I’d also pointed out that the thing didn’t have its original gas, tires, or oil, but that hadn’t gotten me anywhere, either.

I rolled the chief up the incline to his picture-perfect home. Lonnie had had some wilder days when he was younger and had played baseball and drunk on a professional level until losing his legs to diabetes. He was still under parole with a cadre of sisters, headed by the formidable Arbutis, and had to negotiate with his sisters for visitation rights whenever Melissa, the point guard, came home, but he complained that that was less and less.

“She has lots of friends up there in Bozeman. I can see why it is she’d rather stay there than come home and watch stories with me.” The stories Lonnie referred to were the soap operas he watched religiously and reported on as if the characters were actual friends. “But it just makes me love her more when she does come home-um hmm, yes, it is so.”

I paused on the porch so Lonnie could collect his mail from a box attached to the house; most residents on the Rez had post office boxes and didn’t get this kind of attention to delivery, but Lonnie was special.

“They toy with our hearts, these daughters of ours-don’t they, lawman?”

“Yes, they do.”

He patted my hand in reassurance. “Don’t worry; we’ll get your daughter’s wedding sorted out.”

“Thanks, Lonnie.”

I started to roll him into the house, but his hands fastened around the chrome runners of his wheelchair. “I think I will stay out here and watch the rain; maybe listen to some baseball. The Rockies are at home and playing the Phillies this afternoon.”

I looked at the sky with its patchwork of sun and storm clouds-the devil must be beating his wife indeed. I bet I was the only one who used that phrase anymore.

I adjusted Lonnie’s chair so that he could look northwest and watch the rain come in or not, whatever its choice. The laden clouds were reflected in Lonnie’s thick glasses and joined with the tiny rainbows that had a tendency to magically appear there, confirming the impression that Lonnie was a pot of gold.