As she ducked, before the masked men fully realized what was happening, Chance had smashed into the glass case on the wall with his elbow and pulled out his rifle, which he aimed at the mob, comprised of his own brotherhood. She couldn’t even imagine what taboo he was now breaking, threatening the members of his own kiva, in god costume, at gunpoint. What level of sacrilege.

He released the safety, put his finger on the trigger, steadied his breath.

“Get out of my mother’s house.”

The growling man came forward from the huddle, his voice no longer a growl. Was it Calliope’s imagination, or did he sound like Arlen? “Put the gun down, brother. You’re already in enough trouble as it is.”

His gun aimed directly at the man’s chest, Chance said, “Calliope, go get Miwe e’le and my bag upstairs. Mara, pull around back. No one else move. You said it yourself, I’m already in trouble.”

Calliope ran upstairs to their room, grabbed Chance’s bag from the bed, and lugged it over her shoulder, stumbling backward from its heft. The corn girl sound asleep, Calliope picked her up, wrapped her in a long wool blanket she tied around her waist and chest, so she was weighed down with packs on both her front and back, like military rucksacks. At the doorway she hesitated. Turned back to the locked dresser, pulled a key from a clay pot, unlocked the first drawer. Susana’s gun. She cocked it, then shuffled downstairs to Chance and Eunjoo behind the dinner table, keeping her back to the wall, pointing Susana’s gun toward the men. She wouldn’t let them grab her again. And she wouldn’t let them hurt her family.

“You’d betray your own brethren, your oath, your gods, for that woman? She’s not half the woman my sister was.” Arlen’s voice was unmistakable; it sliced through Calliope.

Chance said nothing in reply. He spoke in Zuni in a low voice to his mother, sister, and grandmother. Calliope could make out a few of the words and understood he was telling them he had to stay with his wife and make sure she got home safely.

Through the mask, Arlen spit. “She’s not even your wife.”

Malia asked, her voice crestfallen, “Aktsek’i, is this true?”

His voice was equally deflated, his whole demeanor a collapsed hot air balloon, falling. “Tsitda, I wouldn’t lie to you. We’re married in the Zuni way.” In Zuni marriage, the couple is free to live together as husband and wife, to make sure they are compatible, before any vows are made. Either party can break the arrangement without consequence.

Malia pointed with her chin toward the corn girl. “And is that your child?”

Chance sighed. “Yes. Miwe e’le is mine.”

“Filthy liar,” Arlen said. “You disgrace us.”