Tohono O'odham With Love

Smith had rapidly begun to put on weight, even more than the average expectant mom, in what she told Soto was an attempt to hide the pregnancy from Stern. Smith's height (5 feet, 11 inches in her bare feet) and her big-boned Texas frame also helped. The pregnancy was kept secret from the press for fear of the ramifications. Stern was already afraid of losing the E! deal, a major money-making proposition since Smith's cut of the J. Howard Marshall II pie was still tied up in the courts. So Stern was kept in the dark about the pregnancy until about a month before the delivery, for fear he would flip out.

For the child's delivery in 2001, Soto persuaded Smith to fly out a tribal elder from the Tohono O'odham reservation, who smeared yellow clay on the faces of both the mother and the child in a traditional ceremony. The medicine man then fed Soto, the child, and Smith a small portion of the clay, and, as is O'odham custom, gave tiny Marshall a name that had emerged from his dream about the Smith-Soto union: "Black Deer." As mentioned above, the Indian name was listed as Marshall's middle name on the birth certificate.

Since E! was to begin filming in late 2001 or early 2002, Smith had no time to be a mother. She granted Soto custody of the boy, with Smith agreeing to deposit $10,000 a month in Soto's Wells Fargo account for care and upkeep of the child. Soto returned to Phoenix, quit his job at Sanctuary, and began devoting himself full-time to raising the infant. Smith promised that they would one day marry and live as a family, and Soto has numerous hand-written notes and letters from Smith stating those intentions.

One reads, "Oh, my brave Injun-man, how I long to be with you and feel your red manhood. Look after my little paapoosie [sic], and soon I'll be your squaw again. I love you, kemosabe, Anna."

Smith, by then anywhere from 60 to 100 pounds overweight, continued to fly them out so that she could spend time with them on weekends. She began to develop profound post-partum depression, which she salved with drugs such as methadone, Demerol, Zoloft, and Phenergan. Her weight gain also fed her melancholia, leading to her oft-bizarre and seemingly drug-addled behavior as cameras rolled for the E! reality show.

"I saw her go deeper into the drugs," states Soto, who himself has had issues with alcohol, but now says he only occasionally drinks Jack Daniels when he's overcome with the reality that little Marshall will never again spend quality time with his mother. "She got more and more wild, and I was afraid for Marshall to be near her. The reality show was an embarrassment. She had become a different person, so I called her and told her I was taking Marshall to the rez, where she couldn't find him, and that I didn't want her around our child. It broke my heart, but I had to do it. I thought, 'What if I meet her in Los Angeles and she tries to steal him from me with her bodyguards and those other stooges she has working for her? How would I get my boy back?' Look what happened to her other son, Daniel. See how he ended up? The same thing could have happened to Marshall.

"She was angry, of course," continues Soto. "She called me all these names. 'Basket weaver,' and, the worst, 'Indian giver,' because I had taken Marshall from her. That one really hurt. I don't know if she was just being mean and racist to try to needle me, or whether she was so ignorant and high on drugs that she didn't know she was being offensive. Sometimes she'd answer the phone, 'How!' when she knew it was me because of the caller ID. But I didn't let it stop me from protecting my boy, by surrounding him with our kin."

Nowhere could've been safer for a half-Indian child than the reservation. As the offspring of a full-blooded O'odham father, Marshall easily met the requirement of a 50 percent blood quantum for membership in the tribe, even though Marshall has decidedly Anglo features. Any tussle over custody would have to be decided by tribal courts in Sells, according to the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, a law passed to deal with the odious legacy of a once-common practice of kidnapping Indian children and raising them in Anglo homes.

"Because of such past history, Native American courts jealously guard children against removal to white households, whatever the reason," observed Professor Stone Applewhite, Chair of Native American Studies at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. "In a case like this one, there's no way that a Caucasian mother with Smith's sort of past could reassert her parental rights. Unless, ironically, she was able to steal the child back from the father."

But Soto was careful, very careful. As Soto's records attest, the deposits to his bank account continued unabated, and the letters from Anna Nicole grew more desperate in tone. Soto finally relented and allowed Smith to see their son, but only on his own turf — usually at one of the Desert Diamond Casinos operated by the Tohono O'odham near Tucson. Soto required that Smith arrive without her entourage, save for one person (usually Howard K. Stern), or he would cease all contact. Smith accepted the conditions, and she would usually visit with Marshall as he got older in the Casino buffet, bringing him toys and toddler clothes. She called Marshall "my little brown one" and swore that she would cut Marshall and Soto in on her millions once all the legal jousting was over. Still, Anna Nicole's attitudes toward race often resulted in insulting moments.