The Only Good Indians(65)

On his rounded little screen there’s nothing and nothing and then some more nothing on top of that, and then—and then a tall dog trots through on some dog mission or another.

Gabe’s father grunts approval and Gabe looks over to him like, What? Like, This is what passes for action?

His father chins Gabe back to the television.

The same nothing, like bank robbers have looped the footage, are cracking into the IGA, stealing all the heads of lettuce they want, for their big salad enterprise.

Gabe snickers.

“Listen—” he says, making to go, to be anywhere else than this, there’s got to be better visions, but now there’s a flurry of motion on-screen.

Not dogs this time. Boys. Four of them.

The skin around Gabe’s eyes draws in. Either in the sweat lodge or his father’s living room, he doesn’t know, and it doesn’t matter.

They were twelve then. Him and Lewis, Cass and Ricky.

What they have between them is a single Walkman with that one tape Cass had stolen from his big brother Arthur.

Lewis is first.

He puts the headphones on, Cass holds the Walkman out, keeping the cable free, and Lewis nods with the synthesizer the way it starts out, and then he looks around at Gabe and Ricky and Cass, his face deadly serious, and the way his head is bobbing, he lets that infect the rest of his body.

When the beat finds his hand, his fingertips lift out to the side in some Egyptian pose that’s already crinkling back up along his arm, hitting his neck, throwing his head to the side like he can’t help it, and around him Cass and Ricky and Gabe are bouncing with it.

This is how you learn to break-dance.

Gabe smiles, watching the four of them all those years ago, Lewis already passing the headphones to the next popper-and-locker, holding the Walkman himself now, the music still in his head.

It always will be, Gabe remembers thinking. Knowing. Promising.

It always will be.

And beside him now, his father is looking past the television screen, to the walls of his living room, to his baseboards, which are … are crawling with—

Cass.

It’s Cass sitting beside Gabe, not his father. They’re in the sweat lodge.

Gabe breathes in deep, the hot air roiling in his chest, cooking him from the inside, and he tries to muster a smile because they’re the turkeys in the oven now, aren’t they? But his lips are traitors, are slugs, are so far from his face. When he looks across to check on the kid, make sure he hasn’t passed out onto the rocks, he sees two more shapes sitting there, eyes boring down into the heat.

Ricky.

Lewis.

Except … except, Ricky, his face is leaking down, is beaten in, stomped in, and Lewis, he’s starting to look up, and there’s finger holes of light poking through his chest, and … and—

Gabe stumbles up into the ceiling of the lodge and dog hair rains down.

Some of it finds the rocks, hisses a bitter taste into the air.

“I’ve got—I’ve got to,” he says, ducking now, his hand on Cass’s shoulder, and Cass doesn’t stop him from feeling his way around to the flap, birthing himself naked out into the night air.

A moment later, gasping the coolness in, Victor’s drum loop filling all the empty spaces in the darkness, the cooler comes through the flap as well, for Gabe to fill. Because somehow this ordeal isn’t over yet.

Gabe leans back, stares up into the wash of stars.

Let Jo walk up, look him up and down, shake her head. So he’s not the toughest Indian in the world. He is the thirstiest, though, he’s pretty sure. And not for stale water from Cass’s tank.

He’s got his own cooler just over there in the truck, right?

He finds the Mauser by the trash barrels, uses it like a cane for a few steps, leaves it against Victor’s cruiser, pats the car’s hood like thanking it for holding this for him. He leans on one of the chairs to steady himself and looks all around, taking everything in.

Except for the camper and the trucks, it could be two hundred years ago, he’s pretty sure. Not a single electric light for miles in any direction. But he’s glad it’s not two hundred years ago, too. Two hundred years ago there wouldn’t have been bottles of chilled beer in the cab of his truck.

When he shakes free of the chair to get some of that cold-cold beer, Cass’s shirt tangles in his wet fingers. He holds it over his crotch in case Jo’s about to jump up from behind Victor’s car.

Speaking of: “Um, firekeeper?” Gabe says all around.

Nothing.

“Hunh,” he says, and finally settles his eyes on the outhouse just back from the camper, nods about the hanging lantern in there, glowing yellow.

Victor’s in the can.

Gabe grins a who-cares? grin, pushes off the side of the cruiser he’s staggered into again somehow.

It’s so cool out here. So perfect. The snow crunching under the soles of his feet is the best thing ever.

At his truck he stabs an arm in through the open passenger window, flips the cooler open, shoves his hand down into the water that used to be ice. There’s still chunks in there, even.

He draws a beer out to himself, rubs the cold bottle all over his face, his chest, his arms. The hiss of it cracking open is amazing, the mist swirling up the best promise ever.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” Gabe whispers into the mouth of the bottle, and tips it up, tries to go slow so he won’t throw up.