on the edge of destruction. They are also reservation Indians as opposed to urban Indians, and since World War II the urban Indian population has increased greatly, reducing the size of the reservation population. There is little indication in this story that the brothers are affected by the wanderlust that moved many in their generation to urban centers. The story is structured carefully to create one impression in the beginning, an impression dispelled during the course of the story by the reality of the details of what happened between Lyman and Henry. The opening paragraph says that Lyman was the first on the reservation to drive convertible, a red Olds, and that he owned the car along with his brother Henry:
We owned it together until his boots filled with water on a windy night and he bought out my share (Erdrich 450).
This statement seems to mean one thing in the beginning and quite another at the end, for it sounds here as if Henry bought out
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