The Beadworkers

by Beth Piatote

I think about this and I get riled at Dale Davis all over again. Jerk! My entire face is throbbing.

  After a while the door opens, and the nurse says my mom is here, and Jolene can go back to her class. Jolene asks if she can please stay with me, but the nurse tells her no. Jolene slips through the door without looking back, but I tell her thanks and see you at home as she leaves.

  Mom is standing in the hallway outside of the principal’s office, looking out the window at the empty playground. Mom, I say, and she turns her face toward me. A look of surprise, then maybe anger, ripple across her face. I feel small. She opens her arms and hugs me, then pulls back and scans my face and jacket.

  “Will it come out?” I ask.

  She frowns a little. “We’ll see,” she says. “We’ll try.”

  She hugs me again. “Are you okay?”

  That’s when I start to cry. I wonder why moms can make you cry when you don’t know you have to. Where were you? I ask. In town, she says. She fishes a tissue out of her pocket and puts her arm around me as we walk to the car. She sits in the car with me at the school while the story falls out of my mouth in rough little pieces. I cry so hard my nose starts to bleed again. She’s out of tissues, so she grabs one of Lionel’s jersey work gloves that’s lying on the car seat and catches the blood with it. It smells like sweat and car-engine oil, which means it smells like Lionel. I hold it to my face with my head tipped back as she drives us home.

  Turns out I’m suspended for a day, and that jerk Dale is out for the rest of the week, which is only three days, but still. At least he got it a little worse than me.

  We get home and I think Mom will tell me what’s going down but she doesn’t. She calls her friend Janet and makes some coffee, then takes my jacket and sweater to the sink to wash the blood out. I stand next to her in the kitchen.

  “Mom,” I say. “I was scared when you weren’t here.”

  She doesn’t stop scrubbing the collar. Watery brown suds cling to her fingernails. “Um-hmm,” she says. “But you shouldn’t be afraid when Grandma Wilma is here. You should know that.”

  She turns on the faucet to rinse.

  “When . . . when can you tell me where you were?”

  “When your dad gets back.”

  This cannot be good. In my mind I see them setting us down at the table, and I realize how much I don’t want this to happen. The words just tumble out of my mouth then.

  “Are you and Dad getting a divorce?”

  She stops working and looks at me, a hard look.

  “No,” she says. “Of course not.”

  And then she tells me where she was: Pierce County Jail. We sit down at the table and she says Dad and Lionel were arrested last night. For fishing. For fishing on our river, where we have always fished. The game wardens caught them. Took their nets. Took them to jail. Mom paid a fine to get them out. As she’s talking, different pictures spin through my mind. Dad’s truck. The nets. Lionel’s empty room. Apple spice cake. She says we’re in this now, that the Indians got to fight. Just like the old days. I want her to say what Grandma Wilma says, that everything is going to be okay. But she doesn’t.

  I’m sitting on the sofa watching TV when Lionel, Jolene, and Janey come home. There’s no need to explain my puffy face, since news like that goes ’round like fire. Lionel says my face looks bad.

  “It feels like a baseball mitt,” I say.

  “Your face is purple,” Jolene says. “Are you sure it isn’t broken?”

  “No,” I say. “But there’s nothing to do anyway. Not like I can put a cast on it.” Janey laughs, and then I do, too, picturing me with a cast on my face. Lionel says he didn’t know I wanted out of school so bad I’d get suspended for it.

  “What about you?” I ask. “You went to jail.”

  He grins at that.

  I tell him I was afraid that he’d run off to the Army. Nah, he says, I’d go Navy like Dad. I tell him that isn’t very comforting, and he shrugs.

  After dinner we watch Dad and Lionel get their boots and coats on. Dad goes out and lays a net in the bed of the truck, and Lionel gets in the cab. Mom brings them a thermos of coffee. She stands on the front porch watching them. My coat is still wet, so I wrap myself in the green blanket off the sofa and go out. The sky is deep blue and still. The stars are awake. Dad waves at us, then the cab door snaps shut. We watch the truck creep down the drive, then turn onto the highway.

  I sense my mom turning her face away from the road, away from the glow of red taillights, now disappeared in the dark. We look at the sky together. She points and says, There they are. She is pointing at the fish traps. Her voice is flat and matter-of-fact. There they are. Nisqually fishing weirs. I look too. In school we’ve learned that these stars are called Orion and Orion’s Belt. I nod, I don’t speak. The stars to me seem cold and jagged and far, far away.

  ʔiná·tx̣aksa I tell my story I conjure my powers I make a wish

  Beading Lesson

  The first thing you do is, lay down all your hanks, like this, so the colors go from light to dark, like a rainbow. I’ll start you out with something real easy, like I do with those kids over at the school, over at Cay-Uma-Wa.

  How about—you want to make some earrings for your mama? Yeah, I think she would like that.

  Hey niece, you remind me of those kids. That’s good! That’s good to be thinking of your mama.

  You go ahead and pick some colors you think she would like. Maybe three or four is all, and you need to pick some of these bugle beads.

  Yeah, that’s good, except you got too many dark colors.

  You like dark colors. Every time I see you you’re wearin’ something dark. Not me. I like to wear red and yellow, so people know I’m around and don’t try talkin’ about me behind my back, aay?

  The thing is, you got to use some light colors, because you’re makin’ these for your mama, right, and she has dark hair, and you want ’em to stand out, and if they’re all dark colors, you can’t see the pattern.

  I got some thread for you, and this beeswax. You cut the thread about this long, a little longer than your arm, but you don’t want it too long or it will tangle up or get real weak. You run it through the beeswax, like this, until it’s just about straight. It makes it strong and that way it don’t tangle so much.

  You keep all this in your box now. I got this for you to take home with you, back to college, so you can keep doin’ your beadwork.

  How do you like it over there at the university? You know your cousin Rae is just about gettin’ her degree. She just has her practicum, then she’ll be done. I think her boyfriend don’t like her being in school though, and that’s slowing her down. It’s probably a good thing you don’t have a boyfriend right now. They can really make a lot of trouble for you, and slow you down on things you got to do.

  Now you gotta watch this part. This is how you make the knot. You make a circle like this, then you wrap the thread around the needle three times, see? You see how my hands are? If you forget later, you just remember how my hands are, just like this, and remember you have to make a circle, okay? Then you pull the needle through all the way to the end—good—and clip off the little tail.

  I’ll show you these real easy earrings, the same thing I always start those men at the jail with. You know I go over there and give them beading lessons. You should see how artistic some of them are. They work real hard, and some of them are good at beadwork.

  I guess they got a lot of time to do it, but it’s hard, it’s hard to do real good beadwork.

  You got to go slow and pay attention.

  I know this one man, William, he would be an artist if he wasn’t in jail. I’ll show you, he gave me a drawing he did of an eagle. It could be a photograph, except you can tell it’s just pencil. But it’s good, you would like it. There’s a couple of other Indian prisoners—I guess we’re supposed to call them inmates, but I always call them prisoners—and sometimes I make designs for them for their beadwork from what they draw. The th
ing is, they don’t get many colors to work with.

  They like the beadwork, though. They always got something to give their girlfriends when they come visit, or their mothers and aunties.

  You have to hide the knot in the bead, see, like this, and that’s why you got to be careful not to make the knot too big.

  Maybe next time you come they will be having a powwow at the prison and you can meet my students over there and they can show you their beadwork. I think they always have a powwow around November, around Veterans Day. Your cousin Carlisle and his family come over from Montana last time, and the only thing is, you got to go real early because it takes a long time to get all your things through security. They have to check all your regalia and last time they almost wouldn’t let Carlisle take his staff in because they said it was too dangerous or something.

  What’s that? Oh, that’s all right. Just make it the same way on the other one and everyone will think you did it that way on purpose.

  Your mama is really going to like those earrings. I think sometimes she wishes she learnt to bead, but she didn’t want to when she was little. She was the youngest, so I think she was a little spoiled but don’t tell her I said that. She didn’t have to do things she didn’t want to, she didn’t even have to go to boarding school. I think she would have liked it. It wasn’t bad for me at that school. Those nuns were good to me; they doted on me. I was their pet. I think your mama missed out on something, not going to St. Andrew’s, because that’s when you get real close with other Indians.

  I like that blue. I think I’m goin’ to make you a wing dress that color.

  I think you’ll look good when you’re ready to dance. Once you get going on your beadwork I’ll get you started on your moccasins, and you know your cousin Woody is making you a belt and I know this lady who can make you a cornhusk bag. You’re goin’ to look just like your mama did when she was young, except I think she was younger than you the last time she put on beadwork.

  I used to wonder if you would look like your dad, but now that you’re grown you sure took after her. I look at you and I think my sister, she must have some strong blood.

  Hey, you’re doin’ real good there, niece. I think you got “the gift”—good eyesight! You know, you always got to be workin’ on something, because people are always needing things for weddin’s and memorials and going out the first time, got to get their outfits together. Most everything I make I give away, but people pay me to make special things. And they are always askin’ for my work at the gift shop. My beadwork has got me through some hard times, some years of livin’ skinny.

  You got to watch out for some people, though. Most people aren’t like this; most people are real bighearted. But some people, when they buy your beadwork, they think it should last forever. Somebody’s car breaks down, he knows he got to take it to the shop, pay someone to get it goin’ again. But not with beadwork—not with something an Indian made. No, they bring it back ten years later and they want you to fix it for free! They think because an Indian makes it, it’s got to last forever. Just think if the Indians did that with all the things the government made for us. Hey, you got to fix it for free!

  You done with that already? Let me show you how you finish. You pull the thread through this line, see, then clip it, then the bead covers it up. That’s nice.

  That’s good. I’m proud of you, niece.

  I think your mama is really goin’ to like these earrings, and maybe she’ll come and ask you to teach her how you do it. You think she’ll ever want to do beadwork? Maybe she’ll come and ask me, aay?

  What do you think of that? You think your mama would ever want to learn something from her big sister? I got a lot of students. There’s a lady who just called me the other day, she works at the health clinic, and she’s older than you and she wants to learn how. I said sure I’ll teach her. I teach anyone who wants to learn. I just keep thinkin’ if I stay around long enough, everyone’s goin’ to come back and ask me, even your mama.

  wIndin!

  THE EXHILARATING GAME OF KINSHIP, CHANCE & ECONOMIC REDISTRIBUTION AGES 5 AND UP HIGH PLATEAU EDITION

  OBJECT. The object of wIndin! is to host the most Give Aways and thus secure your status as having the most money, trade goods, kinship relations, and honor. The winner must successfully avoid having part or all of his or her assets taken into trust by the federal government.

  PREPARATION. Unfold the circular board and place it on a flat surface. Place the deck of Stick Game cards facedown on the blanket icon in the central area of the board. Distribute five horses to each player, placing extra horses in the Agency corral. Distribute five Pendleton Blanket cards to each player, placing the remaining cards on the Longhouse icon. Leave the TRUST PIT empty.

  Each player selects a token to travel around the board. The tokens are moccasin, diggin’ stick, cowboy hat, dip net, headdress, cornhusk bag, and giant beaded belt buckle.

  “Indian tokens or token Indians?”

  “Definitely Indian tokens.”

  Iris nodded and typed quickly on her MacBook. Trevor was washing dishes in the sink, and for a short interlude the only sound between them was the regular rhythm of plates moving under sponge and water. “Wait,” she said. “That won’t work. Because then all of the Indians will be saying, ‘I want to be the Indian.’”

  “No, it’d be like, ‘I want to be THE INDIAN.’”

  “Then you’re back to the token Indian.”

  Trevor stopped washing.

  “Okay, screw the token Indians,” he said. “You need a BIA Agent or something. An anthropologist.”

  “That is so cliché. How about just some guy in a suit, writing in a little notebook? Then it could be ambiguous.”

  “Ambiguous!” Trevor pulled the drain and wiped his sudsy hands on a towel. In three efficient steps he was at the table, looking over her shoulder at the screen. “A guy in a suit is totally FBI.”

  “Hmmm. I’m not feeling it.” Iris tapped her fingers on the table and stared at the fruit bowl.

  “Give him a giant notebook and tiny, tiny hands.”

  “I don’t know, Trev.”

  “C’mon. You want to leave out the G-man? Where’s the fun in that?”

  “It’s too Thunderheart.”

  “Fine! Play the Val Kilmer card,” Trevor said, extracting a chair from the table with a loud scrape on the floor. “Just kill my idea.” He sat down.

  “No, wait. We should have a Val Kilmer card—you know, you draw a Stick Game card and it says, ‘You have just sighted Val Kilmer in South Dakota. Pay each player ten dollars.’”

  “Fuck that. They should pay you. Twenty bucks. For restitution.”

  Iris typed quickly, her eyes fixed on the screen. She had only a few months to finish her project, a piece of installation art for the annual Indian Art Northwest show in Portland over Memorial Day.

  Trevor picked up a piece of fruit from the bowl on the table and polished its skin on his shirt. He held it out to her.

  “Hey,” he said. “How about this?”

  Her fingers grazed his thumb as she reached for the apple and lifted it from his hand. “Don’t be mean,” she said, and took a bite.

  EQUIPMENT. This game is played on a circular board. It includes a single die, eight player tokens, a set of Pendleton Blanket cards, a set of Appaloosa tokens, a set of Stick Game cards, and play money.

  MONEY. The bank is maintained by the Tribal Chair, who volunteers for the position and/or is elected by the other players and/or claims hereditary descent. Each player is given $2,000 in any combination of fifties, twenties, and tens that the Tribal Chair determines. The Tribal Chair is expected to keep wIndin! funds separate from his or her personal funds, unless he or she draws the Tribal Corruption card from among the Stick Game cards. The Corruption card is a trump card that allows the Chair to raid the bank and steal horses with impunity.

  The first time Iris had seen Trevor, she was standing at the window of her second-floor apartment buildi
ng and he was waiting at the bus stop on the street corner below. It wasn’t really her habit to stand at the window, but on that day she was watering the ficus and happened to look out and see him. It was September, more than a year ago, and the maple leaves were just beginning to flame. When she saw the beautiful man at the bus stop, her heart quickened: the long, straight legs, vaguely thick middle, broad shoulders, and black hair. Still, she couldn’t be sure; her view was admittedly limited. She crouched down below the sill, peeking over the edge to watch him. The bus approached, and he turned toward it. In profile, she made a positive ID: Yakama! The Pendleton shoulder bag clinched it.

  That was back in the day when Iris had first moved to Eugene, the small university town that nonetheless seemed big to her. She had landed a job building websites and print publications at Design Depot, an all-service copy shop, after working for two years as the internet specialist for the Confederated Umatilla Journal. She had an associate’s degree from Blue Mountain Community College, and she occasionally thought about going back to college, perhaps for a BFA. Her sparsely furnished living room was dominated by a wall of family photos intermingled with prints and photographs of works by her favorite artists: Marcus Amerman, Shelley Niro, David Bradley, T. C. Cannon, and Diego Romero.

  After Iris spied Trevor at the bus stop, she began to track the mass-transit ridership more carefully. She parked her green Toyota Corolla behind her apartment building. She spotted Trevor a few more times and once rode the same bus with him. These nonencounters finally came to an end when she saw him at the Longhouse, for a potluck on Indigenous Peoples’ Day (or Columbus Day in Drag, as Iris called it, although who was she to mess with the politics of urban Indians?). As Iris and Trevor were roughly the same age—midtwenties—they folded into the buffet line at the same time. Just as they were shuffling past the salads, a fresh platter of roasted salmon emerged from the kitchen.

  “Stand back,” Trevor said. “You don’t want to get caught between the elders and the salmon cheeks.”