Shelterwood

Olive and Tula mend a dress for Tula to wear so that she can work with Olive at Mrs. Paulson’s home. The two enjoy working together and make more money together than Olive could alone. Mrs. Paulson’s housekeeper sends Olive on an errand into town. While Olive is out, she passes the town laundry house, which is rumored to employ young girls against their will. She has a frightening encounter with the owner of the laundry. 

When Olive returns from her errand, Tula has hidden two children in the washing shed to shelter them from the rain. These girls, Cora and Effie, are Choctaw girls whose story is similar to Tula’s and Amos’s own experiences. Cora and Effie join the group at Shelterwood Camp. 

A few weeks later, the town laundry is empty; the nefarious owner has disappeared in the night. Olive reads in the newspaper that local farms are looking for strong men and boys to help with the harvest. Olive wants Amos and the other boys to take some work, but Tula disagrees because she is worried about Amos’s safety. They bring the matter to the council of children. Olive lays the groundwork for her success by giving the group a gift beforehand; she shows them how to create lanterns by catching fireflies in old glass jars. She also talks to everyone about her dream of Shelterwood Town, reminding them that it takes money to accomplish such things.

Curtis learns that the property bordering the park near the rockslide area is listed as being owned by Hazel Rusk. He doesn’t recognize the name. 

Valerie and Curtis hike out to the site of the rockslide. They move as quietly as possible, hoping to discover whether someone is in the area. They hear distant sounds of machinery, but given the echoes in the mountains, it could be the sounds of distant construction or farming operations. Valerie doesn’t find any evidence of foul play where Edwin’s horse fell. In fact, the area appears to have been swept clean, almost as if someone were actively trying to make sure there was no evidence to be found. 

Curtis spots something beyond the crest of the hill and waves Valerie up to see it. Looking into the next valley, they see a huge illegal logging operation; roads have even been cut into this area of protected federal land. The criminal charges for such an operation are severe; Valerie understands why someone has gone to such desperate lengths to keep people out of the area. 

While Curtis and Valerie are surveying the logging operation, a woman sneaks up behind them and tells them to leave quickly. Valerie immediately recognizes her as Braden’s girlfriend, Rachel. Soon, Braden himself appears. Valerie and Curtis had walked over a trip wire while they were exploring the area, so the loggers have been alerted to their presence. Rachel and Braden hurry Valerie and Curtis along, promising to answer all their questions once they reach a safe place. Braden and Rachel lead the others to a camp. They have been living in the woods, spying on the logging operations and taking pictures to get proof of the crime.

In town, Olive takes on extra work here and there, helping at events held by the women’s club. One afternoon, she overhears some women speaking about a group of boys who were threatening people from atop a calico pony. After the event ends, one of the women calls Olive back into the church. Olive reenters to find Tesco Peele waiting for her there. 

Tesco Peele is as cruel as ever. He slanders her mother and father and laughs when she protests, telling her that her real father is Mr. Lockridge. He tells her that the man she knew as her father, Keyes Radley, worked for Lockridge, who made it a habit to take guardianship of Choctaw children in order to steal their land. On Lockridge’s orders, Keyes would kill the children or make them disappear. Hazel and Nessa were two such children, but Keyes Radley decided to take them in instead of killing them. Now, Tesco claims that Keyes did that so that he could get access to their property rights. 

Tesco wants Olive to lead him to Nessa so that they can all return to Lockridge together. Olive stalls by leading him through the streets of the town. They run into the journalist, Mr. Brotherton, who is concerned to see Olive in the company of this strange man, but Tesco tells him to mind his own business and threatens Olive, ordering her not to indicate that anything is wrong. 

Olive leads Tesco to Mrs. Paulson’s house, then calls out loudly to Mrs. Paulson from the street. When the front door of the house opens, Olive darts in. She rushes through the house and hides out back in the washhouse, hoping that Mrs. Paulson and her housekeeper will chase Tesco away. They do, and Olive hides for a long time in the washhouse. Once she deems it safe, hours later, she heads back to the woods. While she is walking, she daydreams about the safety that they will all find once they finally return to her family’s home in the mountains. 

However, when Olive arrives at Shelterwood Camp, it is empty. The food, supplies, and money are all gone. Olive cries and searches the camp, then hears a rustle in the bushes and finds Nessa and Koi.

Valerie wrestles with a tangle of emotion as she and Curtis follow Rachel and Braden to their camp. She is glad to have found them and relieved that they might have solid evidence against Alton Parker, the man behind the illegal logging operation. She is also afraid when she considers the prospect of confronting Parker, who is a powerful man in the local community. Above all, Valerie is frustrated that Braden has been camping under her nose this whole time. As they approach Braden’s camp, she begins to recognize the surroundings and realizes that the rangers have already searched this area during their hunt for him. 

Valerie and Curtis are shocked to see an old woman sitting by the fire in Braden’s camp. This is an aged Nessa. The campsite is the same spot that the children called Shelterwood Camp many years ago. Valerie and Curtis spend the night in the camp with Braden, Rachel, and Nessa. Braden and Rachel have photos, diagrams, and maps detailing the logging operation. They have been spying on it for weeks. Braden reveals that he told Sydney to make up stories if anyone asked her questions about his whereabouts. Valerie reprimands him for taking such big risks and involving his younger sister in a dangerous situation. 

Braden recounts his family situation before the events of the novel. He explains that his mother, Jade, showed up after being absent for four years. Jade asked Budgie for help and claimed to want to take care of the family ranch. Then, Jade started coming home later and later, and her behavior was secretive and unpredictable. One day, when Braden was out of the house, Jade gave Budgie sedatives and snuck her out of the house. Then Alton Parker showed up and said that he was a friend of Budgie’s and that he would take care of Braden and Sydney. He showed them a document signed by Budgie, indicating that he could care for the children. Braden was suspicious but went along with it—and told Sydney to do the same—so that they could find Budgie. Rachel helped by getting a motel room in the area and visiting local bars in the hopes of finding Jade. She did, and Rachel followed Jade to a suspicious elder care facility in which Budgie was being kept drugged against her will. 

Rachel and Braden reassure Valerie that Budgie is safe now; Nessa got a lawyer to help them remove Budgie from the facility. When Valerie asks why they didn’t inform law enforcement, he explains that Alton Parker is connected with all the locals and would have known immediately. Jade was helping Alton to take control of Budgie’s land because Jade wanted money, and Budgie’s will left everything to Braden and Sydney. 

The rest of the details fall into place. Alton Parker’s men shot at Edwin’s horse to spook it. The overturned spray truck that Valerie saw on the road was bringing chemicals needed for the logging operation. 

Nessa then tells Curtis and Valerie the story of the 1909 timeline. She reveals that she and Koi were safe on the day of the Shelterwood Camp raid because they had been collecting firewood together and had been away from the camp. She reveals that Olive led them away from the mountains and that they traveled and begged for many days. By the winter of 1909, they were ragged and sleeping in the remains of a tree when Kate Barnard received a report of them. When Kate came to collect them, Olive introduced herself as Hazel Rusk, which was the name she had been using when she was in Talihina. Kate Barnard and Mrs. Grube helped to reunite the girls with Tula and Pinti, and they were all transferred to a state-run orphanage where they were cared for. 

Nessa also reveals that the real Hazel, her birth sister, found them after Nessa was in college. Hazel had run away from home after becoming pregnant by Lockridge. She had joined an international missionary service, which Nessa later joined as well. Olive remained in the area and managed her family’s ranch land. She later married, had children, and built a career in local politics, where she became known as “Budgie.”

Shelterwood’s epilogue describes the beginnings of the court trial for Alton Parker, which takes place a few months after the events of Chapter 31. A grand jury has indicted Alton Parker and his co-conspirators with charges of theft, false imprisonment, elder abuse, depredation of government property, and violation of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act. 

Some of Valerie’s co-workers, like Roy, who grew up in the area, find it difficult to process the extent of Alton’s crimes. Many of them are gathered for a press conference announcing the grand jury indictment. Those in attendance include Sydney, Braden, Rachel, Budgie, Nessa, and Hazel. 

Budgie pulls Valerie aside to speak to her about the girls’ skeletons in the cave. She says that her father, Keyes Radley, buried them there at the behest of Lockridge. She thinks that Keyes did not do it heartlessly, given that he buried them with funerary objects according to their Choctaw traditions. Budgie has an old notebook of her father’s; it contains the girls’ names: Ara, Alma, and Addie Crooms. She asks Valerie to see that a memorial is made to them in the park. Budgie also gives Valerie some old newspaper clippings, hoping that the park will publish some information about the Shelterwood children. 

Curtis arrives, and he and Valerie share a hopeful conversation about the results of the trial and the future. Valerie and Charlie plan to find permanent housing in the area. Curtis asks Valerie out for dinner.