Two days before Christmas and out across the miles I could see a string of red Christmas lights around a small window, and every time I looked in that direction I remembered Yellow Knife was alive and kicking and I had something to hope for. Yellow Knife had made me promise to find Louise. I was looking forward to bringing her good news, looking forward to putting the past behind me. I had a light feeling straddling my chest, a hopefulness I couldn’t deny. I figured I’d take a few days off starting Christmas. I’d take the bus to Yakima if I had to, but I’d get my Aida back. I’d be a better man. I’d bury my pride and chase after the dreams that would make my life easy. I still had a chance.

I drove first to Grandma Magpie’s house with my squad lights racing. Even the fog didn’t deter me. Around the last turn I doused the lights. I didn’t want to scare Louise’s grandma. I was unnerved when my headlights flickered through the cottonwoods to find Grandma Magpie standing on the road to her house. I switched the fan on and a breeze blew at my face, cold, iced. I didn’t want to see Louise’s grandmother standing outside in deep snow in moccasins, only a thin scarf covering her head. I rolled my window down and she met my car. “Have you come with news of Louise?” Her breath was puffing damp clouds.

I had to take her back into the house. She looked out the dark curtainless windows and told me she had heard Louise call her name. She couldn’t sleep, she said. She’d gotten out of bed to make a pot of coffee and wait for Louise. She had heard Louise’s voice plain as day, she told me. “Something has happened to my granddaughter,” she said. I couldn’t shake her of the idea, though I tried. I suggested she’d been dreaming still. That could have happened. She didn’t buy my faithless notions. I did what I could for her. I chopped some wood and built up the fire, but even the fire didn’t help much. She shivered so hard I could hear her bones knocking. I wrapped her with a blanket and told her to sit by the fire. I’d bring Louise home. But as I left the house I couldn’t keep my belly from shaking. My nerves popped in my legs and I had to steady my breath. I gripped the wheel. Maybe it was the night drifting in fog, the uneasy blindness of low clouds. Maybe it was the story that Yellow Knife had told me, the old stories that ached in my stiff hands, but I had an ominous feeling settling on me, and I didn’t want to let go of the hope I had found.