Shelterwood

Chapter 1 is set in 1990 and introduces one of the novel’s two protagonists: Valerie Boren-Odell. Valeria has just accepted a position as a ranger for the National Park Service in the newly minted Horsethief Trail National Park, located in the Winding Stair Mountains of southeastern Oklahoma. 

Two weeks after moving to Talihina, Oklahoma, with her seven-year-old son, Charlie, Valerie receives a harshly worded postcard from her grandmother, who begs her to rethink her decision to move away from St. Louis.

That same day, while out on patrol in the park, Valerie meets a talkative 11- or 12-year-old girl named Sydney, who is impressed to meet a “girl ranger” and boasts that her grandmother—who is currently unwell—knows all about the mountainous region and its history. Valerie is intrigued by the idea of meeting a long-time local who might be a useful contact and a source of information. Before she can ask Sydney about her grandmother, a squad car for the Choctaw National Tribal Police pulls into the overlook. 

The national park is located in a portion of the state that falls under the jurisdiction of the Choctaw Nation. In her short time there, Valerie has already noticed the tense political relationships between the Parks Service, the Choctaw authorities, and state and local law enforcement. Most of that tension stems from certain parties’ desire to control or profit from the lucrative timber operations in this forested area. The national park represents a huge parcel of land that is now legally off-limits for timber operations. 

The tribal police officer doesn’t introduce himself to Valerie. (Later, she will learn that he is Officer Curtis Enhoe.) He knows Sydney and encourages her to rejoin the church group; she is currently participating in the church’s field trip. Before Sydney leaves, she asks Valerie to keep an eye out for her brother, a red-headed teenager whom Sydney believes will arrive any day to liberate her from the foster home where she is currently staying. The caregiver at the foster home is Granny Wambles.

In parting, Curtis asks Valerie if her supervisors have told her about “the bones” yet. She is mystified by the question. (Later, the narrative will reveal that Curtis is referring to the bones of the three Choctaw girls, which the hikers discovered in the prologue.) The leadership at the national park wants to keep this discovery and any resulting investigation quiet because they want to avoid unwanted attention just after the park’s opening.

Chapter 2 introduces Shelterwood’s second protagonist, Olive Augusta Peele, whose story is set in 1909. Olive lives with her mother, her stepfather, and two adopted sisters in Pushmataha County, Oklahoma. They live near the area that will eventually become Horsethief Trail National Park. Olive's adopted sisters, Hazel and Nessa, are members of the Choctaw Nation. They started living with Olive’s family before Olive’s father died. Back then, their family lived in the mountains. Olive’s father arrived one day with Hazel and Nessa in tow, claiming that they didn’t have anywhere else to go. 

Olive’s stepfather, Tesco Peele, is both physically and verbally abusive. Olive also suspects him of having sexually assaulted her adopted sister Hazel. Recently, Hazel disappeared without a word. 

Olive awakens to find Tesco sneaking toward six-year-old Nessa’s bed in the dark. Angry and worried for Nessa, Olive pretends to talk to her father’s ghost in her sleep, frightening away the superstitious Tesco. 

Although Olive’s mother is physically present, she is essentially absent throughout the novel, as she is addicted to opium and spends her days in bed. Tesco is a foreman for the wealthy Mr. Lockridge. The family lives in a small house on the Lockridge estate, and the girls help with chores like churning butter and milking the cows. 

Olive is clever and observant enough to see the mounting audacity with which Tesco manipulates and abuses their family. She resolves to run away with Nessa to save them both from Hazel’s fate. She plans to travel back into the mountains to find the family home that they abandoned after her father died. As soon as Tesco leaves, she and Nessa gather a few essentials and load them onto a pony, heading out into the woods rather than to school. Nessa takes some coaxing, as she has heard folklore stories about elves in the forest and fears them.

The narrative returns to 1990. Valerie convinces one of her younger co-workers, a 21-year-old seasonal employee named Roy, to take her to the cave where the hikers discovered the human remains. She has enough forensics training to determine that the skeletons all belong to children. Valerie is confused and saddened to see that their burial site does not show any signs of ceremony and assumes that these unidentified children were buried without ritual or honor. (The narrative will later reveal that the funerary items have been removed from the site by a local man, Alton Parker, as part of his scheme to hide an illegal logging operation.) Valerie notes that the cave floor is covered in recent shoe prints and surmises that a variety of people visited after the hikers submitted their anonymous tip about the cave’s contents. Valerie is concerned that the Parks Service is botching what should be a serious investigation of the human remains found on federal land. She is not sure whether this neglect is intentional or due to ineptitude.

Roy tells Valerie that mysterious human remains are not uncommon in the area, given its history of loggers, miners, squatters, outlaws, and bootleggers. Roy recounts the local legend of the “Dewey trees,” which is credited to a bootlegger who carved his name into trees in the area to mark his territory. (Later in the 1909 narrative, Dewey becomes Olive’s reluctant travel companion. Dewey is also Sergeant Whittles from the prologue.) 

Roy warns Valerie against developing the photos that she takes in the cave, telling her that their boss, the Chief Ranger, will not want her meddling in the case or making an unwanted fuss just as the park is opening. Valerie tries to listen to Roy’s advice, reminding herself that the skeletons are a century old. In the end, however, she isn’t able to let go of this mystery.

Shortly after leaving their home, Nessa and Olive run into the local sheriff on the road. Recent laws require children to be in school on weekdays, and the sheriff threatens to send them home and punish Tesco for allowing them to be out of school. A train passes at an opportune moment, startling both Olive’s pony and the sheriff’s horse. Olive’s pony bolts, giving the girls an excuse to run after it. 

Olive and Nessa follow the pony’s tracks through the woods. Olive worries that they won’t get far without the pony to ride and without the supplies in the saddle bags. Fortunately, the pony’s tracks lead in the direction they want to travel, away from town and into the mountains. Darkness falls, and the girls stop to sleep. In the morning, they wake to the sound of Tesco calling them; he and other men are close by. 

The girls dash to the river, hoping to cross before Tesco and the other searchers catch up to them. Nessa falls while Olive is attempting to help her across the slick river stones, and the girls are washed away in the rapids. Because loggers use the river to float timber downstream, the girls are at risk of being crushed between the huge logs. After a harrowing few minutes, the current lessens, and they swim to shore. Olive hopes that Tesco will assume they died in the river. 

Olive and Nessa spend a cold night camping in a cave. Olive dreams of forest elves with black eyes. When she wakes, she sees three elf-like faces staring at her from the opening of the cave.

In the 1990 timeline, Valerie plans to drive 90 minutes to Paris, Texas to have her film developed, taking Roy’s warning about the cave investigation to heart. Midway through the drive, she changes her mind and decides not to develop the film. Because some of the photos include her and Charlie, anyone looking at the developed roll would know exactly who had taken the pictures. Instead, she and Charlie purchase film for his instant, Polaroid-style camera; Valerie concludes that this will be the safest way to subtly document the human remains in the cave. 

On their way home, Valerie stops at Talihina’s local diner, Sardis Shores Cafe, to get Charlie some dinner. There, they bump into Curtis, the tribal police officer. Valerie notices his good looks and his warm laugh. She asks him about Sydney and Sydney’s family, wanting to introduce herself to Sydney’s knowledgeable grandmother. He tells her that he thinks Sydney’s grandmother is ailing, and that Sydney is living at Mrs. Wamble’s foster shelter. Curtis has a high opinion of both Sydney and her older brother Braden, but he also remarks that their mother, Jade, was an inconsistent and unreliable figure in their lives. When Valerie asks Curtis why he told her about the bones, he only says that he thought she should know.

Olive is frightened by the elf-like faces she sees when she wakes in the cave. Tesco’s superstitious rhymes and scary stories run through her head. Worried that the elves are reaching for Nessa, Olive grabs her knife and chops off an elf’s outstretched hand, only to discover that it is a tree branch. Still, Nessa thought she saw something as well. Olive waits for the daylight to build before venturing out of the cave. She finds three sets of child-sized footprints in the dirt. They decide to follow the footprints, hoping that the trail will lead to water or food. 

The footprints lead to a water tower and a workers’ tool shed next to the railway tracks. As Olive and Nessa look on from the shelter of the woods, a train approaches. A foreman climbs down from the train, using the water tower to replenish the train’s supply. Stray cats—and, to Olive’s surprise, three children—emerge from the bushes in anticipation of the man’s arrival. (The narrative will soon reveal that these children are Tula and her two younger siblings, Pinti and Koi.) The man tosses scraps of food to the cats. When he sees the children, who are lunging for the food scraps, he yells at them and throws chunks of coal to chase them away. Olive later discovers that the children intentionally irritate the foreman so that he will throw valuable coal their way. However, this plan threatens to go awry when a big hunk of coal hits the smallest child on the head, causing him to fall. Olive jumps out of her hiding place to catch the man’s attention before he can abuse the fallen child.