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issue.”
    â€œOh, he’s going to push it.”
    â€œHe’d risk being disgraced on the camera. I meant what I said. He knows I meant it.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter what
he
decides to do. Use your brain, Harold. It’s what
we
did. Too many people know already for us to have any chance of keeping a lid on this.”
    â€œThen we’ll take it as it comes. Public opinion’s going to be on our side.”
    â€œThat and five grand will buy us a bail bond.”
    â€œYou’re wrong there, Martha. We’d be released on our own recognizance.”
    That brought her smile up in spite of herself. She let out a sigh, then shook her head. “Come on in the house,” she said. “Let’s have some tea and I’ll call Rosco and see where we stand. Things are never so bleak once the sun is up.”
    But the sun was two hours from being up and the house was dark, the only light a soft yellow haze cast by the porch bulb, which had been left on all night. Harold was right by her side and yet not there at all as she walked toward that light, remembering other nights she had left it on, hoping that Sean Stranahan would see the glow when he walked his dog along the gravel road, up from the tipi where he lived.
    There had been a time, a year ago now, when the light served as a signal that he was welcome to come in and help her work the picture puzzle spread out on the ponderosa pine slab that served as her desk. One puzzle piece would lead to another, one kiss to the next, and they would be lost to one another’s touch, and then lost further. There had been that time. Then Martha had ended it for fear of it ending, getting out when the hurt wouldn’t go as deep. All last winter the porch light had been out, last spring, too. She’d only switched it back on after her son’s visit in June, when circumstances had broughtSean and Martha together again. David, her son, had found the big brother in Sean that he had looked in vain for in his own brother, and Martha had softened, admitting to herself how much she cared. And so the light had gone back on, but Sean had either not seen it or ignored it. For four nights she’d left the light on, waiting for his knock. She had almost given up when she heard the rap at the door, had swallowed the last of her chamomile tea and sought the pulse in her neck with two fingers, willing herself to be calm.
What will I say?
she thought.
Will I simply fall into his arms and all is forgiven?
She had opened the door. It was Harold, come to borrow her horse trailer because his needed rewiring.
    â€œHarold,” she said.
    â€œWho were you expecting?”
    And she’d flung herself at him, Harold with whom she’d had a short-lived affair a few years before, Harold who had left her to go back to his ex-wife in Browning, Harold who had then left his ex-wife because he said he was tired of talking her off a ledge, which was a joke because there weren’t any buildings tall enough to have ledges on an Indian reservation.
That Harold,
with whom Martha had no real future and knew it. But there he was, and here he was now, and she reached for his hand as they walked toward the light meant for somebody else.
    â€”
    Over the phone line, Martha could hear Rosco Needermire sigh.
    â€œMartha, Martha, Martha,” the county prosecutor said.
    â€œYou don’t sound like you’re happy I helped you get elected,” she said.
    He said he’d get back to her.
    â€œWell?” Harold said.
    â€œThe gist is I’m a cooked goose two ways till Sunday. Number one, state law does give Drake the license to remove bison from private property if they are deemed a threat to livestock. No surprise there.”
    â€œYou’re talking brucellosis. That’s—”
    â€œBullshit. So you’ve said. But law’s law. The fact is, he can legally take the bison
without
a warrant. Rosco says about all I can do is fall