Steal the North: A Novel

by Heather B Bergstrom

  His mom died of diabetes—an infection in her foot. White man’s diseases are still killing off the natives: not smallpox and measles, but diabetes and alcoholism. “Ray. Sorry, man.”

  He shrugs. “I didn’t really feel nothing this year when I heard her name.”

  Ray not feeling anything at all is worse than his wailing with the women, which he did the first year after his mom passed, but I don’t say so. “Where’s Benji?”

  “Took off.” I ask him where to. “Canada.” I ask him for what. “Ecstasy.”

  “To sell on the rez?” Ray doesn’t respond. “That’s completely fucked,” I say.

  “Dad hooked him up.”

  My uncle. Dad’s brother. The army vet who flies an enormous American flag outside his rez house to piss off the real traditionals. He used to travel around helping other vets on different reservations. “You want to stay here tonight, Ray?” I feel bad having asked him to leave.

  “I’m meeting Sergio in an hour.”

  “Just stay here, bro. Teresa will be home.” I try to entice him. “In her scrubs.”

  “Next week, cuz. Like you said.” I’ve never asked Ray to leave before, no matter who I’m hanging with. I offended him. Shit.

  “Come on, Ray, brother. Please.” I speak to him in our native tongue. He answers in English, then leaves.

  I leave too, before Emmy and her family return. I drive to the Columbia. Chief Moses lost both his heirs—nephews, because he had no sons of his own—in the Columbia. They both drowned, drunk. Both times Moses remained by the shore, waiting for the river to release their bodies, and both times it did.

  Teresa loved to tease Dad, when she got older, that he married into the Moses band, not rescued her and Mom from it. Dad claimed to have stolen Mom and Teresa in a horse raid. They were hiding under a blanket and he just scooped them right up.

  My dad’s favorite leader wasn’t Tonasket, the Okanogan leader and respected rancher. Nor was it Skolaskin, whom Moses got jailed, though Moses was also shackled twice in Yakima. It was another Sanpoil leader, Chief Jim James. He was the chief who witnessed firsthand the inundation of Kettle Falls in 1939. But not before he oversaw (“with sad dignity,” whites claim—fuck them) the removal of generations of Indian bones in the wooden boxes the government so generously provided. Losing the falls ruined my people. We deeply offended the Great Spirit. The Sky Chief. We still dance and pray for forgiveness, for healing.

  I wait by the silent river. I’m hungry. I had cereal for breakfast, but no lunch or dinner. I could use a burger. I wait. The sun starts to set. Moses was called Half Sun. I smoke my last cigarette. My hunger deepens and brings with it fear, instead of clarity. Dad? He never shows up when I need him most. What am I waiting for the river to release? Dad’s waywardness? His drunkenness? Moses’s drunkenness? Half Sun’s people? My people? Our pain? My life before Emmy? My life after she leaves? My hunger? My thirst?

  I drum. I keep my hand drum in my truck. I have yet to show it to Emmy.

  Coyote’s thirst was so great that he created the Columbia, but then he tried to drink so much of the river water that he lost consciousness. He woke up in the swift river and was afraid. Moses’s beloved nephews never woke up. My dad—come on, I need you—regained full consciousness in the hospital many times before he died, which baffled the doctors. It was like Fox was there, stepping over him three times, which is the only way Coyote survived to finish his job of readying earth for the coming humans. I’m still baffled to this day as to why the fuck my dad was riding around with a drunk white woodcutter. Hell, Dad probably got the guy drunk. My dad needed cash, no doubt. My old man, who sometimes worked cutting trees for the tribal mill and for the tribal fire department, was as good with a chain saw as he was with a fishing pole, a dip net, a bow, a rifle, a horse. I miss him so much. He had this way of making me feel things were going to be all right, even when I knew they weren’t—like now—even when I knew he was leaving again or about to get busted. He never got arrested by the feds, just the tribal cops, who didn’t like locking him up. One tribal court advocate told Mom, who rolled her eyes, that Dad’s spirit was just too big to lock up. They tried to “make him whole” through other means. He was even sent to pick berries one time like a chick and another time to build a sweat lodge. Maybe he’s made his peace, though not with me, and crossed over at last.

  I miss you, Dad. I’ve missed you my whole life.

  * * *

  Spencer’s SUV isn’t in front of the Millers’ trailer when I return, but Matt’s truck is there. I go over. “Emmy left already,” Matt says. “She didn’t want to.”

  “I’m really sorry about your wife.” It’s way too soon to speak the name of the dead.

  He nods. I turn to go. “Reuben?” I turn back. “Emmy says you kids want to have a talk with me and Kate in the morning. She won’t let Emmy stay.”

  “I have to try.”

  “I respect that.”

  “I love your niece, very much.”

  “I know.” He looks like he wants to say more, maybe give me some advice. I’d take it. But he doesn’t. He buried the love of his life today.

  Emmy calls me around midnight from the hotel. She sounds young and so far away, already. If she does leave, I’ll never be able to talk on the phone with her. She asks me to sing to her like I did that night at my great-aunt’s house when Ray drummed. But I can’t. She asks me to tell her a story in my native language. It comes out mostly in English. I tell her how Coyote traveled up the rivers with the salmon, a new food source. Whenever he proposed to a beautiful maiden and was refused by the maiden’s parents or by the maiden’s tribe, he created natural dams or barricades in the river to keep the salmon from going up any farther. Coyote would swear that tribe would tip many canoes and wear out their moccasins to get enough salmon to survive.

  * * *

  Kate and Spencer bring maple bars and juice. We sit at the table in Matt’s kitchen, each of us with a glass of OJ and a maple bar on a plate. Emmy and I scoot close. Spencer makes a quick phone call after his beeper goes off, something about an engineer and a permit. All the hanging bundles of herbs have been removed, but I can still smell them. The note cards with Bible verses have also been taken down. The kitchen and living room blinds are wide open, giving a rather stark look to the place. Kate’s tenser than Spencer and Matt, who make small talk for a few minutes. No one eats or drinks. Kate asks Spencer to shut off his beeper. He says he already did. “Mom.” Emmy finally begins. “I want to stay in Moses Lake for my senior year. If Matt will let me live here with him. Will you, Uncle Matt?”

  “Are you joking, Emmy?” It’s Kate. She looks at me. “Did you put her up to this?”

  “I want Emmy to stay,” I say. We hold hands under the table.

  “It was my idea, Mom. He never asked me to.” That’s true, even though I wanted to a hundred times. “Can I, Uncle Matt?”

  Matt takes off his ball cap.

  “Your uncle has no say in the matter,” Kate says. “And the answer is no.”

  “I’m not going back to California.” Emmy lets go of my hand, so she can use both to argue. “And you can’t make me.”

  “I damn well can.”

  Spencer moves his arm off the back of Kate’s chair—as if to separate himself from her abrupt harshness.

  “I’m not leaving Reuben. We love each other. Tell her, Uncle Matt.”

  “They’re in love, Kate.” He puts his cap back on. “I know that much.”

  “And you condone this?” Kate asks him.

  “I condone love.” He slides the plate away. “Your sister and I married at their age.”

  “But we want more for Emmy, right?”

  “More than love?” Matt says.

  “Neither Beth nor I finished high school. You, Matt, had to go to work full time sorting potatoes at seventeen.” Spencer looks uncomfortable. May
be he should go wait in his fancy SUV. She turns on me. “Where do you work, Reuben?”

  “He chops wood,” Emmy replies before I can. Fuck. I wince. “For the elders on the reservation. And he hunts for them. And last summer he worked road construction, and this summer he’s babysitting for his sister, who is a single mom like you. And I’ve never had a real job, Mom, just volunteer work for school clubs. We’re the exact same age.”

  Emmy needs a drink after all that and takes a swallow of her juice.

  “Reuben’s a great kid,” Matt says. “I’ve seen him grow up. If I’d had a son—” He takes a second. “I would’ve wanted him to be just like this boy.”

  That’s quite a compliment. I wish Matt would look at me, so I could nod.

  Kate tears her maple bar in half, but then doesn’t take a bite from either side. “As touching as that is, Matt,” she says, “and it is—”

  “Kate,” Spencer says. “Let’s give the kids a chance to finish talking.”

  “—they’d be wasting their breath.” She pushes her chair back suddenly and stands up. “There’s no way Emmy is staying here. Sorry, but I’ve worked too hard.”

  “I saw my dad,” Emmy says.

  Oh, shit.

  “What did you just say?” Kate asks, gripping the edge of the table for obvious support. Spencer leans forward.

  “I said I saw my dad. Guess what? He’s not dead. I saw his farm. I saw his boys.”

  “Emmy,” Kate says. She tries to sit back down but almost falls. Spencer helps her. “What, Emmy?” Tears start pouring from her eyes. She doesn’t try to restrain them. “His boys?”

  “That’s right.” Emmy pauses to down her OJ. Everyone watches her. I take a drink of mine to distract them. “Two boys,” she says, after almost slamming down the empty glass. “It turns out I have two younger brothers. He went right on living without you.”

  “Emmy,” I say. Christ. I didn’t know she had a cruel bone in her body. She looks at me. I shake my head.

  “You saw Jamie?” Kate asks, finally wiping her eyes.

  “I did, and he looked happy.”

  “Enough, Emmy.” It’s Matt, and his tone is firm. “That man caused your mom more grief than you’ll ever realize.”

  “Did he ask about me?” Kate says. She touches her hair.

  “He called you Katie.”

  “Come on, Emmy,” Spencer says. He’s irked. He takes Kate’s hand away from her hair. My body gets tenser, if possible.

  “Aren’t you going to tell Spencer to stay out of it, Katie, like in Sac?” She takes a big bite of her maple bar.

  This is definitely a side of Emmy I haven’t seen before, and neither has her mom, judging from the look on Kate’s face.

  “I need some air,” Spencer says. He gets up and goes to the front door, but then he turns around and comes back, hesitating before sitting down.

  Everyone but Emmy, including me, has by now pushed away the food and drink.

  “Not to worry, Mom. Your shy little girl just threw up in his driveway, then left.”

  “Oh, Emmy.” Kate covers her mouth as if she herself were about to throw up. If it wasn’t for Spencer’s bling on her finger, I’d feel sorry for her. No, I still do. It would’ve killed Mama Marie had Dad gone off and made a new family. “I’m sorry, honey,” Kate says. “I’m truly sorry—for everything. For my lies, my—”

  “Then let me stay here. I loved Aunt Beth so much.”

  “I know you did.”

  “I can replant her garden, which I tore up. Let me stay.”

  Kate starts shaking her head.

  “I love Uncle Matt and Reuben. I can go to high school here every day with Reuben.”

  “I’m sorry, no.”

  “He’ll protect me, Mom.”

  “How?” Her abruptness is back. “How, Emmy?”

  “He’s my best friend,” Emmy says. I take her hand, on top of the table this time. It’s a bit sticky from the maple bar. “He’d never let anyone hurt me.”

  “Are the two of you using protection?” Kate asks.

  Damn. I let go of Emmy’s hand.

  “Yes, Mom. As a matter of fact.” Emmy picks up her maple bar as if to take another big bite but drops it back down instead and pushes the plate hard toward her mom. Matt puts out his hand and intercedes. “And by the way, Mom, I wasn’t a virgin when you sent me here. I had a boyfriend at school. We had sex every week in his bedroom.” Spencer and Matt cringe. I cringe. “So, you see, I’m a big liar, just like you. Aunt Beth thought I was a Christian and a virgin. I’m neither. I thought my dad was dead, killed by a monster tractor. I used to have nightmares. Reuben is different from Connor. He—”

  “Connor?” Kate interrupts. “A smug boy by that name called the apartment three times last month for you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Does it matter, Emmy?” I ask, and she quickly shakes her head.

  She’s not derailed. “Reuben is kind, Mom. He wants to protect me.”

  “Jamie said he’d protect me also, honey,” Kate says. “I wound up working at a truck stop café.” She looks briefly at Matt, then takes a deep breath. “And not just waiting tables.”

  “What do you mean?” Emmy asks.

  “Kate,” Spencer says. “She’s way too young to hear this.”

  “Apparently not,” Kate argues.

  “Hear what?” Matt says, sitting up extremely straight.

  Spencer again tries to intervene.

  “I apologize, Matt,” Kate says, “for what I’m about to confess.”

  She pauses.

  “What, Mom? Did you also wash dishes or something?”

  “I slept with truckers for money. In the parking lot.”

  Fuck. I did not see that one coming.

  “What?” Matt stands up. “Did Beth know?” Kate doesn’t reply. “Did my wife know?” he demands. Kate slowly nods. “But she never told me.”

  “Oh, Matt, trust me. Beth wanted to. I made her promise to never tell you.”

  “You were a prostitute, Mom?”

  Spencer shifts in his chair. Matt sits back down, looking defeated.

  “Yes, Emmy, when I was only a year or two older than you.”

  That’s pretty shocking. Emmy starts crying. “Is that why you underlined all those verses about harlots in your old Bible?”

  Kate nods. “The point is, honey, your dad said he’d take care of me, but he didn’t. I needed money.”

  “I could’ve borrowed money,” Matt says.

  “Your parents had done enough.”

  I have to butt in. “I would never let that happen to Emmy,” I say. “Never.” Or my mom—who sleeps with assholes, but never for money.

  “Jesus Christ, Kate,” Matt says. He’s completely stunned. “I should’ve known.”

  I hadn’t meant to imply Matt let it happen.

  “The signs were there,” Matt says, as if thinking out loud. He’s in a fog, or a fog just cleared. “The extra cash, the bruises.”

  “Bruises?” Emmy asks. “What bruises?”

  “I’m sorry,” Matt says.

  “No,” Kate replies with as much emotion in her voice as when she read that beach poem. “You were great to me, Matt. Don’t you understand, without you—” She can’t finish.

  “If I was so great, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “There was nothing you could’ve done.”

  “What?” He snaps. “You think I could’ve done nothing?” He hits the table but not hard enough to make anyone jump. “Why the hell didn’t Beth tell me?”

  He’d be heartbroken if he weren’t already.

  “I asked Reuben to get me pregnant,” Emmy interrupts again. “So we could stay together.” All eyes shift to her. “He refused. He’s not like Jamie, Mom. He’s n
ot an asshole. He’s the complete opposite. I’m sorry my dad did that to you. Fuck Jamie Kagen and his wheat.” She falters. She loved her dad’s wheat fields. So much she couldn’t look as I drove her away from them. “But it’s not my fault. Reuben and I just want to go to high school together.”

  Kate looks directly at me, and only me, but not in a threatening way. She sees further into me than I’m comfortable with. I don’t look away or flinch. I try not to see Emmy in her, even though of course there’s a resemblance, never more apparent. There’s a similar curiosity and loneliness in Kate’s and Emmy’s eyes. But Kate is a brute.

  “Can I talk to you alone, Reuben?” she asks.

  “No way,” Emmy says. She grabs my hand.

  “Sure,” I say.

  “Is this necessary, Kate?” Matt asks, but she doesn’t reply. “Spencer?” he tries.

  Spencer’s been rendered speechless for a while. He probably won’t be visiting another trailer park anytime soon. I don’t know, though, if I could date an ex-hooker, let alone ask her to marry me. I give him credit for sticking around. It’s got to be a bit humbling.

  “No, it’s not necessary,” Emmy replies. “It’s absurd. Anything you have to say to Reuben, Mom, you can say in front of me.”

  “It’s okay, Emmy,” I say. “I’m a big boy.” And scared shitless.

  “Let’s take a walk, Reuben.” Kate stands up.

  “No,” Emmy says. I let go of her hand and stand up. She stands up. “No.” She pulls my arm. She whispers into my ear, “She’ll persuade you not to love me.”

  “She can’t.” I kiss her on the cheek.

  “Mom. Don’t do this.” She turns to Matt. “He’s my only friend, Uncle Matt. My best friend. Spencer, please. Spencer.”

  He finds his voice. “Kiddo, I—”

  Something about the way Emmy asked Spencer for help puts me into action. “Give me a minute,” I say to Kate. I take Emmy into the bedroom without asking permission. “Emmy,” I say, holding her face. Her breath smells like maple. “You have to trust me.” She looks so scared. Her hair is a wreck, falling loose in chunks from the fancy braid she must’ve tried to weave herself this morning. She could braid Audrey’s hair, but she still needed her aunt’s help with her own. “We’ve been through a lot,” I say. “We can get through this.” I put my hand on her lower belly. “Someday.” She knows what I mean.