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They were fast and graceful. This was fairly new, Du Pré thought, all them years when no one taught girls to move their arms when they run or shoot a basketball. They were good, damn good, and much fun to watch.
    “Look at them now,” said Madelaine. “These girls, they are very good. Your daughter, she’s the star, see her shoot!”
    Madeline’s oldest, Suzanne, was the center. Tall, like her vanished father.
    Toussaint had no high school, the kids went to Cooper, the other team was from Fort Benton. Better team, lots more kids to pick from.
    The breeds yell for Toussaint, the whites yell for Cooper, same team, Du Pré thought. What a bunch of fools we all are.
    Maria fouled out. Du Pré saw her roached hair in some sort of cartoon whirligig, he expected to see dust, fist here, head there. She always fouled out. The Crusher, her teammates called her.
    “My daughter, she take life very seriously,” Du Pré muttered.
    “What?” said Madelaine.
    I don’t understand any of my women, even when I do.
    “Nothing,” said Du Pré. He muttered to himself, came of working alone, someone to talk to.
    Madelaine huffled, mad he wouldn’t tell her.
    “Du Pré,” said Madelaine, “you go talk to your daughter, there.”
    Maria was on the bench, slumped over with her head in her hands.
    Du Pré picked his way down the creaky bleachers.
    “Child,” he said, behind her, his hand on her shoulder. Maria turned. She had been crying. Her eyes crinkled up.
    “I wanna play football, sack quarterbacks,” she said.
    Du Pré touched a bruise on her forehead, right above the eyebrow.
    “You go sit there,” said Maria, “right there.” She pointed to an empty spot on the bleachers behind her. Du Pré sat. She walked round the bench and came and sat next to him, leaned against him. She smelled fresh, young sweat without much sin in it.
    They watched her team lose.
    “We wait for you, buy you a pop or something,” said Du Pré. “Now where is Billy?” He looked back for the boy.
    Maria shrugged. Billy was not doing good with her, for sure.
    “Well,” said Du Pré, “you want the pop or you got more fun folks to be with?”
    “I bother Madelaine,” said Maria.
    “She bother you.”
    “S’pose I ought to learn to put up with her,” said Maria.
    “Hey, make it easy on your papa. Damn women anyway.”
    Maria laughed and went off to the showers.
    Du Pré and Madelaine stood waiting for their children. Other parents slapped backs, exchanged dinner invitations, replayed the game, the shots, the errors.
    Two men began shouting and swinging at each other.
    Maria came out first, scruffy clothes, torn jeans, cheap boots that crumpled around her ankles, one papier-mâché earring. All clean, mind you. Du Pré wondered if she broke her clothes in with a hatchet.
    “I want to go dancing,” said Maria, “but there’s no place to go.”
    “Who you gonna dance with?” said Du Pré. “Since Billy’s went missing?”
    “Myself alone,” said Maria. Whatever the trouble, she was really mad with him. Billy should switch on his old truck, suck the tailpipe good and hard.
    “OK,” said Du Pré. “You dance with your old fart father, bar in Toussaint’s got a jukebox.”
    Suzanne’s fella was waiting on her, glands visibly throbbing.
    Du Pré, Madelaine, and Maria got into the old cruiser and he drove to the bar in Toussaint. They took a little table and Gabriel bought soda for Maria, pink wine for Madelaine, whiskey for himself.
    Du Pré danced with his daughter, danced with Madelaine, and then Maria danced by herself. A young half-drunk cowboy asked to join her. She nodded. The two slouched together on the slow songs, danced far apart on the fast ones.
    Du Pré walked out to Maria, nodded to the cowboy. “I got to go and you got to come with me,” he said. The bar rules were that children were OK, but with a parent and no booze for them.
    After they had dropped Maria off, Madelaine asked to go back to the bar for one or two