I was glad to get the news that Yellow Knife was in Yakima. Even though he was five hundred miles away I had to stay watchful for his return. Several years ago I had found Baptiste sleeping in the woods just past the Ashcroft place. He was curled under a small outcrop of soft pine that smelled sweet as gin. I had known not to wake Yellow Knife from sleep, especially when I was alone. I had turned to get a stick to poke him just in case he was dead and when I looked back again he was gone. I’d never really been sure I saw him that day but the details of him were still clear. He wore a red-and-white scarf knotted tight to his neck. He slept like a fawn, without moving, without scent. I felt sick at the sight of him, a dizzy sickness that hummed in my skull. The pale sun touched only the tops of the trees, and it was difficult to get my bearings. I thought Baptiste was playing a trick, that he was around me, hiding behind bushes or shimmied up a ghost tree. I just couldn’t see him anymore. He was a fish in shadowed water, a fleck of mica in a dust-wind.

I knew to keep an eye out on Louise to make sure she was safe. I wasn’t about to let Yellow Knife fool me again. I kept on the lookout for Yellow Knife, and minded Harvey Stoner.

Louise DEAD SIGHT

After Florence died the weather changed. The sun turned cold, and dark owl days perched over Louise’s life. The approaching winter light blinked through the windows of her grandmother’s house to find her still slumped in bed. Louise would wake to a sun so bright she would cover her face with her hands. She would sit on the porch until late afternoon, waiting until she could return to bed.

Two weeks after the burial, her grandmother placed a sack of fry bread in her hands. “It’s time,” her grandmother told her, “to thank those who’ve helped us. You take this on over to the cowboy.” Louise didn’t want to leave the house. She didn’t want to comb her hair or get dressed. She looked out to the wide road toward the cottonwoods that stood black against the far hills.