by Jon Hassler
“Go on to the next piece of evidence.”
“Very well. That was Sunday. Now the very next day, which was Monday, Beverly Bingham, passed you a note in the hall after fifth hour. I saw it with my own eyes. You put it in your briefcase. And then on Tuesday she visited your house after school and stayed for at least thirty minutes, and that too I saw with my own eyes because her truck was sitting in front of your place from three thirty, when I went home from school, until at least four, when I drove uptown for a pack of cigarettes. And now, today, Wednesday, it was the same thing, the track sitting in front of your house for a goodly length of time, and what I can’t figure out is how you think you can get away with anything so scandalous and how you can be so careless with your reputation, to say nothing of the reputation of the Staggerford faculty, and—most puzzling of all—how you can bring that kind of shame upon the house of Miss McGee, who is the most moral person on God’s green earth.” Wayne sat down, resting his case.
Miles said nothing.
“Now speak up.” Wayne clamped his lower teeth on his mustache. Sweat stood out on his brow.
Miles said, “Do you have a toothpick? I have a raspberry seed here between—”
Rage lifted Wayne out of his chair. “I do not have a toothpick!”
“That’s all right,” said Miles, going to the door. “I have some at home.”
Outside on the dark street, Miles was convulsed with the anger he had been holding in check. His knees trembled, his scalp burned. He walked home and saw through the front window that Miss McGee had company. He did not go in. He walked down Main Street to the Hub to soothe his emotions with a piece of chocolate cake, and that was where he first heard about the Indian invasion. Someone said that everybody living on the Sandhill Reservation was planning to come to Staggerford at first light in the morning and seek retribution for what had happened to little Hank Bird. Someone else said that the Indians were going to camp on the football field across the street from the school until Jeff Norquist was scalped.
THURSDAY
NOVEMBER 5
THE SUN WAS SCARCELY above the horizon when the first car arrived from Sandhill. It was an old white Buick carrying seven men, including Alexander Bigmeadow and Bennie Bird. It came to a stop near the flagpole across the street from Staggerford High School. The seven men got out, stretched, passed through the open gate by the ticket booth, and walked out onto the football field. They stood under the goalpost, silhouetted against the orange sun, and they watched the arrival of the students.
Next, a red pickup pulled in behind the Buick and three women emerged from the cab and three more climbed down from the box behind. Then two more cars and another pickup, then three more cars and a van.
Wayne Workman’s office faced the street. Between eight o’clock and nine, Wayne stood at his window and peeked through the blinds, watching the Indians arrive in a steady stream. At nine he called the governor and said his school was under siege by Indians.
The governor asked why.
“I don’t know,” said Wayne.
“Well, ask them.”
“Yes sir.”
“And have you called the county sheriff?”
“No.”
“Call the county sheriff.”
“Yes sir.”
“And when you find out what they want, call me back.”
“Yes sir.”
“In the meantime, I’ll send you a fleet of highway patrolmen.”
Wayne called the sheriff in Berrington, but he did not go across the street and ask the Indians what they wanted. He was paralyzed with fear. He continued to stand at his window, peeking through the blinds. He counted the Indians. With the arrival of the final carload at about ten o’clock he counted 507 men, women, and children of the Chippewa nation. The sun by this time had dried the dew, and most of the Indians were sitting on the grass like clusters of picnickers.
Classrooms were full of tension. Even first-hour English was wakeful—coughing and stretching between yawns. Lee Fremling, manifesting uncharacteristic imagination, said he wished the classroom faced the football field instead of the courtyard, so he could see what was going on.
Second-hour English, with Jeff Norquist conspicuously absent, was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The only thing all hour that quieted the class was Roxie Booth’s story about a black soldier who had raped an Indian girl. The girl’s family and friends kidnapped the black soldier and castrated him with the edge of a torn tin can.
Next hour, Miles was summoned by Wayne Workman’s secretary. He put William Mulholland, the scientist, in charge of his class and he went to Wayne’s office, which he found empty. He stepped to the window and raised the blind. Wayne rushed out of the closet (blowing smoke out of his nose) and grabbed the rope from him and lowered the blind.
“Pruitt, are you crazy? That’s the enemy out there. And do you know how many of them there are?”
“How many?”
“Five hundred and seven. Go out and ask them what they want.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Because it happened in your study hall. They’ve come to get even with Jeff Norquist.”
“If we know that, then we don’t need to ask them what they want, do we?”
“The governor says to ask them. I called the governor and he said to ask.”
Suddenly little Hank Bird was standing in the office doorway. Smiling shyly through his bruises, he said, “My dad says for the principal to come outside.” He left as quickly as he came.
Between bites of his mustache, Wayne said, “Pruitt, you’re coming with me.” He waited for Miles to lead the way.
As Miles and Wayne crossed the street, several men who had been sitting on the grass got up and came off the football field through the ticket gate and gathered at the curb under the flagpole. No flag flew this morning because Sorenson the janitor had been afraid to cross the street and raise it.
“Good morning, what do you want?” Wayne said, stepping up on the curb. His voice had a tremor in it.
A lean, dark man with a face full of deep wrinkles came forward and glared first at Wayne, then at Miles. “I’m Bennie Bird. I expect satisfaction for what happened to my boy Hank.” His voice was an ominous rumble, like distant thunder. He had the same kind of face as the wise old Indian Miles had seen in countless movies, the Indian who had weathered seventy years of sun and wind on the slopes of the Rockies and who told his great-grandchildren with a faraway look in his small eyes that the plains were once a sea of buffalo. But this wasn’t the movies, this was Staggerford, and this Indian was Bennie Bird, whose face was weathered not by sun and wind but by seventy years of smoke and shadow in the Sandhill General Store. These small eyes were not gazing far off across the plains, they were gazing at Miles.
“Glad to know you,” Miles said, putting out his hand in case Bennie Bird wanted to shake it. He didn’t.
Another man stepped forward. “I’m Alexander Bigmeadow,” he said. Under his very large stomach he wore his belt like a sling. This was the chief of Sandhill, and both Wayne and Miles were glad to see him. They had spoken to him at meetings of the Staggerford PTA and they had known him, on occasion, to smile. But he wasn’t smiling this morning.
“Well, Mr. Bigmeadow,” said Wayne in a very high voice, “What brings all you folks to town this morning?”
“It’s not good, Mr. Workman. We have to have satisfaction for little Hank. When the noon-hour bell rings, we expect to see that Norquist boy step out the front door of the schoolhouse, and if he doesn’t, we’re going inside and search him out.”
“You goddamn right,” said Bennie Bird. “Satisfaction for what he did to Hank.”
Little Hank was edging away from the group of men, hoping his duties were over.
Wayne said, “Jeff Norquist isn’t in school today. I’ve suspended him. You see, he’s already being punished for what he did.” Wayne’s voice was deserting him. Its pitch kept rising.
“That’s for you to do if
you want to,” said Bennie Bird, “But we ain’t yet done what’s for us to do. We want satisfaction.”
“What do you have in mind?” asked Miles.
Bennie Bird said, “Satisfaction for Hank. Eye for an eye.”
Bigmeadow said, “We’ll decide on the satisfaction when the time comes. When we meet with the Norquist boy we’ll decide.”
Wayne squeaked, “But he’s not in school today. He’s home.”
“Go get him.”
Wayne then said something unintelligible, and one of the men standing behind Bigmeadow was amused by his high, tremulous squeak. This man, a middle-aged Indian wearing the kind of lime-green hat sold at carnivals, laughed out loud. One of his friends snickered. A third man smiled. Bigmeadow scowled at them. So did Wayne. When the carnival-hatted man quit laughing and the other two quit smiling, Wayne turned abruptly and marched across the street, Miles following him.
Wayne called the governor and told him what the Indians wanted. The governor said he was sending twelve highway patrolmen to Staggerford, and Wayne’s job was to keep the lid on until they arrived.
Wayne said, “The student they’re after is not in school today. Do you think he should be?”
The governor thought he should be.
Wayne put his hand over the phone and said, “Pruitt, get Norquist.”
Miles went across the hall to Delia Fritz’s desk to call the Norquist house, and picking up the phone he caught the end of Wayne’s conversation with the governor.
“By the way,” said the governor, “is Ansel Stevenson still your superintendent in Staggerford?”
“He is, but he’s not here this morning. He went home.”
“Well, as long as Ansel Stevenson is your superintendent I wouldn’t worry if I were you. Old Ansel is a great hand with Indians, you know.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Wayne hung up.
Mrs. Norquist answered Miles’s call. She said Jeff was in bed.
“Did he tell you why he is staying home today, Mrs. Norquist?”
“No, he never tells me anything.”
“He’s been suspended for fighting. But it’s imperative that he come back to school now because we want him to attend a meeting. He has made a lot of Indians mad.”
“He’s a thorn in my heart,” said Mrs. Norquist, and she hung up.
Miles called her again. “Am I to understand that you will send Jeff to school right away, Mrs. Norquist?”
“If you think he’ll get out of bed and go to school just on my say-so, you must be a fool, Mr. Pruitt.” She hung up.
Miles went back to Wayne’s outer office and scanned the morning attendance report. Nearly every Indian student was absent; but Annie Bird, as Miles expected, was in school—no doubt in defiance of her people.
He looked up Annie’s class schedule and went to the gym where four teams of girls in red shorts and white shirts were playing volleyball. He called Annie aside and said that he and she must somehow bring Jeff Norquist back to school before twelve o’clock.
Annie said it sounded like a dumb idea. She said the football field was full of Indians and Jeff was better off at home.
“It’s what the governor wants,” said Miles.
Annie looked him in the eye, brought an insolent pucker to her lips, and said, “It still sounds like a dumb idea.” Her eyes flashed the same anger he had seen yesterday when she got off the school bus in Sandhill, the same anger he had just seen across the street in the eyes of her father.
“It’s part of the governor’s plan to avoid violence, Annie. It’s the only way.”
“All right, I’ll change.” She started toward the locker room.
“There’s not time to change. The noon-hour bell rings in twenty minutes.”
Miles and Annie went out the back door of the school and down an alley and across Main Street. Annie’s red shorts, too big for her tiny waist and skinny brown legs, were gathered at the belt like a potato sack. She wore an oversized pair of white tennis shoes that flapped when she walked. The initials J N were printed in black on the rubber toes.
The Norquist house had gone to seed. What had once been an attractive bungalow at the crest of a sloping lawn was now hidden in a tangle of vines and overgrown shrubbery. The lawn had been left uncut all summer.
As Miles knocked at the front door, Annie said, “I’ll knock on Jeffs bedroom window,” and she disappeared around the corner of the house.
Miles knocked three or four times. Finally Mrs. Norquist came to the door. Miles had not seen her for a long time—not since her daughter Maureen graduated—and he was surprised how much older she looked. She was wearing a worn-out bathrobe and smoking a cigarette.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Norquist, but it’s imperative that Jeff come to school right away.”
“If you think you can do anything with him, Mr. Pruitt, be my guest.” She stepped aside to let him come in.
At that moment, Annie and Jeff came around the corner of the house, holding hands, and set off toward school.
“God, look at that, would you,” said Mrs. Norquist. “What a pair.”
“Please excuse me, Mrs. Norquist. I have to get right back.”
“I almost wish they’d run away and leave me in peace. It’s coming up on eight years since my husband drowned, Mr. Pruitt. My only comfort in life is my daughter Maureen in New Jersey. She’s married, you know. She writes every week.”
For lack of anything better to say, Miles blurted, “Thank you,” and he followed Annie and Jeff across Main Street.
Jeff was short and broad. His back muscles bulged under his tight T-shirt. He lit a cigarette, turning to make sure Miles noticed, and he gave Annie a drag. His curly hair stood out from his head in a massive blond afro.
Twice Jeff asked Annie, “What’s going on?” but Annie wouldn’t tell him.
Miles followed them down the alley and through the back door of the school. They got to Wayne’s office one minute before twelve. The office was empty.
Miles opened the blinds and saw Wayne and two highway patrolmen standing at the base of the flagpole across the street. The patrolmen were dressed in burgundy uniforms with braid at the shoulder and wide, flat-brimmed hats like Lyle Kite’s ranger hat. Alexander Bigmeadow was speaking to them. Bennie Bird had turned his back on them, and with his arms folded he was glaring at the sky. All 507 Indians, preparing to invade the school, were on their feet now, crowding through the ticket gate and gathering at the curb.
“Jeff,” said Miles, “you see those people out there? They would like to have a word with you.”
Jeff looked out the window, then backed into Wayne’s closet.
“Don’t worry, Jeff. They just want to have a word with you.”
“Don’t be afraid of fat bastards like Alexander Bigmeadow,” said Annie. “Where’s your guts?” She tried to tug Jeff out of the closet. So that (thought Miles) was why she hadn’t told Jeff what he was in for. She knew he would turn coward.
If it had been Spanish rice day or hamburger soup day, no one in school would have bothered to eat, but the menu called for everybody’s favorite, sloppy joes, and when the bell rang the faculty and students dropped into the basement, then rushed outside, still chewing, to watch what many of them hoped would be bloodshed. The students packed themselves into the street, leaving only a narrow passage between the front steps of the school and the opposite curb.
The Indians began shouting, “Norquist come out!!” and the students took up the chant. It sounded like a football cheer.
“They’re calling my name,” said Jeff from deeper in the closet.
“Don’t worry,” said Miles. “Just come outside with me and see what they have to say.”
“You think I’m crazy?”
“There’s nothing to fear. The state troopers will keep them under control. I see another patrol car coming.”
“It would take five of them Indian bastards to knock you down,” said Annie, pulling on Jeffs arm.
“NORQUIST
COME OUT!”
Jeff shook Annie loose and pulled the closet door shut.
Miles spoke through the door “Mr. Workman wants you to help him negotiate.”
Annie added, “If they want to fight, I’ll help you fight, Jeff. I know how to kick them fat bastards where it hurts.”
“NORQUIST COME OUT!”
“Are you coming out?” asked Miles.
“Bigmeadow’s all flab,” shouted Annie.
A state trooper in a burgundy shirt, having come in by a back door, suddenly appeared in the office and introduced himself as the governor’s official arbitrator. He was a giant in sunglasses. Miles, for all his size, felt suddenly diminished, for he stood no higher than the trooper’s shirt pocket. Except in a sideshow one time, Miles had never seen a man so large. The trooper’s shirt front and sleeves were a collage of decoration: a badge, a rope of gold braid, a miniature American flag, a leather holster strap, and several cloth patches with the messages you read on bumper stickers, KEEP MINNESOTA GREEN, said one.
“Are you the principal?”
“No, my name is Miles Pruitt. And this is Annie Bird. And in here”—he tried to open the closet door—”is Jeff Norquist. He’s the one they’re after.”
“What’s he doing in there?”
“He’s a chicken!” said Annie.