Louise woke in darkness, breathing hard. Her eyes settled on the pale moon. She lifted herself up on her elbow. She saw the thick net of branches that concealed her legs and remembered where she was. She thought of Baptiste. She lay back down and let her breathing quiet. She closed her eyes. A thought came to her and she looked up but could only see darkness, a blur of branches tangled above her.

When she had walked home her thoughts focused on Baptiste Yellow Knife. Thompson Falls had made Louise think there were worse things than Baptiste Yellow Knife. After all this time of ignoring Baptiste, looking away from him, running past him without a glance, hating him, pushing him, punishing him, using him, Baptiste had persisted. He wouldn’t let go of her. And though Baptiste could be mean, Baptiste had insisted on loving her with no love in return.

Louise thought of Jules Bart, how for a short time she had let the thought of him devour her sad life. Yet he took no more time to think of her than the time it took his heart to thud his chest once. And he had turned out to be another lonesome drunk, wanting nothing. At least, she thought, Baptiste wanted her. She swallowed hard, felt the dry rasp of her throat. She reached for the jar of water her sister had brought her and wished for one cold beer. She gulped the water too quickly and for one moment she felt dizzy, almost drunk. She flattened her palms to her sides to brace herself, and found she was rocking. She felt the raw flush of her longing.

She lay back down, wanting to say aloud, “Go away.” She could turn away from Baptiste for a hundred years but she wondered now if he would always be there. All that night she had prayed to be left alone and she realized now she was alone. She was alone and the slow morning revealed only the curving branches of the ragged junipers, the highway spilling toward places that would not accept her. The cottonwoods were curving toward the loneliness that cupped her but could no longer define her. She would not run again. She would go home. She felt the leap of the deer again, heavy and sudden in her lap, its beauty and crushing pain.

Louise THE BURNING FIELDS

Mr. Bradlock had knocked on the door at four in the morning and while her grandmother and Florence were at the window, fleeing, Louise had stood up calmly. She picked her dress off the floor and laced her shoes. She could hear Mr. Bradlock at the door. She knew that even at four in the morning he would be in his suit, his thin hair oiled and grimly shining. “Don’t run from me,” Mr. Bradlock yelled through the door. “Louise,” he said.