The Only Good Indians(35)

Shaney just looks up at him, squinting.

In the fourth book, the one she just returned, there’s Neanderthals slouching around the mall with their heavy spears and heavy brows, and it’s kind of the running joke. Every time there’s the next version of “Cleanup on aisle nine,” Andy shakes his head, spits air, and says, Neanderthals, like they were put in the mall specifically to ruin his life.

Lewis swallows hard, a thrill rushing through him, all the way to his fingertips.

“You’re kind of weird, you know?” Shaney says.

“Me and Andy, yeah,” Lewis says.

While it might be possible to somehow forget “Neanderthals,” each installment in the series is Andy the Something: Andy the Water Bringer, Andy the Giant Slayer, Andy the Unemployed. The fourth one is, of course, Andy the Mammoth Rider. No way could she not know who he’s talking about, here.

Shaney holds Lewis’s eyes for a moment like checking if he’s for real, then makes the turn to the front door.

“Wait,” Lewis says, his heart pounding in his chest, his face heating up with possibility. “That’s the wrong one,” he blurts, making this up as he goes.

Shaney looks down to the headlight bracket she’s holding.

“I think about anything will match his bike,” she says.

“I’ve got the right one,” Lewis says. “It’s just out here, I just saw it …”

Shaney just holds him in her stare, like waiting for him to draw the curtain on whatever charade or joke this is going to be.

“You can go out this way,” Lewis says, stepping past her for the garage door, not giving her a chance to say no.

He grinds the big door up, which brings the light on, then he just stands there inspecting all the parts strewn across the concrete and boxes and old towels.

“What happened?” Shaney says, impressed.

“It always gets like this,” Lewis tells her, trying not to let on how fast things are cycling through his head. It’s like that flicker rate he needed to see through to the real, it’s behind his eyes now.

He’s afraid to look directly back at Shaney. Instead he jogs three steps ahead, knocks on the basketball to get it dribbled up.

“Forgot your best friend the other day,” he says, and underhands it across to her, hardly even a pass at all. Instead of one-handing it to her hip like he knows she can do, she steps to the side, lets the ball lob on past, still watching him like trying to figure him out.

“Oh, oh, you’ll like this,” he says, stepping across to the Road King.

“I’ve got to get to work, Blackfeet,” Shaney says back, trying to pick a path to freedom.

“Just wait, wait,” Lewis says, and comes around to the other side of the bike, the side without the purple crate. He crosses the poles, throws some sparks, but pulls the current before the engine can start up, so that it sounds like a failure, like it choked down. “Shit, shit,” he says, shaking his hand like he got burned, and leans over to look inside. “Oh, of course,” he aha’s, and, without looking up, does his right hand to pull Shaney over.

She approaches slowly, uncertainly.

“I’ve heard a motorcycle before,” she tells him.

“New pipe,” Lewis tells her, and is still guiding her closer, closer. “You’ve got to—” he says, finally looking up. “Here, here,” he says, taking the headlight bracket from her, setting it down wherever on his side. “This vacuum hose right here, just plug it so I can turn the engine over. Should start right up.”

Shaney inspects the Road King like for safety, says, about the rear wheel and all the dangerous possibilities there, “How about just show me when you’ve got it together, yeah? I promise to be real impressed.”

“I want you to tell Silas,” Lewis says then, like embarrassed to be admitting it. “Don’t tell him this part, it’s still secret, but I ordered him the same exhaust. As, you know, apology. Just tell him how throaty this sounds.”

“I don’t have to actually hear it to—” she begins, but Lewis is already leaning over, guiding her finger-finger to the open end of the vacuum tube, its junction right there, which would be so much easier to stopper it with.

Is this the first time he’s touched her skin to skin? It might be, he thinks.

There’s no sparks, no flood of memories or accusations rushing in, no replay of four Indians pouring lead down a slope.

“You’re making me late, Blackfeet,” Shaney says, and Lewis, coming back to his side, realizes he can see down her shirt for a flash.

She sees him seeing, says, “All you had to do was ask, yeah?”

“No, it’s not like—” Lewis starts, and then they both turn to the basketball, slowly rolling down the slope of the garage like the biggest, softest, most drunk pinball.

“This better not get me dirty,” Shaney says over the wide tank, her eyes locked on his, like she means the exact opposite.

“I know who you are,” Lewis says back right as the engine cranks over, and that narrows her eyes because she couldn’t have heard that right, and, just like that last day hunting, this is the moment where he could back out, this is where he could stop this from happening. He could break the connection, kill the bike, make like he said something else—Watch out for your hair, yeah. That would be the perfect thing to have said.