“Fuck.” She dropped her head and got low, turning to motion to Derrick, a quick chop downward signaling that he should back away. Stubborn asshole that he was, he just moved back an inch so that his face disappeared into the foliage, but the gun muzzle stayed trained.

She heard rustling through the window, chairs being moved, ceramic bowls clattering, and laughter. Someone coughed, deep and mucky. It sounded like metal shovels hitting gravel, real sickness. She buried her face in the crook of her sleeve without even thinking. Too many memories of the early days, when people became vehicles for bacteria just hitching a ride. She had a vision of Minerva crouched over the youngest girl, Riri, before they’d lost her. She’d spent long hours caring for the sick, Minerva. She had always boiled cedar tea and put together ingredients she collected on the trail for plasters and cough syrup. The memory hurt, and Rose pushed it away. She had no time for the past. Not now.

She lifted her head to look back through the window. Shadows crept tall and thin along the hallway walls, so many at once. They moved slowly, a pace she hadn’t much seen in years. They clapped each other on the back, and one grabbed the other around the waist. One threw its head back and laughed, teeth pointed in silhouette. She was mesmerized. The candlelight made the shadows into marionettes, all stretched and oddly jointed. But when their sources stepped into the living room, they lost their menace.

Here was a young person, hair closely cropped, dressed in an old velvet blazer over a stretched-out T-shirt and cargo shorts. They looked like a bored child, a few years younger than Rose at least, and better yet, they looked Native. Rose caught her gasp before it was audible. Behind them was a man, about forty, with hair loose and long to his waist. He was the laugher, the last remnants of the joke caught in the wrinkles around his eyes. He wore no shirt, and his belly was small but round. He wore some kind of a wrap knotted at his waist, patterned with green leaves against a yellow background. He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and revealed an earring of deep red beads cascading to his shoulder. He, like the youth, was visibly Native.

Rose had learned the hard way, like many others, that not all Indians were Indians these days. That the schools had converted some to go out and trap those who let their guard down when they saw a community member. It had happened to them. Two Native men, an inviting meal, and a few words in the language was all it had taken, and they had lost their little girl, Riri. Every time she closed her eyes, Rose could still see her in the tall man’s arms as he ran, her arm dangling at a sickening angle, headed for the edge of a cliff. So for now, she stayed where she was. It was hard to combat the natural pull of potential, especially with the state of Derrick’s leg, which she had been lying to him about. They needed help, and fast, or he wasn’t going anywhere but in the ground. It was starting to stink.