I remembered this Indian kid from Browning. One night this kid goes downstairs to the basement of the Ursulines’ and bleeds himself. He cut the tendons in the backs of his legs, then cut his wrists. He had wanted to die. Even now when I dress a deer out, I see his slick blood flowing toward the drain. I always thought he was trying to say something by doing that, but I had saved him. It was the same night I ran into Harvey Stoner up Pistol Creek, parked in his fancy car surveying land sites, and I put the two things together like it was Stoner’s fault this damn kid takes a deer knife to himself, a deer knife sharp as obsidian, and slices into the heat of his own blood. Stoner’s fault this kid lies on cement for maybe an hour without tears or prayers but with a clean, dry face and the belief he’s going to a better place. Stoner’s fault his skin’s so white this kid would have stood almost black beside him. But they never would have stood beside each other, this dark kid from some small reservation in Montana, this white man from Spokane. And I have tried to think of this kid by himself without Stoner, but I can’t.

With so much gone I wondered what more Stoner wanted to take, because he seemed to have taken everything. Mr. Malick polished the hood of Harvey’s car when he dropped a quarter for gasoline. Eddie the bartender set up Harvey’s drinks before he walked through the door. Free drinks too. I’d seen women, even older women, flutter around him. His money bulged from his back pocket like a good-time promise. But I didn’t imagine Stoner would ever accrue enough land to parlay his money to future generations because he thought only of himself. He had the look of singular greed that made me angry. The loss of an Indian child always made me furious. An old anger rose in me that stretched back years, back beyond my ability to make sense of anything. I realized I was looking for answers. I spent the night alone, thinking too much.