Sixteen-Day Fasting and Purification Period

The Sixteen-Day Fasting and Purification Period, or e lihmhun, is the observance Lani Walker undertakes after killing Mitch Johnson in self-defense. It gives her a structured period of solitude, fasting, prayer, and reflection, but its significance extends beyond the days of separation: through Fat Crack Ortiz’s guidance, Lani is asked to understand what the killing means for her soul and who she is afterward. Her return marks a lasting change in her relationship with her adoptive parents and a deeper connection to her heritage.

Circumstances and Purpose

Lani enters the sixteen-day observance because she has taken a human life. Fat Crack explains that the killing was justified as self-defense, yet that does not make it spiritually or personally insignificant. The period is intended to help her come to terms with what happened and consider I’itoi’s purpose in both her survival and Mitch Johnson’s death. Its premise holds two truths together: Lani acted to defend herself, and the death still calls for reflection and reckoning.

The observance requires Lani to stay by herself, fast, avoid salted food, and pray. When Brandon Walker arrives expecting to take his daughter home, Fat Crack tells him that Lani has to remain alone for sixteen days. Brandon protests at the length of the separation and worries about her being out there by herself. Fat Crack answers that this is what Lani wants and needs. His response makes her own decision central: the observance is not simply imposed on her by her parents or treated as a punishment, but undertaken as the work she believes she must do.

Care and Daily Practice

Solitude does not mean that Lani is wholly without support. Fat Crack comes to her every day, bringing soothing salve and the salt-free evening meal required during the fast. They speak about many things, although they do not discuss the salve. The quiet detail of this repeated care places practical assistance alongside the more formal demands of the observance. Fat Crack attends to Lani’s physical needs without making her injury the subject of their conversations.

The period also gives Lani time to make a medicine basket. She has given Nana Dahd’s basket to Davy Ladd because she knows he wants it, and she makes a new one for herself. That choice connects the time alone to purposeful work: Lani is not only enduring the days but shaping something of her own. The basket becomes a concrete sign of a decision to carry forward her practice in a form that belongs to her.

The Final Night

On the last night, Fat Crack brings the evening meal and his huashomi, a fringed buckskin medicine pouch given to him years earlier by the blind medicine man S’ab Neid Pi Has, also known as Looks at Nothing. After eating together, Fat Crack draws a circle around himself and Lani. Inside it, he opens the pouch, takes out wild tobacco, rolls it into a cigarette, and lights it with Looks at Nothing’s old Zippo lighter. Lani smokes the traditional peace smoke for the first time, sharing the ritual with a trusted family friend who is also her godfather, the tribal chairman, and a respected medicine man.

The smoke leaves Lani light-headed, and some of their conversation fades from her conscious memory, while other parts remain clear. She asks why the e lihmhun required her to stay alone for so long. Fat Crack turns the question back to what she has done with that time. Lani answers by describing the medicine basket she made and the one she gave away. The exchange shifts the period’s meaning from mere isolation toward reflection and purposeful action: the days have held both spiritual questioning and tangible work.

Return and Lasting Change

Brandon goes home without Lani that Sunday. He holds a weeping Diana Ladd and tries to explain the situation, but afterward the couple never discusses it. He suspects Diana shares his discomfort and wonders whether she feels betrayed that Lani turned to Fat Crack rather than to her parents in a time of need. Their reaction shows that the observance also has consequences for the family members waiting outside it; honoring Lani’s choice does not remove their hurt or uncertainty.

When Fat Crack brings Lani home to Gates Pass sixteen days later, she is no longer the carefree teenager who was taken from her family. She returns serious-minded and more attuned to her Indian heritage. The relationship with Brandon and Diana is altered, though not by a single argument or identifiable break. Lani remains their daughter and continues her life at home: she learns to drive, earns her license, and graduates from high school at the top of her class. Still, Brandon recognizes that Mitch Johnson’s kidnapping has cost the family something precious. The observance thus closes with Lani physically returned but not restored to the earlier family arrangement; the period has helped her move forward while leaving the change in all their lives intact.