The Only Good Indians(78)

She opens her hand for the ball and Denorah underhands it back to her.

“Why’s the sweat lodge burning?” Denorah asks.

“They used plastic for the frame,” Shaney says with an amused shake of the head. “It kind of melts in the heat, I guess? Whole thing collapsed in on the rocks. They told me to watch it, make sure it doesn’t catch the grass.”

Denorah nods. That sounds about right for her dad.

“Even Nathan rode a horse?” she says, incredulous. “He’s always being all gangster.”

“Two hundred years ago, the gangsters rode war ponies,” Shaney says, and shuts the truck door with her hip. “Twenty-one till they get back? I want to see if your dad was lying about what you can do out there.”

Denorah looks to the goal poking up from the grass maybe fifteen yards to the left of them, over from the outhouse. It’s a square, rotting-away backboard nailed flush to a tribal utility pole—the kind of court where if you don’t slash in from the baseline for a layup, then where you come down, it’s into a rake of creosote splinters.

“Got a game this afternoon,” Denorah says.

Shaney nods, looks out to the grey trees, like for the men.

“You can hang in the camper if you’re cold,” she says. “Or sit in the truck. I think they broke all the lawn chairs around the fire last night.”

She’s right: the chair by the dead fire is folded over, the one by the lodge is bent in on itself, and the other is sideways, thrown out in the grass and snow.

“Did you play?” Denorah asks. “In high school, I mean.”

“I used to eat basketballs, little girl,” Shaney says, clapping the ball hard in her hands, and Denorah knows right then she’s not sitting in any camper, she’s not sitting behind the steering wheel of any truck.

“Maybe just twenty-one,” she says to Shaney. “Until they get back.”

“Sure your coach won’t mind?”

“Not if I play like I play, she won’t.”

“How old are you?” Shaney asks, the crow’s feet around her eyes crinkling with amusement.

“How old are you?” Denorah says right back.

Shaney hooks her head for Denorah to fall in. Denorah does, and, turning away from the drive, she sees that her dad’s windshield is caved in on the passenger side. It stops her for a moment, but that could be anything. Knowing him, he’s got six different stories cooking already for what happened, each more epic and unbelievable than the last, none of them involving him being at fault.

The seventh story will probably be about how he needs this forty dollars toward a new windshield. Does his Finals Girl want him to freeze, come January?

Denorah follows the path Shaney’s picking through the hard snow. It’s rocks and dry patches, but it gets them there without wet feet or bleeding shins.

Shaney bounces the ball high off the concrete and tracks it while working a hair tie off her wrist, gathering her hair behind her neck. On the ball’s third bounce she rabbits forward, snatches it on the way to the bucket, then stops on a dime, fakes once, and goes up, executing a neat little fadeaway that banks in like money.

“Your coach let you Reggie Miller your left foot out like that?” Denorah says, down on one knee to retie her right shoe.

“Crow ball,” Shaney says. “What do y’all play up here? Big on the fundamentals, all that boring-ass stuff?”

Denorah switches to her other shoe, battens it down tight, making sure the bows are even. Not because she’s superstitious but because it makes sense to have them both the same.

“Done stalling yet?” Shaney says from the pole, and snaps a bounce pass across.

Denorah has to stand fast to catch it at her stomach, keep it from slamming into her face.

Shaney has her by six inches, she guesses. But tall girls are never the ball handlers, at least not in small schools—not in reservation schools. Tall girls get trained on boxing out, on rebounding, on posting up and setting screens, using their hips and elbows. All of which a team needs to win, for sure. None of which are much use one-on-one, which is a game of slashing, of stopping and popping.

Denorah dribbles once to get the right feel for this ball, this court.

“Warm up?” Shaney says, bouncing in place.

Denorah snaps the ball back to her, says, “So you can clock my dominant hand, my favorite place at the top of the key?”

Shaney chuckles, says, “There’s no key out here, little girl. Just you and me.”

“The Blackfeet and the Crow …” Denorah says.

“If that’s how you want to look at it,” Shaney says, stepping out to what would be the free-throw line and waiting for Denorah to step into position in front of her.

Denorah takes her time, won’t be rushed.

“Don’t want to wear you out for your big game or anything,” Shaney says with a little bit of bite, dropping the ball in front of her for Denorah to check.

Denorah takes the ball in both hands, spins it back toward herself, and makes a show of looking around, says, “What, there another baller out here I’m not seeing?”

“Cocky, I like that,” Shaney says, taking the ball back. “Just like your dad.”

“Done stalling yet?” Denorah says, getting down in the stance, palms up, tapping her forearms on the outside of her knees twice like activating Defense Mode.