Peter Bowen

The Stick Game Peter Bowen

Du Pré investigates a gold mining company whose pollution might be poisoning the children of a nearby reservation

Something is rotten in the Fort Belknap Reservation. Life has always been tough on this barren stretch just south of the Canadian border, but now the children are dying. While playing his fiddle in a reservation bar, part-time deputy Gabriel Du Pré meets an accordionist who suspects that the children's health defects and low test scores are connected to the nearby Persephone mine.

Meanwhile, Du Pré investigates the disappearance of one of the afflicted children. When the boy turns up dead, the accordionist's theory gains credence. It wouldn't be the first time that the rich men of Montana found wealth at the expense of the reservation's children.