Page 200

I know the four days, traditionally, and what they’re for.

I know the difference between the Bear Dance and the powwow, and I know which one Taya prefers and why.

“I’m happy to see you both together,” Elder Nokoni says. “There’s a lightness about her since you married. It’s good to see.”

“Thank you, Elder Nokoni.” I have started to think of him as Taya does. He is an elder of the tribe she belongs to, and in some ways, now, I do, as well.

“And the business with Kaz?”

“Good,” I tell him. “Very good.”

And it is.

Kaz and I have a clear division of labor, and we work well as partners, which is not a surprise given how alike we are, and it is only slightly strange given that we somehow never step on each other’s toes.

Elder Nokoni walks me to the food tables and gets us both bison stew.

We stand at the edge of the grounds and eat as the moraches start up—the rasp of notched sticks on the growler box, the sound of something large waking—and I feel it the way I felt it last year.

Through the ground first, up through my boots, and into my chest.

The bear’s heartbeat.

Steady as it ever was.

Cam finds me before I find him, which I have come to expect.

I put a cowboy hat on his head—handmade this time, his name embroidered on the band, designed for him because Cam is the kind of child who deserves a hat that knows his name.

He’s thrilled and runs immediately to show everyone within a fifty-foot radius.

“You spoil him.” Sienna hugs me.

“He wants to keep being the favorite uncle,” Daniel deduces, shaking my hand.

“Absolutely,” I confirm.

The drums begin at mid-morning.

Four of them, in a row under the shade structure, each one struck by a drummer with a steady, unhurried hand.

The dancers form.

Women on one side of the arbor, men on the other.

I take my place in the men’s line.

I look across at Taya.

She’s talking to one of her aunties, her head tilted, and then she laughs at something—the full laugh that she gives to this place with nothing careful in it—and then she looks across the line.

At me.

She watches me as she does sometimes, like she’s deciding something.

I now know what it means—it doesn’t mean she’s thinking about her choices—no, it means: it’s always been you, and it means I love you.

This was the same look she gave me when I first saw her at The Rusty Spur.