This story is an entry into the Love Medicine novel series by Louise Erdrich, and follows the life of an Ojibwe wom, Fleur, as she seeks revenge on Mauser for stealing her land.
The story begins with Fleur seeking revenge from a wealthy landowner, Mauser, who stole her ancestral land, and she heads to the city to find him. When she arrives, she takes on the role of a laundress so that she can infiltrate Mauser’s life. She learns that Mauser is sick and suffers from convulsions. Angry that the disease is taking him and preventing her from exacting her own punishment, she heals him, with the intention of making him suffer when he is better. However, when he is healthy again, she cannot bring herself to kill him and instead develops feelings for him. The two enter into a sexual relationship.
Mauser later divorces his wife, Placide, and anoints Fleur as the lade of the house. Placide’s sister, Polly Elizabeth, is angry at this turn of events. She learns that Fleur has become pregnant and is sick. She helps Fleur with her pregnancy but feeds her alcohol which Fleur comes to depend on. When the baby is born, he suffers from alcohol addiction as well. Polly cares for the baby when Mauser rejects the him for his condition.
Meanwhile, on the Little No Horse reservation, Margaret refurbishes her house using her son’s allotment money, which greatly anger her husband, Nanapush. Nanapush begins to drink and their relationship worsens. He then accidentally burns a hole in her new flooring, which ends the couple’s relationship.
Mauser and Fleur end their relationship and Fleur returns to Margaret on the reservation. She enters a game of poker and ends up winning back her ancestral land. She and her son move back there and live happily together.
