“I’m going to kill her.” Wab went from concern to anger in the blink of an eye.

“I should have given her more of my time,” Miig sighed. “I was so caught up in French and in Isaac…well, I wasn’t a very good relative. I didn’t seek her out. I didn’t calm her down. I just… didn’t.”

Isaac grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze. “She seems like a capable girl. I’m sure she’ll be smart about it.”

“And Derrick, he’s a good hunter, him,” Jean interjected. “And I appreciate that kind of determination focused in on my boy.”

The group fell quiet. Jean had just been reunited with French, the only remaining blood family he had, and now he was in limbo again, wondering if his blood was alive or dead. And here they were, arguing over the logistics of an attempted rescue?

“If anyone can do it, it’s Rose,” Miig agreed. “She’s braver than most, that one.”

Bullet put a hand on Jean’s shoulder. “We all agree. Francis is too important to sleep on. And that girl, she sure as hell didn’t waste any time sleeping. We wish her the best, and in the meantime”—she looked around at those assembled—“we will start preparing to leave. Because we will. Just as soon as Father Carole brings us word and a destination.”

CHAPTER 9

BEDRIDDEN

French

“MAYBE DREAMS WERE ALWAYS IN THE MARROW. Maybe not. Maybe they used to be everywhere—muscles, skin, voice—and then we learned how to hide them better.” She was sitting on an upturned bucket in the back corner of the storage room.

“Mom?” I was in the supply closet doorway. My head jerked to the side to check the hall behind me—clear and quiet. Now there were no escorts chasing me down, no inmates screaming from the main room. And the light seemed to soak in through the walls from somewhere outside.

“Yes, yes. Why is it so hard for you to see me, son?” She looked exactly like she had the last time I’d seen her—dark eyes and hair a little wild, face too flushed, dressed in jeans and a thick green sweater, scuffed work boots on her small feet. She was smoking, flicking the ashes toward the cement ground and watching them spin into little twisters like weather in the room.

“Why are you here?”

“Because you need me to be here.” She shrugged. “So, here I am.”

I tried to move into the room, but my feet wouldn’t budge. I struggled against the inertia, but it only shot pins and needles up my calves and made ache and rot out of my knees.

“Bone marrow, the way it’s built up, the way it rests, can change over time, you know. It’s not supposed to. But things like tuberculosis can do it. Could be that’s when we first had the idea to stuff our dreams in there, when they stuffed Natives into the tuberculosis wards to die.” She opened and closed her fists where they rested on her thighs.