history of the Osage people and tries to piece together the murders that have occurred. He feels very connected with nature and eventually goes to live among the Hill Indians to achieve greater understanding of the events in Watona.
Belle Graycloud
The matriarch of the Graycloud family and a prominent figure in the tribe, Belle lives on a farm in Watona. She raises her friend Lila Blanket's daughter Grace and, after Grace’s murder, takes in her daughter Nola. Throughout the novel, she is personally affected by the discovery of oil and the subsequent murders and disappearances. Belle is deeply spiritual and in one instance camps out in Sorrow Cave to stop hunters from shooting the sacred bats within. When a suspected oil deposit is discovered under Belle’s allotment, Jess Gold attempts to murder her. She survives, however, and goes into hiding among the Hill Indians, only returning once Hale is on trial for murder. At the end of the novel, she is forced to flee Watona with the rest of her family.
Moses Graycloud
Married to Belle, Moses is a quiet but strong man. He stands up to the Indian Agency when they reduce the royalty payments for full-blood Indians but wisely backs off before he is declared legally incompetent. He is one of several people who write to the US government, urging them to investigate the murders of wealthy Indians. Moses kills his brother-in-law, John Tate, after discovering that Tate has murdered his sister, Ruth Graycloud. Realizing that Tate was a member of Hale’s gang, Moses evacuates his family from the house just in time to save them from the bomb that destroys their home. Moses and his family leave Watona before he can be arrested for killing Tate.
Ruth Graycloud
Moses’s twin sister. She is married to a white man named John Tate but seems quite unhappy in her marriage. Belle observes that Ruth probably married out of loneliness rather than affection. Ruth is shot by her husband at the end of the novel.
John Tate
Ruth Graycloud’s white husband. Ruth’s brother, Moses, has never really warmed up to John Tate and suspects that Tate and Ruth have an unhappy marriage. Tate is very fond of taking photos. Eventually, it is revealed that he has been working with Hale and he shoots Ruth. He is then shot and killed by Moses Graycloud.
Lila Blanket
A river prophet from the Hill Indian settlement. Sensing that the river is in danger, she leaves her daughter Grace to be raised by her friend Belle Graycloud. Lila intended for Grace to become a bridge between the Hill Indians and the modern life in Watona. Eventually, she sends her other two daughters, Sara and Molene, to live with Grace.
Grace Blanket
Lila Blanket’s daughter who was raised by Belle Graycloud. Her allotment of land sits on top of the deepest oil vein in town, making her the wealthiest person in Watona. She has one daughter, Nola, but does not reveal who the father is. She is largely uninterested in the culture and traditions of the Hill Indians and prefers to use her oil money to live an opulent life of material comfort. She is murdered by Hale and his confederates at the beginning of the novel.
Sara Blanket
Grace’s sister and Benoit’s wife. Her marriage with Benoit is one of convenience—an arrangement understood by the rest of the tribe—and she does not object at all to Benoit’s romantic...
(This entire section contains 2082 words.)
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relationship with Lettie Graycloud. She is killed when her house is blown up. Benoit is wrongfully accused of murdering her.
Nola
Grace’s only daughter and the heir to Grace’s enormous fortune. As a child, she always felt a spiritual connection to nature that Grace did not. Nola witnesses her mother’s death and the Grayclouds take her in, fearing for her life. She remains in shock for a long time after her mother's murder and the event forever alters her personality. She is eventually sent away to school, where she is rebellious and difficult. Mr. Forrest is assigned to be the guardian over her fortune until she comes of age, though she mistrusts him greatly. Mr. Forrest’s son, Will, falls in love with Nola and she agrees to marry him even though she is only thirteen. After their elaborate wedding, Nola and Will move into a grand house and she becomes pregnant. Increasingly fearful and paranoid that Will and his father will eventually kill her for her inheritance, Nola snaps and murders Will. She flees to the Hill Indian settlement where she delivers her baby, a daughter.
Louise Graycloud
Daughter of Moses and Belle Graycloud and wife of Floyd. She initially is not very interested in her heritage but eventually rejects white culture completely after seeing the suffering of the people of Watona at the hands of white Americans.
Floyd Graycloud
Louise’s white husband who takes her surname. He embraces the Indian culture, in some ways even more than his wife. He is father to Ben and Rena.
Lettie Graycloud
Lettie is the daughter of Moses and Belle and the sister of Louise. She is involved in a long-term affair with Benoit and eventually marries him while he is imprisoned in jail. She struggles to become involved in life after Benoit’s death.
Benoit
Benoit is a handsome French Indian. He married Sara Blanket to become a part of the Osage tribe but is romantically involved with Lettie Graycloud. He is wrongfully arrested for Sara’s murder and remains in jail without a trial. He eventually marries Lettie while imprisoned and is found dead the next day. It is implied that the Sheriff Jess Gold killed Benoit and staged it to look like a suicide.
John Hale
Hale is an oilman and “friend to the Indians.” He loans Indians money in return for taking out a life insurance policy on them. Many of these Indians later mysteriously die. Hale is eventually convicted for his participation in the murders of wealthy Indians.
Walter Bird
Walter Bird is in jail with Benoit. It is later revealed that Jess Gold has been periodically letting him out of jail to commit murders on behalf of John Hale.
Jess Gold
Gold is the local sheriff who appears to be in love with Lettie. It is later revealed that he is a member of Hale’s corrupt gang and was feigning interest in Lettie to steal her inheritance. He tries to cover up his involvement with the gang by killing his colleague Willis and framing him for robbery. Gold attempts to kill Belle Graycloud while she is tending her bees, but his shot only wounds her slightly. When he leaves her for dead, her bees swarm and sting him to death.
Will Forrest
Will is the son of Mr. Forrest and falls in love with Nola. He truly loves her and is concerned that his father might be mismanaging her money. He is eventually shot and killed by Nola, who fears that he is plotting to kill her for her inheritance.
Mr. Forrest
Mr. Forrest is Benoit’s lawyer and the guardian of Nola’s fortune (which he invests poorly). Though Nola does not trust him, Mr. Forrest is actually a fair man. When he starts to piece together the plot to murder wealthy members of the Osage tribe, Forrest is thrown off a train. His body—which is found on Indian land—gives Stace and his department the jurisdiction to formally launch a federal investigation.
Rena Graycloud
Louise and Floyd Graycloud’s daughter and Nola’s friend. She witnesses the murder of Grace Blanket along with Nola.
Ben Graycloud
Louise and Floyd Graycloud’s son. He has a soft spot for Nola and is upset by her marriage to Will. He struggles with alcohol dependency as he grows up.
Ona Neck
A very old Osage woman. Michael Horse regularly leaves her with the eternal fire when he cannot watch over it himself.
Stace Red Hawk
An investigator from Washington DC who takes an interest in the Osage case. He is from the Sioux tribe in South Dakota. After becoming a local law enforcement officer, Stace rose up the ranks to become a federal investigator. Though he entered government service believing he could help his people by working within the system, his job makes it difficult for him to maintain a strong connection to his culture. Through Stace, we see that this loss of connection is the cost of total assimilation into the white world. Stace travels to Watona disguised as a medicine man to secretly investigate the murders. He becomes increasingly certain that the conspiracy goes further up than John Hale and begins to suspect his own colleagues. Disillusioned with his agency and unsure whom to trust, Stace ventures into the hills above Watona where he spiritually reconnects with the natural world. He eventually quits his government job and turns back to his roots, leaving Watona for his home in South Dakota at the end of the novel.
Ballard
Stace’s superior from Washington DC. Stace is somewhat suspicious of Ballard and Ballard wants Stace off the case, feeling that he is too emotionally close to it.
Levee
Stace’s fellow investigator. He is a former doctor and poses as the new town doctor in order to investigate the Osage murders.
Lionel Tall
A spiritual leader of the Sioux tribe, Lionel Tell comes to Watona to help the Osage spiritually heal from their ordeals and to see Stace Red Hawk, a fellow Sioux. Tall lost his family when they were massacred by the government and privately believes that Stace has too much faith in the US government.
China
John Hale’s young, beautiful (and possibly underage) girlfriend. Hale convinces her to attempt to marry John Stink to steal his fortune. They are not allowed to be married because John Stink has been legally declared dead. She angrily leaves town but later returns to testify against Hale.
John Stink
An eccentric hermit who is followed around by a group of dogs. He appears to drop dead in the middle of town and the Osage bury him according to tradition. He was not actually dead, however, and climbs out of his grave. Mute and deaf, he is unable to communicate with those around him and believes himself to be some sort of ghost. The Indians see him around town and, thinking he is a spirit, don’t interact with him. The town only realizes he is actually alive after the attempted murder of Belle. China pursues a relationship with him in order to steal his money but abandons him when she realizes they cannot be married.
Father Dunne
A white priest who retreats into the wilderness and starts blessing animals, gaining the nickname “Hog Priest.” He eventually comes to stay with the Hill Indians.
Doctor Benjamin Black
Black is the town doctor and one of the first people to suspect John Hale of murder. Hale frequently brings in Indians for a life insurance physical and Black notes that they tend to mysteriously die soon afterwards. Black is afraid to voice his suspicions about the unnatural deaths in the town and eventually leaves.
John Thomas
Michael Horse has a premonition that John Thomas is in danger, but before he can warn him, John Thomas’s body is found with a gunshot through the neck. The night of his death, Thomas had run wildly through the town screaming that he knew who killed Grace Blanket.
Jim Josh
An eccentric man who grows tomatoes in his car. Hale poisons him and forces him to sign several legal documents. He is the one who alerts Mr. Forrest to Hale’s gang.
Joe Billy
Joe is the son of Sam Billy, the tribe’s former medicine man. Joe has converted to Christianity and serves as the tribe’s reverend. As the events in Watona unfold, Joe finds himself turning away from Christianity and returning to the spiritualism of his father, particularly through the practice of Bat Medicine. Eventually, Joe and his wife Martha leave Watona to live among the Hill Indians.
Martha Billy
Joe Billy’s white wife. She makes an effort to embrace Osage culture and traditions and agrees to accompany Joe into the hills.