Slider’s Son

by Rebecca Fjelland Davis

  “Thank you, Grandma.” He rubbed his arm where she’d clenched it. She had a powerful grip.

  Orland gave him a soft punch in the shoulder.

  The crowd moved out of the courtroom, leaving the Thorsons alone. Outside, the rest of the ball team came running up to Grant and Orland.

  “Now what?” Tommy asked.

  “Now I guess we wait and see,” Grant said.

  Forty-Four

  Little Joe and Justice

  Judge Chesterman held Little Joe’s hearing the next morning, at nine on the dot. Only Mary Thorson, Sheriff Slider O’Grady, and Mary Thorson’s public defender were also allowed to attend. Grant went along with Slider, but he had to wait outside, sitting on the courthouse steps. Emma and Alice sat with him.

  “Is the judge gonna lock up Little Joe forever?” Emma asked.

  “No idea,” Grant said. “No idea.”

  “I don’t want Little Joe to go to jail,” Alice said. “Then what would we do?”

  Slider said that the judge asked Little Joe if he had any further comments about his father’s death to register for the court. He said “No, sir. I said it all in the trial. I killed him like I said.”

  Slider said Judge Chesterman called the boy to his big desk, so they could look in each other’s eyes.

  “Son, how do you feel about what you did?” the judge asked.

  Little Joe looked at the judge a long time. “Awful,” he finally said. “It’s awful. It was awful, and I’m sorry he’s dead. I’m real, real sorry I had to kill him. But if I didn’t, all of us would be dead. I know that. And I couldn’t let him kill my mom. So I’m not sorry that I killed him. I’m just sorry that I had to.” And then he added, “Sir.”

  The judge sat back in his chair, Slider said, rubbing his hand along his chin.

  “Son,” Judge Chesterman said, sitting up straight again. “I could send you to the North Dakota State Training School. That’s the reformatory, you know, by the town of Mandan. You know that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You could stay there until you turn eighteen years of age.” The judge never took his eyes off Little Joe’s face, Slider said. Judge Chesterman went on, “That’s maybe what I should do, and what quite a few judges would do.”

  Slider said he thought Little Joe nodded a little at this.

  “Your friends stood up for you, and that says a great deal about your character. And I have to admit, I have never seen a reformatory improve a young man’s character.” He never moved his eyes from Little Joe’s face. “I thought about you all night long, young man. Didn’t sleep a wink. I thought about what I would do if I had been in your shoes. I came to the conclusion that if it had been me, I would have done what you did. Except I wish you had just come and told Sheriff O’Grady right away instead of hiding the body. Why didn’t you do that?”

  Joe answered quickly, “Because we killed a white man, sir. And Indians always get killed for killing white men. Like Mama said in the trial.”

  The judge nodded. He was quiet for a moment. “You’re not wrong there.”

  Little Joe stood, waiting.

  Judge Chesterman continued. “I do believe that this murder is a clear case of self-defense, and I do not believe that a young man should be sentenced for protecting his family. I am going to write a report that puts you on probation. I will give it to the sheriff’s office in Mountrail County, where Fort Berthold Reservation is, and I will send it to the State Bureau of Indian Affairs. But I believe that you should not be separated from your family for your action. If you break the law again, even a little bit, I will hear about it, and I will send you away. Until you’re eighteen. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” He nodded vigorously. “Thank you, sir.”

  When Little Joe and Mary and Slider came outside, they were grinning from ear to ear. Even Mary.

  Forty-Five

  Game Time

  Grant’s baseball team was supposed to play the Aneta Junior American League team at 1:00 on Saturday. At 12:30, Little Joe hadn’t shown up yet to help Grant warm up his arm. He threw to Orland and Sammy, but it wasn’t the same.

  At ten minutes to one, Joe came into the ballfield, dragging his feet and holding his mitt by one string.

  Somebody from the Aneta dugout yelled, “So, there’s the murderer Indian brave. Everybody watch out!”

  Grant turned toward the speaker. “Shut your trap!” he yelled.

  “Ooh,” came the retort. “Or what? You’ll have him kill us, too? Catcher gonna scalp us?”

  Grant started to answer, but Little Joe reached him and grabbed his arm. “Let it be. Doesn’t matter. Don’t bother to argue with them.”

  “I’m not gonna let them say that.” He looked closer at Joe’s face. “What’s wrong?”

  “We’re moving.”

  “What? Moving? Where?”

  “Mom wants to go back to the reservation. She says everybody here will always think about her as the Indian woman who tried to kill her husband. And I’ll always be the half-breed who killed his father.”

  “But Joe! The court ruled self-defense. You’re both innocent.”

  “I’m innocent in court. But I killed him.” He nodded in the direction of the jerks from Aneta. “Nobody will ever let me forget it. As long as I live. And I’ll remember, too.”

  “Joe! You can’t leave. You’re innocent. You had to or he would have killed you! We all know what happened, what you had to—”

  Another voice from the Aneta bleacher yelled, “Having a pow-wow? Planning another scalping party?” Another gave an Indian war whoop.

  “See?” Joe said. “That stuff won’t stop. That’s all people will think about. And I can handle it, but Mama can’t. So it doesn’t matter if we weren’t convicted. She’s packing. We’re going.”

  “Joe, I can’t believe it. After everything . . .”

  “Believe it. When Mama says something, she means it.” He grinned in a twisted, sad way. “She doesn’t lie, you know.”

  “You mean—you’re leaving now?”

  “After the game.”

  “But what about boarding school? I thought your mama said if you went back to the reservation, you’ll have to go to boarding school.”

  “She hates it, but she says it’s a little bit better than jail. Or reformatory.” Joe grinned. “She says not much, but a little bit better. And there’s talk of building a day school at Fort Berthold so we wouldn’t have to live there. And the boarding school has a baseball team.”

  “But—what about our team? The Larks, I mean. We need you. I need you. And you promised you’d be my catcher forever, remember? What about next week’s game?”

  “You’ll get along. For now.”

  “What do you mean—for now?”

  Little Joe cocked his head to the side and looked at Grant. “If you’re going to make it to the big leagues, you might need me to help you look good in the minors. So when they sign you for a minor league professional team, you gotta swear you’ll tell them to sign me, too, or at least ask them to consider me as a catcher, and we can go together.”

  Grant couldn’t smile. He tried, but it hurt too much. He blinked, swallowed hard, and he stuck out his hand. “I promise. Best catcher in the game.”

  And Little Joe took it and shook. Hard. “Your elbow gonna be okay?”

  “It has to be. It has to be if I’m going to the big leagues.”

  Little Joe just nodded. “So let’s go make this a shut-out.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Epilogue

  Two weeks after Little Joe moved away, the phone rang while the O’Gradys were eating breakfast. Mamie answered. When she came back to the table, her mouth was tight. “It happened. My mother finally died.”

  The whole family piled into the car and drove three and a half hours to the funeral service. Afterward, they went through the house and cleared Grandmother’s things from the sparse little cabin. They took all Grandma’s canned goods to a soup kitchen in Mi
not on the way home because, Mamie said, “Anything that woman cooked would taste bitter. We’re not eating it.”

  That made Slider laugh.

  The morning after they got back from the funeral, Slider asked Grant to walk with him to the sheriff’s office. Grant hadn’t been in the courthouse since the trial. It was nice to have that part of life back to normal.

  Slider sat down in his big office chair behind his oak desk and picked up the phone. He dialed. Grant watched and listened, confused why he was there, until he heard his father’s half of the phone conversation.

  “Hello, Dr. Bronstein?”

  There was a pause while Slider listened.

  “Very well, thank you. Seems to be continuing to heal.”

  He paused again while Dr. Bronstein spoke.

  “Any more news? . . . Yes, I agree. I read about that speech of Hitler’s in the paper.”

  Then Slider said, “This is a very strange coincidence. Not an entirely happy one, but it could have a satisfactory ending.” He looked at Grant while he spoke. “You see, events here in Larkin have led to three vacancies, and maybe your sister’s family could help us. In the time since you visited our town, we lost our assistant blacksmith, the occupants of a comfortable family home, and the catcher on our junior league baseball team. . . . Well, let’s say that sometimes justice is served in ways we don’t expect. . . . I thought you might tell Axel and his family. Particularly Jens. . . . Yes. Just let them know. See if they’re interested. . . . Immediately, I’m sure. Larkin is a fine town to live in.”

  When Slider hung up the phone, he scratched the back of his head.

  Grant wanted to be happy, but his eyes stung. “Dad, even if Jens is any good, he’ll never be Little Joe.”

  “You still need a catcher. Let’s walk,” Slider said. He slipped on his hat and they went out and down the street.

  “Dad?”

  “Yes, son?”

  “The judge really could have sent Little Joe away forever, couldn’t he?”

  “Not forever. But for years, yes. I think Chesterman’s one of the very few judges in the country who wouldn’t have sent a half-Indian boy to a reformatory for killing his father.”

  “I guess losing Little Joe this way is better than that.”

  “You bet it is, son.”

  They walked all the way to the ball field without saying another word.

  Grant stared at the empty Thorson house behind home plate. “Thanks for calling Dr. Bronstein, but I don’t really want a new catcher. I just want Little Joe back.”

  “Son, we can’t undo what’s done. Can’t bring Big Joe back even if we wanted to. Which I reckon we don’t. Can’t bring back Little Joe and the Thorson family at this point, either.”

  “But, Dad, you know what? I still hate Big Joe. He deserved to die, but it’s awful to hate somebody who’s dead, isn’t it? It’s like it will never go away.” He touched his stomach, where the stone of hate still lingered, even though it had shrunk considerably. “I thought if Big Joe died, it would save Little Joe, but in the end, even dead, Big Joe wrecked everything forever.”

  “Forever is a long time, son.” Slider studied Grant’s face.

  “Will it go away?” Grant asked. “How much I hate him, I mean?”

  “That’s up to you,” Slider said.

  “I saw what hate did to Grandma . . . Grandmother. She had a shriveled-up heart.”

  Slider nodded.

  “And I was thinking. Big Joe must have been full of hate to act like he did, and nobody wants to be like that.”

  Slider stifled a laugh. “That’s for sure.”

  “I know that if I was Little Joe, I’d a done exactly what he did. I know I would have, but still, I really just want everything back the way it was.

  “Son,” Slider said, “you have had something in that friendship not many people ever get. Some pitchers never, ever have a catcher who works with them like Little Joe did with you. And nothing lasts forever. Nothing. So focus on that. You can let go of the hate. You have to decide to do that, son. It doesn’t just happen. Focus on what you can do. Right here. Right now.”

  Grant scuffed his feet. “Sort of like my arm—like doing something instead of just hoping it will get better?”

  Slider nodded. “Exactly.”

  Grant blew out his breath. “So. I guess I can teach Jens the game. And at least, I’ll have somebody who wants to be a catcher.”

  “So let’s go get our gloves. Work on your slider. And maybe even try a screwball.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When—if—if I ever get called to the big leagues, can I tell them I know a catcher—”

  “You bet you can,” Slider interrupted.

  And they walked home, side by side, to get their gloves.

  Study Guide for Students, Readers, and Book Clubs

  Slider’s Son is a work of fiction. It is, however, based loosely on real events that happened in North Dakota. It is also set within real events happening in history.

  We cannot rewrite history, even though sometimes we are ashamed and astonished about how people have treated other people. It is important to understand history and some of those mistakes, so we don’t repeat them. Stories are one of the best ways for us to understand the realities of history. What are some of the things we can learn from this story?

  I. THE GREAT DEPRESSION

  Reading Comprehension and Interpretation

  • How did families in this community heat their homes and put fires in their cook stoves?

  • What were some of the dangers facing Grant and his friends while getting coal?

  • Where does Slider get most of his news?

  • Where did Lorraine’s father find work?

  Questions for Personal Reflection and Reflection about the World

  • How did the Great Depression affect families?

  • How did it affect Grant’s family? How did this compare to other families? Why?

  • Why was it the boys’ job (and Lorraine’s) to fetch coal?

  • Why do you think the boys’ (and Lorraine’s) parents allowed them to do such a dangerous thing as climbing on the coal train cars? Would that happen today? Why or why not?

  • How did Slider’s news sources vary from how people get their news today?

  • Why do you think radio programs were so wildly popular in the 1930s?

  • How did Lorraine’s father’s absence affect her family?

  Questions about History and for Research Possibilities

  • What was the Great Depression? How long did it last? What caused it?

  • What was a 1930s cook stove like, and how did it differ from stoves today?

  • Why did men “go west” to find work in the 1930s?

  • What (besides where Lorraine’s father found work) were some places that hired workers during the Great Depression?

  • What effect did these transient jobs have on families?

  • How did the Great Depression end?

  • What are some industries or places that attract workers in today’s world?

  II. TUBERCULOSIS

  Reading Comprehension and Interpretation

  • Why did Sue disappear?

  • Where did people go who got “the TB”?

  • What did the boys assume would happen to Sue?

  • What was their plan if any of them contracted “the TB”?

  • What happened to Sue, finally?

  Questions for Personal Reflection and Reflection about the World

  • Why do you think people weren’t willing to talk about TB?

  • Why do you think TB seemed so scary?

  • Are there any diseases today that scare people in the same way?

  Questions about History and for Research Possibilities

  • What was tuberculosis, and how was it treated in the 1930s?

  • What can you find out about sanatoriums?

  • What do we know today about tu
berculosis?

  III. THE GREAT WAR (WORLD WAR I)

  Reading Comprehension and Interpretation

  • Who in this story was in the battle of the Argonne Forest, and what did he learn from it?

  • How many years had passed between the Great War and when this story takes place?

  Questions for Personal Reflection and Reflection about the World

  • Do you have any ancestors who fought in one of the world wars?

  • How could you find out? Can you find out?

  Questions about History and for Research Possibilities

  • Why was World War I called “The Great War” in the 1930s?

  • When and where was the battle of the Argonne Forest? Who was fighting?

  • What countries were involved in World War I?

  • What were they fighting about, and why did the United States get involved?

  IV. OPPRESSION: NATIVE PEOPLE IN AMERICA AND THE MANDAN NATION; JEWS; AND AFRICAN AMERICANS

  Reading Comprehension and Interpretation

  • To what Nation or tribe of Native Americans does Mary Thorson belong?

  • How did the Widow Larson show her prejudice?

  • Where would Little Joe and his sisters go to school if/when they lived on the reservation?

  • What is a boarding school?

  • What does the word biased mean? What is another word for this idea?

  • What are some terms or insults used in this story that show prejudiced attitudes?

  For Further Contemplation and Discussion

  • What do you think about the practice of sending Indian children away from their parents to boarding school?