Graham Greene

I had done some work on the reservation nearly ten years earlier, helping to engineer an irrigation ditch that brought water from a dammed high creek down to the pastures of Arapaho Ranch. I slept on a half-dozen different sofas during the seven months of the project. The tribe paid me well and I left, thought that was the end of it. Then just a few weeks ago I received a letter from a woman named Roberta Cloud. I was not so much surprised by the call as I was by the fact that she was still alive. She actually had a friend write for her as she was blind now, the letter stated. The friend said that Roberta needed my help. It was a short letter, to the point, without many details. The letter ended with an overly formal, “until I see you I am sincerely, Roberta Cloud.”

I made the drive up from Fort Collins on a Thursday. I left in the morning and stopped at Dick’s Dogs in Laramie for an ill-advised early lunch. I loved the dogs, but they never loved me back. I drove into a stiff early winter wind that caused my Jeep to burn more gas than usual. The high profile, flat-faced vehicle felt like it was on its heels as I pressed into the breeze. I hit Lander mid-afternoon and drove straight through to Ethete. Ethete was just a gas station with a convenience store. There was a yellow light at the intersection that flashed yellow to all four directions. I stopped and grabbed myself a cup of coffee.

A heavy-set woman rang up my drink and the packaged cake I’d put on the counter.

“Think it will snow?” I asked.

“Eventually,” she said.

I nodded. “Can you tell me how to get to Roberta Cloud’s house?”

“She’s on Seventeen Mile Road.”

“Where on the road? Closer to here or Riverton.”

“Did you know it ain’t seventeen miles, that road?”

“How long is it?”

“Changes,” she said. “I’ve never measured it myself. Some people say it’s only thirteen miles. Dewey St. Clair said it’s nineteen, but I think he just said that because he was always late for work.”

“How will I know Roberta’s house?”

“She’s at the first bend. There’s a purple propane tank in the yard. Big one.”

“Thanks.”

I drove back to 17 Mile Road and turned east. After a couple of miles I saw the bend and there was the big purple tank. Someone had scrawled Indian Country across it in white paint, but the last letter of the first word and the last two of the second were worn off, so it read India Count. I rolled into the yard and waited behind the wheel for a few minutes. A black dog came trotting from the house next door. I got out and opened the back of my Jeep. I placed a carton of cigarettes on a stack on three new dishtowels and a twenty-dollar bill on top of that. The dog walked me to the door.

I knocked lightly. I didn’t remember Roberta all that well. I recalled only that she was the oldest person I had ever talked to. She looked to be ninety back then. The gift was customary. I didn’t know if she smoked, but the tobacco was important. I knocked harder and a woman called for me to enter. I did.

Roberta Cloud sat in a rocker across the room, backlit by the sun through a window. She didn’t rock.

“Ms. Cloud?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Jack Keene.”

“Mr. Keene, you came.”

“Yes, ma’am. You call, I come. That’s the way it works.”

“I could get used to that,” she said.

“I have a few things for you,” I told her.

“Thank you, Mr. Keene.” She pointed to the table.

I put down the towels, cigarettes, and the money. “Please, call me Jack.”

“Sit down, Jack.”

I sat on the sofa under the window. The sun came through the glass and hit my...