Scared Stiff

by Laura Baumbach, William Maltese, Josh Lanyon

  Robert was grinning now, too, turned and waved for Cody to follow him up the river bank. “Cornmeal and Crisco, right?"

  "You got that right, brother. Hey, I picked some fiddleheads, too."

  Cody pulled his waders off and left them on the porch. He almost had to duck to get in the cabin's back door, and Robert realized then how tall he was, at least six-five. Cody straightened up and looked around the cabin. “Man, it's nice in here! Have you been cleaning? I think I smell Spic and Span."

  Robert shook his head. “Nope. It's Lemon Ajax. I haven't been out here for a year. I guess once a year is about right for cleaning."

  "You haven't been here since the accident?"

  Robert shook his head. “This is the first time.” He started opening cabinets. “Well, I promised cornmeal and Crisco, but now I'm not sure I can produce."

  Cody walked over to the fireplace, picked up the heavy silver picture frame. “Wow, look at you two. You look so happy."

  Robert looked at him and felt a pang of regret that it wasn't Val standing here, talking like this with some kid about him.

  Cody looked at him, his face stricken. “Sorry, Robert, I'm sorry. Listen, just tell me to shut up.” He put the frame back down, ran his finger along the beaded edge. “You're taking good care of the silver."

  "No, it's okay, Cody. I'm good. Your grandfather, he made that picture frame, right?"

  "Yeah, he did. He died this last year, too. Pneumonia. It took him fast, but he was so stubborn, he wouldn't go to the hospital till the fever was so high he was out of his head."

  Cody followed Robert back into the kitchen. “You've got some wild sage and wild onions out in that field. That'll be good with the fish."

  Robert nodded. “I smelled those wild onions when I drove up. I remember the first time Val brought me out here, must have been seven years ago now. I said, ‘what the hell smells like onions?’ He just looked at me like I was crazy, and said, ‘that would be the onions.’ Like everybody in the world had an acre of wild onions next to their cabins."

  Robert picked up his cane and Cody followed him outside. They walked across the field to where the wild onions grew, along with a riot of herbs Val had planted years ago and then forgotten.

  "Look at this, you've got dillweed, too. Just a tiny bit of that'll be good with the fiddleheads.” Cody bent over, pulled a few wild onions up, handed them to Robert. He tore a couple of sprigs of sage and some dill, then he bent over, looked more closely at the ground. “Hey, Robert. Come look at this."

  Next to a thick clump of fuzzy sage leaves was a small red flag shaped like a triangle, stuck into the ground. “What is that? It looks like the markers we use for excavations."

  Robert straightened up. He didn't know why his stomach felt so tight, didn't know if he was happy or not to see the little flag, this reminder of Val.

  "Val must have put it there. I saw him with these flags.” He looked up at Cody. “He got this new toy, this fancy space-aged metal detector. He was convinced there were artifacts underground, that this was the site of some battle, some battle between the US Cavalry and the Backfoot.” He looked up into Cody's dark face.

  Cody nodded. “We don't really call it a battle. We actually call it ‘The Massacre.’ Rumor, also known as powerful tribal legend, is that the massacre, fifteen children killed, took place somewhere in this valley, along the river."

  He gestured with his arms, and Robert looked around. Mountains on the horizon, surrounding them nearly in a circle. A huge green valley, bisected now by dirt roads, fences and other cabins, and the Salmon River at their back. Must have been sixty or seventy miles square, maybe more. “That's a lot of valley,” Robert said, looking around. “It's beautiful here, safe and protected.” Cody raised his eyebrows and grinned. “I guess unless the US Cavalry is planning to massacre you. What did you mean, when you said you use flags in excavations? Does Fish and Wildlife...?"

  Cody shook his head. “This is a seasonal gig for me.” He gestured to his uniform. “Punishment, to tell you the truth. Just this summer, I hope and pray."

  "Punishment?"

  "I'm forcing myself to do some honest physical labor.” Cody pulled a few more leaves of sage, held them up to his nose. “I'm an anthropologist. Physical anthropology. I'm at least three-quarters of the way through my dissertation and I can't stand that fucking thing another second.” He hesitated. “Okay, maybe half through.” He followed as Robert made his slow way back to the cabin.

  "What's your dissertation about?"

  "Lithic technology in Montana.” Cody's voice was gloomy.

  "And that would be...?"

  "Prehistoric stone tools, Robert.” He turned, his face earnest. “Do you have any idea how many grown men in this day and age are still digging up and studying and discussing and arguing over prehistoric stone tools? Too. Damn. Many."

  Robert couldn't help but laugh. “Yeah, and I bet everyone, from the time you were in sixth grade, told you that you should be studying your own people, your tribe, your legends, your history, right? And so you very stubbornly...” Robert stopped, feeling suddenly that he might have overstepped. This guy was still a stranger.

  But Cody didn't seem offended. He just nodded, his face still gloomy. “I was having dreams, man, of lithic technology gone wrong. Evil prehistoric stone tools, axe-heads, mostly, chasing me, trying to sink themselves into my head! While I was asleep! Jesus! So I took the summer off."

  Robert was laughing, cartoon axe-heads floating through his mind. “So what does interest you? Anthropology is a huge field."

  "Yeah, it is. But at the moment I can't think of a single thing. I just want to go fishing.” He shrugged, and Robert watched his face fall back to its natural, sunny lines. “I'll figure it out. I've got seven weeks and four days before the fall semester starts."

  "I guess we can use some of that time to eat. I hope you're gonna clean those trout. I really hate to clean fish."

  "Yes, I am,” Cody said. “You know what to do with the fiddleheads?"

  "Frying pan, dab of butter, pinch of salt, dill optional."

  "Good man!” Cody clapped him on the shoulder with one of his big hands, and Robert felt the warmth of it through his shirt, on his skin, after Cody took his hand away.

  * * * *

  Cody sat with him out on the porch after supper, and they stared out over the river as the sun went down. “It's beautiful here. When did you say the cabin was built, Robert?"

  "I think Val said about a hundred and thirty years ago. What was that, the eighteen seventies, eighteen eighties?"

  Cody rocked back in the chair, stared up at the heavy old timbers that framed the porch. “We're a long way from Blackfoot land. Our reservation is up on the border with Canada, right near Glacier National Park. But all this land used to be Blackfoot land. We were hunters, and we roamed with the buffalo. The people didn't really give up on living our way until the last buffalo hunt failed. We all nearly starved that winter. Some say over 800 of the people starved to death. That was 1882. About the same year this cabin was built.” Cody looked over at him and smiled, and Robert didn't think he had ever seen anything sweeter.

  Robert could feel the life, the light from Cody's spirit filling the dark places in the cabin. “I'm glad you came down the river today, Cody."

  Robert climbed into bed that night, groaned and pulled his stiff leg after him between the sheets. He might have overdone the cleaning. “Val, rub that sore spot for me, okay?” He closed his eyes, smiling at the idea of a young Blackfoot man, Cody Calling Eagle, with his huge body and huge hands. Cody had eaten four trout, a mess of fiddlehead ferns, and a pint of strawberries. Robert wished he'd had time and a couple of potatoes, he'd have fried them up. Cody could probably rub the cramps out of his hip with no problem, and he would have, too, if Robert had asked him to.

  The year of the last buffalo hunt, 1882. That sounded familiar, and Robert wondered if Val had said something about it. Val had always been fascinated by the long
, tangled history of this place. Maybe that was the year the cabin had been built. He drifted off to sleep, dreamed of a man stripping the bark off the huge trees cut to build the cabin. He looked like Val, only old-fashioned, with reddish mutton-chop whiskers and Val's auburn hair. And he saw another man helping him, an Indian with long black hair and golden skin, wearing moccasins that were blackened on the bottom from walking through prairie ash. A Blackfoot man.

  * * * *

  The next morning Robert took his coffee and journal out to the porch, so he could listen to the river talk while he woke up.

  Hey, baby. I woke up a couple of times in the night, thinking I had dreamed about you. I had a good dinner last night with Cody Calling Eagle. Remember him? His grandfather was your favorite silversmith. He seems like a nice kid, happy. The life is just bursting out of him, Val. He reminded me of you that way.

  Where is your toy, that metal detector? And what did you find in the wild onion field?

  Robert couldn't remember seeing that metal detector anywhere, not at home in the garage and not out here at the cabin. It had an LCD screen of sorts, he remembered, so you could see the shape of the object found. Val must have put the flags up to mark the spots, meaning to come back later and dig up what he found.

  He walked around the side of the porch, and from this angle the wild onion field had a curve, a bit of elevation, and it was even greener than the fields of green grass surrounding it. Robert could see a few little red flags peeking out between the floppy green onion tops. Oh, my God, it wasn't planted over the septic tank, was it? Robert felt his stomach lurch a bit. No, wait, the septic tank was next to the oak, in a life and death struggle with the tap root. So what was giving the wild onions that bit of a raise, almost like a ... almost like a ... No. Not a burial mound. It couldn't be. It was too wide and too low.

  But maybe it was very old, and it had settled over time. But the wild onions covered over, what, half an acre? If it was a burial mound, it would have had to be ... oh, my God. A massacre. Oh, please, Val, don't tell me you found a massacre. A trip into town, a trip to the library was in order before he ate any more of those onions.

  Salmon had a good library on Main Street in downtown. The woman behind the desk was in her late fifties, with reading glasses and short, curly dark hair shot through with gray. She had sturdy hips and sturdy arms, and when Robert walked in, she had her hands on her hips, giving a final warning to a culprit who had gone over the thirty-minute allotment on Internet use.

  She stared at him over her reading glasses when he introduced himself. “You're Val's Robert? We wondered if you'd be back, or if you'd just sell the cabin and disappear. I'm Lillian Evans."

  Robert rubbed his chin and studied the bulletin board. The words in fading orange construction paper said Summer Reading is Fun! “Actually, I found too many memories waiting for me when I came back. Too many to sell the cabin."

  "Hmm. I see."

  "What I was wondering was if there is any local history about the cabin and the land? Any stories about the people who built the cabin?"

  "We do have a couple of good local histories,” she said, moving to a small, glass-fronted cabinet. “You're not looking for the site of the massacre, are you? Treasure hunters have been looking in that valley forever. I don't know what they think they'll find. When poor people or children are killed and buried, they don't take a lot of grave goods with them."

  "I just heard something about the massacre yesterday."

  "It was the Blackfoot. Val told you the story, surely? It was the winter after the last buffalo hunt failed, the winter of the great starvation. A family came down here from up in Montana, maybe twelve or fifteen people. Supposedly they were welcomed by someone on one of the homesteads, but no one really knows which one, or what happened then. Some horses were stolen from a US Cavalry detachment, that was the presumptive cause, but that was hardly a unique occurrence in that day and age. You've heard about the other Blackfoot massacres? The Marias Massacre?"

  Robert shook his head.

  "Well, the man who should know is just coming in behind you. Most anthropologists, you would think, would know the history of their own people, but he is too busy studying important chips in rocks."

  "Hey, Robert.” Cody's big hand landed on his shoulder. He sounded a little harassed. He had a couple of little boys clutching his chambray shirt and bobbing around, shouting, their hands full of pale river rocks. Robert could see that Cody's jeans pockets were bulging. “No more! I'm out of quarters. And remember, I only want rocks with cut marks on them. Old cut marks."

  The librarian shooed the boys away by offering to let them check out two library books each. They scrambled out the door, and Cody turned around with relief. But the librarian had her hands back on her hips. “Come to do some research? How's that dissertation coming along?"

  "Ah..."

  "You're a procrastinator, Cody Calling Eagle. You always have been."

  "Yes, ma'am.” Cody tugged at his sleeve. “Robert, you want to go get some breakfast?"

  "Sure,” he said. He had to smother a laugh. Cody's voice was plaintive, very close to whining. “Let me just check out these books."

  Cody pointed to the door, then followed his finger outside.

  The librarian stared after him, her eyes narrowed. Then she looked back at Robert. “Cody probably knows more than he admits about Blackfoot history and our own local massacre. His grandfather was a storyteller, and Cody was always at his feet, listening. He's a two-spirit person. Not too many Blackfoot are two-spirit. They have always been the toughest, most aggravating, most hard-headed of the Plains tribes. The only Indians to try and ambush Lewis and Clark. Hard-headed, fractious, always ready to steal your horse. Course, I'm Nez Perce and we're old enemies.” She winked at him and leaned over the counter. “But I'll make an exception for Cody. I was his sixth-grade homeroom teacher."

  Cody was leaning against the library building, taking advantage of the little bit of shade from the overhang to pull rocks from his pockets and study them. “I swear, I see some of these same rocks over and over, the same ones every day. I think I'm gonna have to dig a deep hole and bury them."

  "Any prehistoric axe-heads in that bunch?"

  "Not a one, and I'm down another $2.75. I should probably do receipts, mark this down as an educational expense."

  They walked down Main Street until the smell of coffee and bacon frying pulled them into the Double Nickel Diner. They took a booth near the back. The waitress gave them both menus and filled their coffee cups. “Cody, what does it mean, a two-spirit person? That librarian said something about it, that you're a two-spirit."

  "She did?” Cody didn't look up from the rock he was studying. “She must be trying to fix us up. Here, Robert. Look at this.” He showed him a line of rough, parallel marks cut into the stone. They looked new.

  "What is that, marks where the rope goes into the stone? To attach it to a wooden handle or something?” Fix us up?

  Cody sighed and sat back. “Nope. That's the mark of a Phillips head screwdriver and a hammer in the hands of a little boy. I swear, those kids are driving me crazy.” He looked up and met Robert's eyes, and he was smiling. “Two-spirit. It means I'm queer as a two-dollar bill. Like you."

  * * * *

  "Okay, it doesn't really mean queer as a two-dollar bill.” They were walking across the onion field with a shovel, a roll of yellow tape that looked like crime scene tape, and a metal detector rented from a place in town. “I really just...” Cody fiddled with the knob on the top of the metal detector, twisting it back and forth. “I just wanted to get it out there, you know, put it on the table so there wasn't any ... confusion.” Robert glanced at him, smiled when he saw Cody's face was flushed red.

  "Yeah, I like putting my cards on the table, too. So, what else does it mean, to be a two-spirit?"

  "Sometimes women will be very strong, have warrior spirit, or they'll have talent for something that belongs to the men, like the medicine men
. So those strong women, they're said to have a male and female spirit. Sometimes they marry other women, sometimes men. The sex part, that isn't as important. Actually, those are some tough, strong babes. I've got an aunt who's two-spirit. She says if a woman's smart, people give her credit for having a male spirit, and that really pisses her off.” He grinned at Robert. “I wouldn't piss her off for any reason, my friend. She looks like she could stomp your ass without breaking a sweat."

  "What does she do?"

  "Long-haul trucker. She's got her own rig now and likes to be on the road. I worked for her for a summer after high school."

  "How did that go?"

  "Okay, I guess. She said she couldn't stand my chattering. I wasn't actually invited back. But none of my other cousins made it through a single summer, so I guess that's saying something. My cousin Rufus, she dropped him off in Oklahoma City at the Greyhound Bus Station with a hundred bucks and an AT&T calling card, told him to get himself home."

  "So if you're a man, and a two-spirit, you've got a female spirit as well as a male?"

  "Correct. Maybe we're just less prone to typical male violence. More talky, more nurturing, something like that. As an anthropologist, I appreciate the difference between being an honored, protected subclass with special gifts for the tribe, as opposed to devil fornicators and a lifelong target for violence. I don't want to end my days tied to a barbed wire fence. No offence if that's your thing, Robert. I mean, far be it from me to pass judgment."

  Robert was laughing now. “I'm not into tying up young, good-looking guys with barbed wire."

  Cody gave him that warm look again, like he might be thinking of reaching his hand out and touching Robert's face. “I don't know. Nobody's ever had the balls to tie me up. You'd just have to do it so it wouldn't hurt.” He narrowed his eyes. “You say young, like I'm a whole different generation than you are, daddy. I'm thirty-four."