The Only Good Indians(77)

The same as he’s never told her his version of that elk massacre, he’s also never told her how his friend died at the lake. Just that that’s where his body was. To talk about what actually happened might get him in Death’s crosshairs, the way he thinks. So, because he won’t speak directly about that story, she kind of believes it, in spite of her mother’s warning. But still, her dad’s got to think of that dead friend still, doesn’t he, even if he won’t talk about him out loud? How could he not? Every time he’s out here to see Cassidy he probably stops halfway across the cattle guard and looks back to Duck Lake. He says that when his other dead friend Ricky found his lake-dead friend, Ricky got hauled into jail himself. Not because he did it—everybody knew who did it—but because he’d had to break into one of the summer people’s lake houses over there to call in about that body, and the cops couldn’t look past a breaking-and-entering, not when there was property damage.

It was all part of a lesson her dad was trying to impart, Denorah’s pretty sure, which was why he was even talking about the whole thing at all, but she isn’t sure if it was a warning against calling the cops or against finding a dead body. Maybe both at once? Probably the idea was that when you see somebody dead and floating like that, you just keep walking, let somebody else find it, or nobody.

She knows the joke about how Indians are crabs in a bucket, always pulling down the one that’s about to crawl out, but she thinks it’s more like they’re old-time plow horses, all just walking straight down their own row, trying not to see what’s going on right next to them.

Speaking of horses: Cassidy’s?

Last time she was out, her dad had let her sit up on that paint horse, the one Jolene calls Calico, like a cat, but that was … was it last summer? Was Jolene living here by then? Yeah, she was. That was when her dad was still calling her Dolly, like the best joke ever, and Cassidy had even played along at first, faking like he had a beard—like, if his girlfriend was Dolly, that meant he was Kenny, ha ha ha. It had been so stupid that it had been hard for Denorah not to smile about it. The way they were fooling around so natural made her kind of see her dad and Cassidy twenty years ago. It had been a good day. But now the pens are empty, the gate flapping. Cassidy wouldn’t have sold his Indian ponies, though. They’re probably grazing in some meadow, won’t trail back to the barn until dark.

Also: Who cares?

Denorah’s here for forty dollars, not to conduct the Big Horse Poll and Headcount.

She nods to herself about this and leans up the road, follows its loop around and down, keeping to the ruts because the snow’s crusted hard and she doesn’t need to hyperextend a knee before tonight’s game.

She’s almost to Jolene’s truck when the driver’s door opens and Jolene cocks her right foot up on the duct-taped armrest, to tie a high-top tighter.

Her long hair blows out over her knee.

“Hey,” Denorah calls ahead, to keep from getting shot.

Jolene flinches around, clears her hair from her face, from her blown-red right eye, and she isn’t Jolene.

“Whoah,” Denorah says, stopping hard, looking around at everything all at once, to be sure this is still Cassidy’s place.

Not-Jo snickers, keeps tying her laces.

“Who are you?” Denorah asks.

“Don’t worry,” Not-Jo says, “this isn’t a raiding party, little girl.”

“Little girl?”

“Young lady?” Not-Jo stands from the truck, sways her back in, extending her arms to either side, wrists up, stretching. It’s a full-body yawn. She’s wearing black gym shorts and a faded yellow T-shirt with the arms scissored off, the neck cut out, maroon sports bra.

“Where’s Jolene?” Denorah says, not even trying to reel the accusation in.

“You’re Gabriel’s girl,” this woman says, angling her head over to study Denorah. “You do look like him. That’s not an insult.”

“You’re Crow, aren’t you?” Denorah says.

“Your dad would have been pretty—I mean, if he was a girl,” the woman says. “I’m Shaney, Shaney Holds. Jolene’s best cousin. Maybe the best cousin of all time, jury’s still out on that one.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Getting interrogated by a kid?” this “Shaney” says with a smile, then reaches importantly back into Jo’s truck and hauls out a basketball, claps it in front of her like something’s starting.

“You play, right?” she says, passing the ball across to Denorah. “Your dad says you’re pretty good.”

“Where is he, do you know?” Denorah says, casting around Cassidy’s place a third time.

“Good luck with that,” Shaney says with a smile.

“What do you mean?”

“That kid … Nate?”

“Nathan Yellow Tail.”

“He heard the dogs bawling after something down that way,” Shaney says, hooking her chin downhill to where the trees start. “His dad, that big cop guy, he thought it would be all super-Indian if they rode horses down to check it out.”

“My dad can ride?” Denorah says.

“Just glad they’re gone,” Shaney says. “I can’t shoot the ball when the horses are in their pen. I think one of them’s gun shy or something, I don’t know. Gets them all riled up. But, now that they’re gone …”