She heard the crackling of brush and knew from the sound that her sister was coming up the hill. The welt on Baptiste’s face was pinched and puffy but he did not flinch. “I’ll have you,” he told Louise. “I’ll have you yet. Sweetheart,” he said, as if he could touch her heart, as if he could taste it. She turned from him, pretending she couldn’t hear what he was saying. She would not let him know that he had flicked her heart, that he had made her giddy and shy, that he had made her breath come fast. She did not want him to know she could hate him enough to be full of him. Baptiste was like a brief cool breeze, a sudden thicket of darkness on a hot day.

When her sister called her name Baptiste pulled himself up and crouched down. “Someday,” he said to Louise in a low, whispery voice, “you’ll be mine.” And then he headed farther up the hill and he was gone. When Florence came up the hill she was breathless. She carried a sack of fry bread and a small jar of sugar. She sat down next to Louise and pulled out a piece of bread. Louise looked up the hill. She could not see Baptiste. She stood up to look but he was gone. “What?” Florence said. Louise shook her head and sat back down. She was hungry. Her sister held out a piece of fry bread and was sprinkling sugar on it. Louise looked at Florence. She was thick framed but not heavy. She had a delicate nose and large black eyes. She took after Great-grandpa Magpie. Her skin was fine toned and radiant and kissed with freckles. Her hair was black and usually long, but now it hung past her knees. Every summer for years Florence would go to old Suset to get her hair chopped off but Grandma had asked her to let it grow. Now her hair seemed a nuisance to her, thick and heavy, braided tight and still too long for her. She had tied her braids behind her head.