Robert spent the following day on the lake with Angus McDonald, exploring new fishing spots. He caught his limit the first hour but, fortunately, he had followed his young guide's advice and only kept one.  At noon they found a spot on one of the islands that was sheltered from the wind. Robert built a fire, fried fish and potatoes and heated a can of beans.

When they were ready to eat he bowed his head and asked God's blessing on the food.  Angus nodded his approval. "Back home in Scotland, my father always prayed before we ate. We didn't have that much money and the meals were often skimpy, but he thanked God for them, just the same."

Robert could have told him it was the same at their house, but he didn't.

"And at night, before we went to bed, Father got down the family Bible and read to us - a whole chapter. If somebody whispered, or even looked as though he was going to, he got whacked on the head with the ruler Father always kept handy. . . ." He laughed.  "Verda and I sort of got away from that the last few years."

Robert told him about his dad and how much becoming a Christian had changed him.  "Everything about Dad has been different since that happened," he said. "We used to get so scared when he came home. We could tell when we saw him get out of the car or walk toward the house, if he'd been drinking. If he had, we'd hide in the woods or sneak over to Grandma and Grandpa Roberts' place. We'd stay there until we knew he was asleep, or had gone again."

McDonald got up and stretched his legs. "Somehow that doesn't fit what I've seen of your pa. He's struck me as being a decent sort."

"He's not that way now," Robert assured him. "You'd never find a better dad anywhere... Oh. he makes us mind and gets after us if we don't, but he's different than he used to be, that's for sure."

McDonald stared across the lake at a huge white pelican that was floating majestically in the lee of a neighboring island.

"That's quite a tribute, Robert. If I had a son, I couldn't wish for him to say anything that would please me more than what you've said about your dad."

They fished several hours more, throwing back the fish after Angus McDonald had his limit. It was almost five that afternoon when they finally headed back to the lodge.

Louis and Verda McDonald had come in only moments before they arrived.

"I'll help you fillet the fish," Louis said. "That way we can go home together."

"We don't have enough for both of us to get our hands dirty." Robert set to work.  "What did you do today?"

Louis grinned. "I hunted flowers and when I found them I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants, waded to shore pulling the boat if the water was deep enough. If it wasn't, Mrs. McDonald took off her shoes and socks and rolled up her jeans so we could both go ashore. Then I pointed to flowers for pictures. I held flowers. I pretended to hold flowers. I brushed off the ants and smiled and pretended I thought I was looking at the most beautiful flower in the world, even if it looked like a weed to me."

"It sounds as though you had a wonderful time."

"Do you know what she wishes?" he continued. "She wishes I lived close enough so she could take me to a meeting of her flower club."

"Don't tell me she thinks you're beautiful, too!"

Louis glared at his brother. "It's a good thing I'm not cleaning fish or you'd get one right in the smacker!"

 "And what're you doing tomorrow?" Robert asked.

"Guess what! We're going to look for more flowers."

When he finished deboning the fish, Robert took the fish to the cook. Angus had already made arrangements for two of the nicest to be cooked for them that night, and two more to be cooked the following night. Then the Yazzie brothers walked back to their trailer.

The instant they were close enough to see it through the woods, they saw that the door was open.

"Look!" Robert cried, starting to run. "Somebody's broken into our trailer!"

Louis was half a step behind.

The boys burst through the door and stopped, staring about the long, narrow room.  They expected everything would be torn up or stolen, but they were wrong. The bedroom doors were open and the dresser drawers were dumped on the floor, but that was all.

"Why would anybody break in here?" Louis asked. "About all we've got that's worth anything to them would be the TV and VCR, and they're still here."

"I don't have a clue," Robert replied, reaching for the phone. "I'm going to phone Dad."

"Don't touch anything!" Frank Yazzie warned him. "I'll call the RCMP and be right over."

Corporal Tim Starr was on his way back to the station when Frank's call came in. "I'm just leaving the reserve," he told the dispatcher. "Tell Frank I should be there in fifteen minutes."

Louis moved to the window and looked out. For some reason his heart beat a savage tattoo against his ribs.

"Do you suppose this has anything to do with those guys who tried to attack Tawana?"

Robert was thinking the same thing. He started to go back into the bedroom, but stopped as he saw their dad coming toward the trailer. An instant later the patrol car wheeled into the yard and stopped.

Corporal Starr took a quick look about the trailer and asked if anything was missing.  The boys' dad opened one of the closets and saw that his rifle was there, and so was a box of cartridges.

"I can't say for sure until I check," Frank replied, "but the obvious things for thieves to take are still here. My rifle, of course, and the TV and VCR weren't taken."

"Maybe whoever broke in saw the boys coming and were scared off."

Robert didn't think that was likely, either. They hadn't been talking, so the thieves wouldn't have heard them coming, and they had seen the open trailer door as soon as they entered the clearing.

"Maybe someone else scared them," Corporal Starr said. "Or, maybe they were looking for something they thought you had hidden somewhere in the trailer."

Frank thought about that. "I don't know what it could be," he said at last. "Everything we've got is in the dresser drawers and the closets."

"It doesn't appear to be vandalism," the officer continued.  He lowered his voice. "Tell me, Frank. Have you any enemies who may have wanted to show you what they could have done to your place, if they'd wanted to."

"The only ones I know would be the hoodlums who tried to attack my daughter, Tawana."

Starr's lips tightened. "That might be a possibility, especially if they think you're close to learning who they are and wanted to warn you to lay off."

"It would take more than this to stop me, if I had any idea who they are," he said, "but I don't."

Corporal Starr took statements from Robert and Louis and dusted the doorknobs and drawers for fingerprints. He found a number that were so badly smudged they would be useless, but there were several that were very clear. Once he finished that, he took the fingerprints of Frank and the boys.

"We have to have these," he explained, "to rule out your prints. We know they'll be everywhere."

Finally he was ready to leave.

"We'll do some checking and get back to you, Frank. And if you or the boys remember anything, or see anything - anything at all that might give us a lead, get in touch with me right away. We're going to need all the help we can get if we're to find the characters who broke in here."

Frank followed him out to the car and talked for a moment in low tones before Corporal Starr drove away. When he came back into the trailer he called the boys into the kitchen.

"Let's keep this quiet, shall we?" Frank said, looking from one to the other.

"I thought you'd want as many people to know about it as you could get," Robert Yazzie said. "Somebody else may have seen or heard something."

"Whoever did this may be waiting to see how we take it," Frank explained. "Corporal Starr thinks it best for us to keep quiet about what happened here, but to keep our eyes and our ears open. The ones who broke into our place might start fishing to find out what we think about what happened and what we're doing about it." He breathed deeply. "Keeping still just might cause them to make a stupid mistake that'll help the RCMP catch them."

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