What about the ground—gravel? brush? Was there a barbed-wire fence?
My mother screamed in a hoarse voice until her lungs emptied and there was silence.
Three classes of land meet there, my father said. His voice pulled tight with fear. Tribal trust, state, and fee. That’s why I’m asking.
Get out of the courtroom, get the damn hell out, my mother said. I don’t know.
All right, said my father. All right, keep going.
Afterward, after. He dragged me up to the round house. It took a while to get there. Was he marching me around? I was sick. I don’t remember. At the round house he untied me and pulled off the sack and it was . . . it was a pillowcase, a plain pink one. That was when I saw her. Just a girl. And her baby playing in the dust. The baby put her hands up into the light falling through the chinks in the pole logs. The baby had just learned to crawl, her arms gave out, but she made it to her mother. She was an Indian, she was an Indian girl, and I’d got the call from her. She’d come in on Friday and filed the papers. A quiet girl with such a pretty smile, pretty teeth, pink lipstick. Her hair was cut so nice. She wore a knit dress, pale purple. White shoes. And the baby was with her. I played with that baby in my office. So that’s who made the call that day. Her. Mayla Wolfskin.
I need that file, she said. My life depends on that file, she said.
She was thrown on the ground. Her hands were taped up behind her. The baby crawled over the dirt floor. She was wearing a ruffled yellow dress and her eyes, so tender. Like Mayla’s eyes. Big, brown eyes. Wide open. She saw everything and she was confused but she wasn’t crying because her mother was right there so she thought things were all right. But he had Mayla tied up, taped up. Mayla and I looked at each other. She didn’t blink just kept moving her eyes to the baby, then me, back to the baby. I knew she was saying to me I should take care of her baby. I nodded to her. Then he came in and he took off his pants, just kicked them off. He wore slacks. Every word sticks with me, every single word he said. The way he said things, in a dead voice, then cheerful, then dead again. Then amused. He said, I am really one sick fuck. I suppose I am one of those people who just hates Indians generally and especially for they were at odds with my folks way back but especially my feeling is that Indian women are—what he called us, I don’t want to say. He screamed at Mayla and said he loved her, yet she had another man’s baby, she did this to him. But he still wanted her. He still needed her. She had put him in this awkward position, he said, of loving her. You should be crated up and thrown in the lake for what you’ve done to my emotions! He said we have no standing under the law for a good reason and yet have continued to diminish the white man and to take his honor. I could be rich, but I’d rather have shown you, both of you, what you really are. I won’t get caught, he said. I’ve been boning up on law. Funny. Laugh. He nudged me with his shoe. I know as much law as a judge. Know any judges? I have no fear. Things are the wrong way around, he said. But here in this place I make things the right way around for me. The strong should rule the weak. Instead of the weak the strong! It is the weak who pull down the strong. But I won’t get caught.
I suppose I should have sent you down with your car, he suddenly turned on Mayla. But, honey, I couldn’t. I just felt so sorry for you and my heart split wide open. That’s love, huh? Love. I couldn’t do it. But I have to, you know. All your fucking shit’s in your car. You don’t need anything where you’re going. I’m sorry! I’m sorry! He struck Mayla, and struck me, and struck her again