Old legends inspire hope for two missing brothers

 Still Missing 17 days later!

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RED LAKE, Minn. (AP) - Hundreds of searchers used horses, four-wheelers and bloodhounds Friday to hunt for two young brothers who disappeared from a yard on an American Indian reservation

 

Tristan Anthony White, left; and Avery Lee Stately

Anyone with information can call the FBI at (612) 376-3200 or the Red Lake Tribal Police Department at (218) 679-3313.

Tristan was described as 3-feet-6 and wearing a dark blue Spider-man

Jacket with yellow trim, Levis jeans and black and gray winter boots.

Avery was described as 2-feet tall and wearing a gray pullover sweat

Shirt that says "Timberland" on the front, faded Levis jeans and

Spider-Man tennis shoes.

Old legends inspire hope for two missing brothers In story and legend, some see clues to the mystery of missing Red Lake brothers Tristan and Avery

By Chuck Haga
Star Tribune

One winter, two little children wandered off ...

• • •

So begins a traditional Indian story, as retold by American Indian writer Lise Erdrich and posted beneath a large painting in the waiting room at the Native American Community Clinic on Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis.

A mother sits in the waiting room with her son, watching and listening as the boy sounds out words in a storybook. Indian flute music plays softly in the background as patients, nurses and doctors come and go.

They may or may not notice the painting, which is 10 years old, or know the story below, which is based on legend much older.

• • •

They were very sick. Soon it would be dark, and Owl would get them. Women of the family called upon bears to bring the children back.

• • •

At the clinic counter, the smiling faces of two little boys peer from a flier, the paper's edges curling from being picked up and held close, studied and prayed over, again and again.

Brothers Tristan White, 4, and Avery Stately, 2, are still missing.

They wandered away from their home on the Red Lake Indian Reservation 10 days ago, or they were taken by someone, or -- what?

Searchers and investigators have found no sign of them, and the intensive ground searches have been called off.

The investigation continues.

And so does the spiritual quest to find the boys, especially at Red Lake and here on Franklin Avenue, hub of the Twin Cities' urban Indian community.

"There are Indian legends about little people who live in the woods," said William Moose, 30, an Ojibwe from the White Earth reservation, not far from Red Lake.

"If things are not going right spiritually, if Indian people are getting away from their ways, the spirits might take the children. There would be no trace of them.

"There are many people who believe this."

But there are other stories and legends, too, more hopeful, like the one at the clinic beneath the painting of Indian children, a snowy woods, and bears.

• • •

The children wandered a long time in the snow until they got so tired they lay down.

• • •

Celesta Yanez, 23, whose roots are on the Leech Lake reservation, works at the Wolves Den, an Indian social center near the clinic.

Everyone is talking about the mystery of the boys' disappearance on the eve of Thanksgiving, she said.

"I prayed for the boys last night," she said.

So did Steve Blake.

A Red Laker living in Minneapolis, Blake sat on a couch in the Wolves Den. He wore an American Indian Movement button on his jacket.

He is still angry that no Amber Alert was issued for Tristan and Avery, still unconvinced by authorities' explanation that the boys' disappearance didn't meet the criteria -- no eyewitnesses, no evidence that they were actually abducted.

"But everybody's praying hard for those little guys," Blake said. "They pray for the boys. They pray for the family."

• • •

They no longer felt cold. They could no longer move their arms and legs. They were frozen.

• • •

Bernard Clark, 48, of White Earth and now Minneapolis, said that he senses the boys are OK.

"This is devastating to all of us and especially for the people who are closely involved, the family," he said.

"But when I think about them, I have the feeling they're being well taken care of. My feeling is that even if they did go in the water, if they are removed from this planet, they are in good hands. They're being taken care of.

"I don't have a feeling of foul play."

• ••

Many strange, spotted people walked by, coughing. The children tried to call out, but they had lost their voices. Then they knew these people were ghosts.

Bears, who sometimes roam the edge of the spirit world, found these children before the spotted ghosts could take them. The huge, warm, furry bears grabbed up the children and carried them safely home.

• • •

In the painting, a watercolor by Lisa Fifield of the Black Bear Clan of the Oneida Tribe in Wisconsin, bears are coming out of the woods into a clearing. They are met by an Indian couple, who are unafraid of the animals. And grateful.

One bear holds a child by the hand. Another cradles an infant in its arms.

The children are OK.