At the stick games in Dixon she hid beneath Charlie Kicking Woman’s tribal police car for almost an hour with everybody staring at her, because Melveena Big Beaver had told her Baptiste was looking for her. She lay half under the engine-hot car in a stain of oil that ruined her good dress, only to find Baptiste walked past her holding hands with Hemaucus Three Dresses. When Louise stood to shake the dry grass from her hair, Baptiste did not look at her or even shift a glance her way. Only his mother, Dirty Swallow, eyed Louise. Dirty Swallow sat in the dirt of the stick game line without a blanket. Her eyes were small and steady, and though she kept playing the game, she kept her eyes on Louise, opened her palm to reveal the black-rimmed bone.

Baptiste was animal and dark, and when he smiled at Hemaucus, he almost looked handsome. Louise felt relieved and pulled breath deep into her lungs, but the moment of relief came to her with the feeling she had lost something. She lit a cigarette and tried to attend the scar of juniper trees near the road. She looked over at the both of them. Baptiste rubbed the back of Hemaucus’s brown hand on the side of his thigh then led her to the stick game line. Louise saw the two of them smiling at each other.

She didn’t know how to feel. She wondered if everyone was feeling sorry for her because Baptiste Yellow Knife had managed to find someone new, someone better. She knew she didn’t want Baptiste Yellow Knife and his attentions, had run from him for years. She had dodged his every whisper, averted his every glance. She stood next to the dusty trees feeling dry-handed. The oil stain bloomed on her dress. Louise thought the people were looking at her because they were thinking she should be jealous of Hemaucus. And in the stinging light of a summer day passing, Hemaucus’s hair hung heavy, so shiny it seemed to be water. Hemaucus was an older woman but she quieted her laughter with her hands when she looked at Baptiste. Her waist was full and her smooth arms were tight-lined with muscle.

Louise felt small. She could feel the hard lines of her ribs. Her stomach was sinking and hollow. The bones of her pelvis caught the thin fabric of her dress. She had heard the old women telling her grandmother to watch her. “Make sure she hasn’t got TB,” they said. And, standing in the field, the grass white and brittle at her ankles, she felt her big-boned knees. She felt tired and foolish. Maybe she had fooled herself into thinking she looked better than she did. When Melveena Big Beaver walked by with her sister Mavis, when they both looked at Louise and turned their heads covering their smiles, Louise kicked dust at them.