Sweetheart Calico

Sweetheart Calico is one of the main characters and serves as the namesake for the novel. She is an Ojibwe from the Shawano family, and is the great-granddaughter of Blue Prairie Woman. Most of her backstory is untold, although Jimmy Badger does offer some information. Before being abducted by Klaus at the powwow, Sweetheart Calico lived a semi-nomadic life in Montana with her daughters, who are also antelope women. During her captivity in Minneapolis, she longs to go home and to see her daughters, but she is unable to leave until Klaus permits it. Every now and then, she wanders through the city, “but no matter how fast or how far she walks, she can’t get out” (89). Sweetheart Calico is fully silent and never says a word until Chapter 21 when she reveals the blue beads that have been hidden in her mouth ever since Klaus abducted...