Louise pressed her face to the cool window of Jules Bart’s truck and gulped air. She remembered she had gone to the still river place with Baptiste, the day after they were married. She had stripped down to nothing while Baptiste peed in the bushes behind her. Louise had her feet in the cold water and was ready to dive in when Baptiste had grabbed her. She thought he wanted her then and she had struggled to free herself. She wanted to bow her head in the cool current, to scissor her bare legs in the cold green river. But Baptiste made her sit on the rock to watch the smooth surface of water changing, to see the small movement of waves beyond the calm of a circle the size of her grandmother’s house. She remembered when the shadows of clouds passed over the river she could see the texture of silver currents, writhing water within the deadly hoop.

“There,” Baptiste had showed her, pointing, “the water is hungry.”

He had told her a story that day and she hadn’t paid attention to him. Now the story came back to her bitter as bile, a warning story, and she felt panic wrench her chest to recall Baptiste’s words of drowning. The story came back to her without her wanting it to, as if Baptiste was beside her as Jules Bart fiddled with the dial on his radio.

Charlie Kicking Woman DUTIES

The drive to Mission was the longest ride of my life. I’d promised Grandma Magpie I would stay with the body of Florence White Elk, but I had to go home. I felt I had done my duty. There was something about Florence’s death that brought back all my failures. I had saved her from the rattlesnake bite for another death more terrible. Florence’s death served to remind me of other Indian kids I had let down.