“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, lying, knowing exactly what she meant. But Aida was onto my game. She cooked me eggs with so much Tabasco I coughed red faced for an hour. She hummed a high tune at the kitchen sink as she scalded every dish and stacked them in the sink rack steaming. I had to stay around the house. Aida would be wondering where I was off to. It was my weekend. I split green wood for two days, only stopping to eat and sleep. Aida stood by the window, watching me work, her small face haggard and hollow in the yellow kitchen light. In the dimming cold I was chopping my troubles away. Sweat lifted from my back in a shimmering cloud. I was forgetting, I told myself, I was forgetting Louise. But I was fooling myself, I was trying to forget the man I was. At the end of that long weekend I returned to work to hear the news that Louise and Yellow Knife had married. I brought the news home to Aida like a peace pipe offered.

Baptiste and Louise THE POWER OF MARRIAGE

He made a wedding bed for her in his mother’s house on sheets that were slick with the smell of him and oily to the touch. She scanned his room, trying not to look as if she were passing judgment. She rubbed her arms and fanned her face with her hands. Baptiste did not look at her. The small room seemed to surround her. Baptiste leaned forward and tucked the bed cloth under. He did not say a word to her as he made their bed. It was cool as a root cellar in the room but a small stain of sweat puckered the back of Baptiste’s white shirt. He worked without talking, straightening the sheet edge, punching the single pillow. He worked like a soldier. He did not ask for Louise’s assistance. When he had finished making the bed he left the room, closing the door behind him.

There was no clutter in the room, no boxes, no bottles, no paper or matchbooks, not even a shirt hung from the hooks that lined the wall. Louise was left alone. No clothing, no closets. There was one cigarette butt snubbed out on the dirt floor but it was curled with age. She wondered if a woman had smoked that cigarette but she felt no need to check for lipstick. The only thing that claimed Baptiste to this room were the four rattlers’ tails that hung from his bedpost. The bedsprings trembled when she placed her small purse down.