The Only Good Indians(55)

“Great,” Cassidy says. “Pollute the rocks we’re going to be breathing.”

“Like I can fail the Breathalyzer any harder?” Gabe says back.

“So what’s with the antique?” Cassidy says about the rifle across Gabe’s lap.

“Old man finally parted with it,” Gabe says, holding it across to Cassidy, around the heat of the fire.

Cassidy racks the bolt back, clears it, studies the long goofy stock.

“Think it’s for NBA players,” Gabe says. “Forestock’s long like that so they don’t have to bend their arms too much.”

“It shoot straight?” Cassidy asks, shouldering it, training it out into the darkness, one eye shut.

“Like anybody still has shells for something that old?” Gabe says. “He only shot bird shot and rock salt through it, yeah?”

“The Great Mouse War,” Cassidy says, fake-pulling the trigger. “I bet I got something that’d work. You know when Ricky—I went out to Williston to get his stuff.”

“Oh yeah. What’d he have?”

“Nothing. His dad said he was supposed to have all their rifles, but his shit’d been cleaned out a crew or two ago.”

“Tighty-whities.”

“All that was left of the rifles was a bag of random-ass shells. Think they’re still in the glove compartment, probably, with whatever kid book Lewis was reading back then.”

Gabe leans forward to see the old Chevy up on blocks.

“Good you put that pony out to pasture,” he says. “She got stuck everywhere, man.”

Cassidy sets the gun back against the trash barrel, away from the fire.

“I’m going to fix it up,” he says. “Body’s still good, mostly. Just need to find a hood, and a bed. Maybe some fenders, too. An engine, some tires.”

“Still hide your shit in it for safekeeping?”

Cassidy breathes in, looks over to the eye shine of one of the horses, watching them, its big ears probably catching every word, saving them for later.

“Can’t even keep the ground squirrels out of it,” Cassidy says what he knows is a moment too late.

Gabe knows about the thermos? How can he?

“Got just the gun for taking care of rodents,” Gabe says back, nodding across to the Mauser. “Take it instead of the cash, for this?”

“You really think it still shoots?” Cassidy says.

“No reason it wouldn’t.”

“Gimme a minute,” Cassidy says. “I’m weighing you giving me something that’s old and broke and stolen against you being too broke to ever pay me money you owe me.”

“Ha, ha, ha, ha,” Gabe says, his mouth open wide enough for a laugh this slow and fake. “You can sell it for a hundred fifty, I bet. Maybe more if it’s historical.”

“And when your dad comes looking for it?”

“Sell it to him, he wants it again. But he gave it to me free and clear, Scout’s honor.”

Gabe rabbit-ears his first two fingers up but then lowers the index, turns his hand around slow to flip Cassidy off at close range.

“Sure, leave it, whatever,” Cassidy says.

“Only if it’s cool with JoJo, man,” Gabe says.

“She doesn’t like it when you call her that,” Cassidy says for the fiftieth time this month.

“It’s like ‘yo-yo,’ but with J’s, man,” Gabe says, and Cassidy isn’t sure whether Gabe’s calling Jo a toy or whether he’s talking about joints. Either way, he flips him back off, both hands, which is when headlights wash across both of them like a snapshot.





SHIRTS AND SKINS


It’s not the same car you rode to the reservation in yesterday, but it’s the same dad, the same son.

The dad is standing from the open door of the car, his headlights still splashing white across Gabriel and Cassidy, their hands up to protect their eyes, their shadows blasting back across the big pile of moldy laundry behind them and then the horse pens and all the darkness past that, where you’re standing, the tips of your long hair lifting from the hot air the car was pushing in front of it.

“We surrender, we surrender!” Gabriel calls out, trying to duck away from all that brightness.

The dad reaches down, turns the lights off, and while he’s leaned down, his son shakes his head a bit in disgust, says, “So these clowns are tradish?”

“It’s not about the sweat,” his dad says, not really using his lips, just his voice.

It’s not about the sweat, you repeat, trying to keep your face perfectly still like that. It almost works, except you’re pretty sure your eyes are grinning.

The night’s about to start.

“Then what is it about?” the boy asks.

The dad sits back down into the car, clicks the middle console open like he forgot something. “Look at these two jokers,” he says, face tilted down. “They were you, twenty years ago.”

Cassidy is shooting a spurt of water between his teeth at Gabriel, and Gabriel, trying to avoid it, is collapsing one side of his chair, and Cassidy is trying to save the chair from folding down on itself.

The boy has to chuckle.

“They’re alive,” he says.