CHAPTER SIX

Bernard Gilfoil, caught up in the crush of bodies surging from the community center into the chill night air, had a front-row view of the big man they called Junior. He watched him take a swing at a lean, scrappy man. And miss.

The smaller man moved in fast, shoved his shoulder into Junior’s gut and jabbed at his kidneys. Junior swayed on his feet and blinked at his balled hand like he couldn’t understand why it hadn’t connected with bone.

“You gonna give disrespect to me?” Junior slurred.

Bernard couldn’t take his eyes off their strange dance.

The woman next to him, the sheen of her blue-black hair catching in the community building’s lone floodlight, pulled fake lashes off one eyelid, then the other, and grinned at him as she rushed into the fray. Several other people followed her, Junior and the small man now the center of a whirring, angry wheel of bodies.

Bernard scrambled backward, scanning the faces of strangers around him. A woman across the circle looked at him, unblinking, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. Dark hair dropped lushly over her shoulders and spilled across the long suede coat she wore.

The man beside him noticed and elbowed him.

“Nice, eh?”

When Bernard nodded, the man laughed. “Don’t mess with those rez women. Might be Deer Woman in disguise.”

Bernard caught sight of Antell, that Norwegian iceberg, standing in the open doorway of the community center, shaking hands with Byrd. When he turned his attention back to the fight, the woman was gone.

Bernard shoved his way out of the crowd. When he reached the refuge of his car, and soon after heard the dull crunch of rocks under its moving tires, he allowed himself to smile. The fight was of no consequence. Chief Byrd would get his people in line. The Band-Aid had been ripped off; the tribal council meeting had been a necessary evil to move the oil deal forward. Give the people their say and all that.

The meeting had ended in disaster, but not before the tribal council voted in favor of the project. He’d played his part to perfection. Outlined the legalities and cost projections in broad strokes. Carefully skirted the troublesome specifics. He built his entire presentation around the positives offered to the Saliquaw Nation by the partnership between Blackstream Oil and the city of Dexter Springs.

Damn, he was good at this. He was so keyed up, riding such a high. He slammed his palms against the steering wheel, then punched the padded ceiling above the driver’s seat.

“Hell yeah!” Bernard screamed. He was a god.

Then he patted the headliner nervously, made sure he hadn’t worked it loose. His mother would know if he tore up her Chrysler. She’d know if he cussed in it. Sense it, though she rarely drove anymore, and give him a talking to. He apologized to the heavens for swearing. He laughed out loud. It was a nervous sound rich with adrenaline.

Bernard pushed the black frames of his thick glasses higher on the bridge of his nose and turned the car not toward Dexter Springs but toward the meager glow of scattered yard lights that signaled the presence of rez housing. He needed time to think.

Had Junior recognized him? Junior had been occupied, maybe even drunk, during the fight. But what about earlier, when Bernard had stood in front of the council and made a case for fracking on the rez? He thought about those late nights when, as a teenager, he’d hung out with hot rez girls and passed bottles of UV Blue around the shack Junior called home. He’d loved to party on the rez back then, loved the cloak it pulled over the self-consciousness he wore everywhere else. It was like another country, where he could pretend to be someone he wasn’t.

He’d been surprised to see Junior at the meeting, surprised too by how he looked just the same more than a decade later. Bernard had the impression that Junior kept to himself, didn’t get involved. Oh, but he’d gotten involved tonight. More than involved. He’d tried to turn the tide, to pit everyone against Bernard.

The sudden glare of headlights caught Bernard by surprise. He lifted a hand from the steering wheel to shield his eyes and veered to the side of the road to let the high beams pass, a Marshal decal bouncing past his window, the service vehicle nearly scraping his mother’s car. He wrestled the Chrysler as it hit the narrow road’s rough shoulder. When he glanced at the dash clock, Bernard realized the meeting had ended more than an hour ago. How long had he been driving around the rez?

He steered off Saliquaw land, honked at the shotgun-blasted Now Leaving Oklahoma sign and, taking comfort in the certainty of his immediate future, gave two quick beeps to the Welcome to Kansas marker that followed.

In another twenty minutes he would pull into the driveway on Ash Street. He knew exactly how the headlights would look as they swept the shorn lawn and the white railing of the porch to drop shadows across the stuffy living room where the floral fabrics and scented potpourri made him want to scream.