Irene Musket lives with Harrison Houk at his rundown reservation ranch.

Raised among the Cree in Canada, Tantoo Cardinal found acting though her interest in political activism. Of mixed European and Native American descent, she was petitioning the Canadian government to build more schools on Alberta Indian reservations when she was cast in a 1971 docudrama about a 19th century Catholic missionary. Subsequently Cardinal performed in films, TV, and on stage, achieving national recognition in Canada. In 1987, she moved to Hollywood where she landed the role of Black Shawl, the knowing wife of medicine man Kicking Bird in Dances With Wolves. Cardinal went on to play Rip Torn's companion in Where the Rivers Flow North, and the ghost of a raped and murdered woman in Sam Shepard's Silent Tongue, and the mother of Brad Pitt's wife in Legends of the Fall. She was also featured role in Chris Eyre's Smoke Signals, in which she first worked with Adam Beach. Cardinal has also appeared on many television programs, including Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge, Places Not Our Own, Tecumseh: The Last Warrior, Grand Avenue, and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and Hallmark Hall of Fame's The Lost Child.

In Hillerman's Words:
"Irene Musket came to the door at Harrison Houk's old house. She recognized [Leaphorn] instantly and let him in. She was a handsome woman, as Leaphorn remembered, but today she looked years older, and tired."

A Thief of Time, Chapter 16