Two Roads

by Joseph Bruchac

“Nope,” I say. Then I add, just to make it clear, “No back home.”

  “No back home,” Possum says.

  “Had a farm.”

  “Bank took it?”

  I nod.

  Possum touches each of my possessions a second time with his stick.

  “There’s nothing else you own?”

  “Just this.”

  I take out my jackknife, the French war medal, the shiny quarter Miz Euler gave me, and another twelve coins. The fifty cents the cowboy gave me plus a few I’ve picked up off the ground as we traveled. I’ve always kept my eye out for the glint of metal as Pop and I have trudged along.

  Possum gently taps the medal with his stick. “Your pop win this”

  I shake my head.

  “Somebody else? He give it to you?”

  A nod is all that’s needed.

  “I’m guessing you did something for whoever that was.”

  “You could say that.”

  “That medal,” he says, “you need to keep safe. Not from the other boys, mind you. We don’t abide no sneak thieves. Especially in our gang which is all made up of straight shooters. It’s more from some of those who run this place. Leave something like this around, it’ll vanish like snow on a sunny day.”

  Possum tugs the shoulder of my shirt. “Now, far as the clothes you got, those they’ll just throw away.” He chuckles. “No big loss there. Far as personals go, I reckon that medal’s the only thing you’d mourn the missing of.”

  He looks back toward Building One. “I heard about a bunch of Navajos was shipped here years back. Every one of them arrived wearing turquoise and silver jewelry. That got snatched away soon as they got here. Just to keep it safe, they were told. It was put into the strongbox in the office of Mr. J. I. Taykum. Superintendent before Morrell got here. That jewelry of theirs surely was safe—so safe those Navajo boys and girls never saw none of it again. But Superintendent Taykum got him some fine new suits and a brand-new Model A Ford he drove off in when he left here.”

  Possum straightens up and jerks his head off to the left.

  “Follow me.”

  I put my things back into my pockets and my pack.

  We walk back behind the building a hundred yards till we get to a hedgerow.

  “You’ll have your own locker at the foot of your bed,” Possum says. “Those two books of yours—they’ll be fine in there. But you want to keep that medal safe. . . .”

  He ducks through the hedgerow and slides down a slope. I follow close behind. Another hundred yards ahead is a small grove. Possum heads straight to the biggest tree at the far end, an old live oak with wide, spreading branches.

  “Okay at climbing.”

  “Yup.”

  Possum swings up into the tree. He hops from one limb to another, agile as the animal he’s nicknamed for. I follow close behind, just a hair slower but no less sure of myself. I practically lived in a tree like this back on our farm. It feels good to be off the ground, pulling myself up, branch after branch. Almost as good as being atop a fast freight.

  Possum stops short of the top, the highest branches still some thirty feet above us.

  “Here,” he says, tapping an irregular slab of bark that’s about a foot wide and two feet high. Leaning closer, I see that it’s been fastened to the oak with an old hinge so rusty that it’s lost its shine. It looks as much a part of the tree as that piece of bark.

  Possum sticks two of his fingers under the side opposite the hinge and pries. The slab swings open. It’s a door, cleverly made to blend in.

  That’s interesting, but what’s more fascinating is what’s inside. The cavity isn’t quite large enough for a person to fit in, but it’s plenty big to hold a passel of interesting-looking objects. Different shapes and sizes, all are wrapped in leather or cloth.

  “Possum’s personal hidey-hole,” he says, a pride in his voice.

  “Wow!” I reply.

  Possum grins. “Just what I said when I found this here hollow. Took me a day to make my door just so. Not that the making was all that hard. I could only work on it when the shop teacher wasn’t looking.” He flicks an index finger against the hinge. “That was in the blacksmith’s barrel of scrap to be melted down.”

  He grabs a branch over his head with one hand. His long fingers wrap all the way around it. He lifts his feet off the branch we’re on and he dangles there, looking even more like a clothes-wearing version of an American marsupial.

  “Jay Bird,” he drawls, “you’re the first I’ve showed this to.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  Possum swings back and forth, reaching up his other hand to scratch his chin. “Well, you appear to be a man who can keep a secret.”

  He lets go, dropping back down so lightly that the branch we’re on hardly moves. “Being dead honest,” he says, “it’s on account of something my grampa Big Rabbit said. Sometimes you can recognize a friend on first sight. Came to mind when I first seen you and your old man in the stands.”

  He spits on his right palm and holds it out.

  “Friends?” he says.

  I spit on my own right palm.

  We slap our palms together and shake on it.

  “Okay,” Possum says, turning back toward the hollow in the tree. “Lemme show you some of what we have got here.”

  He pulls out a long object rolled up in cloth with a string tied around it. Even before he finishes unwrapping it, I know what it is. An unstrung bow.

  “Osage orange,” he says, holding it out to me. “Best wood to make a bow.”

  I hold it in my left hand, feeling how well it fits there. I hand it back.

  “You know how to use a bow?”

  “Not really.”

  “That’s okay. You’ll learn. Got me plenty of arrows in here. Come next weekend, we can string it up and I’ll show you how.”

  He wraps the bow back up and slides it back into its place. The next thing he brings out is almost the shape of the bow, but a little bulkier. It’s wrapped not in cloth, but leather.

  “Smoke-tanned this myself,” Possum says as he rolls open the soft, light-colored hide. “Best to keep deerskin around it. Won’t never rust. Grampa Rabbit once found a musket inside a hollow tree outside Okmulgee. Must have been stashed there about the time of the Trail when our folks got sent to the Indian Territory from Mississippi. The stock was eaten away, but the barrel was as shiny as when it got put in there a century ago.”

  He hands me the gun. “Winchester,” he says. “Model 51 Imperial. Single shot .22. Made in 1919.”

  “Bolt action,” I say, opening the breech to check that it’s unloaded. I close it and sight down the barrel at a fox squirrel that’s poked its head out from behind the trunk of the hickory tree fifty yards away. Then I hand the gun back.

  “Okay,” Possum says. “Grampa Big Rabbit said you can tell a lot about a man from how he handles a gun even before he shoots it.”

  I nod. His grampa must be a lot like Pop. “Treat every gun as loaded,” I say. Words I’ve heard my father say a hundred times.

  Possum nods as he gently rewraps his rifle. “Betsy here,” he says, “is one fine squirrel gun. You like squirrel stew with gravy?”

  I nod my head, feeling my mouth water as I do so. It’s mid-morning and I’ve yet to put food in my belly. My empty stomach chooses that moment to growl loudly.

  Possum squints his eyes at me. “You eat anything today?”

  I shake my head, a little embarrassed at how loudly my stomach voiced its disapproval about being neglected.

  “Here,” he says, holding out a greasy paper bag he’s lifted from a tight-lidded tin box from his hidey-hole.

  I open the bag and the scent that rises makes my mouth water even more.

  “Jerky,” he says. “Me and the gang made it from some beef we liberated fr
om the kitchen. “Take a piece. Heck, take two or three.”

  I do just that. Holding two of the leathery chunks of cured meat in my left hand, I lift the third piece to my mouth, tear off a bite with my side teeth, and start chewing it. It’s tough, but tasty, smoky, and a little sweet. I swallow and take another bite.

  “We added some brown sugar,” Possum says. “Good innit?”

  I nod. “Mu-tu,” I say. Then keep eating. I’m happy being fed like this, but something Possum just said is giving me pause. Two words. The gang.

  That’s the second time he’s mentioned them. Who are they? And what are they going to think of me? Getting along with just Possum seems like something I might be able to do. But with a bunch of other boys, all of them strangers?

  “Now this,” Possum says, putting away the jerky and taking out yet another cloth-wrapped item from the hollow, “is what we come here for.”

  What he discloses is a cedar box, not much larger than a book. He opens it and holds it out so I can see the treasures he’s placed inside it and names as he takes each one out and then replaces it.

  “One 1899 silver dollar, my grampa’s gold watch, this arrowhead I found, wing feather from a red-tailed hawk, and, best of all, this here Cherokee rose.”

  He hands me the last thing he’s named. It’s not really a rose, though it sort of looks like one. It’s a piece of red sandy stone.

  “Ever seen one before? You know the story?”

  I shake my head.

  “You know how us civilized tribes got forced out of the South?”

  I nod.

  “Of course you do. Story is that near the end of the trail, the people’s feet were all bloody from the walking. And as they walked along this one part of the Arkansas River, every drop of blood they lost turned into one of these. So they called them Cherokee roses. And you can find them to this day along that stretch of river.”

  As he speaks those words it starts to happen. I’m walking along that river, looking down at my feet. Except they’re not my own. They’re too big to be mine. They’re aching from all the endless miles of walking, miles that wore out my shoes. Now, even though it’s cold, they’re just wrapped in rags. Where the rags don’t cover them there are cuts and scars. But I am not paying much mind to myself. I’m too concerned about the old man next to me. I’m helping him along because he’s so weak. His own rag-wrapped brown feet are leaving bloody footprints. He’s bent over, his long white hair falling across his face as he limps along.

  He turns to talk to me and even the words he speaks are not in English, somehow I understand.

  Leave me, Grandson, he says. I am done.

  No, I say, picking him up. You carried me when I was little. Now I will carry you.

  I blink my eyes and that vision is gone.

  What I see instead is Possum reaching out to take the Cherokee rose from my palm.

  He returns the stone to the box, slides down so he is sitting, leaning back against the tree trunk. Then we just sit there for a time, neither of us speaking. He looks at me, his head to one side, as if he knows something just happened. But I don’t say anything about what I just experienced and he doesn’t ask.

  “You want,” he finally says, holding out the open box, “you can use this here for safekeeping.”

  I nod. There’s no better place I can think of than in the company of that red stone.

  I hand him my France Victory Medal.

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  THE DORM

  We walk back up the hill from the grove where Corporal Dart’s France Victory Medal is now keeping company with Possum’s hidden treasures. I am feeling a little better, better than at any time since Pop told me he was leaving me here. True, my arm is aching like it got kicked by a mule. But I’m not going to be isolated here at this Indian school. Marooned on a desert island like Robinson Crusoe.

  Or maybe sort of like Robinson Crusoe, with my new friend Possum as my Man Friday.

  Then again, this is far from a desert island. How many boys did Pop and me see marching on that field? Four hundred or more. And there were just as many girls in the stands.

  Counting teachers and all, there’s more than a thousand.

  A thousand!

  I’ve never before been around so many people. Every day I am going to be surrounded by folks I don’t know. And now that knot’s back in my stomach.

  We’ve reached the back of Building Four. I start to walk around toward the big front steps. Possum stops me.

  “Good time to show you this. No one else being around.”

  He jerks his chin toward a huge vine growing up the side of the building. Pretty much covering the whole back. It’s been growing there for years. Some of its branches are as big around as tree limbs. It’s fastened itself firm, tendrils digging in like fingers into the stone and wood. It’s like a part of the building itself, reaching all the way up just short of the roof.

  “Virginia creeper,” Possum says. “Our private stairway. Nice, innit?”

  He grasps a thick branch of the vine and starts to climb. I’m expected to follow. Which I do.

  We scale that vine until we reach a window it encircles. Old, dried scars on the vine show where it’s been cut back to keep it from covering the opening.

  Possum’s already opened the window and slid inside.

  I peer in to see what I am about to enter. It’s a long, low-ceilinged space with cots off to either side. The narrow aisle between them leads to a door at the far end of the room. Thirty narrow cots are crammed in here, fifteen to each side. All but one of them made up, sheets and blankets tucked so tight a dropped penny would bounce. Each bed has a small metal trunk at its foot.

  But that’s not all I’m seeing. I’ve been here before in my vision as Pop told the story about Charlie Cornsilk. A chill runs down my back as I stare into this all-too-familiar room.

  Possum’s already sitting on one of the cots, two beds down from the window.

  “Come on in,” he says, waving at me. “Welcome to our home sweet home.”

  He looks down the aisle. “One there in the middle,” he says, indicating the one unmade cot. “That’ll be yours.”

  I slide over the sill. The room’s cramped, small for the number of people sleeping here every night. Last time I saw it, though, in that vision or daydream, there were even more cots.

  “Middle of the room,” Possum grins, “at’s where the new boys get to sleep. Smells get the worst there in the night—’specially when they serve beans for dinner, which is every other night.”

  He pats his cot. “Not like mine, near to the window.”

  I walk over to the narrow cot. Mine tonight. And night after night after that. The room seems even smaller. Though I’ve tried not to show it on my face, Possum might have noticed I’m feeling anxious. He doesn’t know the half of it. I reach up to the rafter that slopes down low over the bed. With my right index finger I trace the faint letters carved into the wood.

  C.C.

  Just like in my dream.

  Possum walks over to sit down on my cot. He bounces up and down on it a few times, the springs creaking under his weight.

  “Not bad,” he says. “Some are so worn out you might’s well be in a hammock.”

  I’d rather be in a hammock. Or on the wooden floor of a boxcar. Anywhere but here as long as I was with Pop. I picture the two of us together. We’re walking down a country road, wind in our faces, birds singing from the trees.

  “You missing that home you lost, Jay Bird?”

  I shake my head.

  “No?” Possum says. He looks a little confused at my answer. Surely he expected I was feeling homesick. He’s been so kind so far that he deserves a better answer.

  “I’m missing the road.”

  “The road?” Possum says. He looks really confused now.


  A few words aren’t going to do it this time. I take a breath while he waits.

  “Knights of the road,” I say. “That is what Pop and me were.”

  A light seems to come on in Possum’s eyes.

  “Hoboes?” he said. “You guys were hoboes?”

  I nod.

  “How long?”

  “One year,” I say.

  “Holy jeezum,” Possum says. “Jumping freight trains?”

  I nod again.

  “Sleeping out under the stars?”

  Another nod.

  “Oh man, I bet you got some stories.”

  “We do,” I say.

  “Tell me some? But not now.” He stands up, looks over at the window. “They may run our lives in the day here. But not after dark.”

  I’m not sure what he means by that. I don’t have time to ask. I’ve just noticed, as he has, the sounds of feet coming up the stairs outside the door. I think of bolting for the window, climbing down the vine and running.

  Possum grabs my arm.

  “Hold on,” he says. “No heading for the hills. They’d just catch you and drag you back.”

  “In here.” The door is opened by the person who just spoke. Superintendent Morrell. My father’s right behind him.

  My father looks straight at me, taking in my shorn dome. A sad look comes over his face, but he doesn’t say anything.

  The superintendent, though, is anything but silent.

  “Excellent,” he says. “You already appear much more civilized, young man. A lad of this century and not the benighted long-haired past. Next we shall rid you of those rags. Get you into proper clothes.”

  His gaze turns to Possum. “Showing our new recruit his quarters?”

  “Yes, sir,” Possum replies, straightening up to attention.

  “Excellent, indeed.” He turns to Pop. “As you can see, with the addition of our new house since you were here, we no longer crowd so many into each room. Further, each cadet . . .” he taps one of the metal footlockers with his toe, “. . . has a place for his personal items.”

  Morrell looks down his long nose at me. “I assume you are impressed with our facilities. Especially the addition of the washrooms down the hall. No longer must our lads traipse outdoors to use the outhouse as they did during your father’s tenure with us.”