Yellow Earth
(Book)

In Yellow Earth, the site of Three Nations reservations on the banks of the Missouri River in North Dakota, Sayles introduces us to Harleigh Killdeer, chairman of the Tribal Business Council. "An activist in his way, a product of the Casino Era," Killdeer, who is contracted by oil firm Case and Crosby, spearheads the new Three Nations Petroleum Company.

When rich layers of shale oil are discovered beneath the town of Yellow Earth, all hell breaks loose. Locals, oil workers, service workers, politicians, law enforcement, and get-rich-quick opportunists--along with an earnest wildlife biologist--commingle and collide as the population of the town triples overnight. Harleigh Killdeer, chairman of the tribal business council of neighboring Three Nations reservation, wants to increase economic opportunity but faces opposition for extolling "sovereignty by the barrel." From casino dealers and geologists to Native activists and high school kids, everyone in the region is swept up in the unsparing wave of an oil boom.