The Only Good Indians(82)

“He … he wouldn’t—”

“Shouldn’t, wouldn’t,” Shaney says. “Did.”

“Just—just let me go,” Denorah says. “You win, okay? We can … this is between you and him, then, right? Why do you even need me?”

Shaney settles her weird eyes back on Denorah.

“You’re his calf,” she says, like that explains anything.

“You’re not really Crow, are you?” Denorah says.

“Elk,” Shaney says back with a grin.

“My mom’s on the way,” Denorah says.

“Good,” Shaney says back.

Denorah stares at her about this.

“What if I win?” she finally says.

“You won’t,” Shaney says. “You can’t.”

“I was,” Denorah says. “I am. Eighteen-sixteen.”

Denorah stands, staring into Shaney’s nightmare face the whole time.

“I don’t care what you are,” she says. “When you’re on this court, you’re mine.”

“And that’s precisely what I’m here to take away from you,” Shaney says back. “Before I take everything else.”

Denorah gives Shaney her back, steps out into the snow to collect the ball, comes back to the pad of concrete, and cleans the soles of her shoes on the opposite legs of her shorts.

“My ball, right?” she says.

Shaney doesn’t say yes and doesn’t say no, just takes the check pass.

Denorah walks to her place facing the goal, says, “It’s my ball, and”—pointing with her lips—“I’m putting it right there, and there’s not one single thing you can do about it.”

This is word for word what her dad used to tell her when she was a kid and they were playing in her granddad’s driveway, when she could hardly even hold the ball, when he would have to scoop her up under the arms at the last moment of the layup, hold her up to the basket.

But sometimes he’d set her up in defensive position, get loose in the shoulders, his head rocking back and forth, and look up to the goal, tell her he was going to put it right there, and there’s nothing Denorah can do about it.

Which is where it all started, she knows.

“What’s wrong with your back?” Denorah says, catching Shaney’s rolled ball under the sole of her right shoe.

“I’m dying,” Shaney says, easy and obvious as anything.

“Serious?”

“But not yet, don’t worry.”

Denorah isn’t sure what to make of this so she just looks to the opposite two corners of the court like confirming with her teammates, and then she feels her mouth curl into her dad’s reckless smile. Whatever this is, it’s about to happen.

Shaney, whatever she is—some Indian demon from way back, some monster her dad found buried on some hill out here, a ghost woman he left in a rolled-over car—she steps in, gets down into defensive stance, her long fingers ready, her teeth showing.

Denorah turns to the side, dribbling with her left and taking stock, and in her head she says a silent apology to Coach, for the move she’s about to try.

One thing about Coach, she does believe in the fundamentals. Nothing fancy, nothing showy. Three times already this season Denorah’s been benched for showing off. Once it was for circling the ball around her waist before a layup on a breakaway, never mind that the crowd all came to their feet for that. Another time it was for passing between a defender’s legs, which made that girl mad enough that she ended up getting kicked out a quarter later.

The third time Coach benched Denorah, it was for dribbling behind her back when there was no advantage to do it. Coach had been right, too—it had been completely for show, for joy, had been one hundred percent because Denorah could.

Never mind that she almost lost the ball, had to step long to keep up with it.

Alone on the little court at her house, though, she’s been practicing a new move.

About a third of the time, with no defender, when she’s holding her mouth just right and the wind’s in her favor, she can stick it.

Okay, one time so far she’s sort of nailed it. Everything but the actual shot at the end.

Still, “Bet they didn’t teach this at elk school,” she says, and then, before Shaney can react—using that moment of confusion—she flips the ball around her left hip with her right hand, more a bullet pass than a real dribble, one she has to hula her hips forward a smidge to allow.

The ball bounces once with her serious English on it and then it’s beelining for the right corner of the concrete pad and Denorah is already in motion, diving for it, her body blocking Shaney out behind her. Two out of every three times she’s done this at home—okay, nineteen out of twenty—she can’t catch the ball, has to run her effort off in the grass and snow. It’s nearly impossible to catch it, much less turn it back toward the bucket. It’s a move Coach would have outlawed for sure if she’d ever seen it. It’s a move the crowd would shake the roof off the gym for, if they ever saw it. More important, it’s a move that’ll break the heart of any defender, Denorah knows. More important than that, it’s the very last arrow in her quiver, and it’s already slashing across the court, is going to bounce out of bounds if Denorah doesn’t—