They heard a vehicle pulling into the field. Louise saw Charlie and Aida Kicking Woman sitting for a moment in their worn truck and she found herself calm and relieved. She knew even Charlie would no longer come for her and she wondered when Mr. Bradlock would hit him with the news of her impending marriage. Charlie got out of the truck. He was on his annual mission. He carried a can of gasoline. His face was pulled into a grin of determination. Florence leaned on the window frame and watched them. Her grandmother looked out the window with Louise. “Every year it’s the same,” she said.

It was five in the morning and color was returning to the land. For the first time in longer than Louise could remember she felt she wasn’t running from anyone but the feeling did not rest in her like she had hoped. No one would send her away anymore. No one would look for her on black nights. No one would find her on the roadside. Charlie Kicking Woman would search for another Indian. She sat down and listened to Charlie and Aida yelling to each other over the first spark of fire. Louise knew her running would not stop but no one would be chasing her now.

Charlie started the fire that would burn the fields close to her grandmother’s house. The fields hissed under the lick of red fire. The fire gathered heat so fast there was a sucking sound close to the ground as if the fire or the grass was wheezing. Louise walked out on the porch with her grandmother and watched the fire run the hill, a red line of light that even outran the smoke. Her grandmother looked at the field rushing with fire. “I don’t think they know what they are doing,” she said. Louise said nothing. She sat down on the porch steps and looked at the charging flame.

Aida Kicking Woman ran toward the field, chasing the fire, and then the fire would switch direction like an angry snake, to chase her. She looked like a young girl with short stubby braids, leaping over licks of fire. Charlie finally grabbed her by the collar of her coat and pulled her back to the truck. They could hear Charlie Kicking Woman even over the sound of fire. “How many times do I have to tell you, sweetheart, to stay by the truck?”

Aida’s shoulders slumped and she looked small and disappointed in the open door of the truck. Louise suddenly felt sorry for her. She wasn’t Flathead Indian. No one knew her or spoke much to her at powwows or Indian doings. She was only known as Charlie’s wife. Louise knew she spent a lot of time alone while Charlie was out on call. She wondered if Aida got lonely in her small blue house. She did not have any friends, as far as Louise knew.