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i knew she was trouble the minute she walked up those stairs.

she looked me up and down and sized me up the way i used to size up guys before i got in the ring or the cage. she looked at my bum leg and sneered just a little with her eyes telling me she knew i was a washed up palooka good for nothing but holding the pads and maybe giving guys or girls with real potential a pointer or two.

a woman like her was out of my weight class and she knew it and she told me with her eyes that she knew it.

she was a pure blood too.

you could see it in her raven black hair and almond shaped dark cat eyes pure blood was about as rare a thing on the rez as you could ever find.

not some half breed like me.

i didn’t like the way she made me feel and i loved it too.

i loved that she was looking right at me like i was what she had come there to find and i was too, i was just too dumb to know it until it was too late to do me or anybody else one bit of good.

the kid i was working the pads with kept drifting his right down every time he threw a left no matter how many times i told him so i clipped good with a left hook. even with the pads i still had the juice to put the kid on his knees.

i looked at her and she looked at me and i knew this was going sideways but i just didn’t care.

the kid was on his knees gasping for air and i was looking at her, into her eyes and she was looking into mine.

the darkest eyes that i ever saw.

i thought i remembered that her family had a house near muscrat creek on the american side but that she was always hanging around buckshot road on the island for some reason. just a kid back then. skinny as a snake but with those dark deep dark eyes and that long black hair looking just like an indian ought to look, not like me and all the other half breeds on that island. like a real f.b.i. a full blooded indian.

now she was older and looking at me and she was about as beautiful as i could ever imagine a woman being.

she was all the trouble in the world.

she was going to be the death of me.

and i just didn’t care.

there is a mohawk word.

atonhnhetshera.

spirit.

something like spirit.

one of the few mohawk words i could remember with my broken brain.

atonhnhetshera.

there are no good spirits or bad spirits. there are only spirits. and like people they can be good for you or bad for you but not because they themselves are good or bad but because like most things we only know them by what they do to us or for us on ourselves. there are animal spirits. there are plant spirits. and there are trickster spirits.

she was definitely a trickster spirit.

and if she was an animal she would be a crow or a raven because her hair was black and shimmering like a crow or raven and crows and ravens are tricksters all the way.

she moved like she belonged to the night. she moved like she belonged to the darkness.

and i wanted to be part of that night part of that darkness i wanted to be a part of her trickster spirit her atonhnhetshera even if it meant my complete and utter destruction, even if it meant the total loss of me.

the kid on the floor got up. gave me a look.

-keep your eyes open next time.

i tried hard to do the same. to not keep looking at her.

we went back to working the pads.

she turned her back and started talking to someone. i couldn’t tell who.

the kid caught me with a left to the belly. grinned at me. i swung another one at his head. this time he ducked.

i wanted to know who she was talking to.

i wanted to walk over and beg her to talk to me.

i kept working the pads with the kid.

even from behind she was someone you would want to look at it. the lights shimmered off of her raven black hair. off of her. and she carried herself like someone you should look at. the way she stood there just said that she expected you to look.

i tried hard not to be that guy.

i kept the pads going with the kid. i could do that in my sleep. normally i kept my eyes on a fighter just to let them know that’s the way it should be. but i could feel my eyes wandering. i would pull them back again and again but they just wanted to look at her.

i caught the kid again.

he went down in a heap.

this time was an accident. but i acted like it wasn’t.

-get up. you gotta learn how to take a punch. that wasn’t hard. get up.

the kid got up. his eyes flashed anger.

i hit him again. this time he stayed on his feet.

-don’t get mad if you get hit. you get hit solid hit you did something wrong. don’t get mad at me. don’t get mad at him. it’s your fault. stay cool and fix your defence.

he looked down at the floor. the anger was still there. he got his guard up and went back to work though.

i wanted her to turn around. i wanted her to see me. i wanted to see more of her.

i kept working the pads with the kid. but on automatic pilot.

left. left. right. duck. left uppercut. right head hook. rinse and repeat.

then she turned around.

she looked me right in the eyes again.

those eyes were dark like i never ever seen dark before.

i got lost in those eyes.

and the kid hit me.

caught me right on the chin with a good hard right.

i didn’t go down but he definitely rang my bell.

rang my bell hard.

and all i could think about was those eyes.

i kept the pads going but all i could think about was those dark eyes.

she was trouble alright.

even then i knew she was going to be all kinds of trouble for me.

even then i knew she was going to be the death of me.

and i didn’t care.

i didn’t care at all.

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