The Only Good Indians(53)

“What do you know about snagging?” her dad asks, not patting his truck now.

“She’s in produce now,” Denorah says, a grin he can’t see warming her lips.

Swish.

“Probably a vegetarian, yeah?” her dad says with a smile in his voice, and that tells Denorah all she needs to know about how much Jolene the Crow appreciates her dad coming out to do sweats with her man.

“Didn’t know he had a lodge out there,” Denorah says.

Dribble, dribble, find the valve hole by touch. Right when she rocks back to shoot, her dad touches his horn. Still: swish.

“Good, good,” he calls out.

Returning to the line for number twenty-three, she sees a black hank of your hair breeze up from the bed of the truck and it stops her for a moment, the ball held at her stomach.

Her dad sees, leans out to look back, says, “What?”

“You’re not supposed to be hunting,” Denorah says, no joke to her voice about this of all things.

“What, you an officially deputized game warden now?” he says, settling back behind the wheel, leaning over to get at something from the floorboard.

Whatever he gets doesn’t raise above the level of the door, but Denorah’s pretty sure it’s cold and beer-shaped.

And? Maybe he’s not even lying.

Elk and deer don’t have manes. Maybe he’s a horse hunter now, she thinks, and has to turn around to the rim so he won’t see the smile in her eyes. Just because she can’t see him doesn’t mean she can’t hear a beer cracking open.

Noise, noise. The whole gym going wild.

“This the same sweat Nathan Yellow Tail’s dad’s making him go to?” she says.

Rattle, rattle, lucky roll.

“We’re letting him in, yeah,” her dad says like a challenge. Like she should try to call him on his kindness, his manners, on who this sweat is actually for, Nathan or the scrimmage.

“Coach says she sees you at the games,” Denorah says, walking to the tall grass for the ball.

No answer.

She looks back to him.

“You look more like your mom every day,” her dad says.

Trina Trigo, the grass dancer champion from high school, was even on a powwow calendar from back then. Except Denorah isn’t sure if this is a compliment or if she only looks like her mom when she’s saying stuff her dad doesn’t want to hear.

Line up, draw a bead on those eighteen inches of circular orange up there. Remember that the higher you arc the ball, the more circular that rim gets.

The ball is a touch over nine inches wide. That leaves all kinds of room to play with. All kinds of lucky bounces.

But proper form is where it all starts. More you practice, the luckier you end up.

The ritual, the ceremony.

Dribble-dribble, thighs, extend, spin with the valve hole, hold that follow-through, hold it, hold it …

Swish.

Denorah smiles, is the deadliest Indian on the whole reservation.

“Do it again, it’s worth twenty,” her dad says behind her, low like an invitation he doesn’t want just everyone tuning in to.

She turns back to him and he’s pushed up against the back of the seat to dig in his front pocket. At least until whatever it is that’s cold and beer-shaped and chocked between his legs spills forward.

“You’ve got twenty?” Denorah says back to him.

“I will tonight,” her dad says. “When Officer Yellow Tail pays me.”

“So it’s like that,” she says.

“Gratuity,” her dad says. “He’s very gracious.”

“Double it if I go ten for ten,” Denorah says.

Her dad raises his eyebrows, says, “You are my Finals Girl, aren’t you?”

She smiles her smile that she knows is his, that she can’t do anything about, and dribbles twice, banks it in just for show.

“Somebody give the little lady some dice,” her dad says.

It’s not luck, though. It’s skill. It’s practice. It’s proper form.

“That’s one,” Denorah says, and turns her back on her dad again, imagines a gym all around her, wall-to-wall white people, all chanting for her to go home, go home.

She spins the ball toward her, dribbles twice, and lines up.





THE SUN CAME DOWN


Cassidy stands from his lawn chair to watch Gabe rattle over the cattle guard. The dogs, tongues hanging long from chasing that herd of elk off, swarm his truck before he’s even got the door open, maybe thinking he’s bringing those elk back, that he has them all in the bed of his truck.

Dogs are stupid.

“Ho, ho!” Cassidy calls out to them, slapping his thigh.

Gabe kicks his door open to scatter them but they just keep bawling their fool heads off. He wades out holding a rifle above his head like that’s what the dogs are after.

“Don’t you feed them?” he asks above the din.

“They like red meat,” Cassidy calls back, making his way over.

“They’re scratching the other scratches, man,” Gabe says, pushing in between the dogs and the bed of his truck.

“What you got back there?” Cassidy asks.

“Not dog food,” Gabe says back. “Unless—they eating spare tires now?”