“Those cars back there weren’t that old.”

She snapped, “You’re an expert on cars?” She was acting ridiculous, yes, but she was frustrated.

Chance laughed easily this time, his eyes shining. “Nah,” he said, lugging Eunjoo over his shoulders, piggyback, her matchstick legs dangling to Chance’s chest, where the strap of his rifle slung across his flannel. He gripped her shoes. “I’m just an Indian interested in how things work. That’s what took me to the white man’s world, for academic training. But there’s lots I don’t know.” Eunjoo rested her head and hands atop his head.

Calliope sighed. She was lashing out at the one person helping her. He wasn’t the enemy. She didn’t know who or what the enemy was, but she knew she needed to be kinder to Chance. Es una guía, the apparition of Bisabuela had said, a guide. Even if Bisabuela had been a figment of her exhausted mind, the message was germane. She should treat her guide with respect. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that … I just need a logical explanation, need this nightmare to make sense.”

“Whatever answers I find from the Elders, mujer, I’ll share them with you. One thing I do know—better to accept a mystery than an explanation with no logic.”

This time she didn’t bristle when he called her mujer. She knew he knew they were equals. She was beginning to like the apodo, the token of familiarity between them.

They kept walking. Despite the pain in her pelvis, the twins pressing into her bladder, Calliope’s face inched into a smile when she saw that the little girl was twirling Chance’s black hair around her bandaged finger, and he let her. He began a story, his voice a natural storyteller’s, deep and laced with sorrow. His accent, somewhere between Spanish and Pueblo, reminded Calliope of a steady drumbeat. He spoke slowly, deliberately, as if attentive to the space the shape of his words made in the air.