The Marshals have another case in hand, and this time around it’s about the missing girls on the rez. At the beginning of episode 5, Kayce decided to sell off his late wife, Monica’s horse, which had gone rogue after its rider’s death. Kayce and Tate had been trying to tame the horse, but the stallion had turned violent, which was why Kayce wanted to get rid of it before it hurt anyone on the ranch, especially his son. The father and son drove all the way to Wyoming, but unfortunately failed to find a buyer for the horse. However, at the truck parking lot, Tate spotted one of his former classmates, Hayley Charlo, who, as it turned out, had been reported missing about four months ago. But Tate didn’t know that, and neither did Kayce. Tate tried to strike up a conversation, but Hayley was in a hurry. Later, Tate told Kayce that Hayley didn’t seem like herself, which made Kayce wonder what a teenager from Broken Rock was doing at a truck stop across state lines. He knew something was off, and therefore brought the matter to one of his comrades, Miles Kittle, who used to work for the tribal police. Okay, so a spoiler and an Easter egg for Dark Winds fans out here: Isabel Deroy-Olson (who has been cast as Hayley in Marshals) plays the role of Billie Tsosie (in Dark Winds), a teenage girl who has gone missing from the rez, and the Navajo Tribal Police have been trying to find her. Anyway, Miles believed that Hayley could be a victim of sex trafficking, as during his time at the tribal police, he had been investigating a lot of missing girls’ cases. Kayce and Miles wanted to investigate the matter, but Cal couldn’t allow it, because the Marshals didn’t have jurisdiction on the rez, though Kayce knew Thomas Rainwater wouldn’t object if they were trying to do the right thing. With that said, allow me to take a closer look at Kayce and Miles’ investigation and what we can expect in the next episode.
Spoiler Alert
A Predator Got Indian Justice
When Kayce and Miles visited Hayley’s mother, Ellie, they found out that before her disappearance, Hayley had been constantly texting someone, which suggested that she might have met someone online and run away with him. At Ellie’s house, Kayce also found out about another missing girl, Ava, who had disappeared a year ago. It was one of the cold cases Miles had been working on before he left his post. So in a way, the case of the lost girls had been really personal to Miles, because he blamed himself for not being able to help his people and reunite them with their families.
In the meantime, while Andrea and Belle had been keeping a watch on a key federal witness, they decided to help Kayce and Miles access Hayley and Ava’s social media accounts, as both of them had been targeted online. As it turned out, both Hayley and Ava were talking to a guy named Noah, who targeted them and lured them out of the rez, shortly after which they disappeared. While accessing social media, Andrea noticed that Noah had recently posted a picture of himself fishing at Greekly Creek. She quickly informed Miles, and together with Kayce, they picked up Noah to get some information out of him. Noah told them about Kurt Bludsoe, a serial offender who was preying on the innocent girls from the rez and was running a sex-trafficking ring. The most infuriating in this case is that men like Noah and Kurt were confident that they would get away with their crimes, as no one would bother investigating the disappearance of some random girls from the rez. After the girls vanished, Rainwater made numerous requests with federal authorities to investigate the matter, as the tribal police didn’t have enough resources to conduct an extensive search. I mean, you saw with your own eyes what Andrea did. She hacked into Hayley and Ava’s accounts and found out who they had been talking to. The tribal police have to submit hundreds of papers to get such access. But what’s worse, the federal authorities had never been too keen on solving cases on the rez. They didn’t want to waste their time or resources looking for Indigenous children, who they labeled as “runaways.” And I am glad that Marshals brought up this issue, because this is actually happening in real life as well. Even in Dark Winds, Joe Leaphorn mentioned a number of times that the city cops or the federal authorities don’t give a damn about the Native Americans, which is the whole reason why he’s always tried to solve the cases by himself so he doesn’t have to beg for help from anyone who doesn’t respect (or recognize) their people.
Nevertheless, as I mentioned earlier, Kayce and Miles hadn’t been investigating the case as Marshals, but as two people from the rez who were trying to protect their own. This was why when they caught the predator who had been blackmailing the girls into leaving their houses, they didn’t arrest him. Instead, handed Noah to Mo, who is likely not going to leave him alive.
Kayce met Hayley again
After Rainwater formally requested Cal to look into the matter, he decided to take up the case of the missing girls, and asked his team to dig up all the information they had on them. Well, to his surprise, they had already been investigating it, and had made some major breakthroughs in the case. The next day, Andrea informed her colleagues that Kurt Bludsoe’s photo had shown up in DMV records, but under a different name, which was why the BOLO alert failed to fetch any results as Kurt had been hiding under a false identity. His credit card records revealed that he had bought gas at a truck stop in Three Forks, where, coincidentally, Miles and Kayce were headed. At the stop, Kayce spotted Hayley again; however, she was too afraid to go with Kayce, because Kurt had warned the girls that if any of them dared to run away, then he would hurt every single one of them. And to instill a mortal fear into them, he had killed one of the girls, Ava, in front of their eyes, to show them what they were dealing with. Hayley refused to go with Kayce, as she feared Kurt would hurt the other girls, and she wouldn’t be able to live with that. However, she did tell Kayce how he could save all of them. Before leaving, Hayley told Kayce about the other stop, the place with trees, where they were taking the girls. Kayce thought Hayley was talking about actual trees, but as it turned out, she was speaking about a logo with trees on it that belonged to Ponderosa Truck Stops all across I-90. The Marshals pulled out some CCTV footage of the truck stops and figured out that the traffickers had been taking girls from one stop to another using camper vans, and they finally decided to follow one of these vehicles to find out where they had been hiding the girls.
The Girls Are Gone
In episode 5’s ending, the Marshals had planned to take out one of these camper vans by surprise, but Miles blew their cover trying to protect the girls. The thing is, Miles was quite taken aback when he found out that Ava was dead. As I said earlier, he blamed himself for her death, because he failed to find her when she was alive. This was why Miles was so furious with Kayce when he let Hayley go, because Miles believed he should have saved her when he had the chance, something Miles couldn’t do with Ava. Nevertheless, as the kidnappers saw the Marshals’ van speeding towards them, they opened fire on their vehicles, and Kayce and Andrea had to cover Miles and Cal so they could lay a spike strip in order to slow down their camper. And as soon as the vehicle stopped, the Marshals took down the traffickers and quickly went inside the camper to rescue the girls, but to their surprise, they were gone. It could be possible that Kurt or one of his men had seen Kayce with Hayley at the truck stop, which was why Kurt removed the girls from the van and hid them somewhere else, so that the Marshals couldn’t take them away. However, what Kayce fears the most right now is their survival. He knows what Kurt did to Ava, and doesn’t want any other girls to meet the same fate.
Previously in the episode, when Rainwater called Kayce to ask him about the progress he had made in the case, Kayce didn’t tell him that Ava was dead. The reason being Kayce didn’t want to shatter his hopes. From the very beginning of the episode, Rainwater had been telling Kayce and Miles that hope is a really dangerous thing on the rez. The parents had already assumed their children were dead, and by reopening the case, Kayce had inevitably promised them he’d bring their daughters back alive. But as you can see, he already failed to save Ava, and her mother might not forgive him for giving her false hope. Miles understood this, which was the whole reason why he had gotten so angry with Kayce, as he didn’t realize what he had done by letting Hayley go. We know that Kayce did the right thing, but what if Kurt decided to kill her for speaking to a cop? Then her murder would be on Kayce’s head, and Rainwater, or his late wife, Monica, would not be able to forgive him for this mistake. But I am just scaring you. I know Kayce will find the rest of the 9 girls alive and bring them back to safety in the next episode. He won’t let the hope die, not on his watch.
Kayce May Not Sell the Horse
There are always two ways to solve a crisis: the easy way and the difficult one. In Kayce’s case, getting rid of Monica’s horse was an easy way out, but Tate pointed out that maybe his late mother doesn’t want them to part with the horse. Tate told Kayce that not getting a buyer for the horse may be a sign from above that his mother wanted them to keep the horse and nurture it. I believe, by the end of the day, Kayce will understand this as well. While trying to save the lost girls, Kayce will realize that Monica is still with him through all his ups and downs, and no one sees her or feels her except for him. These little signs and these gestures are what mark her presence in his life, and by getting rid of them, Kayce will ultimately excise her presence from his life. So the question here is, will he still sell off the horse? Well, nope.
