dogs. I walked across the road and found the path Cappy and I had marked out. I had to use my flashlight but switched it off when a car crested the rise on the gravel road. Up near the overlook, we’d already made the hole. I wrapped the rifle and ammo tight in the garbage bags and buried it, scattered leaves, brush, twigs back over the top. At least by the light of a three-quarter moon the place looked undisturbed. I drank some water and started walking back to the powwow grounds. I went back along the same paths, around the same sloughs, down the old two-track dirt roads, the woods paths that a few still cleared to log out their firewood. I crossed a horse pasture and could hear the drums from there, still going, now forty-nine songs and moccasin games. People stayed awake all night gambling in some of the tents. I made it back to our tent and unzipped the bug-proof screen. Cappy was awake. Randall gone. Cappy asked me how it went.
Smooth, I said. I think it went smooth.
Good, he said. We lay on our backs, awake. Doe would have gone home by now and found his house broken into, his rifle gone. He’d have called the BIA/tribal police. There wasn’t any way he’d know it was me. But I didn’t know how I could face him anyway.
Mornings were always the best times—waking with the cool air stirring along the fabric walls. Smelling coffee, bannock, eggs, and sausage. Outside, sun and fresh alfalfa cut for the horses. Suzette and Josey were making their plans for the day and feeding their grandchildren on flimsy paper plates, which always bent or disintegrated beneath the load of food.
Ey! Here. Put another plate underneath, you.
The children walked hunched over to the edge of the grass and ate close to the ground. Every bite was good. The sisters had a Coleman gas stove and a propane tank. They fried bacon and cooked bannock with the grease. Their scrambled eggs were light, fluffy, never burnt. Bread was toasted on the hot griddle. There was a open jar of Juneberry jam. Another of wild plum. They knew how to feed boys. A couple hours after hot breakfast there was cold breakfast—watermelon, cereal, cold bannock, soft butter, and meat. They owned a magnificent blue-speckled enameled tin coffeepot, and a stainless steel one, too, just for tea. The lawn chairs at the camp were always full of gossiping men, and the RV started out crawling with children until one of the sisters put a stop to it and locked them out. After cold breakfast, the sisters made piles of sandwiches, stashed them in the cooler under supervision of their daughters. They retired into the RV to prepare themselves for the day’s Grand Entry. Nothing could disturb them. Not pleas to use their bathroom, screams of vengeance from fighting boys, or their daughters’ feigned panic. The scent of burning sweetgrass wafted from the little pull-down screen windows. Suzette and Josey took their regalia very seriously and made sure all of the bad looks from other women, the grudge thoughts or snapping eyes, were removed from their cloth and beads by the smoke. And their own thoughts, too, perhaps, for their husbands’ eyes were known to roam although they had no proof. The interior of the RV, so cunningly fitted with cabinets and fold-up beds, drawers, cupboards, hidden chests, a tiny toilet, was neatened and perfected. When they emerged, one of them padlocked the door shut from the outside and stashed the key in the beaded striker purse or knife sheath that hung from her belt. They moved off in unison, their hair braided long with mink pelts, gray only at the temples. Grandly, gracefully, they entered the flow of the dancers. Their buckskin fringe swayed with dreamlike precision. Everybody liked to watch them, to see if they’d be thrown off by the swirl of intertribal, when anybody and everyone entered the arena. Little boys in half a grass dance outfit copied big boy moves and knocked against Suzette and Josey. Little girls with eyes glazed in concentration jingle-hopped after their glamorous sisters and tripped into their path. Suzette and Josey did not falter. They talked to each other, broke into laughter, never missed a beat or disrupted the even sway of fringe on their sleeves, shawls, and yokes.
Two skins for each dress, said Cappy. And probably another skin’s worth of fringe. If they fell on top