Little Bird sat at the table in her kitchen, or what at one time had been her kitchen. It had been more than a decade now since she had moved her family out of the house that the whites had provided for them, along with every other member of the Indian Nation. Her family and taken up residence in the three teepees that now adorned her dusty front lawn. It was a foolish thing to do, even now Little Bird thought so, walking away from perfectly good shelter, but she hadn’t been a member of the council of elders then. Back in those early days the council, much like the rest of the world, was riding a wave of fear and trying to make sense of a world thrust back into the Stone Age. Their solution was to abandon as much of the white man’s technology that they could and go back to the old ways, the ways of their people, though few even knew what that really meant anymore.
The old woman took another sip from her cup of tea and then frowned down into the bitter brew. In truth, it was nothing like real tea and was barely palatable, just a mix of wild herbs the woman of the nation gathered. But they called it tea and long ago it had been decided that a pot should be provided for every council meeting. She couldn’t help but laugh at that, fake tea for a group of fake Indians. She heard footsteps on the front porch, and Little Bird stood, taking a moment to mentally prepare herself to greet the first members of the council to arrive. But to Little Bird’s surprise, all of the council members arrived together in one group. She stood in the doorway of her abandoned home and shook all of their hands, offering greetings and vague pleasantries to each in turn. But inside her head she was screaming at each of them, deriding them for their stupidity, their carelessness and above all the lack of respect they had afforded her. However, Little Bird held her anger in check, and as they took their seats around her kitchen table, she made the rounds, filling cups with tea and even managing to smile pleasantly while she did so.
When Little Bird filled the last of their cups, she paused for a moment and then looking around the table asked, “Would anyone like more tea?”
And after every one of them said that they did not, Little Bird smiled again, then turned and promptly threw the pot of tea against the wall. The ceramic teapot shattered in a spray of broken pottery and bitter tea, and in the close confines of the kitchen, it sounded like a gunshot had gone off. The elders froze, every eye on Little Bird and the old woman thought some of them looked as if they would turn and run from the room. She stalked around to the head of the table and sat down heavily, her eyes falling upon each of the council members, as if holding each in place by the sheer force of her will alone.
“Well, now that the pleasantries are out of the way, would someone tell me just what in the fuck is going on around here?”
For a moment no one spoke, but Little Bird watched as four sets of eyes suddenly found anywhere else to look, but at her. Then from her right, Sally Night Song, said softly, into her chest, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Fuck you Sally!” Little Bird screamed, pointing a crooked finger at the 70-year-old woman as if it were a gun.
“Fuck all of you! If you’re going to lie to me at least have the common decency to do a convincing job of it! Or do you think I didn’t notice how you all just happen to arrive at the same time? I’ve been on this council for almost five fucking years, do you know how many times that has happened? Never! Fucking never! We are always left waiting for at least one of you slow fucks to hobble in at your own leisure. I know what that means, you had a meeting before you got here, a little pow-wow so you can all keep your story straight. So you could make sure none of you said the wrong thing in front of me!”
Little Bird took a breath, and her eyes darted around the table, any doubt that she may have held before was wiped away by the looks she found on her fellow council member’s faces. Sally Night Song’s head was still down, buried in her chest and she was now weeping quietly. Long-Armed John stared blankly down into his tea as if all the answers to the world could be found written across the bottom of his cup. Across from him, Amy Red Tail stared down at the tabletop while slowly shaking her head, her face was an unreadable mask. And then at the end of the table Little Bird’s eyes came to Laughing Dog. For years she and the old man had played foil to one another on the council. Little Bird had a habit of refusing to back down, and Laughing Dog had a well-known and respected temper. It was that temper that had earned him his name, when jokingly Chief Black Snake had said, “When the man’s blood was up, he would go out of his way to kick a laughing dog.”
While the man’s youth was gone his anger remained, and Little Bird could see it now, smoldering behind Laughing Dog’s eyes. In that anger Little Bird found hope, and then Laughing Dog spoke.
“Little Bird, you are the most self-righteous fucking woman that I have ever met,” he said.
The old woman found it hard not to stifle a grin, anger was good, she could work with anger, even if it were, for the moment, directed at her.
“You made your choice, you left this council and ran off to play house with the whites. Then you used your position to play the big man on their City Council. You only came back her long enough to rub all of our noses in it and maybe throw an underhanded insult at the Chief. And how did that all end up? You had to be dragged back here and called to heel like a damn dog that’s been caught pissing on the rug. You would be out on your ass right now and not even a member of this council if it wasn’t for what happened to Patty Two-Trees,” he spat.
“What? What do you mean? What happened to Patty Two-Trees?”
“We gave her your seat on the council, but she died in her sleep just a few days ago, the poor dear,” Sally Night Song said quietly.
“That’s too bad, I liked her,” Little Bird replied, surprising even herself when she realized she meant it.
“Everyone liked Patty, she was a real dear, never had a bad word to say about anyone,” Amy Red Tail added.
The ladies all nodded, Little Bird among then, each agreeing in earnest that Patty Two-Trees had been a perfect dear, a true sweetheart and then added another half a dozen other small niceties to the list.
“I lost my virginity to Patty back in 1973,” Long-Armed John added.
Everyone at the table stopped and looked at John, their faces a mix of surprise and disbelief. The old man looked back at them, and after a moment his face turned red, and he looked back down at the table, perhaps realizing that he had said too much.
“I’m sorry,” John said,” I don’t know why I just said that. I guess I just wanted to share.”
Laughing Dog just shook his head, “Well, it seems that some of us are missing old Patty more than others,” he said with a grin.
Little Bird felt a small chuckle bubble up from the base of her throat, and at first, she tried to hold it back, but it then was joined a moment later by Sally’s own giggle. Then before she realized it the room was filled with laughter. While some men would find it uncomfortable to be the center of such mirth, Long Armed John was not one of those men. The old man had a deep belly laugh that proved infectious, and soon Laughing Dog joined in as well. And when the laughter finally fell away Little Bird found much of the tension in the room had gone with it, she looked around the table at the group of wrinkled faces, and for the first time in a long time, she realized she was lucky to be among them.
“I’m…sorry,” Little Bird said, “As much as I don’t want to admit it, maybe there is some truth to what Laughing Dog has said. Perhaps I did spend too much time among the whites. I saw a chance at a position of power, in a new place, away from the restrictions of this council and our young and hot-blooded Chief. They are starting over again, out there in their little town and unlike us, they are unfettered by tradition, or ritual or prejudice. They have their whole future in front of them, and it’s filled with endless possibilities, it was very exciting for me to see it all come together and to be part of it.”
Little Bird paused for a moment then, allowing her words to sink in before she continued, “But I never forgot why I was there. Eve
rything I did or didn’t do, it was all for my people, and the same still holds true now.”
“That may be true Little Bird, but Two-Steps is the Chief of the Indian Nation now. He isn’t his brother and he sure as hell isn’t his father. He’s got his own notions on what’s best for this tribe, and it don’t include the Council of Elders, that’s for certain,” Laughing Dog said.
“Or our rituals, like The Rite of Passage?”
The table went silent, and for Little Bird, it was easy to see that she had stumbled upon one of the topics that the council had intended to keep from her.
“Yeah, like that,” Laughing Dog replied.
“Why is Two-Steps building an army and filling it with adolescent boys?”
“Why does anyone build an army? To go to war.”
The arrow struck Miles high on the left side of his chest, narrowly missing his heart and embedding itself deep into his shoulder blade. The old man let out a wordless shout, something between a curse and a warning and then unceremoniously fell out of the booth. Miles landed on the dirty linoleum floor, and the shock of the landing sent another bolt of pain shooting through his left side and Miles screamed again. The edges of his world began to grow gray, and Miles smiled, eager for unconsciousness to take him, but it was Kyle that appeared at his side instead.
“Miles! Miles! We have to go!”
Kyle was grabbing hold of him now by his good arm, trying desperately to pull the old man to his feet. Miles didn’t want to move, he didn’t want to even breathe and then from all around him came the sound of breaking glass. Miles rolled his head to the side in time to see two men, each dressed in rotting animal skins dive through one of the diner’s windows to his right. Coal didn’t hesitate, the bounty-hunter hurled the mug of coffee he was still holding at one of his attackers, striking one man across the face and causing him to stumble. Then he charged the second man, his hunting knife flying into his hand faster than Mile’s eye could follow. The raider wasn’t expecting the attack and took a wild swing at the half-breed with his own rusty blade. Coal slapped the blade away with a quick backhand and then quickly jabbed his bone-handled knife into the man’s gut twice, before pushing him away. If it was skill or simply luck Mile’s couldn’t tell, but Coal freed his knife from the dying man and raised it just in time to intercept the blade of another attacker. Coal and the man went down hard each struggling to plant their blade in the other’s flesh.
“Coal…Coal needs…” Miles mumbled weakly.
Then the old man realized Kyle was no longer trying to pull at him, he turned and found the scavenger was on the floor a few feet away to his left and dealing with his own problems. A man wearing a hat made from a dead cat was trying to strangle Kyle from behind with a short length of cast iron pipe pressed against his throat. His attacker was dragging him back down the length of the aisle as Kyle kicked wildly, first in one direction and then in another, doing whatever he could to try and break free of the man’s grasp. When that failed Kyle reached for the magnum under his arm, but the pipe at his throat made pulling the pistol impossible, and Kyle’s attacker seemed to know it. The big man was smiling now and even in Miles semi-conscious stupor, he could see that this fight was quickly sliding from bad to hopeless.
“So, this…this is where it ends…” Miles mumbled as blood began to drip from the corner of his mouth.
Miles knew that dying here, on the dirty floor of this diner would be a bad thing, no matter how spectacular the view was. But for some reason, he found it very hard to care about that at the moment. Then he looked down and saw the arrow sticking from his chest again, and for the first time, he realized that blood was soaking through the left side of his shirt. Some part of Miles knew that was another very bad thing and that he was probably in shock. He shook his head, doubting there was any chance of them making Salt Lake by tomorrow. But they had given it their best shot, hadn’t they? Miles turned to look back over in Coal’s direction, at first he couldn’t see the half-breed, just two more raiders crawling through another window.
Then Coal appeared from somewhere to Miles’ left, he was swinging a chair and managed to smash it across the face of one of the late arrivals before being pulled down again by the second man. “He’s still fighting? Good, good for you Coal,” Miles thought.
“Good…that’s good…” he mumbled.
The old man began to wonder how Kyle was doing on his end of things and turned back to look for the scavenger. His vision swam a bit, but he found Kyle nearly in the same place where he had left him, struggling for his life on the floor. The scavenger seemed to have given up on trying to wrestle his neck free and was now throwing wild punches behind him, aimed at the man’s head. Blood was running down his attacker’s face, but the man just laughed, like Miles, he knew the end was near. Miles' eyes fell upon Kyle’s face for a moment, the scavenger’s eyes were wide and held a wild and frantic look. Kyle was fighting for his life, but it wasn’t just his life was it? He was fighting for Anna and his unborn child and all of the rest of the people back home, the ones counting on them to keep the water flowing, even if most of them didn’t know it. Juan was back there too he realized, fighting to keep the dying pump alive and a sudden sense of shame cut through the Miles’ shock induced haze. I should be doing something, I should be fighting too, he thought. The old man struggled, for just a moment, to rise but the movement sent another wave of pain ripping across his chest, and he slumped back down to the floor. The blood loss had made him useless, or perhaps he always had been useless? He wanted to look back at Kyle and see if his friend still struggled, but he found himself too ashamed to even raise his head. Instead, Miles stared at the floor between them, and as the blood pooled around him, his eyes fell upon Coal’s rifle.
The .30-06 lay neatly on the floor next to the bounty-hunter’s saber and the pair of bench cushions that the man had used as a makeshift bed the night before. The engineer’s heart leaped inside of his chest, only to come crashing back to earth a moment later when he realized it was a good six feet away, between him and where Kyle struggled for his life. Miles licked his lips, his mouth was so dry, and then he turned to look down at the arrow sticking from his left chest for a moment and then mumbled, “Fuck it.”
It didn’t take much on the old man’s part really, all he had to do was roll to his left and let gravity do the rest, just a split second of courage was all that it would take. Before he had too much time to think about it Miles moved, he twisted to his left, the blood on the floor making the motion easier than he expected and the old man fell forward onto his face. When the end of the arrow struck the diner floor his world went white. He was face down now screaming into his own blood, the length of the arrow that a moment ago had been protruding from his chest was now sticking out of his back. But if anyone noticed Miles’ scream it was lost in the sea of violence around him.
The old man prayed for unconsciousness and then when it didn’t come he thought that perhaps he was past that. Maybe he was dying, and his body was forcing him to experience his last few minutes of life, even if it was filled with excruciating pain. “Well fuck you too then,” he muttered, though he wasn’t really sure who he was talking to anymore.
Then the old man slid his left leg across the bloody floor, it found the edge of a booth, and he pushed himself forward. Stretching out his good arm, the butt of the rifle now lay just a few inches out of his reach. The old man took a deep breath, preparing himself to push again but then he realized he could reach the rifle’s sling. His bloody finger wrapped around the rawhide strap and he pulled it back towards himself, just thankful that the barrel was already pointing away from him. Miles’ hand wrapped around the wooden grip and his finger, slick with blood found the trigger. For a moment he considered if Coal would have left a bullet in the chamber or perhaps the safety on, then he dismissed the notion from his head, this was Coal after all.
The old man took another deep breath and then with his arm outstretched he grunted and just managed to raise
the heavy rifle a few inches off of the floor. As he strained Miles looked up and to his surprise found that Kyle was still alive, still fighting but the scavenger’s eyes were no longer wild. Instead, they were now focused on Miles. The old man gave his friend a bloody grin, and in return, Kyle stretched out his leg towards him, while still straining against the pipe at his neck. The tip of Kyle’s boot just reached the end of the rifle’s barrel and slipping under it he nudged the muzzle upward. Miles hesitated for just a moment and then pulled the trigger. The gun went off with a deafening roar and then sailed backward to slam against Mile’s shoulder. Mercifully, this time the old man did pass out.
The bullet seemed to tear a path through the air just inches from Kyle’s face before it entered the throat of the man behind him and then exited cleanly out the base of his skull. Two things then happened nearly simultaneously. First, the back of Kyle’s head and shoulders were suddenly drenched in a warm bath of thick dark blood. Then the pressure at his throat suddenly fell away, and the scavenger could breathe again. He took a long deep breath, nearly choked on it and fell forward, landing nearly on top of Coal’s outstretched rifle. Renewed of oxygen, his mind raced, and though the gunshot had momentarily robbed him of his hearing, he somehow sensed another attacker’s approach. Kyle rolled over tearing the rifle from Miles’ unconscious grasp and came up holding it awkwardly. He caught another raider in mid-stride about to pounce over his dead friend. But upon seeing the rifle in Kyle’s hands, the man suddenly thought better of it and turned on his heels choosing to flee instead. The scavenger didn’t hesitate, he worked the action of the rifle and fired from the hip, hitting the fleeing man in the lower back and dropping him like a stone. Another man in dirty skins turned and ran through the kitchen door trying to escape.
Kyle racked the rifle again and this time raising the gun to his shoulder he tried to take aim. But at that moment an arrow zipped past his head and shattered against the booth next to him in a small shower of black fiberglass. Kyle spun and found the archer standing just outside of the diner, but the man was already in motion running to his left. Kyle fired sending the bullet wide, and he watched as the archer ran to the edge of the plateau and dropped down out of sight. Something about the way he moved made Kyle doubt that the man would be back. The scavenger spun around on the bloody floor searching for a new target but finding none he jumped to his feet and ran down the aisle. He leaped over Miles and ran to the far end of the diner where he had last seen Coal struggling. He found his friend on his back, with his would-be killer straddling him, his knife locked blade to blade with Coal. Kyle raised the rifle and then after a moment’s hesitation, he spun the gun around and hit the raider over the back of the head with it instead. The man fell to his side and didn’t move, his eyes were wide, but he looked around as if he couldn’t see anything.
The Road North Page 19