RONAN -- They walked a straight shot Wednesday, from Ronan to Pablo. More than 200 strong -- kids, teenagers and adults -- they hewed to the path, never veering into the darkness that Salish and Kootenai cultural leader Johnny Arlee described as "dead-end trails."

Everybody knows what's down those paths; lately, too many have walked them.

Natosha Burland, dead in December 2002 of alcohol poisoning. She was 15.

Tyler Benoist, dead in November 2003, passed out drunk in a trailer that caught on fire. He was 14.

Frankie Nicolai, dead of alcohol poisoning in a field east of Ronan on Feb. 27. He was 11.

Justin Benoist, Frankie's friend and Tyler's brother, dead the same day, intoxicated and hypothermic. He was 11.

Most recently, Joey DuMontier, dead of alcohol poisoning in a home near Ronan. He was 15.

That list is woefully incomplete, but it makes the point that Arlee stressed after Wednesday's walk ended at the Pablo headquarters of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

"Keep telling your children about the dead-end trails," Arlee said. "Keep a tether tied to them so that you can pull them back."

Wednesday's walk is the latest in a string of events spawned by a wave of child deaths across the Flathead Reservation. From Arlee to Elmo, reservation communities have come together to talk about ways to end the plague of children falling prey to alcohol.

Pearl Caye, a coordinator for Montana Educational Talent Search, saw what was happening and had an idea.

"I thought our kids needed a visual connection between what had happened and what we could try to do about it," Caye said Wednesday. "They needed to see that people cared about them."

That could hardly have been clearer Wednesday, as people made their way from Ronan to Pablo.

Michelle Spotted Eagle, of Ronan, walked the highway with her 11-year-old son, Jacob. To passing motorists, she held out a picture of her stepson, Eli Finley, who died intoxicated in a car crash in October.

"I've been to 11 funerals this year" she said. "We've suffered enough on this reservation. I want to say, 'No more deaths.' We have to be accountable for our kids."

Kids need to know that adults care, and that, Spotted Eagle said, means holding both adults and children accountable.

"We have to help our children understand that there are consequences to their actions," she said.

That sentiment was appreciated by teens like Sheldon York and Blake Chaffins, Ronan sophomores who made the walk.

"It's nice to see that people care," York said.

Said Chaffins: "It means a lot that we're trying to do something. We're not just saying, well, a few more kids died."

That, everyone agreed, is not acceptable.

"I'm not going to sit back and watch these things happen in my community," said Jolene Houle, a grants manager at Salish Kootenai College.

Wednesday's walkers, many of whom carried signs with sentiments such as "Honk if you're alcohol free," drew a loud response from passing motorists, who honked both long and loud.

No one, however, drew a bigger response than two teenagers who spoke after the walkers gathered on the lawn outside tribal headquarters. Steven Hernandez and Lynsey Inmee both live in St. Ignatius, and they have known hardships no child should experience.

Both children live with grandmothers. Their moms, they said, chose alcohol over them. Steven was close friends with Joey DuMontier; he wore sunglasses to the funeral to hide his tear-stained eyes.

"That was the last thing I thought he'd do was alcohol," Steven said of his friend. "He didn't deserve to die so young."

Joey was going to be in Steven's band. But no.

Lynsey's mom left her for the bottle.

"It's pretty heartbreaking to come home and have your mother not want you," she said. "She loved alcohol more than she loved her kids and now she doesn't take care of us anymore. She lost us."

Like her elder, Johnny Arlee, Lynsey invoked the image of a path.

"Choose the right path," she said." You want to be able to come back and see your family again.''

Always remember, Arlee said, that someone is watching you as you walk your path. If you walk it straight and true, those who follow will know the proper way.

"If you stagger, others will stagger," he said.

This reservation, he said, has staggered enough. Time to walk straight.