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into the fog. “I was only a kid at the time,” she said, “but I remember when Whiteman died. The moccasin telegraph was filled with gossip. Everybody was talking about his death, but . . .” She glanced back at him. “When the kids walked in, the adults stopped talking. That’s how we knew it was bad.”
    â€œWhat did you think happened?” Father John stood up and went to her.
    Vicky was staring out the window again. The fog was rolling over the flat-roofed building across the street. Quarter-sized snowflakes stuck to the window. “The kids gossiped, too,” she said finally. “They said that Leon’s wife, Albertine—we all knew her, a skinny, crabby woman who used to glare at us at the tribal get-togethers.” She drew in a long breath. “The kids said that Albertine killed her husband.”
    â€œHow, Vicky? How did she do it?” The doctor could be right, Father John was thinking. Both Darryl and Whiteman could have reacted to the same poisonous plant.
    Vicky turned toward him. “Josie Yellow Calf would remember. She’s never forgotten anything.”
    Of course, Father John was thinking. Eighty-some years old, with a sharp wisdom about her, Josie was respected by everyone, even the other grandmothers. He said, “I’ll go see her right away.”
    â€œI’ll go with you,” Vicky said.
    * * *
    V icky wondered whether Josie was home, the little house looked so dark and quiet in the fog and blowing snow. Father John guided the pickup through the snowdrifts in the yard and stopped a few feet from the ice-crusted stoop at the front door.
    Vicky hesitated a moment, reluctant to abandon the warmth of the pickup, but Father John was already out, walking around the pickup, ducking into the storm, his cowboy hat pulled low. She let herself out her door and, clutching her coat collar at her throat, followed him up the steps to the stoop. The sound of his hand rapping the door splintered in the cold. Flecks of snow clung to the shoulders of his jacket.
    A couple of seconds passed. Vicky exchanged a glance with the man beside her. Josie could be waiting out the storm at the home of one of her children. They should have called first.
    There was a squealing sound. The door was inching open. Peering around the edge out of the dimness inside was Josie Yellow Calf, a tiny woman with two thick braids of gray hair that hung down the front of her red sweater. The narrow eyes darted about: Vicky, Father John, Vicky again. Slowly the old woman’s lined face softened in recognition.
    â€œGet yourselves in here out of the cold,” she commanded, yanking the door wide open and motioning them into the small living room. She closed the door and, reaching up, began brushing the snow off Father John’s jacket. Flakes fluttered over the vinyl floor like white ash.
    â€œWe have to talk to you, Grandmother.” Vicky shrugged out of her own coat and laid it over the back of a chair.
    â€œYes, yes,” the old woman said. Nodding, brushing. A tangle of gray hair worked loose from one of the braids and fell across her cheek as she helped Father John out of his jacket. “I didn’t suppose you come all the way out here in a blizzard to drink coffee with an old lady. Sit down.” Josie tossed her head toward the sofa. She walked over and turned on the table lamp, sending a flare of light into the center of the room. Then she turned toward the kitchen. “You need some coffee to warm your bones.”
    â€œLet me help you, Grandmother.” Vicky started after her.
    Josie swung around. “I said, sit down, Granddaughter.”
    Vicky walked over to the sofa and dropped down beside Father John. From the kitchen came the muffled sound of the old woman’s footsteps on the hard floor and the clank of pottery.
    After a few moments, Josie was back, handing out two mugs of coffee with steam curling over the brims. Vicky