The river flowed over Leonard’s face, fluttering his long hair like seaweed. His lungs heavy with water, stilled his body, and the men let go. His spirit ascended with the early morning mist rising off the river, cradled briefly in the arms of the wide-reaching oaks along the bank as the current swept away his body, tumbling it like the agates in Lake Superior.
The three men who drowned Leonard emerged from the river, their pants and arms soaking wet. They climbed up onto the bridge that connected east Little Falls to west Little Falls. A young white boy, trudging to school down the path alongside the river, saw the Indian boy’s body and screamed, dropping his lunch pail. A green apple rolled out, settling in a bed of tall weeds, where its sweet white flesh would be gnawed on for two days
