The Wolf at Twilight

by Kent Nerburn

An Indian Elder's Journey through a Land of Ghosts and Shadows

“Elegant, yet powerful...Nerburn crosses borders with a single-minded dedication to preserving an oral tradition. The emotional truth that resides in the rich storytelling is a testament to the strength and endurance of Lakota culture and...removes barriers to understanding our common humanity.” — Winona LaDuke, founder and executive director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project

A note is left on a car windshield, an old dog dies, and Kent Nerburn finds himself back on the Lakota reservation where he traveled more than a decade before with a tribal elder named Dan. The touching, funny, and haunting journey that ensues goes deep into reservation boarding-school mysteries, the dark confines of sweat lodges, and isolated Native homesteads far back in the Dakota hills in search of ghosts that have haunted Dan since childhood.

In this fictionalized account of actual events, Nerburn brings the land of the northern High Plains alive and reveals the Native American way of teaching and learning with a depth that few outsiders have ever captured.