Marian Palaia - Given World

• • •

Summer started to fade in August, with snow already falling on the Front Range. They watched from the couch behind the theater, where in the sun it was still warm, but wouldn’t be for long.

“We should go camping,” she said, “before it’s too late.”

“Like Lewis and Clark.”

“Sort of. Only someone needs to be Sacajawea.”

“Want to flip for it?”

“Nah. You be her. You’d be better at it. I’ll watch and learn. For later.”

“Deal,” he said, wishing there was just one thing he could change: that everything hadn’t gone and got all fucked up. By him. That he wasn’t such a coward.

They packed sleeping bags and food out to a cottonwood-shaded beach by the river, a few miles east of town; cooked corn and potatoes over a fire, gnawed on too-rare elk, and sipped on a pint of Southern Comfort Darrell had brought because he thought she might like it. She liked it okay, and it made her less shy. She asked about his family; why he didn’t live with his parents.

“Parents,” he repeated, like it was a word in an unfamiliar language. “Mom and Dad.” He poked at a smoldering chunk of wood until it reluctantly caught fire again, and tossed the stick aside. “I don’t know a lot about my father, except he was a mix — a mutt Indian — and a wanderer. They say he was a pretty smart guy, a good businessman, like. I don’t know if I ever even met him. If I did, I don’t remember. I’m not even sure he’s still alive, but I guess someone would tell me if he wasn’t.”

He looked down at his hands, spread his fingers wide, and put his fingertips together like he was fixing to play here’s the church and here’s the steeple. But he didn’t even know that rhyme. “My mom came from Browning, and she ran off with the carnival. She actually did that. She stands on a stage and lets a guy throw knives at her.”

“At her?”

“Around her. It’s an act.”

“Wow. That’s kind of cool.”

“Yeah, unless you’re her kid.”

“Oh, right.”

“It’s okay.” He picked up the stick again and dug a trough in the dirt. “I guess I don’t blame her. There’s not much here, is there?”

“There’s stuff,” Riley said, and shrugged. “Did you ever live with her?”

“Once when I was little and she stayed put for a few months, down in Wyoming. But I’ve lived with my uncle and my cousin Leonard since I was four or five. That’s home.”

“So Leonard’s your brother, pretty much, right?”

He thought about not saying anything, or making something up, but there was no good reason to do either of those things, so he told her how Leonard had fallen through the river ice the past winter, trying to free a goose whose foot was frozen to it. “I tried to get out to him, to pull him back, but the current got him before I could. I could see him under the ice for a few minutes, and then he was gone. We still haven’t found him.”

He remembered what Leonard was trying to say as he headed out onto the ice. “Geese muhmuhmuhmuhmate for life,” he’d said. “She needs to go back to her muhmuhmuhmuh— Oh fuck it.”

Darrell leaned his forehead into hers and made her look into his eyes. “If you’re going to go through the ice, do it on a lake. Or better yet, a pond. Preferably a shallow one.”

“Then wait for you?”

“That’s right.”

“What happened to the goose?”

“Went back to her mate, I guess. Leonard got her foot unstuck before the river opened up.”

She leaned into him, hard, and he had to lean back into her, or fall over.

When it got dark, they zipped their sleeping bags together against the cold and slid in, lying on their backs while Darrell pointed out constellations and told her their Indian names. One was called “Seven Dancing Girls.”

“You made that up,” she said.

“I did not. Otherwise there’d only be one dancing girl.”

They fell asleep side by side, but woke fully tangled front to front as the sun cleared the canyon wall. Darrell tried to pull away even before he had to, but her legs locked him in and her hips anticipated every move. A rodeo cowboy, he thought, trying to make eight seconds on a saddle bronc. Positions somehow reversed, but he was past the point of no return. When she finally let him go, he pushed himself up so he could see her face, blew out a long, uneven breath, and said, “God you’re strong.”

He could tell she was trying really hard not to smile with her mouth, but her eyes gave her away. “Now I know,” she said.

“Know what, exactly?”

“What all the excitement’s about.”

“Does that mean you liked it?”

She put her hands flat on the sides of his face and stared at him. She looked briefly insane. “Liked what?” He laughed. His hair curtained both their faces. She grabbed a handful and pulled, but it didn’t hurt.

Later, walking back, she nonchalantly aimed her chin at the Little Rockies range and said, “That’s where I’m going to spread my share of Mick’s ashes when they find him.”

He was not surprised by what she said, or that she didn’t attempt any kind of foreword to the statement. M for Mick. He saw her reach over her shoulder to touch the tattoo, like she was making sure it hadn’t disappeared in the night.

“You want to tell me?”

“He went missing in a tunnel or something. They haven’t said very much about it. He was only about two months away from getting out.”

“How long ago?”

“Three years. Four months. Nine days.” She stopped, picked up a rock, inspected it and threw it toward the mountains. “A long time.” She walked on. “If he was here right now, he’d tell us what that rock is made of. Its whole entire history.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Me too.” She slowed down and let him walk beside her. “That’s why my parents don’t really care what I do, so long as I do it around here.”

“I bet they care.”

“Yeah, I just meant they don’t track me or tell me.”

“Do you want them to?”

“Sometimes.”

“I know what you mean.”

“I know you do. That’s why I told you.”

He’d meant to tell her some things too: about how his lottery number was too low, about how he’d agreed to enlist if they’d let him wait for a while, on account of Leonard and his uncle. Since that first day, he’d meant to.

A few days after the camping trip he borrowed the work truck and came back, sooner than he usually would. He held her against the wall behind the theater, tipped her chin up, and kissed her. He locked her in with his long arms, and told her. For a few endless seconds she didn’t move. Then she pushed him away. Her eyes were crazy.

“I hate you.”

He grabbed her wrist and tried to pull her to him. “Don’t—”

“Shut up shut up shut up.” She twisted out of his grip, backed up and closed her eyes. She shook her head so hard her face and hair were a blur.

He knew there was nothing he could say to make it right; that anything he said would only make it worse.

She stopped shaking her head and tilted it backward, opened her eyes toward the cloud-covered sun, as if she were waiting for it to show and blind her. She was holding herself so tightly he thought she might crack a bone inside with just skin and muscle. He took a step forward, and when she didn’t move reached out and put his hands on her shoulders. She put the heels of her hands over her eyes for a few seconds and then dragged her fingers down the sides of her face and her neck until they reached his. She whispered, “Don’t go.”

“I have to. I made a deal. I’m already in.”

“No you aren’t. Stay. The rez will hide you.”

“Not forever. They’ll find me. They’ll put me in jail.”