Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T L Y M O N T A N A M A G A Z I N E • W I N T E R 2 0 2 2 28 el). You've got Walt taking a right on Fort and then a left on Aspen, but Aspen is one-way." All I could think was, I'm not going to fight this crap all my life… SPEAKING OF WHICH, ABSAROKAH OR ABSAROKEE? AbsarokAH! I was talking to my friend and model for Hen- ry Standing Bear, Marcus Red Thunder, and I told him I was thinking about calling my fiction- al location Absarka (yet another pronunciation for the word the Crow use to describe themselves: children of the long- beaked bird) County. And he asked, "Is it mostly white peo- ple in this county?" I said, "Yep." "Then they would probably mispronounce it as AbsarokAH." YOUR LATEST LONGMIRE NOVEL, DAUGHTER OF THE MORNING STAR, IS SET IN AND AROUND LAME DEER MONTANA, AND INVOLVES THE TRAGEDY OF MISSING INDIGENOUS WOMEN ON NATIVE-AMERICAN LAND. WHAT MADE YOU SET THE BOOK IN MONTANA AND SHED LIGHT ON THE SUBJECT MATTER? I was doing a library event up in Hardin on the Crow Res- ervation a few years back when I looked up and noticed a missing persons poster on the community bulletin board. It was a simple computer copy with the face of a young woman, bright-eyed and smiling and now… Gone. The words were desperate and pleading and a reward was posted. Her face was faded, and the paper wrinkled and yellowed with age—a fervent and unanswered prayer that fluttered against the bul- letin board like a turning page every time the door of the li- brary opened and closed. I can't think of anything worse than losing a loved one—I mean having them turn up missing and then never knowing what happened to them. I've spoken with people to whom this has happened and the thing I have heard repeatedly is that the worst part is the not knowing— the lack of closure, having no idea if they are alive or dead or if they suffered or are still suffering. In Daughter Of The Morning Star, high school basketball phenom Jaya One Moon receives death threats because of her race. Within the pages of the novel startling statistics re- garding Native American women and teens are mentioned: native women are three-and-a-half times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than the national average, and native women are six times more likely to be murdered. The suicide rate for native teenagers is two-and-a-half times greater than the national average. According to the FBI's Na- tional Crime Investigation Center, 5,590 indigenous women went missing last year alone. The plight of missing and murdered indigenous women is so great that I had to reassure my publisher that the sta- tistics contained in this novel are accurate. The numbers are staggering, and they speak for themselves. More is being done, but there is so much more to do. Jurisdictional issues and a lack of communication between agen- cies make the investigative pro- cess difficult, and underreport- ing, racial misclassification, and underwhelming media coverage minimize the incredible damage that is being done to the Native community as a whole. The good news is that with more exposure, there are a number of in- credible task forces and community links which are provid- ing a centralized database and applying pressure to assure that these women are not truly lost, organizations that are attempting to make a difference. The nearest to me is the Na- tional Indigenous Women's Resource Center in Lame Deer, Montana. All their information is available on their website at NIWRC.org and if you can, please consider making a dona- tion. There are far too many of those missing persons posters scattered across Indian Country, mothers, daughters, aunts, nieces, and wives who carry our hearts with them wherever they are in those turning pages—let's bring them home. IS THERE ANY POSSIBILITY WE'LL SEE LONGMIRE ON THE SCREEN AGAIN? Well, we're kind of in limbo in that Warner Brothers won't sell the show to Netflix, but we're still one of the top twen- ty original content shows on Netflix four years after ceasing production so as long as we're victims of our own popularity we're on hold. WHY DO YOU THINK LONGMIRE HAS BEEN SO SUCCESSFUL AS A CHARACTER AT THIS POINT IN TIME? I think the anti-hero thing has kind of run its course and a lot of folks are looking for a blue-chip kind of character—someone they can count on. Walt's not perfect by any means, but he's de- cent, and he cares, and I think that resonates with people. There's so much dissonance out there, it becomes tiring. The way I de- scribe Walt is that if you're on I-90 in a winter blizzard and slide off the road in the middle of the night and a pair of headlights come along, Walt Longmire is the guy you want in that truck. CAN WE COUNT ON MANY MORE LONGMIRE NOVELS TO COME? Oh yes—I'm about fourteen chapters into the next one after Daughter Of The Morning Star, a book which is something of a departure. In Hell & Back, Walt wakes up lying in the street of an abandoned town in, of all places, Montana—and can't remember who he is or why he's there. When I first started writing the Walt books, I was a little concerned about being pigeon-holed by writing a series of books, but after seven- teen novels, two novellas and a collection of short stories, I've just begun scratching the surface of this guy and it seems like a lot of readers are with me for the long ride. "The way I describe Walt is that if you're "The way I describe Walt is that if you're ON I-90 IN A WINTER BLIZZARD AND SLIDE OFF THE ROAD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND A PAIR OF HEADLIGHTS COME ALONG, WALT LONGMIRE IS THE GUY YOU WANT IN THAT TRUCK." The cast of Longmire

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