second, had bought Cork’s feint. Cork ran as he’d never run before. At midfield, the nearest safety angled toward him, and Cork veered straight at the kid. An instant before they collided, he danced right and spun and shed the arm tackle, and ran on. At the thirty-yard line, he heard a grunt as the end behind him launched himself in a last, desperate effort to grasp an ankle. Cork stumbled but didn’t go down. He saw the goal line, twenty yards ahead, and the second safety running an arc that would cut him off well before he scored. There was no feeling left in his legs, no strength. He ran on wooden stumps that barely supported him and that had no trickery left in them at all. He would, he knew absolutely, come up short.
And then a figure flew past him, fleet as a deer or the dream of a deer, and a mud-covered body threw a block that toppled the Blue Devil safety, and Cork loped untouched across the goal line, and the game was theirs.
He turned in the end zone and watched Jubal Little disentangle himself from the safety and rise, exhausted. Across a ground as brutalized as a battlefield, their eyes met.
In his life so far, Cork had never known a finer moment. And in that moment, he thought that he would never know a better friend.
The trouble began at the homecoming dance on Saturday night.
The music for the dance was provided by a group who called themselves the Wild Savages. It was Willie Crane’s idea and his energy that had brought the group together; Winona provided most of the vocals. Willie played lead guitar and Indian flute. Two other guys from the rez-Andy Desjarlais and Greg “Hoops” LeBeau, playing bass guitar and drums, respectively-completed the ensemble. They did covers of recent tunes-“Good Lovin’,” “Hanky Panky,” “Surfer Girl,” “Hang on Sloopy”-but they also slipped in some of their own compositions, which tended to rely heavily on Willie’s flute playing and the driving beat of Hoops’s drums, so that an Ojibwe sensibility came through clearly. In the North Country of Minnesota, the Wild Savages had a following and had become a popular choice for school dances.
The dance was held in the high school gymnasium and was a pretty good affair, especially because praise continued to rain down on Cork for winning the game the night before. He knew it hadn’t been just him; it was Jubal’s calling of the play and it was Jubal’s delivery of the ball that had made the difference. But Jubal was content to step aside and let Cork shine in the spotlight. Which was the kind of thing Jubal often did, and not just for Cork. He generously gave away the glory others desperately dreamed of having and shamefully coveted. The reason may have been that glory came to him so easily; but Cork chose to see something Ojibwe in his best friend’s behavior. His generosity of spirit was the kind valued by Henry Meloux and Sam Winter Moon, and Cork believed that, although Jubal wouldn’t admit it, more and more he was acknowledging and embracing the Indian side of his heritage.
Donner Bigby came late to the dance and with the smell of alcohol on his breath. He brought a date, Gloria Agostino, who’d graduated a year before and worked in the office of the logging operation Bigby’s father owned and who had always had a slightly tarnished reputation. At ten o’clock, the Wild Savages took a break and everyone left the dance floor and hit the long tables where there were cookies and punch. To the dance, Jubal had brought Judy Petermann, a cheerleader, a sweet girl with the kindest smile imaginable. She was clearly taken with him-what girl wouldn’t be? — but Jubal, though polite, didn’t seem especially interested. Girls fell all over him, yet Jubal didn’t seem to notice anyone in particular. Cork had come to the dance stag. Lately, he’d been dating Winona Crane, something his mother wasn’t particularly happy about. Winona had a reputation. But for Cork, who’d loved her forever, it was like finally reaching the promised land. He didn’t delude himself. He understood Winona didn’t feel about him the same way, but-he knew this was pathetic-he was willing to take whatever she offered him.
Jubal left Judy Petermann in the gymnasium talking with one of her friends and drinking punch while he and Cork went to the restroom. In an alcove off the hallway, they found Winona and Willie, cooling themselves in the breeze that blew from an opened exit door. Winona was just downing something from the palm of her hand, which she chased with a quick swig from a bottle of Coca-Cola. She smiled at them, her dark eyes incandescent.
“Great game yesterday,” Willie told Cork, though it came from his mouth sounding more like gray game yeday.
Cork said, “Thanks, Willie.”
“You were amazing,” Winona said and gave his shoulder a gentle punch.
Which was a sisterly gesture from a young woman Cork still hoped might someday see him differently. Since those days when he and Willie and Winona used to hit Sam’s Place after school, Winona had changed a good deal. She’d grown more striking in her beauty, but she seemed more and more to be riding a self-destructive current, which was not unusual for Ojibwe youth raised on the rez. Cork was afraid for her, but he had no real way of influencing her differently. Even Willie, who despite all his own hardship, did his best to protect her, had told Cork he felt helpless most of the time. Winona did what Winona wanted to do. That’s all there was to it.
Jubal leaned easily against the wall beside her, grinned, and said, “That’s my man.”
Winona glanced at Jubal, and then her gaze jumped away, as if she couldn’t look long on that too handsome face. “You were pretty good yourself,” she said to him, though her words seemed to be addressed to the floor.
It was the dance Jubal Little and Winona Crane had been doing for years. Those times they were together, the electricity between them crackled. Yet they both seemed intent on keeping their meetings to a minimum. To Cork, it appeared as if they were both terribly afraid-not of each other but of what might be created if they ever allowed themselves to touch. He loved Jubal and he loved Winona and he hated that attraction, which was so obvious between them.
“Fuck you” came another voice, this one from outside the open door. A moment later, Donner Bigby stepped in from the night. Behind him, but still in the dark beyond the door, stood Gloria. “Fuck you both. I was the one who got us there.”
Jubal pushed from the wall and turned to Bigby, who held a small silver flask in his hand. “We got there as a team, Bigs.”
“You got there on my back. Then O’Connor makes one play, and he’s the big hero,” Bigby responded. He gave Cork a killing look.
“You won,” Winona said. “Isn’t that what’s important?”
“Who asked you, bitch?”
“Don’t call her that,” Willie said.
“Doan caw her at,” Bigby mimicked.
“Just leave,” Jubal suggested evenly.
“Fuck if I will.”
Cork stepped next to Jubal, and together they filled the alcove as they faced Bigby. At that same moment, Mr. Hildebrandt passed along the main hallway. He taught English and was the assistant football coach and one of the chaperones at the dance. He was big and broad, a lot of power and authority contained in his frame. He glanced into the alcove, took in the body language of Cork and Jubal and Bigby, and must have understood immediately what was going on. He approached them.
“What’re you drinking there, Donner?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Bigby said and slipped the flask into his back pocket.
Hildebrandt nodded, considered all the young people in the alcove, then said, “Why don’t you go on home, Donner?”
“I don’t want to go,” Bigby snapped.
In the face of the kid’s anger, Hildebrandt brought out his coach’s voice. “Go home, Donner,” he ordered. “Go home now.”
“Fuck you.”
“What did you say? No, don’t repeat it. Bigby, you’re out of here. And don’t bother suiting up for practice on Monday. Men like you I don’t need playing for me.”
Bigby looked as if he was contemplating taking a swing at his former coach. Then his eyes, burning through a thin alcoholic haze, passed over Cork and Jubal and Willie and finally Winona, and he didn’t have to say what he was thinking. He turned and rejoined Gloria outside, and as they vanished into the night, Cork heard him say, “Let’s blow this shithole.”
When they were gone, Hildebrandt breathed deeply and nodded as if he’d simply finished a rational discussion in which a rational decision had been reached and said, as if nothing extraordinary had just transpired, “Winona,
