NORA
The day after she met Mason at the Whiskey Nora graded the quizzes the sixth grade had taken on the First People. She read Sal’s first. His handwriting was blocky and neat, and it reminded her of the careful way he’d hung the posters on her bulletin board. The first question was What was the First People’s diet? His answer: ‘Saber-toothed tigers. Sloths. Mastodon. Camels. Until they killed them all.’ Nora laughed at the brutal accuracy of it. The rest of his answers were almost as blunt, except the last one. What happened to the First People? she’d asked. The correct answer was what she’d told him: their descendants were today’s Paiutes and the other modern tribes of the Americas. His answer ran to the bottom of the page:
Their gods were killed by new gods. The new gods told them th
