Sonya would have loved to remain in this position forever, safe under the sheet between Becky's arms. Unfortunately, she awoke at about 7:30 a.m., and realized it would be better to get a proper start of the day. She pulled on the clothes that had been strewn about the couches, and creeped back in to plant a firm kiss on top of Becky's open mouth, then some more on her freckled cheeks. "Can't stay now, baby. But we'll do it some more when I can," she whispered.
Heading out through the same path home, Sonya was caught musing in the air. Despite the fatigue of the torrid loving, she thought this was the perfect way to start her time back on the land. She was snapped out of this when she saw another figure standing by the side of the path, and was even startled to see the person was focused on her. It was the girl from the night before. She was standing in an outcropping of no particular importance, doing nothing of any particular interest. In fact nothing at all. Sonya gave a cursory nod in the girl's direction, which was returned with a bashful smile.
Was she some sort of outcast, always leaving, but never arriving anywhere, wondered Sonya. For the life of her, there seemed to be no reason this girl should be anywhere but at home in the midnight hours or the first gasps of morning. But Sonya realized soon that until then there had been little reason for herself to be up this early. So she resigned herself to being a newbie, and continued home.
The actual work began in earnest at about 10:30, when Sonya reported to the Circle Nation main office, a sort of makeshift city hall. This was populated by filing cabinets containing graduation records, employment stubs, and copies of other such documents that would interest only a statistician or an IRS auditor. No full time staff existed, and the record keeper was Luke Dalton, usually the owner of the bait and tourist supply store 500 yards off. Dalton was a fifty-something squat man, with the dark complexion of Sonya's people, and a laid back, or rather apathetic demeanour.
"I need you just not to lose anything. I get fined if something is lost that could warrant copying," he had warned. He then proceeded to drive off in his Dodge Ram to the bait store, the muffler rattling along the gravel.
Sonya compiled her data diligently, and only took a couple of breaks. Once was to go to Dalton's store to buy a bottle of Snapple. At that time the dirt paths had been barren, save for a few birds bobbing along and seeking out seeds for food. The second time she just went out to the chairs in the shade of the tree outside of main office and sat down. Inhaling nasally, she retrieved from her purse a metal box, and in it a spliff. Sonya had always shunned the company of the stoner crowd, but she wasn't as discriminating about their material. For several minutes she allowed the haze to seep into her mind, and she was confident that no one in the area would take notice or protest at her behaviour. The reverie she entered brought up thoughts of far off places and people: campus at Stillwater, the pristine beaches of Okinawa, and the thrilling time she had had there with Fumiko, finding a military policewoman who knew how to call in a favour and give a couple special ones herself.
The relationship with Fumiko was still composed, although in her mind Sonya had come to realize that it was not the exciting ride it had begun as. In fact, it seemed that day by day their paths had begun to circle further away from each other as their major requirements were vastly different, Fumiko had little in common with Sonya's small social circle. It was truly fortunate that neither of them were especially jealous; although to say that they were both scoring left and right would be highly misleading. But their tastes seemed so unrelated that to Sonya it seemed inevitable that this beautiful relationship would wither away once the sexual desire of it wore out.
Her reflection was snapped away when out of the corner of her eye she saw something creeping by steadily. It could have been an animal, but it was rather tall, and kind of upright. If it was a human, they were obviously trying to stay hidden in the daylight as only a mere dozen yards away was the edge of the gravel path. Sonya rose and crouched down to move closer to the thing. Once within her sight, she saw that it was the girl who had been wandering at night, in the morning . . . and now in the middle of the day. In this clear light Sonya could take better note of her features. She wore her long dark hair down and scattered about her shoulders, unlike Sonya's shoulder length hair that she at times wore in a ponytail. Her clothing was plain and nondescript; a simple light kelly green blouse, jean skirt to just above her knees, flip flops. The girl's face was by no means plain, but it showed the same dark features of the locals, along with arched eyebrows.
Sonya couldn't decide whether it was the high, the heat, or her imagination, but the girl looked to be sneaking around, and she was slightly crouched. Unfortunately, she lacked the drive to call out, but her suspicions were soon confirmed when the girl realized she was detected, and a look of panic registered in her eyes. She quickly scurried off back the way she came, which was even more surprising. What explanation could there be for that?
Rather than dwell on it outside, Sonya decided to return to her job. After all, she couldn't well do much to deal with this bizarre series of sightings. So she delved back into compiling her statistical pool. Yet only too quickly the mundane task became very tiresome for her mind, which wandered back to the encounter. In a flash, Sonya realized that the office contained files on most of the people of the reservations surrounding Circle Nation. Her curiosity got the better of her, and she stalked over to an area containing files on the high school and the tribal cultural society. Much of it had to do with antiquated programs that were composed in order to endow the Ariwa children with knowledge of the customs, ritual, and heritage of the tribe. But these had never come about due to budgetary constraints and that vocational training had long ago become top priority in tribal schools. But this wasn't what she was looking for.
Instead Sonya retrieved dusty old copies of the high school yearbook from her graduation year, and those surrounding it. After deftly leafing past her own class page, which contained perhaps sixty graduates, Sonya turned to the page featuring the children two years younger than her, who would have graduated one year ago. The faces seemed all to melt together, but eventually she recognized the photo: Dark raven hair, clear brown skin, skinny face with high cheekbones and black eyes that nevertheless shone in the photo. All traits common to any of the members of their nation; yet nevertheless it was clearly that girl. Nora McDowell read the caption. Another so-called Scot. Now Sonya could put a name to the familiar face. This was also, she noticed, the first image she had seen of the girl smiling. Every time she had crossed paths with her in the dirt pathways a grimace or other look of anxiety was etched across her face.
The image created a flow back of the context from which the girl came. Sonya remembered that in high school Nora would hang out with a group of four or so other girls, most of them from her own hamlet, Crow Basin. She remembered this because some of their faces were visible on the page as well. With this tiny bit of information, Sonya could finally put some specifics to this mercurial girl, if still no context. She then was left with nothing else but to return to her previous mundane task.
Regardless of her discovery of the haunter's (dare she say stalker's) identity, Sonya now was positive she was being followed, and that these encounters weren't freak occurrences. It was soon brought to a head that very evening after Sonya finished exercising at the Circle Nation Community Club, the only gym for miles in the barren area. Of this the older residents were particular thankful for: The gym was reasonably well built, clean, and furnished. It was by no means state of the art. It made some wonder whether it would have been more worthwhile for them to request more money from the Sooners at the state capital for refurbishing the dilapidated high school. But what's done was done, and Sonya, as most residents with some free time, resolved to make the best of the club. She was still showering herself off when she distinctly heard some short footsteps in the shower room. Her whole time at the aerobics room and the other sections of the camp, she had only seen two other people, high school boys at that, who were using treadmills. So someone else in the women's showers would be highly odd, as no one else had been practicing.
Sonya tried to leap out of the shower fast, and unfortunately rustled the curtains noisily, so that rapidly the person who had been on the outside took flight. Sonya barely caught a glance of the person's foot, a small one, around the corner. The person had slipped noisily, but regained their balance and continued to bound out of the women's showers. Sonya could only shake her head, as pursuit was out of the question as she stood their dripping wet and naked. But she resolved that this would be the last instance where her privacy would be violated for no explicable reason. This was going beyond bizarre, it was harassment. Sonya had never encountered such behaviour when living here. For all purposes, she was a typical girl born of the tribe. Her sexuality floated among the tribe in the grey realm between open secret and irrelevance, just as Becky's was constantly ignored simply because nobody even paid attention to her unless one of their children was sent off early for acting out. Among the Ariwa youth there were enough alcoholics, drug peddlers, and other general delinquents that the idea of a lez daughter seemed quite tame in comparison. This fact about her life hadn't been discovered, so much as whispered about, upon which during her senior year Sonya had confirmed this very nonchalantly to a pair of her casual friends who had asked her.
Since returning, the tribe had allowed her to take a private cabin for the summer, from where she could have slightly more privacy. It had a bedroom, bath, kitchen, and living room Once she had returned there with her duffel bag, Sonya had an idea once she realized her windows were all open. She unloaded her laundry and dirty towel from the bag, and then opened her cell phone and pretended to dial a number. After waiting a few seconds, she spoke into it: "Yeah, I'll be here, just gonna read a little in the bath tub, hun," she remarked to no one. Sonya then went to the bathroom and began to run a bath, though without placing a stopper in the drain. She then retreated from the room, and, instead of undressing, crouched down, went over to the living room, and climbed through the low window opening that lacked a screen. She creeped around the corner and reached the window that overlooked the bathroom. Sure enough there was a figure waiting next to it and peering in.
"Gotcha!" screamed Sonya as she grabbed the person around the waist. Nora McDowell put up a spirited resistance, albeit was too puny to make a difference, even against someone like Sonya who was barely any taller or more muscular.
