The light shifted in the classroom, the strange ripening light of late afternoon, the lulling light that closes day. The light focused for a blinding moment on Sister Sebastian’s half-moon glasses. And Baptiste stood up gracefully, with purpose, with an arrogant dignity that suggested he knew more than the giggling students, knew more than Sister Sebastian. He stood for what seemed a long time, looking directly at Sister Sebastian. At first she told him quietly to sit down and when he still stood she lifted two long erasers and slapped them together in front of his face. She had tried, Louise thought, to clap his nose. Chalk dust lifted in the air like a small cloud rising and then sifted down again on Baptiste, down on his hair and his face, down on his shoulders. He had the face of a beautiful warrior whitened for battle: his lips were pale, even his eyelashes were powdered. He opened his mouth and his mouth was dark. Sister Sebastian backed away from Baptiste, slowly at first, so slowly he seemed to be moving from her. She moved far enough back to let him pass. His shoulders were squared. He walked out of class. He did not even turn to glance back at Louise. She felt the pull of his passing so strong she had stood at the window to watch him. A few other students gathered at the window with her.

His stride was low in the dry winter grass. Dark wrens lifted from his path, their flight sudden and circling. The dead jimsonweeds rocked toward him again and again and touched his fingertips. Baptiste Yellow Knife left, shoulders strong to the gusts of wind, and he did not look back. He hadn’t seen that Louise had stood up at the window to watch him leave even after Sister Sebastian had told her to sit down.

All that afternoon the wind churned the fields and chased a gray chalk dust against the school windows. Tumbleweeds and sticks struck the windows. The sky turned silver but it did not snow. Louise tucked her feet beneath her when the heavy doors knocked in their hinges. And all that day the students listened, not to Sister Sebastian and the rap of her geography stick, but for Baptiste Yellow Knife to return with his mother, to return with the power they had all lost. When the final clock buzzed low he did not return to the boys’ dormitory. He never came back to sit in the stiff runner desks. When he finally came back to school he came back for Louise.