Sins of Our Fathers (9781571319128)

by Otto, Shawn Lawrence

  It wasn’t until the next morning that Cheese Whiz called to tell Jacob that it was Grossman who had been shot. Hayhoe and Jeremy had gone to visit relatives in Montana. They agreed to say that Cheese Whiz had spent the evening teaching Jacob about sweats as a way to welcome him into the band.

  In the days since, Jacob had lived in terror of someone discovering his role in the bank episode. In hindsight, he realized that he had put everything—their lives here, his father’s mission, their relationship—at risk in one stupid moment, and now he was trapped in its looming shadow.

  When the doorbell rang, his heart leaped. His dad wasn’t home, and the police had been everywhere asking questions. He wiped the blood from his knee with a wad of toilet paper, then tiptoed silently to the front door and peeked through the peephole. It was JW. Jacob stood deliberating for a long moment, then pulled the door open, relieved and angry at the same time.

  “Jacob,” said JW. His eyes were rimmed with red, as if he had been crying. “I just learned what happened to your mom. I don’t know what to say.”

  Jacob felt an impulse to slam the door in his face, but another part of him wanted him to apologize. “Where have you even been?” he said.

  JW sensed his anger. “I just took a few days off,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m back now.”

  “And I’m supposed to be happy.”

  “I thought maybe we could work on the horse.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” How could he tell JW that everything had changed? That he had tried to burn the town bank down? That he was living in terror? That he hated JW for abandoning him? He looked away, at the unfinished living room.

  “Okay,” replied JW.

  “Wait.” Jacob didn’t know what to say. “Fuck you.”

  JW nodded and turned away. Panic reared up in Jacob. “Wait.”

  JW paused. “I’m sorry,” Jacob said, floundering in confusion.

  “Hey,” said JW. “It all just fucking sucks,” and Jacob knew he understood.

  ***

  JACOB RODE PRIDE bareback. He was still angry, but it felt good to be focused on something outside of himself. Maybe he could just forget about what had happened. Red boy, blue boy, meld with the horse.

  He felt in charge around JW, as if he could see things that he forgot about otherwise. Who he was. How he was. What mattered. The feeling slowly started to counter crazy out-of-control fear and guilt he’d been swimming in since the shooting. He knew Ernie would tell his dad that he was working with JW again, and he knew his dad would be angry, but he didn’t care. He needed this like water. This was the one thing he was doing that wasn’t wrecking things, and his dad would just have to deal with it. He walked the horse around JW, who stood in the center of the paddock. “Okay,” said JW, his hands in his jean pockets, “let’s bring him up to a trot. What you got?”

  Jacob shifted his balance forward and gave a slight squeeze with his knees, prompting Pride to step up into a trot.

  “Good job! Nice transition!” JW called after him. “Keep him in the same circle now, don’t let him wind out.”

  Jacob smiled in spite of himself. JW knew what he had just accomplished, even if it was lost on everyone else: the intricate details, the subtle communication, the shifts of balance that took hours of practice and concentration and only made things look invisible and natural to everyone else. He went around again for another dose of praise, focused intently on the circle—the perfect circle, at a fast trot, with loose reins. He shifted his weight to face slightly into the circle he wanted Pride to create, their minds becoming one.

  “That’s right!” cheered JW.

  Jacob kept Pride turning at a steady trot, raising dust that lifted into a yellow cloud. Around and around and around.

  “Good!” JW bellowed at him through the dust. “Bareback is all about balance and connection. As your discipline improves, so does his!”

  The rhythmic motion and the fur and the sweat and the reins in his hands, the thumping hoofbeats and JW’s shouted encouragement, all grounded Jacob and brought him back from the cloud of anxiety he’d been caught up in. He vowed he would never go back to his bad ways. He felt Pride’s spine becoming one with his tailbone, the two of them fusing into one animal, one nervous system, one brain, one ocean of emotions.

  “This happens because he tests you, and again and again he finds he can trust you,” JW bellowed through the dust. “Discipline, consistency, trust.” Red boy. Blue boy. Red boy. Blue boy. It went through his mind like a drumbeat. One animal. One animal. One animal. One.

  “With these three things, your horse becomes more than just an animal. He moves beyond just doing the job in spite of his emotions. He learns to discipline the emotions themselves.”

  Jacob’s thighs were wet with Pride’s sweat. He leaned forward imperceptibly, and Pride stepped into a perfect rolling canter.

  ***

  THE TRIBAL COUNCIL met informally in the chair’s second-floor office in the new community center. The three men and two women who could make it sat around a large oak table, surrounded by a four-foot-high wainscoting of quarter-sawn oak. The tribal chair’s imposing carved-oak desk sat diagonally in a far corner, flanked by the flags of the United States, the State of Minnesota, the POW-MIA, and the Many Lakes Band of Ojibwe.

  They were meeting as an ad hoc property committee on a special question relating to a new tribal bank. Johnny Eagle sat by himself on one wide side of the table, and they sat on the other, the windows to their backs. On the left near the chair was Betty Two Horse, an old Native woman with frizzy hair who was slowly sinking back into the earth, her spine bending between her shoulders, the folds of her ears and neck adorned with Native-made jewelry. Jeremiah Wilson sat next to her. His labored breathing and oxygen hose were a palpable force in the room, filling it with the sucking regularity of his respiration. Sidra Wilkes was next to him. She was in her late thirties, and her face had a sort of elfin beauty. She smiled encouragingly at Johnny. Next to her was Jim Hole-In-The-Sky, nearly fifty, and a respected scholar who wrote Ojibwe histories and taught college in Virginia. Tribal chair Ed Bishop sat to Eagle’s left at the head of the table, wearing a sporty black racing jacket with beer logos. Bishop was a former lobbyist for the band’s casino enterprise, and at forty-five he was energetic, entrepreneurial, and aggressive as a tribal chair: wound tight, but politically smooth and good at building consensus among council members and elders, who, in many other bands, were constantly at odds with one another. He had overseen the drive at the state capitol to secure matching funds to build the new community center they were sitting in. That had earned him a decade of goodwill and a reputation as a visionary, which he was determined to utilize in order to push through more changes. He opposed expanded state gambling and managed the band’s touchy political tap dance on the issue of copper mining. Johnny’s vision of a Native-owned bank appealed to his sense of legacy.

  “Okay then,” Bishop said. “Are we ready?”

  Bishop looked around the room. The other council members all nodded, except Hole-In-The-Sky. “You know the town of North Lake’s all over this,” Hole-In-The-Sky said.

  “I know, believe me,” Bishop said. “I was just talking to Mayor Knutson this morning.”

  “And?”

  “I told him we support full prosecution of any individuals found to be guilty of arson.”

  “We just don’t want them thinking that these events are in any way connected, or that we somehow condone what happened.”

  “Connected?” said Bishop.

  “They already are,” replied Wilkes. “We’ve had fourteen cars with slashed tires and three more arsons of our own since. White teens are thinking it’s a sport to drive through the reservation housing developments at night. I’m worried that someone else is going to get hurt.”

  “Look,” said Eagle. “Maybe we should table this. I don’t want to put you in hot water. That wouldn’t do any of us any good.”

  Getting help from the band was so
mething he had avoided previously. He was a newcomer, and a suspect one at that. He also wasn’t good at politics, and getting embroiled in a larger controversy over the arson in town was the last thing he wanted. But Bishop had paid him a visit soon after his fledgling bank burned. He brought Wilkes and Hole-In-The-Sky with him, and the four of them had sat in Eagle’s small office and discussed what he was trying to do, and how he was trying to honor Wenonah’s vision. They decided to help him, but now that they were on board, it suddenly seemed as if things were infinitely more complicated, especially after the North Lake Bank arson, which had created problems for everyone.

  Bishop leaned forward. “We’re elected to get stuff done,” he said. “I’ll call the motion. All those in favor of providing Nature’s Bank with free space in the southeast corner of the community center in exchange for the prescribed equity share in the enterprise?”

  Several members said “Aye.”

  “Opposed?”

  Silence. The council members began to smile at Eagle.

  “Motion carries.”

  He banged his gavel.

  Eagle was stunned. “Did that really just happen?” he said.

  “It really just happened,” replied Bishop. “We’ve got ourselves a new tribal bank!”

  The councilors broke into grins and pushed back their chairs, reaching over the table to shake hands and congratulate Eagle. Even Wilson struggled to his feet and extended a frail hand. Eagle couldn’t quite believe it. These people had regarded him as an interloper just a year ago, and now they were backing him despite the risk. He laughed and shook their hands, overcome with gratitude.

  ***

  BRUSHING THE HORSE, Jacob felt satisfied. The fear and guilt and anxiety had subsided, and he could almost recall what it was like to feel normal. JW had taught him from the beginning that brushing was a critical part of both training and riding, and now he did it religiously and meditatively, extending his connection with Pride. Dirt and sweat combined with pressure points on the saddle to make hot spots. Brushing Pride after rides got some of the dirt and sweat out, and stimulated his skin to prevent sores. As Jacob brushed, Pride hung his head lower and lower, closing his eyes, and Jacob moved more and more slowly, losing himself in the musky smell of horse sweat and dander.

  JW walked in to help with the stall duty. He took some of the wild rice greens and fed them to Pride over the stall half-wall as Jacob finished brushing him. Despite Jacob’s performance in the ring and his generally good mood, he was quieter than usual. No rapid-fire stream of questions. None of the usual jabs and insults.

  “You doin’ okay?” JW asked as he flopped the unused saddle back onto its wood stand.

  “Yeah.”

  “You just had a great ride out there. You seem kinda quiet.”

  “No. A little bit. I’ll be all right.”

  He couldn’t tell JW about the fire or the shooting, or the compass stabbing, even though he trusted him. He was too ashamed. He took Pride’s feed bucket out and gave him a scoop of sweet feed.

  “My dad’s getting an eagle feather tonight,” he said, walking over to the hay stacked on pallets in the corner. “I’m supposed to be in the ceremony.” He flipped open his switchblade and cut the twine strands to pop open a new bale, then slipped it back in his shirt pocket.

  “It’s the highest honor Native people give,” he said, opening the bale. “He’s getting it because of the bank.”

  He carried two flakes of hay over to Pride’s stall.

  “You wanna come?” Jacob shrugged, and emotion welled up in him unexpectedly. He quickly turned away and stuffed the flakes in Pride’s hayrack.

  JW nodded when Jacob glanced back at him, signaling acknowledgment but not agreement. He glanced out at the guys working in the pole barn. JW knew they were keeping an eye on them. “Your dad wouldn’t want me there,” he said. “At least not until I’ve talked to him.”

  “He won’t be back before then,” said Jacob. “Ernie’s driving me. Please? I just need …” but then he stopped. “Fuck it, it’s stupid, never mind.” He began restacking the tipping haybales.

  “You really want me to go?”

  Jacob turned and wiped his face on the back of his hand. “No, it’s okay. It’s bullshit anyway.”

  JW nodded and stood there watching him.

  “I’d need to take the truck,” he finally said. He nodded to where the keys hung on the nail.

  “Yeah, sure.” Jacob glanced back from his stacking. “But only if you want to.”

  ***

  BOB GROSSMAN WOKE in the middle of the night with pain shooting down his left arm. His chest felt like it was being squeezed by an iron band, and he was in a cold sweat. He rolled over and woke Margie, and after trying to persuade him for a half and hour, she drove him to the hospital in Virginia. The cardiologist, it turned out, was an old classmate from high school in Cloquet, named Knut Kneevold.

  “I think it’s post-traumatic stress disorder,” Margie told him.

  “It’s not PTSD,” Grossman said. “I told you, it was my fucking heart. Sorry. It’s probably my diet, okay, or sitting on my ass in the car all day.”

  “Well, these tests,” Kneevold said, leaning in, “aren’t really indicative of a heart attack, Bob, or really any kind of arrhythmic event. Your levels are all well within the normal range, which is good news, and when we put you on the treadmill, you look quite healthy.” He nodded with an upbeat hopefulness that Grossman didn’t find at all hopeful.

  Margie smiled in relief. “That’s what I told him.”

  Kneevold’s raised eyebrows wrinkled his forehead as he nodded at Margie.

  “But I’m a cop,” Grossman said. “PTSD, I deal with shit all the time. It’s not PTSD.”

  “Look,” Kneevold said, “anxiety is—”

  “It’s not anxiety.”

  Kneevold looked at him and nodded. “Let’s monitor it, okay? We’ll keep an eye out for other things it could be, and we’ll have you come back in another month, and we’ll run the test again. In the meantime, as a precaution, I want you to try taking a baby aspirin a day. Fair enough?”

  Grossman cast a sour but resigned look at Kneevold, then sighed and nodded. “Fine. Whatever.”

  “We’ll get you back in top form one way or the other,” added Kneevold.

  Grossman drove home. Margie finally broke the silence.

  “You know that Panamanian cruise you were always talking about?” she asked.

  “Margie, I can’t. We gotta find this guy. Otherwise our credibility is shot.”

  “But you don’t have to be the one, Bobby.”

  “Look!” he exclaimed, more sharply than he’d intended. “I can’t have this, Margie. I get a mental dock on my record, PTSD, anxiety, whatever bullshit they want to call it, I can just kiss my chances of running for sheriff goodbye.”

  She waved dismissively. “Big Bill would still endorse you.” Big Bill Donovan had been elected seven times, and he was widely considered to be a kingmaker.

  “Big Bill won’t be able to do anything. The public doesn’t want a cop running around with mental problems, okay? We have guns. You get it? So please, I know you mean well, but just lay off the PTSD, okay?”

  Margie folded her hands in her lap. She looked out the windshield.

  “I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t be, I’ll be fine.”

  She was nonplussed. He glanced over and saw her pensive stare. He hated it when she got like this. He sighed.

  “Look, I’m going to reach out to the Native American community and try and make some inroads on this. If it is panic attacks or whatever you want to call it then that should make it go away, okay? We’ve been on bad terms lately, and if I can get some of them working with me so that we solve this thing, it will all go back to normal. Okay?”

  Margie’s face lightened and she nodded, feeling more hopeful. “Okay.” At least it was a constructive approach, something she had been telling him he ought to do for the pa
st two or three years.

  31

  The night was warm and dark. Oshkagoojin ’aw dibiki-giizis, Mona had called it, a new moon. The eagle-feather ceremony was set for this night because it symbolized a new beginning. Mona told JW this when he asked if she would come along. Apparently the event had been publicized in announcements on and off the reservation, even in the Mesabi Daily Mining Advocate, though JW hadn’t seen any of it. He knew Eagle wouldn’t approve of either of them being there, so when he heard her car thundering in he figured what the hell, and trudged up and caught her. He had half-expected her to be drunk, but she was just returning with a few bags of groceries. He needed a guide and companion, he said. He had no idea where the tribal community center was, much less what to expect when he got there. To his surprise, she smiled softly, put a hand on his shoulder, kissed his cheek, and said, “I’d be honored.”