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By Root 1469 0

from their holes and then receding as he neared, the ramshackle place appeared as short on hospitality as it was on all else; dilapidation never welcomes company. No smoke from the chimney again, although a fresh cord of charity wood was stacked against the tar-paper siding. Every Hill 57 shack he could see had one, the firewood considerately chopped into sticks not much bigger than kindling so heat could be eked out of rusty stoves as long as possible. Even so the woodpiles would not last through the winter and the Indian families would have to scrounge or freeze. He marveled again at the pride of Vic Rennie, trudging down cold to the bone from this prairie sidehill slum for four years, never asking anything from the sumptuous university when there were any number of Treasure State football boosters who would have given him a warm place and other favors on the sly.

Ben walked up to the weather-beaten door and knocked strongly, the sharp sound like a punctuation of echo from another time and place.

"Catch her sober, after she gets over the shakes. That's the trick with a wino. Wait until allotment money's gone."

"End of the month, you mean?"

"Middle. She's a thirsty one."

Three months in a row he had made the try, and Toussaint's formulation notwithstanding, not even come close to catching the aunt whom Vic had lived with here. Rapping on the door was bringing no result this time either.

Well, hell, does she live here at all or doesn't she? He tromped around the corner of the house to see whether any firewood had been used from the stacked cord.

And practically sailed face-first into the mad-haired figure moseying from the other direction.

They each reared back and stared.

The woman looked supremely surprised, but then, so did he. Scrawny and askew, she swayed there all but lost in a purple sweater barely held together by its fatigued knitting and a dress that hung to her shoetops. The mop of steel-gray hair looked no less of a mess on second inspection. Fragile as she appeared to be, Ben felt wild relief he hadn't collided with her; in the raveled sweater her arms seemed no larger around than the thin-split sticks in the woodpile. The scrutiny she was giving him during this was more than substantial, however. She had eyes black as the hardest coal; anthracite is known to burn on and on, those eyes stated.

"Spooked me," she recovered a voice first. "Been visiting Mother Jones." She jerked an elbow to indicate the outhouse behind her. The coaly stare stayed right on him. "You aren't from here."

"No. From the base."

"Hnn: flyboy. What's a flyboy doing here? Looking for coochy?" She made the obscene circle with thumb and first digit and ran a rigid finger in and out. "Tired of white meat?" She chortled. "Long time too late for that, around here."

"I'm not here tomcatting," he tried to say it as though that were a reasonable possibility. The years of drinking had blurred age on her; she could have been fifty or seventy. "It's about Vic. We were friends, played football together across the way. You maybe saw us at it." He watched the woman closely as he said that, but the set face and burning gaze did not change. "I'm looking for Vic's aunt," he went back to ritual. "There's a thing I need to find out from her. It would have meant something to Vic."

She took her time about deciding. Finally she provided grudgingly: "Maybe that's me."

"Mrs. Rennie, what I came to—"

"Hwah, you crazy? If I had that name I'd cut my throat and let it out of me."

Too late, he remembered the family battle lines of the reservation. "Excuse me all to pieces, Mrs. Rides Proud. I just thought, because Vic's last name—"

"Not his fault he was named that," she conceded. Absently she primped the nearest vicinity of flying hair. "You can call me Agnes. Everybody and his dog does." With that settled, she eyed him in bright negotiating fashion. "You came for something. Got anything on you to wet the whistle first?"

"It just so happens." He produced the bottle of cheap wine from his coat's deep side pocket and held it out to her for inspection.