Page 199 of The Lonely Road

“Well,” she said, with the expression of a woman who has been several steps ahead of a situation and is enjoying the reveal. “Lana wanted to make sure I’d like it.” Then she squealed—actually squealed—and jumped slightly. “We’re engaged!”

She threw herself into my arms.

I swung her around and thought this is what coming home feels like. This is what a full life means.

“She would have liked you,” she said, against my shoulder. “Wíitsin. Eventually.”

“Eventually,” I agreed.

She pulled back. “Okay, stir that.” She pointed at the stove. “I need to take pictures of this ring and send it to everyone I know.”

We got married that New Year’s Eve at the Southern Ute Multi-Purpose Facility and Chapel in Ignacio.

It was a small wedding—friends and family.

Southern Ute weddings often blend cultural traditions with personal touches, and our ceremony was no exception. There was a traditional blessing, and while she wore traditional regalia with eagle feathers, I wore a suit.

But as they say, it’s not the wedding but the marriage—and so far, this marriage is going very well. I am grateful and proud every day to be the man in Taya’s life. And now we’re back in Ignacio for the Bear Dance—my second, our first as a married couple.

After half an hour at the pull-off, watching the basin spread out below us, she smiles at me. “Ready?”

I meet her gaze. “Yes.”

She pulls back onto the highway and takes us toward what has become my home, too.

This time, I know where the Bear Dance takes place— I know the brush arbor, the two circles of the ceremony and the powwow running alongside each other, the families in their chairs at the edge of the arbor, the elders closest, and the children immune to all boundaries.

I know the smell of it.

Frybread and woodsmoke and the early-summer smell of the mesa—sage and the earth returning to itself.

Auntie Carol finds us in the first five minutes.

“You taking good care of her, Mason?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She turns to Taya as if to verify this, and Taya groans and tells her to stop harassing me, which Auntie Carol receives with the serene satisfaction of a woman who will always do exactly what she intends.

Taya is in an ochre dress—new, but the cobalt shawl is the old one, as is her jewelry, inherited from her grandmother.

“You’re staring,” she says.

“Yes.”

“Stop.”

“No.” I kiss her cheek. “My wife is too beautiful to look away from.”

She shakes her head. But the corner of her mouth moves.

Elder Nokoni takes me around while Taya goes off with Sienna to do whatever they’ve been doing together since they were seven years old.

I know more this year than last.

I know the moraches.

I know the Bear Dance Chief’s grandfather’s name.