Louise watched the fields. A great wind was chasing the tall grass and sagebrush. The wind was spinning low to the ground, gruff voiced and angry. Louise listened to the crack of weeds. Little licks of flame rounded the swamp grass and sizzled to smoke. Smoke grew in the fields. She watched the small frozen moment when every tendril of sagebrush glowed red, each small leaf outlined before the weeds exploded, before the sagebrush fell to fire. The sky was rose colored with fire now, delicate as powdered clay, a smudge of color that grew wistful as memory, deep orange and then fading. Louise sat on the steps until the fire grew quiet, until the smoke grew quiet and hung heavy. Louise felt that she could stare at the fields all day and not ever find the place in all that heat and smoke that could hide her from Baptiste Yellow Knife. He had chased her and now she was rounding back on him.

Night grew like smoke over the hills, resting in the fields. A gunpowder haze closed over the river and then sheathed the highway. Louise thought of all the snakes in the fields, roasted, without power. She thought of Baptiste Yellow Knife and wondered where he was. She hadn’t seen him for a few days and yet she wondered if he was hiding from her in the dense smoke. She went into the house uneasy, wondering if somehow Baptiste had overheard what she had said to Mr. Bradlock that morning. She felt as if her words had given Baptiste even more power, that somehow the words she had spoken had lifted from her like a tattling bird. She thought of Baptiste moving in the darkness toward her, circling her. She would glance back suddenly to see the ragged chintz chair at the window, the rattling hollyhocks hugging the house.

Her sister and her grandmother worked in the kitchen. It was still light outside when she went to bed. The smoke made her bleary eyed and sleepy. She felt thick in the slow haze that settled over the house and entered their rooms. She carried the thought of Baptiste to sleep with her. She woke dreaming he had called her. She got up carefully out of bed, lifting the sheet from her sister’s shoulder, breathing softly through her mouth. She stood looking out into the darkness until she could see light. The moon lit the valley. Just across the cattails and swamp grass the field was lit red in places. The moon was rosy, ruddy, and peculiar, bleeding like a bar sign on a rainy night. She watched the distance, looking for Baptiste. She studied the black junipers on the ridge. She looked at every strand of grass in the murky light but she did not see him.