friends.â
âHow many days you got before theyâre onto you?â Jesse had finished his whiskey and was refilling the glasses.
âWe got forever. Donât we, Sundance?â He glanced at the man next to him.
âI figure we work here for a while,â Sundance said. âKeep our noses clean and stay away from the bars in Lander until things quiet down. Then weâll be on our way.â
George took another sip of whiskey and pushed the glass away. He started to his feet. âLetâs face it, Jesse. Posses donât want us, anyway.â
âExcept to kill us,â Sundance said.
âWell, maybe they want that. But theyâll be chasing their shadows across Wyoming looking for this.â George patted the saddlebag. âYou can do what you want with your share,â he said to Sundance, who gulped the rest of his whiskey and stood up next to him. âIâm putting my share where theyâre never going to find it.â
5
FROM THE PARKING lot Vicky could hear the drums beating and the high-pitched voices of the singers. She wedged the Ford Escape into a narrow space between two campers and threaded her way around the haphazard rows of pickups toward the powwow grounds. License plates from all over the West: Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona. The Wind River Reservation was on the powwow highway, and the top prizes large enough that the winners could spend the rest of the summer driving across the empty, sweltering plains to the next powwow. Dancers spilled across the parking lot, regalia jangling and glistening in the sun, feathered headgear waving against the blue-white sky like dried stalks of wheat. All ages: grandfathers and grandmothers, teenagers, toddlers scuffing along in beaded moccasins. The dancing would begin at ten oâclock, twenty minutes from now. Most of the dancers would be lining up, ready todance into the arena, shawls and blankets swirling about their shoulders. These were the latecomers, and she was one of them.
She had planned to drive to the powwow grounds early, have coffee with the elders, visit with people she used to be friends with. Reconnect. Take every opportunity to be among her people. Instead of the Arapaho lawyer in the white world, she would be an Arapaho woman in her own world. But she had worked late last night. Lander was ghostlike when she left the office, circles of light from the streetlamps flaring over the darkened houses and buildings. She had taken home a briefcase filled with papers she intended to read and had fallen asleep on the sofa, paper trailing off the cushions and onto the floor. It was after midnight when she crawled into bed. She had slept restlessly. Half-aware of the empty side of the bed where Adam had slept, wondering where he had gone when the realization had hit her like an arrow out of the darkness. Adam had left. They were no longer together.
The grounds were packed. People milling about and crowding the food booths, dancers jostling one another, the honor guard forming at the edge of the arena. Rows of lawn chairs had been set up around the arena, and the elders were settling in under umbrellas fastened to the armrests to create little patches of shade. Red and white coolers stood next to the chairs. Vicky spotted Annie walking toward her, Roger not more than a foot behind. They had found each other in her office. Annie Bosey, the secretary she had hired when she wasnât sure she needed a secretary, because she had seen herself in Annie, divorced, two kids, trying to make her way. And Roger Hurst, the lawyer she and Adam had hired when the firm was Holden and Lone Eagle. She and Adam would handle the big cases. Natural resources on Indian lands. Oil. Gas. Water. Timber. Roger would handle the little cases that, as Adam had putit, didnât matter to anybody. Except people charged with DUIs, assault, public inebriation. People getting divorced, desperately