Bitterroot Blues

by Paul Moomaw

  Arceneaux nodded. “Good night,” he said, and turned toward the street. He heard the door close behind him as he went down the steps to the yard. It was darker than he had realized, with no moon, and a wall of trees around the property. But the neighbor’s porch light offered enough visibility to keep him from stumbling on anything, although he stepped occasionally into mud deep enough to suck at his shoes. He began to walk toward the road. He sensed someone approaching from his rear and left, and spun in time to see the pale glint of a baseball bat falling in an arc toward his head. He crossed his fists to block the blow, managed to catch the bat in the vee of his forearms, and then got his hands around the barrel, jerked hard, and was rewarded by feeling the bat come free; but before he had the time to congratulate himself, a leg came out of the shadow and slammed horizontally into the outer side of his left knee. He hopped instinctively to unweight the leg and save the knee from snapping, and landed on his back as his attacker’s sweeping leg finished its arc and upended him. The impact jarred the bat from his hands. He rolled to his hands and knees, and as his assailant rushed him from the rear he snapped his right leg straight back. His feet sank into flesh that gave, and a stifled groan of pain told him he had scored a shot to something vulnerable. He rolled over again and scrambled to his feet, and saw his attacker sink to knees. He tried to finish the job with a kick toward his assailant’s head, but the other man shot a hard block to the inside of his calf, leaving Arceneaux legs straddled, then slammed his fist into Arceneaux’s groin. The blow sent pain shooting all the way from his chest to his toes. The other man uncoiled and rose to his feet, then reached down and grabbed the bat. He swung it at Arceneaux’s head, and Arceneaux managed to raise his left arm. The bat slammed into the forearm just above the wrist, and the whole arm went numb. Scrambling to his feet, Arceneaux tried to run. The bat caught him a glancing blow to the head, but managed to keep running, trying to make it back to Laura’s house, or the neighbor’s house, or any house. He almost made it when he slipped in the mud just as the bat swung out again and clipped him on the temple. He staggered, felt himself losing consciousness. He knew he had to get away, and tried to keep running. Somehow a tree got in the way and he stumbled into it, then hung on, fighting waves of dizziness. As blackness crept over him, he heard a woman scream.

  Chapter 25

  Somebody needed to turn off the light. Even with his lids shut tight, it stabbed deep into Arceneaux’s head. He tried to cover his eyes with his left hand, and a hot, sharp pain that lanced from his wrist to his elbow told him immediately that he should not have. His father’s voice came unbidden into his mind, telling him if he could feel it at all, that was good, because he was still alive. That had been his father’s response to any kind of pain or discomfort he had suffered as a child, his way of reminding his son that being alive, staying alive, was the most important thing. He tried to bring himself back to what had happened. He had been somewhere, some house. There was a bat, and a man swinging it. He tried to decide if the man had been short or tall, but everything was fuzzy. Only the pain was not fuzzy at all. He tried moving his head, and that made him forget the feeling in his arm, until he forgot and tried to touch his head with his hand again, and that made him forget how bad his head hurt.

  He heard voices approaching, and sensed others standing over him. Hands cradled him, and lifted him onto something flat and giving, and then he was being carried, swaying slightly, with every movement causing pain, and then settled onto something much softer. Once he woke to hands moving him again, and was vaguely aware of being lowered onto a bed, and the murmur of voices, and he sank into the bed, and through it, and was not on the bed anymore, but in the woods, on the shores of a silver gray lake with its water whipped to foam by a cold wind. He wanted to shiver, but his body would not respond. A badger ran out of the woods and he tried to call out to it but it only paused long enough to hiss at him and then leaped into the water. There was a raucous call from over his head and then a blue jay sailed out over the lake, except it was huge, bigger than any bird had ever been, and it landed on the badger’s back and began pecking at it, and the badger screamed, and screamed, and kept screaming until it sank below the surface of the lake, and the giant bird flapped its wings and flew noisily at Arceneaux, and he tried to run and only stumbled until he fell into a hole in the ground and landed hard on his side and his left arm in what seemed to be a cave and there in the cave were bodies hanging, men and women alike, all cold and still, and Arceneaux was frightened and wanted to leave, and then his arm started to hurt like crazy, and it woke him up.

  “Hey, how you feelin’?” a male voice said to his back. Arceneaux tried to turn his head to find the voice, then groaned and held himself as still as he could.

  “Not too great, I guess,” the voice said. A hand rested gently on Arceneaux’s shoulder. “You don’t need to move. I’m going to give you a little shot, and you’ll start feeling better real quick. I’m your nurse tonight. Name’s Ray. The bad news is that your forearm is broken all to hell. The good news is that it was a clean break with not much bone displacement, so setting it it won’t be a huge deal. And the best news is that there’s nothing fractured under that big lump on your head, so you won’t have to be here that long.”

  “I was talking to a woman named Laura Hooters,” Arceneaux said. “I was at her house.”

  “Yeah. I guess that’s where somebody did this to you. I heard they found you outside her house.”

  “Is she all right?” Arceneaux asked. The other man didn’t answer. Arceneaux tried again to turn his head to look at the him, and succeeded despite the pain that lanced up his neck and between his ears.

  “Is she all right?” he asked again.

  Ray looked at him briefly, then glanced away. “No,” he said.

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “She’s dead.”

  The word echoed inside Arceneaux’s head, banging around, making it hurt even more. He closed his eyes and lowered himself slowly to the pillow. “That son of a bitch,” he muttered, as he felt the jab of a needle in the rear of his bicep.

  “There,” the voice said. “Now take it easy. There’s a button pinned right to your pillow. Next time you wake up, if you remember, push it to call me back.”

  Time passed without Arceneaux paying a lot of attention. Later, he had vague memories of nurses and physicians carting him around, sticking needles in him, and rolling him into a quiet, dark room, where whatever was in the needles put him into a state of detached semi-consciousness. He recalled the placing of an inflatable splint on his arm, and thought he remembered being told they would wait to set and cast his fracture until the swelling went down a little. Anne had been there at least once, sitting next to him, stroking his hair. He had an image of Teresa, too, there with Josh, who had brought a friend who looked just like him, unless the blow to his head had left Arceneaux seeing double. Someone brought him soup, which he managed a few swallows of, and then another needle, which contained something that would sell like candy on the streets. It wrapped him in a soft pillow of comfort and lowered him gently into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  The next morning he felt almost normal, although he knew some of that was from the pain medications that were undoubtedly still running through his veins. The door to his room opened and a nurse came in, followed by Anne and Josh.

  “Shouldn’t you be in school?” Arceneaux asked his son.

  “The school said it was okay,” Josh said. “But my mom couldn’t leave her work, so I had to come with her,” he nodded his head toward Anne.

  Anne showed no reaction to that, and Arceneaux had no idea how to respond, so he lay quietly as the nurse checked his pulse and took his blood pressure, then deflated the splint to get a look at the left arm. “That’s down nicely,” he said. “We’ll be casting your arm this morning, and then you’ll be able to get out of here.”

  “Great,” Arceneaux said, and started to roll out of the bed. The nurse blocked him.

&
nbsp; “We have to wait for a wheelchair,” he said.

  “Bull shit,” Arceneaux said.

  “Hey, I can understand,” the nurse said. “But that’s the rule.”

  “I’m fine,” Arceneaux said. “I don’t need a wheelchair.”

  “Sorry,” the nurse said.

  “Makes no sense,” Arceneaux said.

  The nurse shook his head. “Can’t have a hospital without rules,” he said. “Nobody ever claimed they have to make sense, but if you don’t give me a ration of shit about the chair, I’ll let you try to get out of bed and into it all by yourself. Deal?”

  Arceneaux waved his good arm in surrender. “Deal,” he said.

  An orderly arrived with the chair. Arceneaux swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, then had to be caught by the nurse as a wave of dizziness sent him spinning to the left. The nurse held him firmly by the shoulders and eased him into the wheelchair. “Just a little postural hypotension,” he said. “It’ll go away before you know it.”

  Still, Arceneaux did not argue when, after his arm had been securely cast, they offered him the wheelchair again for the trip to the hospital entrance and Anne’s Toyota pickup; and he managed not to mind her supporting hands at all as he levered himself from the chair and climbed up into the front passenger seat. Josh opened the back door and started to climb in.

  “You should be a gentleman and open Anne’s door for her,” Arceneaux said.

  “I’m not a gentleman,” Josh said, climbing into the back seat and pulling the door closed hard enough to make it rattle. “I’m an Indian.”

  Anne slid behind the wheel without comment and started the engine.

  “Sergeant Rentz says you let some guy beat you up,” Josh said as they pulled onto the road. The tone of voice said his had let him down somehow, and Arceneaux felt an irrational need to defend himself to this nine year old.

  “Hey,” he said. “It was dark, and he sneaked up behind me with a a bat.”

  “Whatever,” Josh said.

  “I still got some pretty good shots in,” Arceneaux said. “I bet he’s hurting, too.”

  “That’s great, Dad,” Josh said, but he still sounded disappointed.

  They drove in silence for a few blocks. Then Anne reached over and squeezed Arceneaux’s thigh. “Tell us what happened.”

  Arceneaux ran down the basics of his visit with Laura Hooters, and the subsequent attack.

  “You didn’t see who hit you?” Anne asked.

  “No,” Arceneaux said. “But I know damn well that it was David Crisp.”

  “Just to keep a secret,” Anne said, doubt in her voice. “Seems pretty risky.”

  “Not if he already killed Samantha to keep the same secret.”

  “So, Dad,” Josh said. “You mean somebody killed somebody else because they knew a secret and he didn’t want them to tell?”

  “That’s right,” Arceneaux said.

  “And then he killed another person because they knew the secret, too?”

  Arceneaux nodded.

  “Do you know the secret?”

  “I sure do,” Arceneaux said.

  “Does that mean that guy is still going to try to kill you?”

  “He might.”

  Josh was silent for a while. “Dad?” he finally said.

  “That’s me.”

  “What’s the secret?”

  “If I tell you, he’ll have to try to kill you, too.”

  “Oh,” Josh said. “Yeah, I guess so.” Then he shook his head. “I know you wouldn’t let him, but it’s still okay if you don’t tell me.”

  “Okay,” Arceneaux said. “I won’t.”

  “What about me?” Anne said. “I love secrets.”

  “Maybe later,” Arceneaux said.

  They were back in Missoula and crossing the Orange Street bridge when Arceneaux remembered the other boy who had been with Josh at the hospital.

  “Hey, Josh,” he said. “When you came to see me yesterday, wasn’t there another kid with you?”

  “Yeah,” Josh said. “Jimmy Littletoes. He and his mom live two houses away from us. They’re from Browning. His mom said he could come with me to see you, because then she could unpack. He’s going to be my best friend in Missoula, because he’s Indian.” He paused thoughtfully. “Even if he is Blackfeet, at least he’s not white.”

  Arceneaux and Anne glanced at each other. “What does that matter?” Arceneaux said.

  “I don’t know,” Josh said.

  “Come on, Josh,” Arceneaux said.

  “I don’t really like white people very much,” Josh said.

  “I’m half white,” Arceneaux said. “That makes you some white, too.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How is it different?”

  “I don’t know,” Josh said.

  Josh did not respond. Then, as Anne pulled the car into Arceneaux’s driveway, he said, “Have you ever done a sweat, Dad?”

  “A couple of times.”

  “Uncle Jasper does them a lot. He says they help him stay strong.”

  “Your mom’s uncle,” Arceneaux said. Jasper Kansah’s actual relationship to Teresa was cloudy, but everyone referred to him as her uncle.

  “My uncle, too,” Josh said, a defiant tone in his voice.

  “Okay, your uncle, too,” Arceneaux said. “You hang out with him?”

  “Lots. He knows stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Great stories about the old days. Stuff about fishing, and hunting. He says I can go hunting with him next year.”

  “That’s good,” Arceneaux said, and tried to ignore the twinge of jealousy that touched him.

  “Uncle Jasper says I can do a sweat, too, but only if I’m with you.”

  “Why only with me?”

  Josh shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s just what he told me.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Can we?”

  “I don’t know if I have the time,” Arceneaux said, knowing as he spoke that he was merely dodging a request that made him uncomfortable without knowing why.

  Josh sighed. “I guess Mom was right,” he said.

  “Right about what?”

  “She says you don’t want to be Indian.”

  Everything got very quiet. Arceneaux looked desperately at Anne, as if she could give him an answer, but she merely arched her eyebrows and shrugged. He turned, as best as he could with his arm in a cast, to look at Josh.

  “I can see we need to have a little talk,” he said. As soon as I have the slightest notion of what to say, he added silently.

  Later, with Josh put to bed, he said next to Anne on the couch and brooded. His body hurt all over, but he knew that would go away with time. He had no idea how long it might take for the deeper pain inside to leave him.

  “You don’t look so hot,” Anne said. “I should leave and let you go to bed.”

  Arceneaux shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “I know I’m not very good company, but I don’t want to be alone.” He sat silently for a while longer. “I should have seen it coming,” he said. “I should have left her alone, for that matter. Then she’d still be alive.”

  “You couldn’t have known what Crisp would do,” Anne said. “If it was him in the first place.”

  “It was him. He saw us walking to her place, and he knew she had some real dirt on him. I should have backed off when I saw him drive by.”

  “But you didn’t even know yet what she was going to tell you.”

  Arceneaux started to shake his head, and cut the movement short. It still hurt like crazy. “It doesn’t matter. I already had bad feelings about him. I should have paid attention to them. And the porch light. It wouldn’t go on. I should have known right then something was wrong.”

  “Porch lights burn out.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I walked into it like a blind man. I let her walk into it, too. That really stinks.”

  “It stinks, but it’s not your fault. You can�
��t save the world, Sam.”

  “But I could have saved her.” Arceneaux sank deeper into the cushions. “I’m going to get that son of a bitch and make him pay.”

  “Maybe you should leave that up to the authorities.”

  Arceneaux snorted. “The so-called authorities are too wrapped up in trying to hang Arden Marks. Thank God he’s on a tether, or they would probably be trying to pin this one on him, too.”

  “Still, Sam, it’s not your job.”

  “It is now,” Arceneaux said. He closed his eyes and wished he could fall asleep right where he sat.

  “What about Josh?” Anne said.

  “What about him?”

  “You going to do that sweat with him?”

  “Sounds like Uncle Jasper has that part of his life taken care of,” Arceneaux snapped.

  “Oh, my,” Anne said. “Are we feeling a little upset?”

  “I’m not upset.” He opened his eyes and glared at Anne.

  “Josh needs a dad,” Anne said. “If you don’t have the time, maybe Uncle Jasper does.”

  “Josh knows who his dad is.”

  Anne nodded. “Sure he knows, and I think it hurts him when you act like you don’t.”

  “So you think I should do that sweat?”

  “Absolutely. So promise me you will.”

  “Okay,” Arceneaux said.

  “Cross your heart?”

  “Cross my heart.” Arceneaux closed his eyes again and realized he could fall asleep right where he sat.

  “I’m concerned about Josh in another way, too,” Anne said.

  Arceneaux forced his eyes open. “How’s that?”

  “I don’t think he wants us to be together.”

  “He just hasn’t had time to get used to the idea yet,” Arceneaux said. “I read somewhere that when parents divorce, kids never get over wanting to get them back together again. Sometimes when they’re in their fifties, and their parents are practically over the big hill, they still scheme to put them back in touch with each other.”

  “I don’t know,” Anne said. “I think maybe its more than that.”