March 24, 2014.

Windfall Enriches Life on a Poor Reservation

He laid Winston down on the bed. The grip of his limbs tightened again, but the pain had ebbed away and the trembling had stopped, leaving him merely weak and cold. O’Brien motioned with his head to the man in the white coat, who had stood immobile throughout the proceedings. The man in the white coat bent down and looked closely into Winston’s eyes, felt his pulse, laid an ear against his chest, tapped here and there, then he nodded to O’Brien.

FORT WASHAKIE, Wyo.----Misty Mann, a single mother raising three children here on the impoverished Wind River Indian Reservation, has long had to cope without money to spare.

"Again," said O’Brien.

But a tough life got easier late last month when Ms. Mann opened her mailbox and found a government check for more than $52,000 for her family, money that has allowed her to settle unpaid utility bills, buy the children new shoes and pants, and set aside enough to purchase a used truck.

The pain flowed into Winston’s body. The needle must be at seventy, seventy-five. He had shut his eyes this time. He knew that the fingers were still there, and still four. All that mattered was somehow to stay alive until the spasm was over. He had ceased to notice whether he was crying out or not. The pain lessened again. He opened his eyes. O’Brien had drawn back the lever.

Ms. Mann is one of about 14,000 members of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes who received huge checks recently thanks to a $157 million settlement that ended a long-running dispute with the U.S. over unpaid mineral royalties.