Another Man's Moccasins

Virgil had sustained two gunshot wounds, but they hadn’t done much damage—one had grazed his ribs and another had lodged in the meat of his calf. Henry had stayed with the giant until he’d been repaired and then through the following two days and nights. On the third day, the Cheyenne Nation said that he’d gone to take a shower as Virgil slept, but that when he returned, the big man was gone.

That was his story and, so far, he was sticking to it.

I pulled out the crackers from the old bag, then keyed open the oysters, drained the cottonseed oil, and spooned a few onto a Chicken in a Biskit. Under Dog’s close observation, I handed it to the Bear. “Where do you think he went?" ”

He looked rather dubiously at my blue-collar hors d’oeuvres and then popped it in his mouth to keep from having to say anything.

I waited a little, fed Dog a cracker, then made one for myself and joined Henry in viewing the few snowfields left on the mountains. I could feel the sunshine on my face and squinted my eyes in the pleasure of warmth, just happy to be there. “You wouldn’t tell me if you knew, would you?”

“Two more.”

Michael’s voice interrupted my daydreaming, and I was drawn back to the drama unfolding in the gym at the top of the stairwell. Cady looked up at him and smiled; so beautiful. “One more.”

His voice, in turn, was kind but insistent. “No, two more.”

I smiled at the jealousy I felt and the surge of unsettled anxiety at being replaced, then eased back down the steps. Michael only had another afternoon with her, and I had another month before she would return to Philadelphia. Anyway, he was probably motivating her better than I ever could. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

“One more . . .”

I stood there and listened to their laughter. The Bear had laughed at me for leaving the groceries, for wanting to solve all mysteries, but he had done so gently. Virgil White Buffalo, Crooked Staff, Crazy Dog Society was out there somewhere, and maybe Henry was right in not telling me exactly where.

He knew that our tracks were not that dissimilar. We’d both run as far as we could from the war to the fringes of our separate societies, but Vietnam had overtaken us again: circumstance, two desperate girls, a very bad man, a battered photograph, and a faded letter had seen to that.

Maybe it was not so much that we were haunted, but how and when we chose to deal with these reverberations in our lives that would be the sign of our individuality. Perhaps the battle that I had chosen to fight in Vietnam had marked me. It was a legacy that had tied me to the dead more than the living. It was, as Ruby had said, my failing.

Their voices continued to echo down from above. “No, two more . . .”