“It never crossed my mind,” I said of the small aircraft that buzzed me earlier in the day. By then though, I was making the trek back to the highway in passenger seat of federal vehicle, though I really didn’t understand why. It was slightly after sun-up when I pulled my truck onto the side…

As I’m searching the newspaper before I use it to light the wood stove, one classified advertisement diverts my attention. Call me. I need to hear from you. There’s a number. I recognize the area code for eastern California; I’m across the border in Nevada, trying to keep warm in a tin-roofed cabin on some…

‘Batching it,’ is not as fun as my other married friends claim it to be. I think they say this so it won’t be learned that they’re helplessly, madly in love with their wives and therefore thought uncool, as if they don’t have that same feeling they had the day they proposed. The TV will…

‘Stella,’ I heard her name before I saw her and to do that I had to move to the front of the bunch. We’d been packed together like the proverbial ‘sardines.’ She was all that I had dreamed of, and when we made contact, we both knew it was our destiny to spend time together. Stella’s…

Oh, warmth, where are you? My skin itches for your scratch. My joints scream in bony agony. My fingers fumble, refusing to bend. My feet are but blocks of ice, though they be rosy pink. Not even in my clothing or under my blankets, can I find your friendship. My hearth, though blazing, blows a…

There is a visceral difference in the sound between rain as it drops through a forest canopy and falls unencumbered in a city street. Neither are softer, nor gentler in the landing. This afternoon, I squat in a back alley off the main drag of this city, covered with a water-logged piece of cardboard, writing…

The old carnival fortune-telling machine sat quietly in the corner of the antique store collecting dust. Tiny couldn’t help himself as he walked over to it to get a better look. He was wasting some time before dinner and found the store the perfect place to help him. The old thing reminded him of the one…

The noise came from beneath her bed. Fearing a monster, Alice grabs her teddy bear, willing it to keep her safe. “Mommy! ” Alice cries, but her mother doesn’t respond. She squeezes the teddy bear tighter. Then Alice hears footsteps coming to her door. The noises from under the bed suddenly grow quiet as her…

“Are you crazy?” Mary Sargent’s daughter pleaded, “Don’t get in the car with him!” That was February 12, 1987 – the last time anyone would see her again. Within hours she’d be reported missing as the man driving the car, with whom Mary had an abusive relationship, would return to the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony (RSIC)…

It was a conversation I wasn’t supposed to overhear, but the man doing the talking and laughing was loud and not paying very much attention to his surroundings as he spoke to the few camp-followers he had in tow. It happened during the invocation on Sunday, the final day of the Numaga 2018 Pow Wow.…