The nurse brought in a pack of ice and pouched it on her leg. The doctor left the room. Louise felt the cold first at the back of her neck. She lay still for a long time until her leg was as cold as block ice. She had fallen asleep and when she awoke it was late afternoon. She heard the doctor enter. She saw the white strips of powdered gauze the nurse carried behind him in a silver tray. She closed her eyes and felt the heavy plaster on her leg. “Anyone asks,” the doctor said, “they can answer to me.” She could hear the beef in his voice. She could see Baptiste and the doctor entering the boxing ring.

She looked out the window to the white-grass hill beyond St. Ignatius, the small road that led out to the highway. She could see Charlie’s patrol car in the weedy parking lot. Louise looked down at the cast on her leg and lay back down on the table. She would find a way to ditch Charlie. Even broken up and dizzy she could outwit Charlie. She had to leave the Flathead if just for a few days. She removed the ice pack from her leg and got up to rinse her hands, to dab cool water to her lips. She felt for a moment that she would pass out. A hand hotter than her memories of late July cupped the back of her head. She felt blood, light in her belly, and then she felt the clean, cool sting of Dirty Swallow’s poison. Baptiste was in her.

Charlie Kicking Woman CHASING THE DREAM

Louise got away from me and I was sick with worry to find her. I radioed dispatch, lied through my teeth, told them I was in hot pursuit of Baptiste Yellow Knife and I was crossing the reservation boundary line and heading to Missoula. I was chasing the dream of Louise, sure she had headed to town. It was a dumb-luck wager that I knew could mean both my job and my marriage, but I made the decision with my temples throbbing with fever. I was going to find Louise. I was going to save her.

I saw the loiterers of small-town businesses leaning against storefronts, looking for loose change. I watched the glassy stare of the Blackfoot River worn smooth by the press of autumn. I saw women in “going to town” dresses eating ice-cream cones, wearing gloves and lipstick, men driving clean cars, men visiting men in hardware stores, and they turned to glance at me in my reservation uniform, unsure of what authority I had. I saw myself in storefront windows and turned away. With each window I passed I expected to see my shoulders twitching.