The novel begins with a young Anishnawbe woman and man swimming in a pond in Otter Lake, Canada. They are very much in love, but the young woman is about to go off to a residential school established by Catholics. The young man is jealous of “Jesus,” who intrigues the young woman. When she arrives at the school she is given the Christian name of Lillian. Her cousin Sam Aandeg is also sent there, but he does not comply with any of the rules and is treated poorly.
Several decades later, a drunk, derelict man wakes up in an apartment. His life is a disaster but he remembers that he used to be great, so he decides to clean up and revisit the Native woman he loved so much.
Lillian is now 76 years old and dying. Her grandson, Virgil, and his widowed mother, Maggie, have gathered with the rest of the family. Maggie is now the chief of the tribe; her husband Clifford had held the position prior to her but he died three years back in a boating accident. She likes some aspects of the role, but the bureaucracy surrounding the acquisition of a large parcel of land that used to belong to the tribe is proving laborious.
A mysterious white man riding a gorgeous Indian Chief motorcycle drives into town. He arrives at Lillian’s house and pays her a visit. Virgil sees him give her a romantic kiss and is extremely shocked. Lillian dies not long after.
At the funeral Maggie is wearied by people telling her what they think she should do with the land. Wayne, the youngest brother, does not attend the funeral. He has been in self-imposed exile out on a small island for several years, and the family rarely sees him.
Virgil leaves the funeral reception to head to his favorite place up in the hills where he can watch the trains pass by below. He wishes he had somewhere to go like the riders. Today, though, he is not alone. The strange white man is there, and he says his name is John and he knew Lillian. He cautions Virgil not to get in the way of his plan, which Virgil cannot make out because the train loudly speeds by.
Two days later Maggie gets a flat tire on an isolated road and John comes to her rescue. She is intrigued by the stranger, especially since he is young and handsome, and says she will make him a thank-you dinner. We learn John had sabotaged the tire on purpose, and we also learn that he has a longstanding feud with all raccoons.
At the dinner Virgil is irked by John’s presence, finding him odd and untrustworthy. His mom seems smitten, but she is perplexed by his vagueness. John warns the boy to stay out of his way.
Virgil’s cousin Dakota is also entranced by the stranger, which adds another worry to his life. He is in danger of failing out of school because he cuts class so much. He is very smart, but does not like being there. As the strange circumstances surrounding John begin to grow, Virgil decides he needs to reach out to his Uncle Wayne, whom he considers just as strange.
Maggie joins her sister and two girlfriends at a bar and they laugh and talk about John. He shows up and flirts with her, saying he wants to take her on a picnic. She is elated.
Virgil paddles a canoe out to Uncle Wayne, a 32-year-old man who reticently says he is studying Native martial arts out on the island. Wayne is initially unimpressed by the boy’s concerns about John, saying it’s obvious any teenage boy would dislike the man his mother is dating, but his interest is piqued when Virgil mentions some petroglyphs with a man and a woman and a setting sun that John carved on rocks. He agrees to accompany his nephew.
Maggie arrives at Sam Aandeg’s house, where John is staying. Sam is known as a crazy drunk. He does not speak English anymore and instead weaves in mentions to Shakespeare in iambic pentameter in his Anishnawbe. John tells Maggie that Sam cultivated this linguistic idiosyncrasy as a strategy to resist the abuse he suffered at the residential school.
At the picnic, Maggie drinks wine and finds herself falling more and more for John. The two have sex. Meanwhile, Wayne and Virgil try to find them but have no luck. Eventually they see John conversing angrily with a bunch of raccoons, which convinces Wayne that they are dealing with Nanabush, the Trickster. Virgil is skeptical at first but it is starting to make sense to him. When Wayne tells his sister this the next day, though, she is angry and offended, and throws him out.
John shows up at Maggie’s office to ask her to play hooky with him, but she refuses because she has actual work today. He is petulant and annoyed, which surprises her a bit. He finds another beautiful Native woman to sleep with.
John then visits a local museum. He makes a nuisance of himself telling visitors about how the displays and attributions are wrong, but he has observed what he needed to observe about the space. That night, he returns and steals items from the basement archives. He brings a huge thunderstorm to the area, which is one of the things he’d promised Lillian. The ground is soft after the rain, making conditions perfect for his plan. At night he dreams of having a conversation with Jesus, and the two find common ground.
It is the day of the press conference. It seems like it will be a minor, boring affair. Maggie asks the MP, Crystal Park, if she can say a few words. Virgil isn’t there, as he is at school, trying to write an essay that will prevent him from failing. He tells his cousin Dakota, who is still fascinated by John, to stay away from him. She huffs away from him. The feud with the raccoons is heating up, and John discovers they urinated and defecated all over his beautiful motorcycle. He talks to one of the main raccoons and forms a deal with them to end it.
Virgil goes home for lunch and hears from Wayne what his uncle’s plan is—confront John and make him leave town. Virgil is nervous for his uncle, and, once he arrives back at school and discovers Dakota isn’t there, he loops back to Wayne and says they also need to find Dakota.
When they arrive at Sam’s house they hide in the bushes. John pulls up with bag after bag of food, which he throws to the ravenous raccoons. They devour all of it and even more of what Sam had in the house, and the feud officially ends. When John goes inside, Wayne cuts the headlight off the motorcycle and yells for John to come outside.
John appears, his eyes yellow instead of the hazel they usually are. Wayne accuses him of being Nanabush and John laughs. The two engage in a wild fight up in the treetops. Dakota is hiding nearby and joins Virgil. Wayne comes down, bloodied. He passes out and Dakota and Virgil decide to take him to a doctor. Virgil tells his cousin, who was raised less in the Anishnawbe traditions, about Nanabush. John remains hidden on Sam’s roof. He is also injured and reflects on how fighting used to be easier eons back.
At the press conference Maggie begins her speech but is interrupted by a reporter who finds a human bone in the ground. There are many of them, it seems, and the conference is derailed. John drives by and rescues Maggie. He happily admits he stole the bones and put them there so the land would be tied up in forensics and law and it could remain natural, just like she wanted. He laughs that he threw some other types of bones in there too, such as cavemen and Egyptians. Maggie is horrified and knows this will be a logistical nightmare. She kicks him in the crotch and orders him off her reservation.
Virgil leaves Wayne at the clinic and Dakota at home and goes to his special rock. John is there, tired and subdued. The two talk companionably for awhile, John asking why Virgil likes trains and explaining that the petroglyphs didn’t actually mean anything at all. Virgil asks if he is really Nanabush and eventually he admits it. He says he came back for Lillian, who asked him to make a little magic in Virgil’s life. John offers to give Virgil a ride home and the boy accepts.
At home, they talk about being Native, and when John takes off his helmet, he now looks like a handsome Native man. Virgil gives him a braided sweetgrass to remind him of Otter Lake once he leaves.
Time passes. Virgil writes his essay on Nanabush to pass grade seven. Wayne reintegrates into society and his family, telling his sister he is thinking of asking a woman out. Maggie decides to be more Zen and not stress as much. Wayne teaches Virgil his special martial arts.
A community man tells the story of how he saw a Native man on a motorcycle riding across the top of the water. The novel ends with “And that’s how it happened to a cousin of mine. I told you it was a long story. They’re the best ’cause you can wrap one around you like a nice warm blanket” (345).
