About the title
Shortly after World War I, Ernest Burkhart, who served in France as a cook, comes to seek his fortune in Oklahoma, home to a large reservation of the Osage tribe. His uncle, William Hale, nicknamed "King," lives in the area — a landowner, cattleman, friend to the Indians, and a big man. King convinces Ernest to court Mollie Kyle, a young woman from a wealthy Osage family. The idea is that, in time, the family's land rights will pass to Burkhart (read: to Hale) — for which all that needs to happen is for Mollie's mother, her sisters, and Mollie herself to die.
