Dakota Read Free

listening to the scanner. Have Jan give me a call. I’ll give her what I’ve got.”
    The heat inside the truck enfolded Lola like a blanket. She was not entirely sorry when Charlie slammed the door behind her. Bub stood up and braced his forepaws against the dash and balanced expertly on his single hind leg as Lola steered between drifts and wind-scoured earth, hard as bare rock. The road was not much of an improvement. Wind buffeted the truck. Snow slid across the blacktop. Lola drove down the middle, pulling into her own lane whenever a tanker truck blew past. This happened frequently. Lola stopped at a crossroads. Arrows nailed to a fence post indicated the county seat of Magpie in one direction, the Blackfeet Nation in the other. Lola dialed her cellphone.
    “Magpie Daily Express,” a voice of indeterminate gender warbled in her ear.
    “Hey, Finch.”
    The voice cooled considerably. “Lola. I’ll switch you over to Jan.”
    Lola began without preamble when Jan picked up. “They found Judith Calf Looking in the snow just past Deadman’s Curve. Charlie thinks she probably froze to death, but he can’t say for sure. So I can’t write the story.” Jan’s reply started loud and got louder. Lola held the phone away from her ear. “Yes. I know I never should have slept with him. Do we have to have this conversation again? Look, I’ll grab your town council meeting tonight if you cover this. Thanks.” She ended the call and looked at the phone. Its face had fogged in the heat of the truck. She rubbed it. It wasn’t yet four. The council meeting wouldn’t start until seven.
    “An eagle feather?” she said.
    The feathers were reserved for the most solemn occasions. Warriors received them upon returning from Afghanistan or Iraq. They might be presented to family members after the death of a person who had helped the tribe in significant ways. Or given to people for particularly significant graduations, or election to office. But not to a drugged-out teenager. Lola let herself wonder, for just a second, if Judith might have stolen the feather. Impossible, she knew. Feathers were so sacred that if one fell to the ground, only a veteran or someone specially designated could retrieve it.
    She turned the truck toward the reservation. It was only right that she pay her respects to Judith’s family, she reassured herself. And if she happened to glean some answers in the process, well, that would be just fine, too.

CHAPTER TWO
    L ola parked a block away from the Calf Looking home. Not much more than a couple of hours had passed since Charlie called the tribal offices, but news traveled the reservation with a speed that put the Internet to shame. Pickups—some new, most far from it—and sprung-suspension cars were already double-parked along the street in a signal that the multiday process of a reservation funeral had already begun. Lola urged Bub from the truck. He took two steps, tilted onto his remaining hind leg to pee, then hopped back in.
    “Back in awhile,” she told him. When winter first set in, she’d worried about leaving Bub in the truck. Charlie had pointed out the scores of cattle and horses that overwintered outdoors, as well as the ranch dogs who seemed to spend their lives in the beds of pickups, no matter what the weather. “He won’t freeze,” he’d reassured her. “And you do him no favors by having him spend too much time indoors. He’ll lose his winter coat. And he needs his just as much as you need yours.”
    Lola swung her legs wide in the best approximation of a jog she could manage in her swaddling gear and caught up with a knot of women entering the house. Inside, the air was tropical. By the time Lola had shucked out of her parka and kicked off her boots, adding both to the heaps by the front door, sweat slicked her face. The house, like all the reservation prefabs, was cramped at its best. On this evening, it had gone claustrophobic—at least to Lola, who had yet to grow