My headlamps cuffed the potholes but I continued to drive. I came up on the Chefler place, an abandoned homestead built on Indian land. A cheater’s stake. The house and the outbuildings had that wind-whistled look, gray and rusted-wood entryways open to sky, the only legacy of the family’s forgotten dreams. Story had it the Cheflers broke every plow blade they buried in the earth. I realized, almost gratefully, that our land would not always surrender to the plow. The bare asses of rocks jeweled their fields. They’d had to give up their blades, dig in the earth with their bare hands only to expose more rocks. A field of them, rocks, big and deep centered. Their harvest had become rock. Piles and piles of rocks.

The snow was deep here. If there was a sunbelt on the Flathead, this was the snowbelt. Snow could bury this house and be nothing more than a sprinkling just a meadow over. Now the outbuildings housed bats and swallows, another haunted place where old wishes remained, a place the farm kids laughed at and then ran from.

I saw the tracks of one car cut around back one of the outbuildings. The other tire tracks seemed to lead to a rock outcropping. I parked my car just off the road. I didn’t want to risk getting stuck. I took my flashlight with me even though there was something about the way the hills surrounded this place that made it throb with light. I had to take a leak. I was standing by the sagging outhouse when I heard an animal sound. The sound a deer makes when its backside’s been grazed, a lung-wheezing sound. I stepped around the old barn keeping my back covered when I saw the LaSalle with Washington plates. I took a slow, deep breath. I wasn’t sure what I would find but images of Louise and Yellow Knife charged me. I pulled my gun and checked the safety. I was ready. I heard the low pummel of fists. If you hear the dull thud of a man’s fist on another man’s body you will never forget the sound. It’s a sound with consequence beyond the action. The bystander can feel the fist slam deep in his own gut, a heart squeeze, a rush of hot adrenaline like a booze shot that can either sicken you or addict you. I wasn’t going to step into trouble with only one gun against Baptiste Yellow Knife. I went back to my car.

I backed the vehicle up just far enough to get some forward momentum. I had to bank my car up in the snow to spotlight them. I figured if I could spotlight them I could scare them. I should have radioed but I didn’t. I acted.