The Night the White Deer Died by Gary Paulsen

Author:Gary Paulsen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307804204
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-08-02T21:00:00+00:00

7

Billy said nothing. Indeed for the longest time she wasn’t sure he even knew she was there. The two of them sat in the sun leaning against the warm adobe, and a fly moved around them, with a light buzzing as it moved to the back door of the liquor store and returned over them, and the dog that had been following Janet now came up and nuzzled her fingers, which she had draped over one of her knees.

“You have a dog.” Billy’s voice was only slightly slurred. “I didn’t know you had a dog.”

“No. It just followed me.” Janet petted the dog on the side of its muzzle; it was soft and damp. Pleasant. “It’s just an old dog.…”

“Why are you here?” The sack rose, and she heard the gurgle of wine; one, two, and then three swallows. Then the sack lowered. “Why did you come and find me and sit next to me here in the back of Corky’s? You better leave. Maybe you better leave now before the others come to sit and drink in the sun.”

He stopped, and Janet shrugged. “I came to thank you for the kachina. I found … I mean my mother found it this morning by the gate when she went out for milk. I just wanted to thank you for leaving it.”

“How do you know it was me?” He snorted. “It could have been anybody.…”

“But it was you, wasn’t it?”

He nodded. “Yes. But you could not know that—it was a lucky guess.”

“And you left it because you felt sorry about leaving me at the gate of the pueblo yesterday.”

She knew she shouldn’t have said it the moment it slipped out; she could feel him tighten against the wall.

He fell back into silence, took another swallow of wine, and she sensed that she’d hit his pride somehow. She relaxed back against the wall, put her hand on the dog’s head, closed her eyes, and copied his silence for three or four minutes. Then she coughed lightly. “It was a good present, a good kachina.”

For a time he said nothing, then he let out a bitter little laugh that seemed to cut through the heat. “It was nothing—just a toy. I won it in a poker game from a Hopi when we were both drunk, and it’s only a doll for tourists.”

“Still.” She made a vow not to let him anger her. “Still, it is a nice thing to give me, and I thank you for it.”

“Someday I will take it back, and then I will be an Indi’n giver.” He laughed, and this time there was scorn in it, scorn, and more of the wine was beginning to show through.

“Don’t—don’t do that.” She reached out but stopped before her hand touched him; looked over at him, saw that his eyes were closed and that his head was starting to lean forward. “Don’t make stupid jokes like that or put yourself down.”

“Ahh, what do you know?” He coughed, took another swallow of wine,

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