The Removed
Page 21
Ellen turned off the phonograph. “He likes listening to Charlie Rich records,” she said. “It’s the only thing he asks for.” She went over to the window and opened the blinds, brightening the room. I saw newspaper pages scattered all over the floor. Bits of dust settled in the slanted sunlight streaming in from the window.
“Calvin, this lady would like to talk for a few minutes,” Ellen said to him. I waited for her to step out of the room before I moved closer to him and spoke.
“I’m Maria Echota,” I told him. “My son was Ray-Ray Echota.”
I waited a moment, but he didn’t respond.
“I’m Maria Echota,” I said again. “You shot my son Ray-Ray at a shopping mall fifteen years ago. Do you remember that? Surely you do. You remember shooting my son.”
He kept staring at the floor. He scratched at his upper lip, but he wouldn’t look up at me.
“What I need to say to you,” I said, “is that I want to learn how to forgive you. That’s what I have wanted for a long time, to learn how to forgive you for what you did. I have thought about this for a long time.”
“Charlie Rich,” he said weakly. He blinked, confused. “Not the polygraph.”
“I want to tell you that even though I want more than anything to forgive you, I can’t,” I said. “I can’t. You shot my son. You killed him out of your own ignorance and bigotry. I’ll never be able to forgive you for that.”
He shook his head, confused. He kept scratching at his upper lip. On the dresser beside his bed were vials of pills and liquids. Magazines were stacked on the same dresser, hunting magazines, firearm magazines. I looked around the room while he sat there, silent. He was squinting at something on the floor.
I had imagined this moment very differently, with me screaming at him. I had always pictured myself hitting him repeatedly with my bare hands. The moment had finally arrived, and there I was, confronting him, ready to unleash my anger. But standing there now, I couldn’t do it. I was not as angry as I had expected to be. Despite my reason for being there, despite everything, I could not help but feel sad for him.
“The revolver,” he said weakly, staring into the floor.
Maybe empathy was the beginning of healing, I remember thinking. Or maybe I was unaware that time had already healed me.
* * *
September 6, that melancholy, weary afternoon lingered quietly before the evening bonfire. Back home, at lunch, the meat was cooked without a word, eaten while the sun crept in through the windows. The bread was passed to Ernest and he devoured it, crumb by crumb. I had no idea how he was able to eat. I hardly touched anything on my plate.
Late in the afternoon I tried to keep busy cleaning the house. Whatever hope I had felt lost in the moment. Sweeping the kitchen, I struggled with the situation in my mind: what would happen with Wyatt, whether I would see him again, whether I would feel Ray-Ray’s spirit again. Everything would work itself out, I assured myself. I wanted to try to take my mind off things, off Wyatt and off Edgar, who had been in my thoughts a lot among everything else. I imagined the coming night, picturing the flames of the bonfire lighting up Ernest and Sonja’s faces as we marked the anniversary of Ray-Ray’s passing. Afterward, sitting underneath the sky in the cool breeze of the night, I would tell myself he was there with me. That everyone was there with me, including Edgar.
For me, for all of us, September 6 will always hold a strange sadness mixed with celebration.
Outside, Sonja helped Ernest gather wood for the bonfire behind the house, near the water. The wind passed over us, and the sun had gone behind the clouds, leaving a gray, oppressive afternoon. I slept on and off for a while on the couch. When I woke, I sat up and looked at my trembling hands.
Outside, the wind made it difficult for Ernest to get the bonfire going, but he had always been an expert at it, having built campfires for many years. I brought the food out, the rainbow corn and blackberries Ray-Ray always loved and the bread I’d baked, while Sonja spread blankets on the ground for us. We sat on the blankets and ate in silence, the three of us. We had our silent supper to think about Ray-Ray, our family, and what we would share. In the last light of the day, Ernest put more wood on the bonfire while Sonja and I sat together on the blanket.
“It looks good,” Sonja said quietly.
“Soon it’ll be dark,” I told her.
Something flashed on the horizon, and we heard the distant call of an owl. The fire was warm and bright, and my breathing was shallow. We sat in silence as the sky hardened to night. I saw Sonja’s eyes, harsh and gleaming.
“This is a time to think about Ray-Ray,” Ernest said. “It’s also a time to think about our family.”
Sonja was kneeling in front of the bonfire, her head bowed. She was mysteriously still, an image of a statue in a garden. Slowly, she began to hum. When I looked at Ernest, I noticed that his eyes were watery, and I felt gratitude that he was well. I longed for the moment to last forever. I longed to lie down and roll around in the grass and let myself be pulled into a tunnel. I imagined myself crawling through the tunnel with Ernest, Sonja, and Edgar following close behind. The tunnel would be a long hallway lit with candles leading to some place far away, where the passageway ended in a reunification with Ray-Ray.
A swarm of locusts buzzed from the trees, disappearing into the dark sky. In the distance, I noticed that someone was walking toward us. I saw a figure, a man. Ernest noticed him too, then took my hand and squeezed it. The figure was difficult to see in only the light of the fire, but I could tell he was glowing and beautiful.
“Look, there,” Ernest said, pointing.
Sonja opened her eyes, stopped humming, and put her hands to her face. In the stillness of the night, there was the distant sound of voices. We could see the figure emerging from the darkness and approaching us. Listen! Do you hear? Listen. We heard the creaking of oaks, the rustle of trees shaken alive by a gust of wind. We heard the incessant voices all around us, the voices of our people, our ancestors, all of them whispering: Home.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks, first, to Caroline Eisenmann for the early reads, helpful comments, and important suggestions. Big thanks also to Sara Birmingham at Ecco for the strong editorial vision to help shape this book and its timeline, especially with Tsala’s sections. Thanks to Caitlin Mulrooney-Lyski and everyone else at Ecco. Thanks to Brad McLelland, who suggested the title at a coffee shop in Ponca, Oklahoma. Thanks to Geary Hobson and Rilla Askew for their support. I’m indebted to Brad Morrow for publishing excerpts at Conjunctions, and to Claire Boyle for publishing an excerpt at McSweeney’s. Thanks to my colleagues in the English department at New Mexico State for their support, especially Rus Bradburd, Connie Voisine, and Richard Greenfield. Thanks also to my colleagues at the Institute of American Indian Arts for their support. Some of Cherokee myths in this novel are either a product of my imagination or are based on certain myths in James Mooney’s Myths of the Cherokee (U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology,1897–8 Annual Report, 1902), which is great resource for early Cherokee stories. I’m always indebted to my former teacher and mentor and friend, Stewart O’Nan. Thanks to my family for all their support. Finally, a very special thanks to the person who wanted to remain anonymous but who shared such important information to help me understand Maria’s character better. Wado and peace.
Also by Brandon Hobson
Where the Dead Sit Talking
Deep Ellum
Desolation of Avenues Untold
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE REMOVED. Copyright © 2021 by Brandon Hobson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the
text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Ecco® and HarperCollins® are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers.
Cover design by Elizabeth Yaffe
Cover photograph by Florent Drillon/Millennium Images, UK
FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hobson, Brandon, author.
Title: The removed : a novel / Brandon Hobson.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2021] | Summary: “Steeped in Cherokee myths and history, a novel about a fractured family reckoning with the tragic death of their son long ago from National Book Award finalist Brandon Hobson”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020040868 (print) | LCCN 2020040869 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062997548 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780062997562 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS3608.O248 R46 2021 (print) | LCC PS3608.O248 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020040868
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020040869
Digital Edition FEBRUARY 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-299756-2
Version 12162020
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-299754-8
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