I drove home, my mind racing with ideas on how to win back Aida. If I had to dance at the powwow, dress up in Indian feathers, and paint my face, I would. I would get Aida back. I took a belt of whiskey and went to bed. I wanted to get some sleep before work. In the sleepy darkness I began to see the murky moonlight as hope. But in the middle of the night I woke and she was pressing against me. I felt the soft roundness of her thighs, the heat of her. I buried my face in the sweet hollow of her throat and heard her sigh and lift her hips toward me. The bed swayed under the pulse of my hips. I felt the slow rise, the hot blush in the pocket of my groin, my eyes strung tight in my skull. I felt the slick sweat of her belly and I was rising, rising. Aida had come back to me. I had heard the taps of Aida’s footsteps on the walkway. I was with Aida. I felt a crushing love for her, for my wife. I awoke startled and shaken and alone. I turned on the light and rubbed my eyes. I had only been dreaming. I stepped outside and called my wife’s name but heard only the sound of my own voice ringing. My piss steamed in the powdered snow. She was far away. The moon failed and the high clouds passed over me, and I knew I was caught by the choices I had made. I looked down the valley and saw the thick mat of fog, ghostly and hovering. I felt the wet chill of it, the slick roads shining. It was so cold my toenails ached. My bare feet stung so bad I hopped back to bed. The covers were still warm with my own heat. I could taste the smudge of liquor in my lungs. I’d been breathing hard. The room was so quiet I imagined I could hear the breath of fog hissing toward me. I felt suddenly afraid. It was the night, the fear of being forever alone but I had the childish feeling someone was watching me. My eyes gathered the dark room slowly and then I shut my eyes. I moled down in the covers and breathed a full breath.

I heard someone call my name. Yellow Knife was speaking to me. The old ghost stories slammed my chest. Instead of meeting my fears I burrowed deeper in the covers, my knees shaking.

I heard someone fumble with the light on my bed stand where my gun rested in its holster. I threw back the covers and saw a man I could recognize only as Baptiste Yellow Knife. I wanted to bolt. I wanted to grab my gun and shoot the apparition but he stood before me, grinning. “Scare you?” he said. “Think you could get rid of me that easy?”