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necklace he wore. He wouldn’t tell me what the necklace meant no matter how I badgered him.
    â€œI heard two footballers down at the feed store say you were the best-looking girl in school,” he said, knowing how much it bothered me. “They also said you were the best fuck in the county.”
    â€œThat’s not true, Duane.” I had broken into tears. “You know that’s not true.”
    â€œWhy would they say it if it wasn’t true?” he asked, grabbing my arm and making me face him. “You never offered it to me because I’m an Indian.”
    â€œI would do it with you because I love you, Duane.”
    â€œI’d never fuck a white girl anyway. Not one who’d fuck those farmers.”
    â€œI’m a little bit Indian and I didn’t fuck those farmers.”
    â€œThere’s no way you can prove it,” he yelled.
    â€œMake love to me and then you can tell I’m a virgin.” I began to take off my clothes. “Come ahead you big-mouth coward.” He only glanced at me; then his face became knotty with rage. He ran out of the barn and I could hear the pickup starting.
    When I rode home I couldn’t stop crying. I wanted to die but couldn’t decide how to go about it. I stopped along a big hole in the creek, now covered with ice, that we used for swimming in the summer. I thought of drowning myself but I didn’t want to upset Naomi and Ruth. Also I was suddenly very tired, cold, and hungry. It was still sleeting and I hoped the ice would break the power line so we could light the oil lamps. After dinner we’d play cards on the dining-room table beneath portraits of Great-grandfather, Grandfather, and Father. I would think, Why did he leave us alone to go to Korea?
    After dinner Grandpa pulled into the yard in his old sedan, which startled us because he always drove the pickup. Naomi and I had to go into town with him because Duane was in jail and they needed my part of the story. In the sheriff’s office I said I had never had anything to do with the bruised and severely battered football players. Grandfather was enraged and the sheriff cowered before him. The parents of the football players were frightened, perhaps unfairly, because Grandfather is rich and we are the oldest family in the county. When they brought Duane out of the cell he was unmarked. The football players tried to sneer, but Duane looked through them as if they weren’t there. The sheriff said that if anyone slandered me again there would be trouble. Grandpa said, “One more word and I’ll run all of you filth straight back to Omaha.” The parents begged forgiveness but he ignored them. I could see he was enjoying his righteous indignation. Out in the parking lot of the county building I said thank you to Duane. He squeezed my arm and said “It’s fine, partner.” I almost fell apart when he called me “partner.”
    I was not bothered by the boys at school after that, though I was lonely and I was given the behind-the-back nickname of “Squaw.” I didn’t mind the nickname; in fact, I was proud of it, because it meant in the minds of others that I belonged to Duane. When he found out, however, he laughed and said I could never be a squaw because there was so little Indian inme as to be unnoticeable. This made me quarrelsorne and I said, Where did you get those hazel-green eyes if you’re so pure? His anger seemed to make him want to tell me something, but he only said he was over half Sioux and in the eyes of the law that made him Sioux.
    After that we didn’t have anything to do with each other for a month. One summer evening when Grandpa was over for dinner he took me aside and told me it was a terrible mistake to fall in love with an Indian boy. I was embarrassed but had the presence to ask him why his own father had married a Sioux girl. “Who knows why anybody marries anybody.” His own wife, whom