Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the Turtle Mountain Jewel Bearing Plant in rural North Dakota. It is 1953 and he's not the only one puzzled by this "termination" bill which threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land and their very identity. How can the government abandon treaties made in good faith with Native Americans "for as long as the grasses shall grow, and the rivers run"? Pixie Paranteau, who insists everyone call her Patrice, is lucky to have a job making jewel bearings at the same plant, allowing her to support her entire family. With a beloved older sister who has disappeared in the big city of Minneapolis and is rumored to have had a baby, Patrice and her mother work hard to survive on the pittance she earns. Determined to find Vera and her baby, Patrice makes a fateful trip to Minneapolis where she comes face to face with unexpected forms of exploitation and violence, endangering her own life in the process.