The Only Good Indians

by Stephen Graham Jones

Dealing with cops is like being around a skittish horse: No sudden movements, nothing shiny or loud. Zero jokes.

She can see her real dad dead in that burned-down sweat lodge, the back of his head gone, but she can also see him up the slope ten years ago, shooting into a herd of elk that weren’t his to shoot at, and she hates that he’s dead, she loved him, she is him in every way that counts, but her new dad shooting the elk beside her isn’t going to bring him back, and as long as she keeps dribbling behind her back when she doesn’t have to, then her real dad won’t even really be gone, will he? He’ll still be there in her reckless smile. Because nobody can kill that.