Winter of the Wolf Moon by Steve Hamilton

that might help me find your daughter?”
    “I’m afraid not,” Mr. Parrish said.
    “Can I give you my name and number, in case you hear from her?”
    “Yes,” he said.
    I asked them for paper and a pen, and then wrote down the information. I had a sick feeling that it was a completely futile gesture.
    “I’m sorry to have taken up your time like this,” I said. “I hope this …” I searched for the right words.I couldn’t even think straight anymore. “I hope this all works out.”
    “Thank you,” he said. I shook his hand and then Mrs. Parrish’s. She hadn’t said a word since offering us the coffee.
    It was dark already and still snowing when we went back outside. The day was gone.
    I started up the truck and got the heater going. We had been in there so briefly, it didn’t take long to warm up. I didn’t feel like talking, so we rode back most of the way to Paradise in silence.
    “What about your car?” I finally said. “Where is it?”
    “I’m sure my cousins took it back to my house,” he said.
    I nodded. There was more silence. A deer hopped through the snow and across the road in front of us.
    “Okay,” I said. “So what the hell happened back there?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “The Parrishes. Why were they acting so strange?”
    “How were they acting strange?”
    “Come on,” I said. “Their daughter just got kidnapped. I could barely get them to blink.”
    “Alex,” he said, “you don’t understand.”
    “What don’t I understand? Explain it to me. Start with how they could go for years without even hearing from her. I thought family was everything to you guys.”
    “It is everything,” he said. “But you have to understand the way my people are. You know, when I was growing up, my mother used to ask me if I wanted to go to the dentist. She didn’t
tell
me I wasgoing. She
asked
me. I would usually say no and I wouldn’t go. Does that seem strange to you?”
    “Yes,” I said. “But what does that have to do with anything?”
    “The Ojibwa people do not believe in interfering with other people’s lives. Even with their own children’s lives. They believe we each have to choose our own path in life. Even if it’s the wrong path.”
    “That doesn’t explain anything,” I said. “Vinnie, she was
kidnapped
, for God’s sake! Shouldn’t that matter to them?”
    “Of course it matters,” he said. “What did you want them to do? Break down and start crying for you? They’re not going to show their emotions like that, especially in front of a stranger. And they’re not going to ask you to help them, either.”
    “No, of course not,” I said. “Not an outsider.”
    “No,” he said. “Not an outsider. It’s not the Ojibwa way.”
    “It’s not, huh?”
    “No,” he said. “And that’s all I can say.”
    “Vinnie, you know what?”
    “What?”
    “That’s a load of horseshit. Everything you just said.”
    “I’m sorry you don’t like it.”
    “They’re not aliens from fucking outer space,” I said. “They’re human beings. Their daughter is in trouble. She got mixed up with a very bad guy. Now she’s in big trouble. She might be dead, even. Excuse me for expecting them to seem just a little bit concerned by that.”
    “Excuse them for not showing it in a way that’sacceptable to you,” he said. “We are different. It’s that simple.”
    I should have stopped right there. I was worn out. I didn’t know what I was saying at that point. But I kept going. “And what’s with this ‘we’ business, anyway? I didn’t even think you were an Indian anymore. You moved off the reservation. You don’t hang out with them anymore, except to play hockey once a week.”
    “You’re crossing the line, Alex.”
    “Oh, and when you take the white guys out hunting, then you’re Red Sky again, that’s right. Then you’re an Indian. Or when you’re trying to explain the Ojibwa way to me. I guess you can just turn it on and off like a faucet, huh?