TWENTY-SEVEN

Lola waited until it was nearly dark to return to the ranch. She treated Margaret to a substantial meal in town, followed by ice cream, by way of apology for yet again abandoning their vacation. Margaret didn’t seem to mind, bouncing in her booster seat.

“I get to see Jemalina! And Pal and Delbert. Faster, Mommy.”

She seemed to have forgotten about the bad truck. Lola hadn’t. The ride to the ranch in the near-dark was too reminiscent of the encounter. Yet she drove slowly, taking time to formulate a plan for approaching Pal. She’d have the element of surprise, given that Pal wasn’t expecting them. That was good. Lola usually soft-pedaled her interviews with most people, starting with the safe stuff, edging so innocuously into dangerous territory that by the time they realized that the nature of her questions had changed, they’d already answered enough of the crucial ones. That approach, she suspected, wouldn’t work with Pal, not with her fists-up approach to even an innocent “How are you?” Lola would hit her hard with all the information she’d gleaned, without letting on that so far, no one who’d been there the night Mike was killed had gone on the record. All she had were second-hand accounts, as inadmissible in a story as they were in court.

The ranch, nestled within its sagebrush-dotted bowl, looked almost welcoming as Lola pulled up. I’ve been in Wyoming too long if this place looks good to me, she thought. Long enough to appreciate the way Pal’s family had tucked the house below the ridges, sheltered from the screaming winds, which were annoying enough in summer but must have been punishing and potentially deadly in winter’s subzero fury. Long enough to take note of the fact that, despite its haphazard add-ons and indifference to paint, the house was solidly constructed, unlike the decrepit-upon-arrival bungalows that the Bureau of Indians Affairs had assigned to the reservation to replace the tribes’ practical and serviceable lodges. Long enough to have studied its layout, the proximity of house to calving shed, a sign that the ranchers cared enough about their livestock to give them a strong start in life. The house faced east, catching the morning sunlight. Lola wondered if the Joneses had copied the tradition of their Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone neighbors. But someone—Lola decided to credit the first woman who lived there—had also insisted upon a big window facing west, over the kitchen sink, to allow a ranch wife moving slowly through the end of her day’s labor the luxury of the evening alpenglow highlighting the peaks of the Winds. She herself had often halted, the dish in her hand only half-scrubbed, to watch as the sinking sun filled the sky with flame.

She sat in the truck, delaying the inevitable confrontation with Pal, watching as Margaret and Bub ran for the door, Bub swerving away toward safety as Jemalina made a beeline for Margaret. Not once, Lola thought as she hefted their bags and trudged behind them to the house, had the chicken pecked Margaret, despite the child’s increasing demands upon its attention. Margaret flung open the door and disappeared inside, returning a moment later.

“She’s not here.”

Lola hefted Margaret. The sun still wobbled atop the peaks, but much of the kitchen already lay in darkness. Lola flipped the switch and pointed to the bare space beside the door. “Her shoes are gone. About time she figured out not to run in the heat of day.”

“I want to stay up until she gets back.”

“Not a chance.” Lola carried Margaret back to the bedroom. There would be no distractions when she talked to Pal, Lola decided.

Margaret’s eyebrows met above her nose. Her lower lip pooched out. She crossed her arms over her chest.

Lola braced herself for another tantrum. Heaven help her if Margaret were entering a new phase, one that involved regular detonations. A creaking sound came from beneath the bed. Lola bit her lip to hide a smile. For the first time, she gave thanks for the chicken’s presence. “You,” she said to Margaret. “In bed. Now.” She bent and looked under the bed. “And you, out of the house,” she said to the chicken nesting contentedly on a folded towel that had somehow found its way beneath the bed. She clapped her hands at the edge of the bed, dodging the chicken’s feint toward her ankles as it beat a flapping retreat.

She pressed her lips to Margaret’s forehead and told Bub to stay. In the kitchen, she fetched the bourbon bottle and two glasses and went out onto the porch to wait for Pal.

Lola had thought to surprise Pal. Instead, Pal turned the tables.

“Hey.”

The voice reached her as she stepped onto the porch.

“Jesus Christ!” Lola jumped, dropping the bottle and glasses. Pal reached from the shadows to rescue the bottle. The glasses rolled somehow intact from the floorboards into the dirt.

“Leave them,” said Pal. “We don’t need them.” She sat down on the step, unscrewed the bottle cap, took a pull, and held it up to Lola, who caught a whiff of sweat and dust.

Lola took the bottle. “You scared the crap out of me. Where’d you come from?” She lifted the bottle to her lips and tried not to make a face. She’d never developed a taste for bourbon’s sweetness.

“From my run. Saw your truck and decided to wait out here for you. What brings you back? The Tetons not enough fun for you?”

Lola took a minute to appreciate the fact that Pal was doing to her just what she’d hoped to do with Pal, needling her, keeping her off balance. Pal knew good and well the Tetons weren’t a day trip. Lola decided not to answer. She lowered herself to the step beside Pal and tucked her feet up beside her. “Aren’t you worried about snakes, sitting down here like this?”

Pal lifted a shoulder. “Not really. You can hear them coming.”

“How’s that?”

“Listen. What do you hear?”

Lola heard what she always did. The wind, reduced to a sweet susurration, mild-mannered in the evening compared to its daytime shriek. Jemalina, high-stepping around the yard, head bobbing low to snag an occasional grub, burbling contentedly deep in her throat. “The wind. That stupid chicken.”

“That’s good. A snake, it makes a scritchy sort of sound. Not like either of those two. We’re fine.”

Lola was unprepared to concede the point. “Seems like, by the time you heard it, it’d be way too close.”

“All you have to do is sit still and wait for it to go away.”

Lola was disinclined to sit still and wait for a snake to do anything. Pal took the bottle back. Enough dilly-dallying, Lola thought. “So,” she said.

Pal put the bottle down and waited.

“You know I’m a reporter. Just like your cousin.”

A nod.

“And seeing that guy shoot himself at the airport, then hearing about your friend Mike getting killed over there, well, it made me think.”

“About what?” The warning in Pal’s voice could not have been more clear. Lola had no business thinking anything, it said.

“That it makes for a story. A story about the toll war takes. Not just in lives, but in psyches. Look at the six of you. Two dead and the rest of you all messed up.”

Pal’s teeth flashed. “I’m not messed up.” She held the bottle high in an exaggerated preview of her next drink. Lola decided she was being ironic.

“I’ve been talking to people around town for the story.”

Pal had been slouched against a porch support, but she sat up so quickly the bottle tilted. She grabbed it before any bourbon spilled. Not drunk yet; in fact, a long way from it.

“What people?”

Jemalina raised her head and cocked it. The alpenglow was gone, the Winds distinguishable only by their deeper black against the charcoal sky. Lola couldn’t see the chicken’s yellow eyes but imagined them trained on the porch, attentive to the change in atmosphere.

“I talked to some folks at the Fourth of July picnic. The high school principal, too. What’s his name again?” She supplied her own answer, and ticked off more names, letting Pal know—in case she was tempted to lie yet again—that she already knew quite a lot about what had happened in Afghanistan. “Those two guys who got arrested, I talked to them, too. Tommy McSpadden and Tyson Graff. And your friend from the parade. Skiff.”

“What?”

Lola continued inexorably. “I contacted the DOD, too.”

Pal was on her feet, breathing hard, holding on to the porch railing for support. “Oh, God. Please, no. Please tell me you didn’t do any of that. Especially Defense.” Her voice shook, the words running together.

“As a matter of fact I did. I wanted to get the straight story.” No reason for Pal to know that DOD would probably never come through with useful information.

Pal’s arm flew up. The bottle smashed against the porch support. Lola ducked bourbon and flying glass. Jemalina disappeared squawking into the darkness. The neck of the bottle slid from Pal’s fingers. It hit the porch and rolled, coming to a lopsided stop against the toe of Lola’s running shoe.

“You fool,” Pal said. “You’ve just killed us all.”

Lola retreated to the kitchen, snapping on lights, and returned with a broom and dustpan. She left the door open so that the yellow light spilled across the porch. Pal stepped away from its reach. Lola followed, thrusting the broom at her, trying to quash the thought that Pal might use it as a weapon. On the other hand, there was the snake-killing shovel, closer at hand and far more treacherous. If Pal hadn’t gone for that, Lola was probably safe.

“Clean up your mess,” she ordered Pal. “I don’t want Margaret or Bub or even that damn chicken cutting its feet on the glass.” Ordering Pal around had worked before. Not this time.

“You take that goddamn broomstick and shove it up your ass. I’ve got to get out of here. And if you’re smart, you will too if you care even the slightest bit about that little girl of yours. Which I’m not sure you do.” Pal shoved past Lola into the kitchen and headed for her bedroom. Lola followed close behind. Something bumped the back of her legs. She turned. Bub, alert to trouble. He followed her into Pal’s bedroom.

Pal’s Army duffel was on the bed. She yanked open dresser drawers, randomly pulling out underwear and T-shirts and socks and jeans, flinging them toward the bag.

“Hold on,” said Lola. “What are you doing? Where are you going? And why do we have to get out of here?”

Pal wadded up the clothes and shoved them into the bag. She zipped it shut with shaking hands and headed for the door. Lola blocked it. Pal’s chin jutted. “Move.”

“No. Not until you tell me what’s going on. You tell me I’m somehow going to get us killed. That Margaret is in danger. My child! But you won’t tell me why.”

Pal began to shake all over, teeth clicking together audibly.

“I’ve been here for almost two weeks,” Lola said. “Stuck out on this damn ranch instead of going on the vacation I’d planned.” In the process of whipping herself into high indignation, Lola shoved aside her own ambivalence about the vacation, not to mention the usefulness of staying at the ranch as she pursued her story. “Cleaning. Doing your stinking laundry. Cooking—at least to the best of my ability. Making sure you don’t finally cut your wrist instead of your arm. What’s that about, anyway? So, no. You are not going to leave this house without telling me what’s going on. Right now.”

She wrapped her hands around Pal’s thin wrists, forcing her to drop the duffel. She dragged Pal into the kitchen and sat her down hard on a straight chair. “Talk, goddammit. I don’t care if it’s on the record or not. Just tell me what the hell is going on.”

Pal crumpled before her, fell right out of the chair onto the floor and curled wailing into a ball.

“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

“I’m so sorry,” Lola said for about the fiftieth time. Even though she didn’t yet know what she was sorry for. She stood at the stove over a saucepan of milk, stirring so it wouldn’t burn, something she’d learned in the past week. Pinpoint bubbles rose to its surface. Lola turned off the flame and poured the milk into two mugs—by this point she was nearly as shaken as Pal—and added honey and, after a moment’s thought, healthy slugs of bourbon from a new bottle from Pal’s stash. Lola placed the mugs on the table and eased Pal from the floor back into the chair and sat down across from her. “Drink this. It’ll help. Take all the time you need.”

Pal sipped. “I’m sorry,” Lola said yet again. She took the movement of Pal’s head as, if not exactly a nod, at least acknowledgment. Pal’s hands shook. Some of the milk in her mug splashed onto the edge of the table. Bub hopped up on his single back leg, braced his forepaws against the table for balance, and cleaned it up, sneezing at the whiskey. If Pal was still shaking, Lola decided, it was too soon to expect her to talk. She took the lead.

“Here’s what people have told me,” she began. She took a soothing swallow of milk and outlined all the different stories. That an insurgent had slit Mike’s throat as he slumbered while on watch, and that Skiff had slain the insurgent, saving them all. That Pal and Mike had led the silly Talib hunt, culminating in the shooting of the shepherd. That the shepherd, believed dead, had slashed Mike’s throat in a final futile blow, and that the asleep-on-watch story had been concocted to save everyone’s collective asses. That Pal and Mike were sleeping together. That Pal and Mike weren’t sleeping together. That, regardless, the other guys had started harassing Pal. And that Mike had come in for his share of racial taunts.

“You got that right.” Pal’s voice emerged unexpectedly. Lola drained the last of her milk. “It was sand nigger this, raghead that when we were out on patrol for hajis. And then, back at the base, prairie nigger for Mike. All a big joke, of course. ‘Hey, Mike, better not walk around in your civvies. Ain’t nobody here can tell a sand nigger from a prairie nigger.’”

“How’d he handle it?”

Pal searched for the right word. “Dignified,” she said. “He’d say something like ‘Uncool,’ and leave it at that. One against four. Not much he could do, right?”

At least he stood up for himself, Lola thought. But according to Patrick, Mike hadn’t been the only one getting shit. She reminded Pal that Patrick had mentioned as much. “He said Mike told him they were on your case, too.”

That long shudder again, starting at Pal’s shaven head. Her calves knocked against the chair legs. Lola rose and turned off the light and came back to the table. “Now you can’t see me. So just act like I’m not here,” she said. “Were you sleeping with Mike or not?”

“God.” The word came out on a fast-checked sob. “No. Never.”

“But they thought you were.”

“Of course.” Generations, entire centuries, of bitterness in the words, the only assumption, ever, no matter the culture or country, between a man and a woman of different colors.

“What would they say?” Easier to start with the words. Please, God, Lola thought, let it have been limited to words.

“The usual.”

Lola had gotten her share of the usual, but imagined the color aspect made for a different sort of usual. “Such as?”

“You know. ‘Must be getting tired of that ol’ greasy dark meat. Try some white meat.’”

“Classy.”

“Or, ‘He’s had his turn. When’s mine?’”

“As though they had a right to you.”

Pal talked right over her, on a roll now, a festering wound lanced, the purulence spilling out. “‘I hear them Indian boys got little dicks. How ’bout a real man? You won’t walk right for days.’ Tyson pulled it out once. Waited for me behind the latrine. Called me back, said he had something to show me. ‘Suck on this,’ he said. Like I was one of those goddamned Porta-Potty hotties. Thank God somebody came along with a case of the runs.”

So it had crossed the line into action. Lola wished she’d poured a little more bourbon into her milk.

“Did you tell anybody?”

Pal’s laugh was worse than anything she’d said. “I can read,” she said when she finally stopped.

Lola knew what she meant. The issue of sexual assault in the military was finally getting traction in the press. Unfortunately, most of the stories had to do with the disastrous consequences to the women who reported assaults. Pal, like Mike, had opted to suffer in silence. At least, thought Lola, she and Mike had each other. Until they didn’t.

One last time, she posed the question.

“How did Mike die?”