Darren asked if it was okay if he sat down. He didn’t want to mess up any of the preparations for the Vine Dance, as they had called it. Virginia lifted a bundle of fabrics and clothes, and Darren sat in a leather armchair, brown but for the worn spots on the arms, which were as pale as the belly of a farm hog. He opened the document to its very last page, his eyes falling to a section at the bottom. BE IT KNOWN THAT EACH MEMBER OF THE HASINAI BAND OF CADDO INDIANS OF MARION COUNTY, TEXAS, RENOUNCES ANY CLAIM TO FUTURE INCOME AS A RESULT OF INDIAN GAMING RELATED TO THIS TRIBE. ANY APPLICATIONS MADE ON OUR BEHALF TO THE INDIAN GAMING COMMISSION DO NOT NULLIFY THE INTENT OF PARAGRAPH 11.2. Darren looked up from the petition to the Goodfellow family. “And did you understand what this means?”

“Of course,” Margaret said, “but we told her we were happy to renounce gaming if that helped our petition get approved. We only want the land. That’s what we told the woman lawyer, but she didn’t want us to sign this.”

“This was never about money for us,” Donald said.

But it was about money for somebody, Darren thought. And Monica Maldonado knew it, knew she was helping to cheat them.

“And what do the actual terms of the sale say?” Darren asked. “In terms of which part of the parcel would belong to you and which parts might have been set aside for other use?”

They were all standing over him now, sensing something was very wrong; even Sadie or Saku had come in from the kitchen. She was holding the boy, had a tea towel draped over her shoulder. Margaret actually dropped down on top of some of the dresses Virginia hadn’t moved from the couch.

“Other use?” Donald said.

The baby fussed, teeing up for a cry. Sadie set him on the floor.

“All of that is being handled by Leroy,” Margaret said before asking Virginia to go get her pipe and a flask of whiskey she kept in a kitchen drawer. “He is working with Rosemary King on the particulars of the sale. The historical society, they’re putting the land in a trust to preserve it and our place here.”

“She’s cutting you out,” Darren said, seeing it all now. “Rosemary.”

“But this,” Donald said, grabbing the petition for federal recognition for the tribe right out of Darren’s hand. “This would make us a sovereign nation.”

“On land you don’t own.”

No one said a word until Margaret yelled at Ray to stop all that noise. He took his foot off the sewing-machine pedal, and the house fell quiet, except for the sound of the baby scooting across the floor with a feather he’d found; Virginia knocked it out of his hand before he put it in his mouth.