The Only Good Indians(69)

The dogs. His dogs.

All he came out here to do was shimmy under his truck, check the muffler, see if his black thermos is still there, if it was just bad luck that his friend had hauled an exactly matching thermos in from who-knew-where. Cassidy isn’t trying to solve the big mystery of what happened to his dogs. Five seconds ago, there wasn’t any big mystery. The dogs were just dogs, off doing dog things.

Like dying, evidently.

Like having their heads smashed in with … did the horses get free, stomp them? The dogs are forever harassing them. But still.

Cassidy looks over, the horses’ eyes shining in the dull glow from the dying fire, nostrils wide from this death in the air. They’re still in the pen, couldn’t have done this.

So.

He comes back to the closest dog, sees the guilty rock. He edges over, lowers himself to his knees, the crust of snow sharp against the top of his feet. Right beside the blood-crusted rock is one of Gabriel’s beers.

Cassidy is breathing hard now.

He looks over to the fire, to the lodge. To Gabriel, struggling to button his pants, having to hop on one leg so his other can be straight enough.

There’s nothing funny about him right now.

You can read Cassidy’s thoughts on his face, in the way his top lip is drawing up on one side: Good-time Gabe. Dog-killer Gabe. Gabe the bank robber.

Cassidy places his hand to the rock and, instead of hauling it up immediately, senses a presence the same way Victor Yellow Tail did. Not you this time, but—a pair of sudden and out-of-place eyes looking right at him from just a few yards away.

The Crow, the one who lives here, the one who leaves her scent everywhere, especially in her clothes. She’s under the old truck just like she said she would be, one of her arms up in the chassis for that glasspack, but now she’s motionless, doesn’t know what this night is trying to turn into. “Is it there?” Cassidy says across to her, not loud enough for Gabriel to hear, and the Crow doesn’t answer. “Never mind,” he says, standing with the black thermos. “I already know.”

With that he steps out, is standing by Gabriel’s truck.

He pulls the passenger door open for the dome light.

Gabriel cocks his head over, says, “Cass?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” Cassidy says.

Gabriel steps closer, eyes squinted.

He’s heard his friend dial his tone down like this, but never for him, and not for years, probably not since … narrow your eyes so you can inhale it … not since Cassidy’s big brother went to prison and Cassidy drank that whole bottle and broke into the high school at night, to wrench his brother’s old locker door off, save it for him.

“Notice what?” Gabriel says, still edging in. “That I brought a lot of cold-ass water into that sorry excuse for a lodge, and then you spilled it all?”

Cassidy’s body shudders with a sick laugh.

He punctuates it by slamming the thermos into the passenger side mirror of Gabriel’s truck. The glass shatters, the frame swinging down on the lower part of the bracket still bolted to the door, the top arm scratching a raw arc into the paint.

“What the hell!” Gabriel says, in close now, leading with his chest.

Cassidy stands right into him for once, says, “Let me see your hand.”

Gabriel backs up.

Cassidy reaches across, takes Gabriel’s left hand in his own, turns it over for inspection. “She hardly even bit you,” he says about the two punctures ringed with bruise.

“What are you—?”

“Is that how you justified it to yourself?” Cassidy goes on.

“The—” Gabe says, then sees it in Cassidy’s eyes: “The dogs, no, yeah, I mean—that wasn’t, I was going to—”

“Not the dogs,” Cassidy says. “The money, Gabe. There was nine hundred dollars in there, man.”

“In where?”

Cassidy spins the black thermos into Gabe’s chest, says, “You know where.”

Gabe fumble-catches the thermos, sets it purposefully onto the hood of his truck.

“You think I have nine hundred dollars on me?” he says, incredulous. “You think I’ve ever had nine hundred dollars to my name all at once?” To prove his innocence he shoves both hands into his pockets, rabbit-ears them back out all at once, five twenties fluttering out and down.

“I just got that from Victor,” he says. “You saw, you were there, man.”

“And that?” Cassidy says about his other hand, still wrapped in a fist, around whatever was in that pocket.

Gabriel looks down at that hand like he wants to know, too.

But he can feel it against his palm, too, can’t he?

He steps back from Cassidy.

“I don’t—this isn’t mine,” he says. “It wasn’t here when I took those pants off.”

“What?” Cassidy says, reaching in.

Gabriel steps back again. “Are these even mine?” he says, looking down to his pants.

“Show me,” Cassidy says, his voice low and no bullshit.

Gabriel locks eyes with him, says, “Listen, I don’t understand what’s—” and holds his hand out between them, palm up, and opens his fingers, peek-looking at whatever he’s holding.

It’s the ring. The one Cassidy was keeping at the bottom of the thermos, for the Crow.