The Only Good Indians(74)

“Another fine job,” Gabriel says, walking away from this, kicking snow with his bare feet, his hands running through his hair. He sits on Victor Yellow Tail’s hood and stares into the fire, the drums beating, voices rising, his mind working, mouth muttering: Why did he think the kid was D, even? Why would he? It was … it was because the kid had been wearing a black jersey, right? And the last time Gabriel had seen the daughter, she’d been wearing white?

Still, was an inside-out jersey, plus long black hair, really enough for him to think Nate was Denorah? Was he not thinking right because Cass had just clipped his ear? Because Jo had just—Why was she even under that truck? Why was she home at all? Didn’t she work most nights?

“What the hell is happening here tonight?” Gabriel says, pushing away from the car and looking all around.

“Po’noka?” he says at last, trying it out like it might be the key that opens everything up.

What would an elk have to do with this, though? How could an elk make them all kill each other? Why would an elk even care about two-leggeds, unless the two-leggeds were shooting at them?

And why is he even thinking like that? Two-leggeds? Has he fallen so far back into himself that he’s sitting in Neesh’s lodge again, listening to the old bullshit stories? If he’s there again, though, then he’s there with Cass and Lewis and Ricky, he figures. Back when there were four of them.

He rubs that spot beside his eye.

“One little, two little, three little Indians,” he singsongs, and kind of laughs, kind of cries. It turns to coughing again, and when it won’t stop he stumbles to the camper, tries the locked door, then feels his way around to the outhouse. All he needs is tissue, some toilet paper, something for his nose or he’s going to suffocate.

When he swings the outhouse door open, Victor Yellow Tail is there, a bib of blood on his uniform shirt, his head lolling, his pistol in his hand like he had plans.

An elk mother will use her hooves when she can, but she’ll bite if she needs to.

Gabriel closes his eyes, opens them again, and Victor Yellow Tail is still there, still dead.

“Then there was me,” Gabriel mumbles, smiling a sloppy smile, and closes the door. It swings back open, so he shuts it again, and again and again and again, slamming it shut enough that none of this can even have happened.

But it did.

And he’s the only one still standing knee-deep in it all, he knows. He’s the one they’re going to say did it, who cares why. Because he’s an Indian with a Bad Track Record. Because a Tribal Police Officer Came Out. Because He Didn’t Like His Other Friend’s Fiancée. Because His Mind Boiled Out in a Sweat. Because His Murderer Friend Just Got Shot. Because the Great White Stepfather Stole All Their Land and Fed Them Bad Meat. Because the Game Warden Wouldn’t Let Him Get His Own Meat. Because His Father Reported Him for Stealing a Rifle. Because the Rifle Was Haunted by War. Because because because. He did it for all those reasons and whatever else the newspapers can dream up.

Unless he runs.

Unless he runs to the mountains and lives there the old way, never comes back down, even for beer. But, maybe just to go to one of his daughter’s games? Maybe just to stand by the Boss Ribs’s grave fence? And wherever Cass gets buried? And Lewis?

He shuffles up to the fire, opens his palms to that wonderful heat. He’s shivering, his teeth clanking against each other. He looks to the lodge, sprayed now with Nate’s blood, hates himself for being thrilled it’s not his daughter’s blood, and then he studies the old truck, its frame on the ground. Finally his eyes settle on the mounds out in the snow.

He goes there, past the dogs, and drops to his knees beside his best friend.

“It’s just you and me, man,” he says down to him.

He sits down, the snow not even cold anymore, even though one ass-cheek of his pants is flapping. He works his legs under Cassidy’s head, cradles his face, lowers his forehead to what’s left of his friend’s, and then he looks up fast, as far into the sky as he can.

“It wasn’t her, man,” he says, knocking his forehead into Cassidy’s twice, kind of hard. Love taps. “It wasn’t D, C.”

Cassidy just stares. His eyes don’t look the same direction anymore. In death, he’s an iguana. Gabriel braces himself for Cassidy’s mouth to open, for a great tongue to roll out, slap at something.

It wouldn’t be the worst thing this night’s had to offer.

“This is—this is goodbye, man,” Gabriel says. “I’m going to—they’re going to think it was me. And I guess it was, for Jo. And the kid, too. And you. Definitely you, man. You should have just—you should have pulled your shot an inch to the left, man.”

He drills the pad of his middle finger into the dot of scar tissue by his right eye, the same place he’s been touching since he was a kid.

“You always were a terrible shot, though,” he says, then closes his eyes hard. “But it wasn’t D,” he whispers, thrilled to be delivering this news. “It wasn’t D. That’s the main thing. She’s all right. Now I’m … I’m going up to live with the—”

When he looks up to the snow crunching then not crunching, you’re standing there, holding the Mauser across your hips, left hand ran all the way up the forestock, to the uneven checkering. It hurts to touch it, to even think about touching a rifle, but this is the only way now.