It was nearly four by the time they pulled into the bumpy North Lake Feed Mill parking lot. The mill itself was a tall, galvanized steel building next to an old railroad spur. There was an old painted ad for Nutrena Feeds way up near the top. Around back, the tower spread out into a long, low L of garage doors into the warehouse. Across the lot was the North Lake Toro & Small Engine Repair. Together, the tower, the warehouse, and the Toro dealership made a big U around the potholed gravel lot. JW backed up to the concrete loading dock by the garage doors.
They both got out, climbed up onto the dock, and walked down to the back door of the mill. JW led the way through a back room, down a narrow hallway with offices and a small restroom on either side, and then into the store. It was full of hardware, traps, poison, hoses, cages, buckets, birdfeeders, and guns. A big window behind the counter looked over the parking lot and the truck scale outside. Manny Peltonen, the mill’s owner, was a thin bachelor of about fifty-five who wore striped engineers’ coveralls every day. JW grabbed a couple of Dorothy’s root beers from the bait cooler and went up to the counter to order the oats. Peltonen was in a good mood, bopping around behind the dusty counter. The register dinged and he handed JW his change.
“Let’s get her loaded up.” Peltonen led the way back to the loading dock. But then he noticed Jacob handling the merchandise.
“Can I help you?” he said. He was polite, but JW could sense an undercurrent of suspicion.
Jacob looked up and JW saw a different boy, as if through Peltonen’s eyes. His demeanor suddenly seemed surly. His court shoes, loosely tied. His baggy shorts. His loose-jointed, long-fingered movements.
“I’m okay,” Jacob said without making eye contact.
Manny stood for a moment, his eyes running from Jacob to the merchandise rack and back. JW realized what was going through his mind: he didn’t want to leave the suspicious Native American boy in the store unattended. “He’s with me,” he said.
Manny turned to look at him, his eyebrows furrowing and his face recoiling in surprise. “Him? Oh! Well, then let’s go get your grain!” His face immediately softened. He grinned, but his eyes lingered briefly on Jacob as he walked past. He led JW outside onto the loading dock. He strolled over to the open garage door.
“Be right back.”
Peltonen grabbed a sack dolly and disappeared. JW heard him throwing sacks, and then he reappeared, wheeling six fifty-pound bags of fourteen-percent-protein sweet feed, a mix of oats, cracked corn, pellet meal, and molasses. He parked the load behind the truck’s tailgate and helped JW swing the bags into the bed. As they worked, JW noticed Jacob loitering inside the big window.
“Got yourself a stall boy, huh?”
“Something like that.” JW watched as Jacob, unseen by Peltonen, stuck a pack of cigars into his shirt.
“They’re good for that,” Peltonen went on, his back still turned to the boy. “Just keep ’em away from your liquor cabinet, ay?”
Peltonen winked at JW. He set a catch on the feed dolly so it wouldn’t tip and they tossed the last of the bags into the pickup bed. JW nodded and smiled thinly as Jacob wandered casually out.
“Thanks,” he said. Jacob came over and the two of them got in the truck and pulled out.
JW handed a Dorothy’s to Jacob and opened the other. He took a long sip. The soda had been created by a woman who lived alone like some Finnish Maderakka on an island in the Boundary Waters. In winter, she harvested lake ice and stored it draped in sawdust. In summer, she used it to cool the brew she sold to paddlers. She had no power, no water, and no neighbors. Surrounded by two million acres, she was arguably the most isolated woman in America, a goddess of the lakes. She was gone now, but Dorothy’s root beer had become an iconic drink of the Northland.
“Thanks,” said Jacob, and twisted the top off.
JW thought about what had just happened as he drove down the side streets, heading for the highway, the dream catcher swaying. The cigars were faintly visible through Jacob’s shirt. He pulled over and shifted into park. Jacob looked up at him.
“What’s up?”
He shut the engine off. “What the hell was that all about?” he asked.
“What?” Jacob was confused and defensive.
“You like cigars?”
“No.” He looked offended now, but JW could see an artery thumping in the side of his neck.
“Really.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They’re in your shirt. Right there.”
He reached over and tapped the box through the fabric. Jacob swatted his hand away. “Don’t fucking touch me.” He looked away out the window, busted and humiliated. JW shook his head.
“Look, I’m not gonna waste your time tellin’ you ’bout right and wrong. But I think you’re stronger than that—actually, I know you’re stronger than that. I’ve seen it.”
Jacob looked down. He fumbled and almost dropped the bottle, but quickly caught it, then had to slurp up the foam from the top.
“You don’t have to act out people’s stereotypes,” JW continued. “Those stupid kids or that asshole in there. You’re smarter than them. Beat their expectation. Fight it. There are plenty of other places where people don’t think like this …”
“Like where?”
JW sighed. “Just take my word for it. Look, you do what you want. Maybe you want this kind of life. But if you want to give those cigars back, I’d be proud to stand beside you.”
Jacob looked up at him, his face full of worry.
A few long moments later they stepped back into the feed store. Beyond the glass case full of hunting knives, Manny was reading a newsletter on bedding plants.
“You’re back! Did you forget something?”
“No,” replied JW.
He turned and saw that Jacob was petrified, with no idea what to say or how to broach the subject. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“My friend Jacob here’s got something to say.”
Jacob set the cigars on the counter.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “It was a mistake.”
Manny looked at the cigars, then back at Jacob. His wrinkled watery eyes became small and hard. “You stole those from me.”
“He decided to bring them back,” said JW.
Manny saw the firm expression on JW’s face and registered the tone in his voice. He looked back at Jacob, his expression now somewhat cowed. “I could call the cops right now and have you arrested. They’d throw you in jail,” he said.
Jacob stared at the floor. The thin wooden planks had been worn bare long ago. “I know,” he said, his voice barely audible.
Manny looked back at JW. “You put him up to this.”
“No sir, it was his decision. But I’d say it’s a pretty honorable thing when a guy admits what he’s done and owns up to it himself. Wouldn’t you?”
Manny stared into his eyes for several seconds, then looked at Jacob and nodded toward the door. “Get out of here.”
They drove back through the side streets in silence and turned onto the main highway. Jacob spent most of the ride picking at the label of his root beer bottle. Finally, JW reached over and shook him by the shoulder.
“Stop it!” Jacob protested, stifling a grin. Wind blew in through the open windows.
“You did a really good thing there,” JW said. “I’m really proud of you. It’s tough to be your own man.”
“Okay, enough,” said Jacob, but then he smiled and laughed awkwardly. “Come on! I mean it!”
JW smiled and took a long draught of his root beer as they drove out among the farm fields. The warm fall breeze blew in through the windows, ruffling their hair, and outside combines spewed yellow streams of grain into their wagons. He turned on Clapton, and for a brief moment, he didn’t have a care in the world.
20
JW and Jacob unloaded the bags of sweet feed into the lean-to. They pulled the white cotton stitching, and the brown smell of molasses filled the air. Pride nicker
ed his excitement. Jacob took the lids off two steel garbage cans, and they poured the sticky contents inside.
“You ever feed him wild rice?” JW asked. “It’s pretty good protein.”
“Oh yeah,” Jacob said. “He loves it.”
They put the lids back, and Jacob dumped a scoop of feed into Pride’s bucket. He threw two flakes of hay in the rack. As the horse munched on the feed, Jacob went into the stall, threw a saddle blanket on him, and started to saddle him up.
“You may not want to do that while he’s eating,” JW said, but Pride didn’t seem to mind. He kept his nose in his black rubber bucket, his eyes closed, savoring the sticky brown oats and corn. Jacob threaded the cinch strap through the buckle and pulled it tight. He selected reins and a headstall with a snaffle bit—the most gentle—and hung it on the saddle horn until Pride finished.
Out at the paddock, JW leaned on the rails and watched as Jacob rode around the ring. Earlier in the week, just getting a saddle on the horse and getting up on his back had been an accomplishment. Over the past few days it had become routine, but now it was different again. Pride started fast and kept it up. Jacob looked barely in control.
“Don’t let him truck out on you,” JW instructed. He could tell from the way Jacob was riding that he was nervous. The boy was squeezing with his knees and leaning forward, which made the horse trot, and then he was pulling on the reins to slow him down. Using a snaffle bit made him pull even harder than he should, craning the horse’s head high and back. Pride was starting to fight and to ignore the bit, which made Jacob squeeze his knees harder.
JW knew that telling the legs to run and pulling the head back was a recipe for a horse to rear up and go over, landing on the rider. “Give him his head,” he instructed. “Give him his head. Let the reins go.”
Jacob loosened the reins and Pride kept up his fast trot, prancing around the perimeter. He stopped fighting the bit and lowered his head.
“That’s good. Now you got him going good. Don’t keep making him truck out on you. Relax those knees. Let your legs dangle. Sit back and loosen your back. If you’re relaxed, he’s relaxed. And keep those reins loose.”
JW knew how hard this was. Making yourself relax when you were nervous was challenging. It was even harder while maintaining your balance on the back of a twelve-hundred-pound animal that was in motion and barely under control. In fact, the horse was just trying to follow Jacob’s conflicting instructions, but loosening the reins and relaxing your legs seemed counterintuitive if the goal was more control.
“Put it all in your butt. Imagine you got Velcro on your seat. Stick your butt to the horse. Let your legs dangle. Your hips absorb the shock. I want to see you still from the hips up.”
Jacob let the horse go and relaxed his legs. Sure enough, things slowed down in less than a length of the riding paddock. Jacob was still stiff, but Pride slowed to a gentle trot. JW gave him a thumbs-up, and Jacob broke into a wide grin.
After the lesson, they ate barbequed ribs and corn at Eagle’s great wooden table. JW reminisced about growing up in North Lake, how he had not been born into privilege but had married the town princess, and how he had applied himself, eventually becoming a bank president. Eagle held him up as an example to Jacob.
“You could do the same thing,” he said. JW smiled, thinking of the bank Eagle was secretly building. Eagle probably did have that job in mind for Jacob some day in the distant future.
Outside the open screen door, the tree leaves were glowing yellow-green in the early evening light. He reached for another rib. He heard the sound of loud rap music approaching, and then a car pulled past the house. Its bass thundered and buzzed the window panes. He heard it pull into the neighboring driveway, and then the booming bass cut out. Two car doors slammed, followed by the high cymbal of a woman’s laughter.
“Your neighbor sure does love to party,” JW said to Eagle. He was nervous about the subject, but he also needed to know where he stood. Eagle ignored the comment and took three more ribs from the plate in the middle.
“She’s my aunt,” said Jacob, glancing at JW and then looking down at his food. Eagle shot him an angry glance.
“What?” Jacob asked in an innocent tone.
“We don’t talk about her,” Eagle replied, intending the statement more for JW.
He nodded, getting the shape of things. “Jacob’s really making progress with Pride,” he said, changing the subject.
“Yeah?”
“Real progress. He’s a nice horse.”
“JW says he’s maybe worth twenty thousand!” Jacob blurted out.
“Twenty!” Eagle was shocked. “You’re kidding!”
“Well, he’s still a stud,” said JW, “which is rare. Good bloodlines to boot. If Jacob gets him cleaned up and performing at his best, Pride has real income potential. We’ve financed horses like him for upwards of fifteen at the bank.”
Eagle laughed. “I’ll tell you what. If Jacob can sell him for twenty at the fair, he gets half and you get the other half.”
“We already made a deal. He’d keep it all for college,” JW replied.
“I’d split it with you,” offered Jacob.
JW nodded noncommittally and took another rib. “It would rightly be yours.” He saw Eagle’s wry smile.
After dinner he went outside and sat on Eagle’s front deck, watching the great swaths of a sweeping sunset. Purple washed into pink, to yellow and then to a deep fireball orange, like chalk in the rain. The screen door clapped shut behind him. Eagle tapped his shoulder with a wet bottle of Summit EPA. He took it and Eagle sat down next to him.
“Sure is pretty out here.” JW took a sip of the amber brew. “I don’t know why your people are always complaining about living on the rez.”
“Which of my people are those?”
“I don’t know. You know, activists.”
“Maybe they’re just irritated at being lumped together and told where and how to live.”
JW chuckled. “Maybe. Whole country’s getting angry, it seems, and everybody wants special rights. You all get gambling.”
Eagle snorted. “We didn’t get gambling. We always had it. These reservations are sovereign land.”
“You and I know that’s only true part of the time. But your point’s well-taken.”
“Besides,” said Eagle. “Remember when white men used to get the Indi’ns drunk and take all their money?”
JW laughed. “Touché.” He held up his bottle, and Eagle clinked it with his. “No, it wasn’t anybody’s fault but mine, how I screwed up my life,” JW said. He looked out over the landscape, picking at the beer label. “My son died. My son died, and—” he shook his head. “I couldn’t handle it. It’s all I could think about. I just sort of wound up down there, passing time. All those lights. Little voices in the machines.” He laughed and fluttered his fingers as if they were sparkling with fairy dust. Then he took another sip and looked out over the sunset. “It all began as a distraction. I would have grabbed at anything, I suppose.” He closed his eyes, seeing it all clearly for the first time. He had been a fool, trying to control the uncontrollable, over and over, and now here he was, trapped by his own weaknesses.
“What was his name?” Eagle said softly.
JW looked at him with a start, drawn back out of his reverie. “Chris. Christopher John White. I tried to call him CJ, but it never took. He hated it.” He smiled and shrugged.
“How did he die?”
“It was a car crash, just outside of town. Bob Grossman said he was high and drunk. A one-car crash, thankfully. Deer jumped out and he lost control. Totally random. The real kicker: I was supposed to help him with his brakes the night before, but because it was the end of the month, I was working overtime at the bank.”
Eagle blew out air. “I’m sorry.”
JW nodded and sipped his beer. Toed some sand on the sidewalk. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You just have to learn to deal with it. Or not.” He chuckled painfully.
“It’s hard to know what people need,” said Eagle. “I wasn’t there enough for my wife either.”
JW glanced over at him, but Eagle just picked at his bottle label. It was clear he didn’t want to say more.
JW studied his beer bottle. “I feel different now,” he said. “At least when it comes to the gambling. Cured by the snake that bit me, I guess.”
Eagle glanced over and saw that JW was barely hiding a smile.
“Seriously though,” JW continued, “I am reading the Big Book. But being out here, I don’t know. Somehow it’s taking me back to my youth. Making things more bearable.”
Eagle nodded. “Someday I hope we won’t need casinos,” he said.
JW nodded. There was a brief silence before he spoke again. “Why don’t you work toward that then?” he said. His heart was racing. While the exchange had developed naturally, this was the moment he had been working toward since he first got out here. “Set up a bank,” he suggested. “It’s what you do. I mean, the wild rice business is nice, but you could get some economic development going. Let’s face it. There’s no one else up here that could do what you do.”
Eagle regarded his Summit, the ochre grains on the label glowing in the long rays of the sunset. The paper was wrinkling from the moisture.
“You want to help me?” Eagle kept staring at the bottle, his expression unchanged, and with his thumb he began to peel off the label. “You probably figured that’s what the new building is.” He glanced at JW.
JW suddenly felt cautious. He looked away. Was this a trap?
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