At Thief Lake, Minnesota the past is not easily shaken off and is never forgotten. Events of fifteen, thirty, and more years have a way the cropping up when least expected, seldom pleasing and often causing mayhem. Even the long-dead and the supposed-to-be-dead have a way of coming to life bringing messages from one generation to another.

Postmaster Tatty Langille and wife Morgan restart life and marriage in the north, raising grandchildren of a deceased daughter. Never mind that Tatty knew nothing about Morgan's daughter, had only a partial idea of who Morgan herself had been and is, and understood little about raising kids, the newly appointed postmaster is all in on the job, recommitted to his wife of fifteen years, and studies hard the art of childrearing.

Besides innate difficulties of family life, the dalliance of a hot-footed evangelist, the reappearance of the fabled Bearman of Thief Lake, and economic and social struggles among local Natives, the US government, and a feeling-pinched white population complicate the paths the twins, Shookii and Popcorn pursue as Native girls in a less than spiritual but natural setting of Northern Minnesota.