A few minutes after noon on Thursday, the front door of Spearfish Lake Appliance opened, and Debbie walked in carrying subs and paper cups full of soft drinks. "Hi, stranger," she called cheerfully to Danny.

"Hi, stranger, yourself," he smiled, clearing away a place on the corner of the desk. Since he had to leave for the railroad just about the time she got off work and didn’t get back until the wee small hours of the morning, it was the first time since Tuesday that he’d actually seen her, although they’d talked briefly on the phone on both Wednesday and that morning.

Wednesday was mailing day at the Record-Herald. As long as he could remember, the whole staff had turned to on Wednesdays, front office staff included. Since the paper was a weekly, there wasn’t a lot of room for specialization, and nobody minded. In fact, Danny remembered that it was a relaxing time in a way, a time when most of the staff would gather around tables in the back to put peel-off mailing labels on newspapers while they sat and gossiped. Lunches on mailing day got a little informal and unscheduled so it was no surprise to Danny when Debbie begged off for Wednesday. He understood completely and had done so all his life. "How’s my favorite Indian today?"

"Glad to see her favorite white man," she smirked, setting the bag of subs down on the desk. "I’ve been missing him a lot."

"You know," he said thoughtfully, glad they were in the quiet of the store and not in the busy sub shop, so there would be no one to overhear, so they could get personal if they needed to. "Maybe this isn’t the moment to bring it up, but I’ve sort of wondered about those words. At times, they almost seem insulting. Certainly not ‘politically correct.’ I mean, I realize that the word ‘Indian’ is a huge misnomer, but what else would you say?"

"I don’t know," she shrugged. "I agree, ‘Indian’ is a totally incorrect word, but it’s one that most people understand. It’s like most people understand ‘shaman’ at least a little, so I don’t mind being called that. I know it’s not correct, but at least it’s something they understand."

As he unwrapped his sub, Danny frowned and replied, "It seems like there ought to be a better term to use."

"There ought to be, but there isn’t, not that most people would understand," she told him. "A lot of Indians prefer the term ‘Native American,’ but if you stop and think about it, it’s as bad a misnomer as ‘Indian.’ We’re no more native than the whites are, it’s just we got here a little sooner, and the word ‘American’ has its roots in Italian. The term the Canadians use is ‘First Nations’ which is a lot more correct, but I find as cumbersome as ‘Native American.’ Like I said, I can get along with ‘Indian,’ even though it gets sticky when you run into an East Indian, which really isn’t an East Indian since the term refers to Indonesia instead of India. If Columbus had a better sense of where he was, we might have at least come out with a better name. I mean, it’s just as incorrect to call you people ‘whites,’ since what it really means is ‘newcomers’ and takes in everyone that showed up after Columbus, Europeans, Africans, Asians. As far as that goes, even Shakahatche isn’t a correct word, it’s not clear where it originated, maybe the Dakota, but it means something like ‘those people over that way.’ In other words, it was another tribe’s name for us, but we seem to have accepted it. There’s no tribal name for us in our language, and that’s true for a lot of tribes. About as close as you get is ‘hetheske,’ which means ‘The People’ or ‘Us People.’"

"I’ve heard you use that term a lot," he nodded. "I mean, in English."

"I probably use it more than I do ‘Shakahatche,’" she smiled. "In English, it’s technically the most correct. But I don’t mind, words are just labels, so long as we know what we’re talking about, and use the same labels, does it matter that much? It’s when the meanings of labels differ and people aren’t saying the same thing when they use them that things get difficult."

"It causes miscommunication," he nodded.

"It causes more than that," she said. "It causes hate, fear, wars, and other nasty things. People have to agree on if what they are talking about means the same thing. Which in a back-sided sort of way brings me around to something I really need to talk to you about."

Hoping that this wasn’t the ‘maybe we’d better think about this’ bomb he’d been hoping he wouldn’t hear, Danny nodded and said, "What?"

"Danny, there’s something I think you should understand," she frowned, setting her sub down and looking him in the face. "We talked a lot last weekend about my being a katara, and we talked about the fact that the word doesn’t translate directly to English."

"You came up with a dozen words you said come close but don’t quite hit it on the nose," he said. "And I’ve thought of a few more candidates."

"It wouldn’t be hard," she smiled. "I know we talked about it a lot, but there’s parts of it we didn’t get very near, and when we did the conversation always seemed to head off in a different direction. I don’t think I’ve been dishonest with you, but there are parts of being a katara that I’m afraid I didn’t make very clear. Danny, it’s not all cultural, history and language, and a lot of the part that isn’t, I’m afraid it’s going to be difficult to explain to you. I’m not sure if you’re aware of it, but I’ve been over at Three Pines the last three evenings."

"You said you were going over there on some kind of katara stuff," he nodded. "I didn’t realize that it had been all three evenings."

"I have been," she admitted softly. "Mostly I’ve been talking with Ellen and Ruth, and a couple others, talking with them about several issues I need to get sorted out, and that we need to."

"What are you driving at?" he frowned.

"I guess I need to go back to that question I asked you Monday," she sighed. "Were we partying, or was it something else? I mean, if you want to just party this weekend, it’s fine with me, but if it’s something else I need to start telling you some things you need to know about me before we get too much further. Ellen and Ruth really made that clear to me last night."

"What kind of things?"

"Well, it’s cultural," she said, searching for words. "But, it’s spiritual, too, and in the culture of The People, or any Indians, for that matter, sometimes the two are pretty tightly wrapped up with each other." She let out a sigh and continued, "Damn it, Danny, it’s too much to explain now and I’m not even sure how to go about it. I’m flying a little blind on this one myself. Look, did you have any plans for the weekend?"

"Nothing that doesn’t involve you," he smiled. "With all the hours I’ve put in the past two weeks, Dad took pity on me. I told you about that, they’re going to be messing around with the railroad schedule some, but I’ll be on days next week and then it’ll jump around."

"Good," she nodded. "That’ll make things easier all the way around, and it’ll be good that you don’t have to work Saturday. What I want to do is to take you over to Three Pines tomorrow after I get off work and try to explain some things that are best done there. Some of them I’ll have to do myself, and after we get done with that, I think you and I both will want to talk to some of my friends. They may be able to answer questions I can’t."

"I don’t see why not. Is this something that’s real hard for you?"

"Some of it is," she admitted. "Some of it is very personal, and some of it I don’t understand very well myself, which is why I’ve been talking with Ellen and Ruth. But spirits, I think I’ve reached the point that I need to at least give you the shape of the whole picture, although filling in the details could take you years. That is, if you decide you want to. After you hear it, I don’t think I’d blame you if you didn’t want to."

"That leads right back to the question of was it partying or was it something more," he nodded. "Like I told you Monday, it was a great party, but after thinking about it all week I hope that it’s going to turn into something more. If this concerns you this much, I see no choice but to take the next step."

"Thanks, Danny," she said softly with a smile on her lips and a bright look in her eye. "If I thought it was only partying and didn’t hope it would turn into something more, I wouldn’t be asking you. Do you have a sleeping bag?"

"There should be one up in the attic somewhere," he shrugged. "I wouldn’t want to bet on how musty and stinky it might be. If it’s too bad, I could borrow one from Phil or something. Are you talking about staying over?"

"I don’t know," she shook her head. "It could go late, and it might be easier to just stay. If we do have to stay over, we may be staying with my friends, so we wouldn’t be partying. But we may be able to come back here late and head back over in the morning. I just don’t know. A lot depends on what happens, and I don’t know what’s going to happen."

Danny looked at her with a frown, wondering what was coming, but having a sneaking suspicion that it was more than he had seen so far and was clearly important. "Debbie, you’re being a little mysterious about this."

"I know I am, Danny," she said. "A lot of it comes from the fact that I don’t know how I’m going to tell you what I need to tell you, and even what some of it is. I’m hoping the spirits will lead me. But, I can tell you this much – if we’re going to stay together, you’re just going to have to accept me being a little mysterious from time to time. There are katara things I may never be able to tell you, just like there are Redlite Ranch things you can’t tell me."

*   *   *

A squall line had gone through earlier in the afternoon the next day, leaving the air smelling sweet and damp with rain, but the dust had been washed out of the air and the remnants of the squall were visible in the distance ahead of them as they drove down the state road to the east. They were in Debbie’s Tracker; when Danny showed up at her place shortly after he got off work, she’d said that they were going to be travelling into the forest on some grubby roads. Two-wheel drive might be all right if it had been dry, but there would be some soft spots with the rain, so the little SUV was the better bet.

It was surprising to Danny to realize that he’d rarely been down this road – he’d just seldom had the reason to head that way. As far as he knew, he hadn’t even been on the Three Pines Reservation more than two or three times in his life, and never since the Casino had opened there back when he was still in college. It had been the period he’d either been working sixty-hour weeks at his summer job on the railroad or spending time with Marsha and his family out at the Club. He was not a gambler, and had no interest in it; he had not even invested so much as a nickel in the slots in Nevada in the over six weeks he’d been there.

Debbie had put the canvas top of the Tracker down, so they could really enjoy the fresh, clean air and that wonderful wet forest smell that he never grew tired of. But that meant the wind noise was a bit high, and there wasn’t much talk – not that Debbie seemed in a particularly talkative mood anyway, unusual for her. She seemed pensive and nervous about whatever it was she was getting set to reveal, and it couldn’t help but make Danny a little nervous, too.

He could not help but be curious about what this must be about. He’d been thinking about it ever since the subject of this trip had come up at lunch the day before, but when he got down to the bottom line she hadn’t given him a lot to work with. While he’d been out on Beepit the night before, he realized that he didn’t really know her all that well, and there had been hints of quite a bit more to her than he’d understood. He was not unaware that there was a strong spiritual or religious side to her. He’d seen hints of it from time to time, and other people who knew her, especially his mother, had put it in even stronger terms than he would have used based on the little time he’d been with her. Whatever it was, he’d soon know.

They passed the sign that said they were entering the reservation, and continued to buzz along a little over the speed limit. After a few miles, they passed the casino, big and garish with lots of signs and a fairly full parking lot. Interestingly, though, the casino was largely surrounded by several neatly landscaped golf courses. He had understood from somewhere that there was more to the casino complex than just gambling; the tribe was working on developing it into a big resort complex, and the place was becoming as well known for its golf courses as it was for the casino. He also knew that Clark Construction had a big job going on with the resort, but there was no sign of it he could see. Debbie drove right on by the casino area without slowing, and in a couple of minutes they were again going through a silent, empty forest.

After a ways, she slowed and turned onto a narrow gravel road. It was winding and a little bumpy, and the land here was a lot more tortured and rolling than was the norm around Spearfish Lake. About the most rugged it got in that vicinity was the complex of glacial end moraine north of the lake known as the Turtle Hills, but this was more rocky and rugged shield country, where the glaciers had ground away most of the soil and left only the bed rock. It was country of steep hills, narrow but deep valleys and rushing streams. "Danny, have you ever been over this way?" Debbie asked, now that she’d slowed down enough that the wind noise allowed conversation without yelling.

"Not that I can recall," he replied. "Pretty country, though."

"It is," she smiled. "The whites shot themselves in the foot on this one. When they set up the reservation they had to give us the most useless land they could find, of course. Totally useless for farming, and even the grazing is poor. But it is pretty, and after over a hundred years the tribe is finally figuring out how to turn pretty into money, like those golf courses."

"I played just enough golf to know they look interesting," he smiled.

"I wouldn’t know," she told him. "Incidentally, I did find someone to ask a little obliquely about that question you had last weekend, about why no one has thought of putting a place like the Redlite Ranch up here. It’s been thrown out for discussion a couple times, but the general attitude is that it wouldn’t contribute to the family atmosphere they’re trying to project."

"Family atmosphere and casino gambling," he snorted. "There’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one. It ranks right up there with family atmosphere and bordello."

"That’s what I think," she smiled. "I think the real reason is that they think it might keep the whites they’re supposed to be robbing away from the slot machines too much."

After two or three miles of the rough gravel road, Debbie slowed and turned onto a two-rut that led up a narrow valley with a rushing stream to one side. Although Danny wasn’t much of a fisherman, it looked pretty trouty to him; he would have imagined that his father or Blake would have been itching to get out there with a fly rod. The two-rut was crappy, and there were several potholes that the Tracker wallowed through. Debbie had been right; this would have been a real iffy proposition in the Lumina. After a ways, the two-rut turned and forded the stream, and wound on upward, even fainter than before. There was hardly a trace of it left when Debbie stopped in an open spot a little wider than earlier on the two-rut.

"We’ll have to walk from here," she announced as she took the keys from the ignition. "But it’s not far, only a few hundred yards."

"Good, the walk will be nice," he said as he got out. A mosquito whined in his ear, and he slapped at it.

"You want some bug dope?" she asked. "They get a little thick around here at times."

"If we’re going to be moving, I’ll be OK," he told her. "That’s one thing about growing up a nudist in this neck of the woods, you get pretty complacent about mosquito bites. They have to be pretty bad before I notice them."

"Same thing with growing up Indian," she laughed, tossing his a pump-spray bottle. "But we’ll be sitting some, so you probably will want to use it. Bring a long-sleeved shirt, you’ll probably want it later."

In a couple minutes, Debbie led him upward through a side gully on one side of the valley. It was fairly steep, not bad enough to keep them from walking upright, and soon it leveled out when they reached the top of the ridge at a low point. She led him up the slowly rising broad ridge and soon reached a small opening. They crossed it, to a small grove of trees along the peak of the ridge.

She stopped and looked around, a benign smile on her face. "Danny," she said softly. "This is a very special place to me."

"I can see why," he replied. "Nice view."

"It’s much more than that," she shook her head. "Danny, I brought you here because I think this is the best place to start my explanation – and I’ll start that by telling you why this is such a special place to me, and what happened here. Do you remember last week when I told you about learning from Brenda that I had to accept the fact that I was an Indian and get on with things?"

"You told me about that," he said. "You said that you talked to a woman over here and the rest was history."

"I know," she sighed. "I didn’t tell you much about what happened, did I? I’m sorry. But it’s . . . well, it’s personal. Danny, some of what I’m going to tell you I’ve never shared with anyone else except Ellen and Ruth, and not all of it to them. This has to be just between you and me. You can’t ever tell anyone else, OK?"

"Debbie," he said softly, putting one hand lightly on her shoulder. "You don’t need to tell me if it’s that personal."

"No, Danny," she shook her head. "If we’re going to ever get beyond just partying together, I think you need to know it." She let out a sigh. "This is going to take a while. Let’s go over here a bit and sit down so I can take you through everything."

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