Solar Storms

by Linda Hogan

  Auntie threw things into the bag—safety pins, tissues, food, anything she could get her hands on.

  The bag was too heavy. I said, “Auntie, I can’t.” I looked to Bush for help.

  Without speaking another word, Auntie unpacked some of the things, her hands still shaking, setting the items down as quick and hard as the way she’d picked them up.

  I didn’t want to go. I was afraid of them, that they’d open fire on me or burn down the house. But Auntie was right; it was safer for me to leave.

  Auntie opened the door and yelled out to them, “She has a baby. Let her go.” And then I was outside, standing in the combined light of morning and the machines. The house was surrounded. A few of the workers revved their engines to intimidate me, and me just a skinny girl with two bad teeth carrying her baby sister. That’s how large their fear was. The pale blue smoke of exhaust was all around the house.

  I remember thinking this: if we’d done such a thing to them, we’d be arrested and hauled away. But I was too afraid to be angry now.

  One of the workers was young. He stood beside one of the machines. He seemed afraid of what I might do. His eyes were afraid, that is. His mouth was set tight and firm. He moved to stand in my way.

  “Let me pass,” I said. I could see his throat, young and bony like that of an adolescent. He swallowed. He wasn’t going to move. My heart was beating fast, in my chest, my arms, my neck, everything heartbeat and fear. Aurora, sensing my fear, began to fuss, but then she, too, looked at the boy and became silent, alert, as if she remembered this from some earlier time.

  “Don’t let her go!” someone called out. The way sound carried, I couldn’t tell which man yelled but soon he walked forward until he, too, stood in the false light of the machines. “Don’t let her get behind us. She might have a gun.”

  “I don’t,” I said. “Look.” I laid Aurora down on the ground, beside a tree stump, and emptied my pockets and the contents of the bag, turning it over, spilling everything on the ground to show them—the diaper pins, a bottle, baby food, ajar of bait, a few diapers, a soda, and a bag of potato chips that Auntie had packed in case I became hungry.

  “Throw me that,” the young boy said. The bottle of pop, he meant. Maybe he thought it was a Molotov cocktail. “It’s only a soda,” I said. But he opened it and began to drink it, looking at me. This disturbed me nearly as much as their lights, their intrusion, though I never knew why until later, when I understood that he was one of those who thought it all belonged to him.

  “Check out the baby,” he said to another young man.

  It all happened so quickly, in less time than it takes to tell it. Auntie, still standing at the door, screamed at the men as they felt the baby for hidden weapons. She was alarmed, afraid for me. She saw them going through my things. Quickly, she ran out. I didn’t see what happened, exactly. I saw only that he pushed her and she, still in her robe, pushed him back. Leaving the bag, its contents on the ground, I stood up, grabbed Aurora, and ran with all my might toward the thin woods. I worried now only about Aurora. As much as I wanted to help Auntie, I needed even more to protect the baby. I stopped once and thought to run back, but Tulik was suddenly at my side, saying, “Go on, Angel,” in a calm voice but with such authority that I would never have defied him. He startled me. I hadn’t seen him coming. He’d seemed to pass invisibly through air, he seemed to be floating.

  Some of the men watched me hurry away. I felt their eyes as I tried to hold the baby in my arms, my gray shirt falling off my shoulder, exposing my bra strap, and me with my arms too full to do anything about it except to hurry away knowing I was watched.

  Later I wondered how these men, young though they were, did not have a vision large enough to see a life beyond their jobs, beyond orders, beyond the company that would ultimately leave them broke, without benefits, and guilty of the sin of land killing. Their eyes were not strong enough, their hearts not brave enough, their spirits not inside them. They had no courage. That’s all I could figure. Maybe, like us, they had only fear. But unlike us they were afraid of what no money, no home, no job might mean.

  I would wonder for years—I still wonder—what elements, what events would allow men to go against their inner voices, to go against even the cellular will of the body to live and to protect life, land, even their own children and their future. They were men who would reverse the world, change the direction of rivers, stop the cycle of life until everything was as backward as lies.

  Tulik would say that such men could not see all the way to the end of their actions. They were shortsighted. They had no vision. They had no future within them, no past. That morning, afraid and confused, I walked toward the house now and then, just to see if it was still there. I tried to remain invisible, peering between the white-trunked trees. I stumbled over stones and stumps, and then, finally, I went to the edge of water and sat, Aurora on my lap.

  Life had changed so suddenly. It had changed in a split second of time, in a single evening, with only as much as a poorly considered word.

  As I sat at the water’s edge, I thought of dwelling places, of the Oklahoma house I’d lived in that seemed it would fall over even though in truth it was straight and solid. I thought of my time on Fur Island, of the world at the Fat-Eaters that was thawing beneath buildings, its waters passing madly through other men’s illusions and false visions.

  That night I was fearful as I returned to the house, not knowing what I’d find. Already I saw that their dozers had driven over the whalebone fence. No one had bothered to take in the clothes. All our clothes that had been draped over it to dry were on the ground. The entire thing lay in heaps, a great skeleton of a gone thing, still covered with pieces of skin and fur: the red dress of Auntie, the jeans. It had fallen, Dora-Rouge said, with a sound like piano keys. But the work crew and their show of power were gone.

  Inside, Dora-Rouge was red-eyed. She’d been crying. Auntie was smoking a cigarette. Tulik was at the window, distracted. Bush was typing with fury. The keys were hard to push down; I could see it took effort, but she was going to tell the world what happened. She was going to mail the story and photographs she’d been taking with a camera Charles had given her.

  While Bush typed, Luce said, “No way can they get away with this,” and in spite of myself, I smiled.

  That day, Tulik had called the local police for our protection and peace, but the police never arrived.

  I was upset when he told me this. The anger inside me grew a new stem and I was reckless with it. I put Aurora on Auntie’s lap and before they could stop me, I went outside, jumped up into the red truck, turned the key that was in the ignition, and drove straight to town.

  I walked quickly into the station—that’s how young I was; I still believed injustice—and I said to the officer in charge, “They tried to run down Tulik’s house.” Only after I spoke did I look at him. He had thick, dark hair and glasses.

  “Slow down.” He sounded as if he had not heard about this, but his face reflected neither surprise nor curiosity. “Now, tell me what happened.”

  “Tulik’s house,” I said louder, in case he was hard-of-hearing. “The bulldozers ran down his fence. They tried to intimidate us.”

  He eyed me keenly. “You’re not from around here, are you? What is your name?”

  I had just taken my mother’s last name. “Angel,” I told him. “Angel Wing.”

  “Your real name,” he said. He didn’t sound menacing, but I felt angry. “That’s it,” I said hotly.

  “Do you have any identification? Driver’s license?” I patted my pockets as if, miraculously, I could produce them from emptiness, but I had nothing with me. My little bag was still at Adam’s Rib, sitting on the floor by the cot. I’d had no reason or need to prove my identity before now.

  He wrote down my name, then came around behind the counter. “All right, Miss Wing. Come with me.”

  “With you? Where?”

  “Do you have any money on you?” He took my
arm. “Be peaceful, now.”

  I held back. “What are you doing? Are you arresting me? What can you arrest me for? I didn’t do anything.” I was defiant at first, though something inside warned, be quiet. But my mouth said, “What about those men at Tulik’s? They’re the ones trespassing. They’re the ones breaking the law.”

  “Do you have cash?”

  I shook my head. “No. But I didn’t do anything either.” Then I was quiet. I went with him.

  The officer led me to the drunk tank, a small room with a concrete floor.

  Driving without a license. Driving a possibly stolen car. Driving an unregistered car—thanks to Auntie. Disorderly conduct.

  “I have to impound the truck,” he said.

  I looked at him. He had sweat stains on his shirt, as if he had reason to fear me, instead of the other way around. He knew every car in this place. He had to know it was Auntie and Tulik’s. I thought, he will do what he has to do. I will do the same.

  “What about my phone call?”

  “This isn’t Hawaii Five-O.” He turned away.

  “Wait.” I was desperate. I started to say, “Don’t leave me here.” But I didn’t. I didn’t want to be that weak, that afraid, that pitiful.

  He closed the door and walked away. I heard his feet echo down the corridor.

  Later he came back to the sour-smelling room with food and a blanket. At least my jailer was kind. After he left, I was silent. It wasn’t what I expected in the way of a jail. This was only a room with thick walls, no bars. Light green paint. On one side, behind a partition, was a toilet.

  In the night they brought in two other women. I sat up and looked at them. Like me, they were Indian women. Unlike me, they had been drinking and their faces were swollen and they wore jeans and T-shirts. I glanced at them, then lay back down, pulling the blanket tight around me. One of the women cried all night. The other comforted her. I listened for a while and tears came to my own eyes from the sorrowful wailing of the weeping woman’s voice. I cared what happened to her. I understood grief.

  And then I must have slept because I dreamed a white whale swam above me, singing, looking with its intelligent eyes into my own with something akin to love.

  The next day, they let me go. He’d traced my name and found out that I was Hannah’s daughter. She’d been a frequent visitor to the jail. He verified that I was living at Tulik’s, “I’m being nice this time,” he said. “Just this once. But this is a lesson. Don’t follow in your mother’s footsteps.”

  It was a bright morning. I walked the distance home, worried about how I would tell Tulik and Auntie that they couldn’t get the truck back until they paid the fine and bought current plates. I was certain they’d be mad at me. But instead, they were relieved to find me safe. Bush was pale with worry and she held me tight. “You gave us a scare.” They even seemed, secretly, to like what I had done, although they didn’t come right out and say it.

  “He didn’t even read me my rights,” I complained.

  “From now on,” Tulik said to me softly, “you need to keep quiet about things. Mostly they are afraid of the longhairs from out of town. But they don’t know you. For all they know, you are a troublemaker.”

  The radio was on in the background. As if from a distant time and place, Tony apologized to Loretta that day and said, “Baby, I want to come home.” Then they played his request, Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman.” It seemed so out of place, this love of Tony’s, that I looked at Bush and said, “Did you hear that?”

  “Doesn’t Tony have a job?” said Dora-Rouge. “Where does he get time for all this?”

  On that same day, the police had picked up one of the young protesters, taken him to a town, removed his clothing, and pushed him naked from the car. Then they arrested him for indecent exposure. We heard about this from “Indian Time.” And as I listened to it that noon, I thought, the radio. Why hadn’t I thought of it earlier?

  Later that day, I went past the broken-down fence and up to the radio station, a little hut next to the old clinic. I told the DJ what had happened. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do an interview.” I felt bad doing it, not laying low like I’d promised Tulik, but I was foolish; I still believed in justice, so I told Mike Seela all about the bulldozers and lights and how I’d been arrested and the truck impounded and even that it would cost $128 to get it out of tow. I wanted everyone to know. He recorded our conversation. It would be aired the next day, so I had to be certain Tulik didn’t listen to the radio that day at noon.

  The next day as noon approached, I became nervous. I made a deal with Bush, Luce, and Auntie that we would get Tulik out of the house just before lunch. None of us would tell him a thing. “Oh, Tulik,” I said at ten minutes before the hour, “your grandfather, Totsohi, needs for you to go to the store and buy him some milk. It’s very urgent. Also, I have such a bad headache. Will you get me some Tylenol?”

  “We have aspirin.”

  It was true; aspirin was no stranger to this household of herbs and remedies. I said, “Aspirin upsets my stomach.”

  As soon as he left, Bush tuned in the station and there was my voice. It sounded completely foreign to me, girlish. I was embarrassed. My cheeks reddened. “That’s how I sound?” I said, incredulous.

  Bush nodded.

  I wasn’t sure if I’d done the right thing. I asked Bush what she thought.

  “I don’t know,” she said. I wondered if she was just being tactful, but her look was soft.

  I was nervous all that day, afraid I would make trouble, afraid of being found out. I was probably ruining Tulik’s plans to remain quiet until the right time came. He hadn’t wanted to escalate the situation. I was sure it wouldn’t be the last time we disagreed.

  That evening I stood at the window, looking out at the thin road and pale horizon. I watched to see if the dozers would return. Instead, from far away, I saw a round-backed old woman walking toward us. She was very dark, small, and old. She wore a scarf on her head, one around her neck, and a red, flowered shirt. When I realized that she was coming to see us, I called out, “Look, someone’s coming.”

  Auntie came to the window. “It’s Miss Nett!”

  Auntie knew exactly what to do, as if the dry old woman had visited hundreds of times before. Auntie went right to the food bin and took out a cake mix while I remained, watching the woman grow larger and closer, clouds moving across the sky toward her, traveling west to east.

  Miss Nett’s back was hunched, so it looked as if she stared at the ground. It was an effort for her to look up. As soon as she came through the door, she and Tulik smoked the house with cedar. Miss Nett moved her lips in quiet prayer. She and Tulik walked around the corners of the house. Right away the air felt calm and peaceful.

  Miss Nett had heard about us, she said, from “Indian Time.” “I heard her,” she said, pointing to me. “The girl!”

  Tulik glanced at me. “Angel?” He looked suspicious.

  I shrugged my shoulders as if I didn’t know what the old woman meant.

  I couldn’t tell how old Miss Nett was. She was wrinkled by snow and sun. After pointing me out as the guilty party, she was silent. The only words were Tulik’s. “What did you tell them?” He looked directly at me.

  I ignored his question, letting it slide.

  The sweet smell of the cake in the oven already filled the room. I went over to help Auntie cut potatoes, relieved to have a job to do. “Don’t walk so hard,” said Auntie. “The cake will fall.”

  Auntie served up the food, and we sat down to eat in silence. It felt strange, sitting at the table so quietly. We were accustomed to noisy meals, with lots of talk and laughter. I looked at the potatoes and eggs on my plate.

  Miss Nett said, “Do you have ketchup?”

  I got up and took it off the shelf, handing it to her, still avoiding Tulik’s eyes. Miss Nett nodded at me, then went back to eating.

  She was thin, except for her rounded back, and when I placed the cup of black
tea before her, she stared into it as if she could read the leaves and they would tell her what to say. Maybe they did, but all she said was, “Those damned men,” and then she was quiet again, but we heard all the words that lived inside the spare three she’d just spoken; we knew exactly what she meant. She stirred two heaping spoons of sugar into her tea.

  Miss Nett was from farther north, about ten miles from Holy String Town. She’d walked the whole distance to Tulik’s. Where she was from, a good half of the land was already flooded. We knew this from Bush. Bush had gone to see it and to photograph the devastation. I’d seen her pictures of the dead caribou, the houses with water lapping against their walls.

  Miss Nett spoke to Tulik mostly in words I couldn’t understand. It was similar to the language of the Fat-Eaters, but a different dialect. I understood only a little.

  Where she lived, where her people had lived for thousands of years, was now in ruins. NATO jets flew overhead in the sky of Miss Nett and her people, the Nanos, who lived at the Kawafi settlement. NATO jets had scared off what was left of the game and wildlife. In that place, too, they were using the land as a bombing practice range. The noise was horrifying, and now there were no deer. The fish were gone, and where the lake had been you could now cross in your boots. There was a drive to get the rest of the people off what remained of their land. They were hungry and sick. It was next to impossible for them to remain in the place where they had always lived. Some, however, like Miss Nett, had tried. Just a few days ago, the government had given them two weeks to move. The developers were already at work stripping the land, and soldiers had arrived to protect the laborers. This was why Husk hadn’t been able to reach us, I realized. The soldiers were shooting at the few animals that remained, mostly hares and an occasional deer, taking potshots even at the few remaining trees.

  “They are rotten shots, too,” Miss Nett said, in her heavily accented English. “It’s a good thing.”

  The people—not just us—truly were under assault. In fact, it seemed like we had it easy in comparison.