Staggerford

by Jon Hassler

  “All right, if I must. But not for an hour or so. Give the poor woman a chance to get out of bed.”

  “She’s been up all night. I’ve been watching from the street.”

  Miles hung up and waited an hour anyhow. He drank coffee. He took his time shaving and dressing. It was nearly nine when he put on his rubber poncho and walked out into a slanting mist thick as fog and wetter than rain. He apologized to Mrs. Norquist for making a pest of himself.

  She was wearing her bathrobe and look: ig a mess. She said that Jeff was probably gone for good. He had stolen all the money in her purse—over three hundred dollars—and she had no idea where he might be. But she knew where she would be, and pretty damn soon. She was going to pack up and sell the house and she never wanted to see Staggerford again. She was going to New Jersey and live near her daughter Maureen and her son-in-law, who was a truck driver and one of the nicest men you’d ever want to meet. He was of Italian descent. She would come back to Staggerford only one more time, and that would be on her way to the grave (she pointed in the direction of Evergreen Cemetery) because she owned a plot out there where George was buried and there was no use letting it go to waste. She didn’t know what arrangements her daughter and son-in-law would have to make to get her body back to Staggerford, but she wasn’t going to worry about it. That was the least of her worries, she said, and she closed the door.

  Miles walked down Main Street to the Hub. He stepped inside, shaking the rain off his poncho, and there was Beverly. His heart lifted—it was like the surge of excitement he had felt when he was eighteen and wearing his new double-breasted suit and in love with Carla Carpenter.

  Beverly was not in uniform.

  “Coffee,” he said. He sat on a stool.

  Beverly was shaking. Coffee spilled into the saucer as she served it. She came around and sat next to him. “Christ,” she said, and lit a Marlboro. “I spent last night in Sandhill. I stayed at my dad’s cousins’. They live in a shack and I slept on the floor. My life is coming apart at the seams.”

  “Waitress,” someone called from a table.

  “I went home after school to change into my uniform and there was a guy with a gun standing in the driveway, and I never even stopped. I figured they were having some kind of a shoot-out in there with my mother because of what I said in class. I never even stopped to find out. I just kept going.” She looked at Miles through the part in her hair. She drew deeply on her cigarette. “I never came to work at all last night.”

  “That man with the gun was a soldier, Beverly. The National Guard spent the night on your farm because of today’s meeting in Pike Park.”

  “I know that now. They told me in Sandhill.”

  “The Indians know?”

  “Everybody knows. God, what do you suppose my mother is doing out there all this time? She’ll be wild.”

  “Waitress, more coffee.”

  “Don’t worry about your mother, Beverly. We’re going to step in and take care of things for you. Mrs. Workman is going to talk to Dr. Maitland first thing Monday morning. If what you said in class is true—”

  “What do you mean, if it’s true!” She bumped the ash tray off the counter.

  “Waitress.”

  The cook put her head out through the serving window and said, “Get busy, girl. There’s people waiting to pay.”

  Beverly stepped on her cigarette and went to the cash register.

  A man dressed all in red rose from a table and went behind the counter to fill his cup with coffee. He looked at Miles and said, “I guess you have to serve yourself in this place.” He set his cup down and spread out his hands for Miles to see.

  “Blood!” he said. His hands were caked with a mixture of dirt and dried blood. “Didn’t you see my deer out there? It’s in the back end of my truck. The season opened at eight o’clock, and I had her wounded and tracked down and shot dead and gutted out by eight thirty. A big doe. She’ll go close to two hundred pounds. You ever seen a doe that big?”

  “Here’s your two orders of cakes, girl,” called the cook. “Hurry up before they get cold.”

  “You can bet I ain’t washing my hands all day today,” said the deer hunter. “I live for this day every year.” Again he spread his hands before Miles. “There’s nothing like it. I’ll have myself this cup of coffee, then I’ll go home and hang the doe in the bam and let her cool down and dry out, and tonight I’ll come back to town and go on a toot. The town will be full of deer hunters and we’ll have a rip-roarin’ time. And tomorrow if it clears up and gets colder like it’s supposed to, I’ll take her out of the barn and hang her in a tree. There’s nothing like a good cold wind to dry out your meat and age it nice. Then on Monday I’ll have her butchered and wrapped and froze, and by Monday night we’ll be eatin’ fresh deer liver.” He turned his hands over once more, back, front. Miles nodded, indicating he had seen enough. The hunter took his coffee back to his table.

  “What’s this about Dr. Maitland,” asked Beverly, back at his side. “Is he going to have her put away?”

  “The commitment process is going to begin on Monday. I don’t know how long it will take. We’ll start with Dr. Maitland at the clinic, then she’ll have to be taken somewhere for examination—”

  “By force?”

  “By whatever means are necessary. When people are committed to a hospital, I guess the sheriff sometimes has to be called in to pick up the person. I mean if the person doesn’t want to go and can’t be talked into it, there’s no choice but force.”

  “It will be force. And it will be Monday, you think?”

  “I should think some time Monday. And you’ll move out of the house between now and Monday.”

  “Where to? I’m not sleeping on any floor on any reservation again, I tell you that.” She was facing away from Miles and speaking from behind her hair.

  “The Workmans have a room for you. Thana—Mrs. Workman wants you to move in with them.”

  She turned quickly to see if he was serious. “The Workmans? Live with that grouch Mr. Workman?”

  “What’s your alternative, Beverly? Living in the gulch alone? The Workmans’ landlord is gone for the winter and they have plenty of room. It’s like Miss McGee’s house-big and old and well kept. Mrs. Workman and you will become great friends. You’ll like it fine.”

  “So we leave the chickens out there to die.”

  “Don’t worry about the chickens.”

  To attract Beverly’s attention, a woman at the table in the front window put her hand in the air and snapped her fingers several times.

  “I’ll be back this afternoon,” said Miles. “We’ll plan your move into town.”

  “All right, I’m off at three.” Though she wasn’t eager to live with the Workmans, she was eager to move to town.

  “I’ll be back before that. I should be back from Pike Park by one.”

  “You’re going to Pike Park?”

  “I’m one of the Staggerford delegation. There’s three of us. Mr. Workman and Jeff Norquist and I.”

  “There’s two of you. Jeff Norquist is gone.”

  “Where?”

  “I’m not supposed to say.”

  “Who told you?”

  “They told me about it in Sandhill.”

  The woman snapped her fingers five quick times. From the kitchen the cook looked out the serving window and said, “For the last time, girl, will you get up off that stool and go to work?”

  “I’ll be in this afternoon.” Miles put a quarter by his cup and left.

  Beverly handed the woman at the table a menu and watched Miles walk down the street. She wished she could move into Miss McGee’s house. At least Miss McGee had a garden. And Mr. Pruitt.

  In Room 8 of the Big Chief Motel, Wayne Workman was smoking, pacing, and chewing his mustache. The Giant was bent over the dresser studying a map of Berrington County.

  “Jeff Norquist has stolen three hundred dollars from his mother and run away,” Miles announced.
r />   At this, the Giant put on his holster and hat and sunglasses and went out into the rain. Wayne followed him. Miles closed the door and watched them through the window. They got into the patrol car and the Giant spoke into his radio. The heavy rain was falling at a slant and splattering the patrol car and the Mustang and the pebbles of the parking lot. Miles took off his poncho, sat down, and picked up the only reading material in the room, the Staggerford Weekly. He looked again at the photograph of Lee Fremling backing into Peter Gibbon’s kick. Lee was unidentifiable. His face was turned away from the camera and the number on his jersey was obliterated by a careful retouching of the photograph.

  The caption said, “Owls Block Stag Kick.”

  Miles read the want ads. He read a pound-cake recipe. He read a column of astrological prophecies. For Pisces like himself this day, Saturday, was good for “disposing, once and for all, of disquieting perturbations.”

  At eleven thirty Wayne Workman came back into the room and the Giant drove away in the patrol car.

  “You drive,” said Wayne. His car keys jingled in his shaking hand.

  “We don’t leave for twenty minutes.”

  “We’re going over to Stevenson’s house.”

  “What for?”

  “The superintendent should be with us.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “We need more than just the two of us.”

  “We’ve got the National Guard. What could Stevenson do that an army can’t? Except maybe the on our hands?”

  “Damn it, Pruitt, it’s his school. He’s the one who should be taking this responsibility. Now let’s get going.” Wayne’s voice trembled.

  Miles drove the Mustang to Stevenson’s house, wondering if Wayne was seeking the superintendent’s help or the superintendent’s death. He stopped at the front gate.

  “Come to the door with me,” said Wayne. “You’re his fair-haired boy.”

  Crossing the lawn in the rain, Miles thought he glimpsed Stevenson’s face in the living-room window, but MRS. Stevenson opened the front door and said, “Ansel is in St. Paul for a meeting of the Minnesota Historical Society.” She spoke in the sort of steady, heavy-jowled manner that turns the boldest lie into truth. “He’s on the board of directors, you know. I’ll tell him you both stopped by. He’ll be sorry he missed you.” The two men were running back to the car before she finished. “He’ll be impressed with the way you two are handling the Indian question,” she called after them.

  “That’s the kind of leadership we work under,” said Wayne. “Doesn’t it gall you?”

  Miles started the car.

  “Swing by Doc Oppegaard’s.”

  “It’s ten to twelve,” said Miles.

  “Doc Oppegaard is chairman of the school board. He should be with us.”

  Miles drove to Doc Oppegaard’s office. In the waiting room Doc was drinking wine with Stella Gibbon. “How’s your tooth?” he asked Miles, who had forgotten about his tooth.

  Wayne said, “We’d like you to come with us to meet the Indians. Jeff Norquist has run away, and we’d feel better if there were three of us. The superintendent isn’t available and I thought you might like to speak for the school.”

  “Oh, how exciting,” said Stella.

  “Why not?” said Doc. He put on his coat.

  Wayne helped him into the back seat of the Mustang, then said, “I’d feel better if there were four of us.”

  “It’s five of twelve,” said Miles.

  “One more man. Think of somebody.” He clamped his lower teeth on his mustache as Miles pulled away from the curb.

  “Bartholomew Druppers enjoys occasions like this,” said Doc Oppegaard, a bit drunk. “I’m sure he could make a little speech, being major and all.”

  “Anybody will do,” said Wayne.

  Miles stopped at the mayor’s house. Wayne went to the door and came back alone. “He won’t come.”

  “He’ll come,” said Doc. He squeezed out of the back seat, went to the front door, and came back with the mayor.

  Mayor Droppers was jumpy. As soon as he was fitted into the back seat with the dentist and the car moved off, he began fretting in a loud, rhetorical voice. The more he fretted, the more Wayne bit his mustache.

  “I tell you we’ve got ourselves a nice little community here in Staggerford, and I’d hate to see it turned into a testing ground of hate and bloodshed. Is the American Indian Movement in on this yet?”

  “Oh, God,” said Wayne.

  “No, they aren’t in on it,” said Miles.

  “How do you know?”

  “As far as I know, they aren’t.”

  “Relax,” said Doc Oppegaard.

  “That’s all we need is the American Indian Movement,” said the mayor. He sat on the edge of the back seat and spoke directly in Wayne’s ear. Like any good speechmaker, he had sized up his audience and he knew which man was most moved by his words. “I tell you we’ve all seen towns in this nation of ours turned into testing grounds of hate and bloodshed. It all started years ago in Selma, Alabama. One thing I’ll say in favor of this meeting, it’s three miles from town and that shows good forethought, because that way at least our homes are safe.”

  “I hope to God,” said Wayne.

  “Relax,” said Doc.

  “Now what I say is this. When we get to Pike Park, we get out of the car and speak our piece and get right back into the car and drive back to town as soon as possible and hope it all blows over.”

  Wayne nodded.

  “How many Chippewas do we expect?”

  Wayne shook his head.

  They drove a mile in silence.

  Suddenly Mayor Druppers clutched Wayne’s shoulder and shouted. “Where’s Norquist?” looking about him as though Jeff might have been riding, unnoticed, in their midst.

  Wayne shook his head. He didn’t want to say the words, he ran away. “Tell him, Miles.”

  “He ran away,” said Miles.

  The mayor sank back, speechless.

  Wayne gave Miles a bitter look. “How can you be so calm?”

  “Why shouldn’t I be calm?”

  “Why? Because your life is at stake!”

  Although Miles didn’t believe it, it was a disquieting thing to hear. A disquieting perturbation.

  They passed the Bingham driveway and saw a soldier standing guard beside the mailbox, a forlorn figure pelted by the rain.

  Pike Park. At the entrance, the governor’s Giant stood on the shoulder of the highway. He waved the Mustang into the park, and Miles, according to instructions, parked next to the pump. No other car was there. As soon as he switched off the engine, the windows steamed up.

  The four men were silent for a long time. In the back seat, Doc Oppegaard drew hearts on the window with his finger. The mayor’s breathing was a tense whistle through the nose. Wayne frowned. Over and over again, Miles rubbed the steam from his side window and peered out toward the highway where the Giant’s patrol car was parked. Cars of sightseers passed slowly on the highway. One of them stopped.

  “Here they come!” said Wayne, leaning over and looking out past Miles’s ear.

  “That’s my car,” said Doc Oppegaard. “And that’s Nadine driving. Relax.”

  The Giant sent the car on its way.

  “Maybe they won’t show up,” said Wayne.

  “They’ll show up,” said Doc. “Indians are always late for appointments.” He continued to draw hearts on the window.

  “I don’t like sitting out here without Norquist,” said the mayor. “It could get mighty unpleasant.”

  “An Indian will listen to reason,” said Doc.

  “We’ll promise them anything money can buy,” said Wayne. “The governor says the sky’s the limit.”

  “But only one thing at a time,” Miles reminded him.

  Across the river a shot was fired. “It’s an attack!” said Wayne. The mayor ducked his head.

  “A deer hunter,” said Doc.

  While they were
n’t looking, a car drove into the park and pulled up in front of them, bumper to bumper. They saw its dark shape through the steam on the windshield.

  “Here they are!” shouted Wayne. “Don’t let them into this car. Don’t get into their car. Stand clear of both cars so the trooper in the hills can see us at all times.”

  “What trooper in the hills?” said the mayor.

  “Don’t let them lay a hand on you! Promise them anything!”

  “Let’s see who it is,” said Doc.

  With his sleeve, Wayne wiped the steam from his half of the windshield, but he couldn’t see through the rain flowing across the glass.

  “You know who it will be,” said Miles, wiping his half. “It’s bound to be Bigmeadow and Bird.” He turned on the windshield wipers and bent forward over the steering wheel to see his adversary, and he looked into the face of Miss McGee. The car was his own, and Thanatopsis was at the wheel. Sandwiches.

  Wayne and Miles got out and stood at the windows of the Plymouth, Wayne on his wife’s side and Miles on Miss McGee’s.

  “You forgot to bring the lunch,” said Miss McGee.

  Wayne told his wife to get the hell out of the park. He said she was throwing a monkey wrench into the governor’s plan. He said any minute all hell was going to break loose. He spoke of an ambush. Meanwhile, Miss McGee was handing Miles, through her window, a pair of shoe-boxes containing two dozen sandwiches. “The coffee is in the back seat,” she said. “It’s a shame you couldn’t have had a nicer day for your meeting. Rain is so discouraging.”

  “Beverly is at the Hub,” said Miles.

  “Yes, we stopped there. We told her we were coming in this afternoon when she gets off work. To plan her future.”

  “That big cop out there tried to stop us,” laughed Thanatopsis, leaning over to talk out Miss McGee’s window. The one on her side had been rolled up against Wayne’s admonitions. “But we plowed right past him.”

  Miles carried the sandwiches and four Thermos bottles to the Mustang and handed them to Doc Oppegaard in the back seat. He went back to his Plymouth and said, “Thanks for coming out. I’m sure we’ll be back in town in a little while. I don’t look for the Indians to show up.”

  “Take a hot bath before you come to the Hub,” said Miss McGee. “It’s a day for catching cold.”