There’s only one man Anna Marie Looking Cloud wants, and she can’t have him.

The night is luminous, white clouds against the navy blue sky, huge moon, everything silver. Storm clouds rise over the Black Hills, though, spread east toward the Oglala Lakota Indian Reservation, toward the village of Wambli and the badlands, and sheet lightning flashes. But even with the storm coming, the roads in Wambli are silver, the dogs silent, the people asleep. Two hours till dawn, three, she is not sure. The summer air is soft. She watches, sitting at her window, listening to the silence: hears not even the air rush of a car on Highway 44, not even an owl on the ridgeline, hunting. Why do they call?

Chance Amiotte sleeps with his new wife, Frances. They were married three weeks ago. Their house is two houses away from hers, near the highway. Anna Marie knows she shouldn’t even be thinking about Chance, thinks about maybe moving to the Quiver outfit, staying in a little house up there near the cliffs and the badlands, eight, ten miles from Chance and Frances. They need space. Frances’ baby will come in February. A week ago Anna Marie didn’t even know.

She’s always been on her own, always been able to take care of herself. She’s lived on and off the reservation, taught school, been a counselor, gotten a M.A. in education, broken horses, bred cattle, flown a plane. Never loved anyone but Chance: refused to marry him.

She feels a stir, as if a breeze has started, feels motion somewhere. The night is not empty anymore. Someone is awake; she sees a light two houses down. She’s living too close, needs to go out to the Quiver place. There will be Sun Dancing. It would be a good thing.

A door opens and closes; the light goes out. Someone walks softly up the road, and a dog, roused, mutters a half threat, half greeting that devolves into a series of grunts. The dog knows the man. She does too: knows his walk. He crosses by the huge patch of sunflowers that erupt out of dozens of abandoned cars. Something screams in the night, in the inky patch by the cars.

She stands up, slips out of the house, meets him.

“What do you hear?” Chance asks, as if they had never been apart.

Thunder mutters far in the west, and the sky flickers.

“Nothin’ but the rain.”