24 Standing in Two Worlds

Chap­ter 24 of the book dives deep into the inter­twin­ing worlds of the Osage Nation’s past and its resound­ing impacts on the present. The nar­ra­tive begins in May 2013, with the author attend­ing a screen­ing of the Osage bal­let, Wahz­hazhe, at the Con­stan­tine The­ater in Pawhus­ka. This bal­let explores the Osage peo­ple’s jour­ney, from their vibrant life on the plains to the har­row­ing Reign of Terror—when wealth from oil attract­ed dead­ly greed and exploita­tion, lead­ing to numer­ous mur­ders of Osage mem­bers for their valu­able head­rights.

This chap­ter is steeped in the rich his­to­ry and the unde­ni­able resilience of the Osage Nation. The author brings to life the his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of the Con­stan­tine The­ater, once attend­ed by key fig­ures dur­ing the Reign of Ter­ror and near­ly lost to demo­li­tion in the 1980s, now a restored mon­u­ment to com­mu­ni­ty effort. The cour­t­house, the site of crit­i­cal tri­als tied to the Osage’s trag­ic past, looms as a silent wit­ness to both jus­tice and its fail­ures.

With­in the bal­let’s nar­ra­tive, pow­er­ful imagery and sym­bol­ism con­vey the Osage’s tumul­tuous his­to­ry, from the joy­ous incep­tion of their cus­toms, through the first encoun­ters with Euro­pean set­tlers, and into the era of oil-induced betray­al. Moments high­light­ed include the depic­tion of the Osage’s war con­tri­bu­tions, per­son­i­fied by Major Gen­er­al Clarence Leonard Tin­ker, and a poignant cameo by Margie Burkhart, link­ing the staged sto­ry with real, lived expe­ri­ence.

Post-per­for­mance, dis­cus­sions with muse­um direc­tor Kathryn Red Corn unveil a per­son­al con­nec­tion to the Osage mur­ders, reveal­ing her grand­fa­ther’s sus­pi­cious death, pos­si­bly anoth­er vic­tim of the wide­spread vio­lence against the Osage. This rev­e­la­tion serves as a cat­a­lyst for the author to delve even deep­er into the unsolved mur­der of Charles White­horn, show­cas­ing the exhaus­tive research and detec­tive work involved in uncov­er­ing truths buried by time.

Through metic­u­lous inves­ti­ga­tion, a clear­er pic­ture of White­horn’s mur­der emerges, impli­cat­ing a cir­cle of indi­vid­u­als in a con­spir­a­cy moti­vat­ed by greed and facil­i­tat­ed by manip­u­la­tion. Despite the pletho­ra of clues and infor­mant tes­ti­monies, the case remains offi­cial­ly unsolved, under­scor­ing the com­plex­i­ty and depth of the injus­tices faced by the Osage. The chap­ter con­cludes on a note of deter­mi­na­tion, as the author sifts through the exten­sive archival mate­ri­als gath­ered, dri­ven by the hope of shed­ding light on for­got­ten vic­tims and bring­ing long-over­due atten­tion to their sto­ries.

This chap­ter encap­su­lates a poignant explo­ration of the Osage Nation’s plight, weav­ing togeth­er past atroc­i­ties with ongo­ing efforts to hon­or and remem­ber those lost to greed and hatred. Through a blend of nar­ra­tive sto­ry­telling and inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism, the author not only recounts but active­ly engages with the Osage’s his­to­ry, reveal­ing the endur­ing strength and resilience of a peo­ple nav­i­gat­ing between two worlds.