The Only Good Indians(17)

“They’re playing with us,” Gabe said, reseating his rifle strap on his shoulder.

“Catch me if you can,” Lewis said for the bulls and then lined up on the walking-away tracks, his eyes going downhill with them, downhill, to—

“Shit,” Cass said, turning around to kick snow.

“They know,” Ricky said with a chuckle, impressed.

“Tricksy, tricksy …” Lewis said, smacking his gum too loud, and Cass cut his eyes over at him, not sure he’d heard that word right but not wanting to ask, either.

Gabe didn’t say anything, just kept watching where the big bulls had gone—where they were.

“Anybody pack some grey braids in with their bear kit?” he finally said with his trademark grin, the one that usually ended up either getting beat in by the end of the night or looking out through bars. Sometimes both. A hundred years ago he would have been the guy always trying to get a raiding party together to sneak over the line, have some fun, come hell-for-leather home in the morning with half of America massed up right behind.

“No, man,” Ricky said, his eyes hot so he could really mean this, really drill it in. “If we get caught over there, it’s—”

“Then let’s not get caught, what say?” Gabe said, looking from face to face like polling a jury.

“We can’t,” Lewis said to Gabe about the off-limits section. “Ricky’s right, if Denny catches us again, then he’ll—”

“It’s not fair though,” Cass whined, flicking something off the end of his finger and watching it fly. “That section’s reserved for elders, but what if none of the elders are even hunting it, right?”

“Old guys get up early,” Gabe threw in, like just seeing this brilliant point. “If they were going to hunt their section today, they’d already have been and gone. We’ll just be cleaning up the ones they weren’t going to shoot. No big. Cassidy’s right.”

“Cass,” Cass said.

“Whoever he is today, he’s right,” Gabe corrected, setting his feet to take Cass’s elbow.

It wasn’t that the elders’ section was all the way off-limits, it was that only elders—plus one and only one—could use trucks to get in and out. Anybody younger was supposed to hoof it, which would be a two-hour walk in at least, and it was already an hour and a half after lunch, with the sun going down just after four, and taking the thermometer with it.

“Elders aren’t the only ones with empty freezers,” Cass said with an obvious shrug. “Anyway, it’s my truck. You three bail, I take the heat.”

When Ricky didn’t say anything, Lewis just looked away, down to the elders’ section again.

It was some good-ass country around Duck Lake, no two ways about that. And Gabe knew every logging road, every two-track, every old game trail that’d been widened out by four-wheelers and chain saws. And it does suck to be the only Indian without an elk.

“Last day of the season …” Gabe pled to all of them.

Technically it wasn’t, but it was the last time they could come out for a whole Saturday like this together. There would still be lunch breaks on their own, though, eating and driving down some road somebody maybe saw an elk walking alongside. There would still be being late to work because of a set of deep tracks crossing from ditch to ditch. But Lewis heard what Gabe was saying, what he was arguing: the last day of the season, the rules are different. Anything goes. Whatever fills your freezer. You’ve put in enough days out in the cold and the snow that you feel like the elk owe you, almost.

Included in that are any moose or mulies you might jump along the way.

“Shit,” Lewis said, because he could feel himself starting to cave.

“That’s back where you found Junior, enit?” Cass said to Ricky, but Ricky was watching the trees again, always seeing an ear twitch where there were no ears.

Cass was talking about when Ricky found Junior Big Plume floating facedown in Duck Lake, and was reservation-famous for the weekend.

“Shut up,” Ricky said, his hunting face all the way on, which was pretty much just a cigar-store Indian mask. Still, Cass let it drop.

Gabe took advantage of the silence to take a long read of all the faces, all the eyes, all the weak, weak spines. “Well, the elk aren’t going to shoot themselves, gentlemen,” he finally said, satisfied with what he’d seen, evidently. He hauled his rifle around to clear the chamber, Cass’s rule since the new hole in the front floorboard of his truck, the hole Gabe insisted Cass would thank him for come summer, which is right where Lewis would like to freeze-frame that day, just stop it completely, hang it on the wall, call it “Hunting” or “Snow” or “Five Days Before Turkey and Football.”

But he can’t. The rest of the day was already happening, had already pretty much happened right when Gabe kept looking downhill, to where he said the elk were.

“Was he right?” Shaney asks, her legs tucked under her to the side like a traditional.

Lewis chuckles a sick chuckle, says, “About the elk not shooting themselves?”

Shaney nods, and Lewis looks away, says Ricky was right too.

“About what?” Shaney asks.

“Getting caught.”



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