The door flap lifted. Rides Far came out, and stood, and folded her arms.
"You have seen it," she said.
"I've seen it."
"Good." She considered him. "Do you know why it is there?"
"I reckon I do." His voice came out rough. "It was a fair bargain. You never said otherwise. I'm grateful to you, Rides Far, for Eli and for—for all of it. I won't make a fuss." He bent, and picked up the bridle, and then stopped, and put it down again, because his hands had begun to shake, and he would not let her see that. "Only I'd like to say one thing before I go. If that's allowed."
"It is allowed."
"I didn't marry you because your father told me to." He made himself look at her. "I mean, I did, the first time. That's how it started. But it isn't how it is now. I don't know when it changed. Somewhere between the woodpecker business and the chokecherry draw. I'd stay if you'd have me. Not as a white man with a right to live on the reservation. As a man who'd like to live in your lodge because you're in it." He let out his breath. "That's all. I'll go now."
Rides Far did not move. Her face was grave. But there was something at the corner of her mouth that he had learned, over a winter, to watch for.
"Wes Harlan," she said, "you are the most honest fool in the Territory. Eli was right." She unfolded her arms. "Listen to me. That marriage—the one my father commanded—was a good marriage. It did what it was meant to do. It saved my brother and it answered the agent. And now it is finished, and I have put it outside the door, because it is finished." She stepped down onto the grass. "But I never asked you myself. My father asked. The agent forced it. The snow brought you. Nothing in it was ours. I want something that is ours."
He stared at her.