“Didn’t take him long to sniff your trail,” Baptiste said. “He wants you.” Baptiste tapped her knee. She felt annoyed by him. She could see Charlie, how he circled the fields. They watched him for a long time and Louise yawned. She didn’t believe he was going to be close to them before darkness closed the valley, if he found their trail at all. She watched Charlie Kicking Woman stop. He stood still for a long time and then he was walking back toward her grandmother’s house.

“Cold,” Louise said. “You’re getting colder.”

Louise lay back in the grass. “If he’s looking for me,” she told Baptiste, “I don’t think he has a clue.” She was exhausted from running, tired of it all. The wind had picked up and the tall, sleepy grass swept over her. The powdered moon was almost invisible. She began wishing that Charlie Kicking Woman would just go away and not only because she didn’t want to be caught. She didn’t want to make a fool out of Charlie again. She had seen Charlie drinking coffee in the Perma store. He was sitting with a group of suyapis, all of them in their uniforms. State police officers and Charlie the Indian by himself. Louise had stopped just outside the screen door to listen to them. The white men were talking about Indians as if Charlie wasn’t an Indian, or maybe Charlie wasn’t a cop, or, worse yet, as if Charlie wasn’t even there. Louise had snuck up to the window to watch Charlie. Their conversation was loud. It wasn’t long before one of the white men stood up and put his hands on his hips. Charlie stood up then and put his hands on his hips too. He was nodding and laughing with those men like he had been places he’d never been. Charlie Kicking Woman began making fun of Indians himself when he looked up to see Louise. He had stopped talking then. He had taken off his hat and fumbled with some change in his pocket. He had shamed himself. Louise knew his shame. She had tried to pass herself off as white too many times so that she could spare herself ridicule and discomfort. She had denied her family and herself so she could have a drink with a white man. She didn’t know what would happen if Charlie did find them. Baptiste always seemed to get the better of Charlie. She didn’t want to be witness to Charlie’s redfaced fumbling again. It would be better for all of them if he didn’t find her.