“The devil must be beating his wife. Um hmm, yes, it is so.”

A damp Dog joined us on the bench seat as we headed back toward town, and I continued to spin the ring on my finger as I aired an elbow out the passenger-side window that only partially rolled down. “It’s not your fault.”

The Cheyenne Nation ignored me and stared out the cracked windshield.

“Look, whatever happens, she’ll forgive you-just not me.”

The Bear nodded and then moved on to one of our other myriad problems. “We have maxed out the Western 8 motel in Ashland.”

There were no other motels for about fifty miles.

He shifted gears, and I listened to them grind. “There is my home.”

“I don’t want you to have to do that.”

“It would be an honor.”

If you hung around with the Cheyenne long enough, you learned when not to argue with their generosity. “Thank you.” I stretched my hand across Dog’s broad head and scratched behind both ears, something he enjoyed as though it was a religious experience. “Strange weather.”

Henry didn’t say anything but glanced at the ring on my pinkie. I tried to change the subject. “Why do you suppose the old-timers used to say that the devil must be beating his wife?”

He spoke over the aged engine as he made third, breezed through the stop sign at the corner of one of Lame Deer’s few intersections, and headed south on Bureau of Indian Affairs Route 4, the rumble strips sounding like war drums underneath us. “It is a universal folkloric phrase.” He threw Rezdawg into fourth, and we tooled back through the main part of town past the White Buffalo Sinclair Station, the Big Store IGA, which Henry says stands for Indians Grab Anything, and the tribal government buildings. “The Italian version is the same as ours but the French one is Le diable se marie avec sa fille, or the devil becomes his daughter’s husband.”