The Only Good Indians

by Stephen Graham Jones

These are the kind of wrong thoughts people have who are spending too much time alone. They start unpacking vast cosmic bullshit from gum wrappers, and then they chew it up, blow a bubble, ride that bubble up into some even stupider place.

The sound is thunder, deep and bass and ragged. It splits the night in two, both halves falling neatly away, leaving Gabriel standing in the silence between them.

A dying Indian slumped forward on a horse, what she sees at every booth at every powwow: The End of the Trail.

She—she can’t be that far out, can she? Marias, that massacre or whatever? The bones from that wouldn’t still just be lying out there, would they?

Because that’s what an elk mother does, isn’t it? That’s the only thing you’ve ever really wanted to do this whole time, ever since you found yourself suddenly back in the world. Just—your anger, your hate, it was coursing through you so hot, and you got lost in it, and—

He’ll still be there in her reckless smile. Because nobody can kill that.