by Thomas King
John slid forward in the chair and tried to find his friend in the circle of bright light. “I can’t sign the certificates.”
“They’re dead, John.”
“I need bodies.”
“Sign the certificates, John. You’ve been expecting them to die for years. You said yourself that they couldn’t live much longer. Isn’t that what you told me?”
John crossed one leg over the other. “I said they were old. Hell, Joe, both of us know that. And they should have died . . . a long time ago.”
“If you believe the stories.”
“If you believe the stories. But they haven’t, and I can’t sign a death certificate until they do die.”
“They’re dead,” said Dr. Hovaugh. “I can feel it. All four of them. We just need the certificates. Heart attack, cancer, old age. I don’t care. Be creative.”
John uncrossed his legs. “Joe, what if they come back? This isn’t the first time. It isn’t even the second time.”
“Thirty-seven times.” Dr. Hovaugh held up the book.“Thirty-seven times that we know of.”
John pushed the glasses back against his face. “I’m sorry, Joe. Show me four dead Indians, and I’ll sign the certificates.”
Dr. Hovaugh could feel the desk swelling, growing larger.“For Christ’s sake, John. If I had four dead Indians, I’d give them to you.”
It was the sound that startled Eliot, hard and quick like breaking ice. Dr. Hovaugh raised his hand as though he wanted to say something more. Both men waited in silence.
“Look, Joe . . . didn’t the Indians disappear in 1969 and 1952?”
“That’s right,” said Dr. Hovaugh. “And 1971, 1973, 1932 . . .”
“Okay, okay,” said Eliot. “And what were the disasters that were supposed to occur on those dates?”
“It’s a pattern, John.”
“Maybe there wasn’t one,” said Eliot. “You see what I mean? Maybe nothing happened on those dates. Or maybe something good happened on those dates. You ever think of that?”
Dr. Hovaugh looked across his desk and considered John. Eliot was talking, saying something about the Indians, but Dr. Hovaugh couldn’t quite hear him. It was curious how they just disappeared like that. John didn’t understand. That was it. He must think it was all a game. Hide-and-seek. Cowboys and Indians.
“It’s just one of those mysteries, Joe.” Eliot got to his feet.“I better go and see if the police have found anything. You going to be okay?”
So the Indians were gone again. Dr. Hovaugh watched John gesturing and smiling. He envied the man his easy manner in the face of disaster.
Eliot paused at the door. “What I can’t understand is how they escape. And where do they go? Have you ever thought about that, Joe? And why, in God’s name, would they want to leave?”
The Lone Ranger looked down the road again. It ran out on a straight line and disappeared in the distance.
“Are we waiting for something?” said Ishmael.
“A ride,” said the Lone Ranger.
“How long do we have to wait?” said Robinson Crusoe.
“Not long,” said the Lone Ranger.
“Are you being omniscient again?” asked Hawkeye.
“I think so,” said the Lone Ranger.
“I was afraid of that,” said Robinson Crusoe.
“What else would you like to know?” said the Lone Ranger.
“What else would you like to know?” said Babo. The tape recorder was making squeaky noises, as though something deep in the mechanism was slipping.
Sergeant Cereno sighed and pushed his fingers into the sides of his nose. “This thing has happened before, hasn’t it?”
Babo looked at Cereno. “You’d have to ask Dr. Hovaugh. He keeps track of those kinds of things.”
“But you know a lot of things, too.”
Babo shook her coffee cup. “You guys want some more coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“You drink coffee?”
“Maybe you could tell us some of the things you know.”
Babo swirled the remains of the oily brown coffee around in the cup. “I don’t know much.”
Sergeant Cereno closed his eyes and motioned to Jimmy.“Get Ms. Jones a cup of coffee. You like it black, Ms. Jones?”
Babo smiled. “When you put the money in and it starts up, make sure a cup drops down straight. Sometimes it drops crooked. Makes a big mess.”
“You want it black, Ms. Jones?” asked Jimmy.
“Little cream, one sugar. Watch that cup! You know who has to clean up the messes around here. Don’t be like that boy of mine.”
Sergeant Cereno leaned back in the chair and slowly swung it from side to side. “All right, Ms. Jones. These four Indians . . . what did they look like?”
“Like I said. They were Indians. Old ones.”
“How old would you say?”
“I don’t know . . . four, five hundred years . . .”
Sergeant Cereno took his fingers out of his nose and made a long, hollow sound, like a horse blowing air.
“Course I don’t know for sure,” said Babo. “And it’s kind of hard to tell, once you get past seventy or eighty.”
“The Indians tell you that?”
“Nope,” said Babo. “Heard Dr. Eliot and Dr. Hovaugh talking.”
“No one is that old.”
“I figure they’re older.” Babo pushed her lips forward.“Come on . . . How old do you think I am?”
“Tell me about the Indians.”
“No, go ahead. You won’t hurt my feelings.”
“You’re forty-six, Ms. Jones.”
“Well, I’ll be!”
“It’s in your personnel file.”
Babo scratched the side of her head and looked out the window. The Pinto was gone. “I’ll bet you’re . . . forty-two,” she said, smiling at Sergeant Cereno.
Sergeant Cereno put his fingers back under his nose.“About the Indians.”
“You got their files there, too?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Was I close?”
“I’m thirty-six, Ms. Jones.”
“No, I meant the Indians.”
Sergeant Cereno ran his fingers alongside his nose, across his forehead, and into his hair. “Ms. Jones, we need to let me ask the questions.”
“Thirty-six! Police work must be hard.”
Jimmy arrived with two cups of coffee. “The machine worked fine,” he said. “No problems with the cups. I spilled a bit on the floor, but I wiped it up. This okay?”
Babo took a sip. “Just right. You make good coffee.”
“The Indians, Ms. Jones?”
“Well, they were old. All of them.”
“Did you ever talk to them?”
“Sure. All the time.”
“They were in the security wing, weren’t they?”
“That’s right. Don’t know why, though. They were real nice.”
Jimmy leaned against the wall and sipped the coffee. “I had a grandfather like that once,” he said. “He was crazy but real nice, at least to me.”
“They sure didn’t seem crazy to me,” said Babo.
“But they did escape,” said Sergeant Cereno, “didn’t they? You can see our concern.”
“Well, you got me there.” Babo caught a glint of something red in the lilacs at the far edge of the parking lot.
“Can you think of how they might have gotten out?”Sergeant Cereno continued.
“Nope.”
“No idea? Someone could have forgotten to lock the door.”
“Is that how they got out?”
“Someone could have helped them escape.”
It was the Pinto. It was hung up in the bushes and leaning dangerously to one side.
Sergeant Cereno cleared his throat and opened the file in front of him. “Were you friends w
ith . . .” —he squinted at the file and held it up to the light—“Mr. Red, Mr. White, Mr. Black, and Mr. Blue?”
“Who?” said Babo.
“The escapees.”
Babo frowned and drank some of the coffee.
“What’s wrong, Ms. Jones?”
“Nothing, I guess,” said Babo. “Never heard of those names. We still talking about the Indians?”
“We’re talking about the four Indians who escaped from this hospital at . . . Jimmy?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jimmy, putting down his coffee and pulling out his book, “between four and six this A. M.”
“The Indians in F Wing?”
“Jimmy?”
“Yes, sir. F Wing.”
“What were those names, again?”
“Mr. Red, Mr. White, Mr. Black, and Mr. Blue.”
Babo laughed and shook her head. Sergeant Cereno had stopped smiling. “I never heard of those guys,” she said. “The Indians in F Wing had different names. Weren’t any Reds or Whites or Blacks or Blues, or any other colors for that matter.”
“I see.”
“Hey, I’ll bet you watch those cop shows. Am I right?”
“Ms. Jones, I’m sure you can see that this is a serious matter. What can you tell me about the escapees?”
“Well, they were old. No crime in that. They didn’t hurt anyone. And they were women, not men.”
“Women?”
“That’s right. We used to talk, you know, life, kids, fixing the world. Stuff like that. We’d trade stories too, the Indians and me. That’s what I could do, you know, tell you one of the stories they told me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure, there was a great one, all about how things got started, about how the world was made . . .”
“No. Are you sure they were women? You must be mistaken.”
“Pretty hard mistake to make. How about that story?”
“The files say the Indians were men.”
“Suit yourself,” said Babo.
Sergeant Cereno turned to Jimmy, who was making teeth marks on the Styrofoam cup. “That doctor show up yet?”
“Yes, sir. Secretary said he could see you in half an hour.”
Cereno turned back to Babo. “Okay, Ms. Jones. Why don’t you tell us what the Indians told you.”
Babo finished the rest of her coffee. “Now you got to remember that this is their story. I’m just repeating it as a favor. You understand?”
Sergeant Cereno closed his eyes and nodded. “Go ahead, Ms. Jones.”
“Sure,” said Babo. “Just got to remember how to start.”
“Start at the beginning.”
“No, you don’t understand. There’s a way . . .”
The tape recorder made a whirling, squeaky sound, followed by a loud click. Sergeant Cereno looked over and held up a hand. “Just a moment, Ms. Jones.”
Cereno stood up and walked to the door. “Jimmy,” he said in a loud voice, “put in a new cassette and make sure you mark the old one. And take good care of Ms. Jones.” Then Cereno leaned in, his back to Babo, his mouth close to Jimmy’s cheek. “Enough of this dog and pony show,” he said in a whisper. “I’m going to see the doctor.” Cereno’s voice was low and hard. “You finish up with Aunt Jemima.”
“Take your time,” said Babo. “Can’t remember how to start the story anyway.”
“You awake?” Norma put out a hand and pushed at Lionel’s ribs. “Maybe it’s time for me to drive.”
“I’m awake. I was just thinking.”
“Thinking with your eyes shut up tight like that will land us in a ditch.”
“I was just thinking.”
“Had me fooled.”
“Some people think when they sleep,” said Lionel. “I think when I drive.”
“Long as you know the difference,” said Norma.
The second mistake Lionel made was going to Salt Lake City. He was in his second year at university and working for the Department of Indian Affairs at the time. Duncan Scott, Lionel’s supervisor, was supposed to give a paper at a conference on Indian education, but couldn’t go. So he asked Lionel if he would give the paper for him.
“It’s already written, Lionel. All you got to do is read it.”
“Sure.”
“We’ll pay all your expenses plus per diem.”
“Sure.”
The occupation of Wounded Knee was in its second month, and when Lionel got to the room in the Hotel Utah where he was to give his talk on “The History of Cultural Pluralism in Canada’s Boarding Schools,” he found, not the twenty-five or thirty teachers and bureaucrats whom he had been told would be there, but a room jammed with Indians dressed in jeans and ribbon shirts. All the chairs were taken, and half the crowd was standing or leaning against the walls or sitting on the floor. Most everyone had a beaded leather headband.
Lionel felt out of place in his three-piece suit, but he hitched his pants, marched to the lectern with an authoritative swing to his arms, and began to talk about the history of boarding schools. He had hardly gotten through the opening joke when one of the women at the back of the room, a woman who surprisingly reminded him of his sister Latisha, stood up and shouted, “What does this crap have to do with our brothers and sisters at Wounded Knee?” And before Lionel could think up a good answer, several people pushed their way to the lectern and crowded him away from the microphone. He was left in a most awkward position, standing just to the left of the lectern with the paper in his hand. There was no place to sit and no easy path through the people on the floor to the door.
Norma put the pieces of carpet back in her purse. “What you need is a job.”
“I’ve got a job.”
“Selling them televisions is not a job for a grown man. Too bad about that government job.”
“Wasn’t my fault, auntie.”
“Government pays good. You got free trips all over the place, too.”
“Just bad luck.”
“Look at your sister. She makes her own luck.”
“What about George Morningstar?”
“That restaurant of hers is going to make her a rich woman.”
“What about George Morningstar? He used to beat hell out of her.”
“Nice to have a real Indian restaurant in town.”
“She sells hamburger.”
“People come from all over the world to eat at the Dead Dog Café.”
“She sells hamburger and tells everyone that it’s dog meat.”
“Germany, Japan, Russia, Italy, Brazil, England, France, Toronto. Everybody comes to the Dead Dog.”
“The Blackfoot didn’t eat dog.”
“It’s for the tourists.”
“In the old days, dogs guarded the camp. They made sure we were safe.”
“Latisha has time to come out to the reserve and visit us, too. Always helps with the food for the Sun Dance. Helps out with other things, too.”
“Traditional Blackfoot only ate things like elk and moose and buffalo. They didn’t even eat fish.”
“Music to my old ears to hear you talking traditional, nephew.”
“They sure didn’t eat dog.”
“If you had a real job, maybe you would come out and visit us like Latisha and Alberta.”
“The Dead Dog Café. Some of the elders might find that insulting all by itself.”
“Maybe then you wouldn’t be ashamed of us.”
So he stood there, feeling vulnerable, as each speaker talked about the people at Wounded Knee and the FBI and the general condition of Native people in North America. Every so often someone would remind the crowd that this was their chance to stand up for the people. Lionel stood there for two hours, nodding his head occasionally, shifting from one leg to the other, putting his hands behind his back, putting his hands in front of him, pushing his lips out, sucking his lips in.
After the speeches, one of the men who had been
at the lectern, a man about Lionel’s age, turned and shook Lionel’s hand and thanked him for his remarks and for his generosity in sharing the podium with the people. And he invited Lionel to a rally that was to take place at the state capital later in the day.
“It’s going to be at the state capital near the statue of Massasoit.”
“That’s good.”
“Massasoit was the Indian who greeted the Europeans at Plymouth Rock.”
“I’m Canadian.”
“Every Indian in Salt Lake is going to be there. We need your support.”
“I’m from Blossom, Alberta.”
“You got some other clothes?”
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it. I have to fly back. I’ve got a reservation.”
The man took Lionel by the shoulders, looked at him hard, and said, “Some of us don’t.”
There were more than sixty people at the statue when Lionel arrived. The man who had thanked him at the hotel was standing near the base of the statue with a bullhorn in his hand. A woman in a beaded jean jacket had just finished singing a song and was shouting something about donations. Lionel could see four other women moving through the crowd with a blanket between them. People threw dollar bills and loose change onto the blanket, and as it came nearer to where Lionel was standing, he reached into his pocket and realized that he had left his wallet in his suit jacket back at the hotel. As the women and the blanket passed, Lionel jammed his hands deeper into his pockets, smiled, and rocked back and forth on his heels. His black wing-tip shoes were covered with dust and the new jeans he had hurriedly bought at ZCMI felt embarrassingly stiff.
There were more songs, and some of the people held hands. The man with the bullhorn and four other men went through the crowd, asking who had a car.
“You got a car, brother?”
“No,” said Lionel. “I’m just visiting.”
“You can ride with Cecil.”
“I’m from Canada.”
“Cecil is the guy with the horn. You see him? The green van over there is his.”
Lionel was never quite sure how he wound up in Cecil’s van, sitting on a large pillow in the back, stuffed between canned goods, rifles, and boxes of ammunition.
“Just throw the thirty-thirty on the mattress,” Cecil told him. “I don’t want the scope getting dinged.”