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Steal the North: A Novel

Page 33

by Heather B Bergstrom


  “You’re a bit Coyote,” I say, “like Dad.”

  “Not hardly.” He says he’s also worked processing salmon, and there isn’t the least ceremony or prayers. “The bones are discarded in such a way,” he says with sadness, “Dad would be ashamed of me.”

  “Dad would be proud of you. And don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re more of a man already.”

  “If I am,” he says, “it’s because of you.”

  That brings tears. “Matt’s at work. He’ll be so excited to see you.”

  “I’m not staying. I’m going to Omak later this afternoon to see Mom and Lena and then over to Aunt Shirley’s.”

  “What? You’ll break Matt’s heart. Stay here tonight. I’ll make dinner.”

  “No, sis. I only have two days.” He explains that pollock season just ended. He got a processing job until salmon season starts again in June.

  “Let me call Matt at work then. He’ll come home now.”

  “I can’t see Matt.”

  That makes me pause. I tell him to come outside for a cigarette. Grace, as usual, is all ears. Once we’re on the front porch, I tell him, “That’s messed up, brother. Matt blames himself for you leaving. He loves you.”

  “I know that. I’ve felt his love—even at sea.”

  “Then—”

  “The last time I saw Dad was that night Matt came to the rez to get me. Matt called me son, and Dad, the wily fuck, appeared awfully quick to give his approval.” Reuben takes such deep puffs of his cigarette. “I didn’t realize it then,” he continues, “but it’s like Dad was turning me over to Matt.” His cig is already gone. “I didn’t allow myself to even consider this until after I left here. Then I felt pissed off, you know. Cheated by Dad. Irritated by Matt.”

  “Forgive your dad, Reuben.”

  “I have. I have.” He makes a gesture of peace. “In fact, I think it was my fault Dad couldn’t move completely into the spirit world. I had to release him.”

  “Accept Matt’s love. It’s real.”

  He looks at me. I probably need to respect the fact that he’s a man now, not a boy, and quit being so bossy and pushy. He slowly smiles. “The two of you?”

  “What? Matt? He helps out, is all.” But I can’t help smiling. We’ve been lovers now for six months.

  “I bet Mr. Miller helps.” He lights another cig.

  “Please stay. Just one night. It’ll kill Matt if you don’t. And don’t say anything to him about me. It would embarrass him. He still feels like he’s cheating on his dead wife. But he’s coming around.”

  “If anyone can bring him around, it would be you.” Deep puff.

  “I haven’t exactly had luck with bringing men around.” He raises his eyebrows. “At least to stay,” I clarify. “You shithead.”

  “Matt’s different.”

  “Where have you been, brother?” I mean his spirit.

  “Canning salmon so the USDA can give it back to Indians as charity.” He finishes his second cigarette.

  “How have you been?” I ask.

  “Making money.”

  “For what?”

  “College.”

  “But you had a scholarship.”

  “I need to make money.”

  I take his arm. I lean my head on it. “You’ve got some muscles going on there.”

  “Fourteen-hour days.”

  “Are you happy?” I ask.

  “Are you happy when your kids are hungry and you can feed them?” he replies. “Isn’t that partly why you live off the rez?”

  “But you don’t have any kids, Reuben.”

  “I will someday.” He lights another cig. Jesus.

  Not that it’s any of my business, but I ask, “You got any women, keeping you warm in Alaska?”

  His body tenses. “If I do, they’re not the one I want.”

  “It’s been a long time, baby brother.”

  “Nineteen months.” Two deep puffs. “But if anything, Teresa, I love her more.”

  I think Emmy’s strength has been like an anchor for my brother. “You want her journals?” I ask.

  “In the morning.”

  “You’re staying?” He nods, and I jump up and down. “Thanks, Reuben.”

  Matt is so excited to see Reuben. My brother is larger than Matt now. I think he always was, but more so now. Overjoyed, Matt accidentally kisses me in front of Reuben.

  “Hey,” Reuben says with a grin, “that’s my sister.”

  “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Matt says.

  “Yeah, it was,” Reuben says. “Definitely.”

  “You look great, Reuben,” Matt says. “It’s just so damn good to see you.” They both tear up. “How long you staying? Or are you back for good?”

  “One night is all.” Matt’s face falls. What an emotional day. “I came for Emmy’s journals,” my brother says.

  There’s silence at that name. I have to break it with an offer to make dinner while they have a council outside.

  * * *

  Reuben returns again for more journals, but not until the end of salmon season in early October. He has a tattoo on his upper arm, a small one of a baby sea otter. He says it’s from a drawing by Emmy. When Audrey asks him the otter’s name, as she pretends to feed it fish, he says, “Otis,” which makes even Grace giggle. Again Reuben stays only a few days. He is working so that he can have that girl. Matt said Reuben was told by Emmy’s mom that he couldn’t provide for her. He’s changing that. A man can make good money in a relatively short amount of time at sea and in the canneries. But it’s grueling work. Reuben looked tired the second time he came back. I insisted he stop sending me money orders, but he still does. I fear he’s waiting too long for Emmy. She’s a young girl, pretty, smart, and, above all, lonely. Reuben is handsome. All his life I’ve seen how girls and women react to him. His wounded eyes only make him more appealing. I’m sure he’s had a couple flings with women in Alaska. It’s mighty cold up there.

  In and out of bed, Matt drives me bonkers in a good way. We’ve been sleeping together for more than a year. I don’t think he and Beth had a lot of sex, at least not in the years leading up to her death. The woman was just too ill. I still think Beth was a healer, or could’ve been if not for that church. I sensed it strong in her. I also, oddly enough, sensed it a bit in Emmy, although I doubt she’ll ever recognize or trust it in herself. Matt continues to be gentle in bed. I am teaching him that sometimes it’s fun not to be so gentle. “Damn,” he’ll say. “Damn, Teresa.”

  Does he love me? He wants to. Will he leave me? No. Do I love him? Yes. Do my kids love him? All but Grace, but he goes to her basketball tournaments. Does he go with us to powwows on the rez? Yes. Did he take Kevin hunting and then drive the meat to Nespelem so Kevin could give it to the elders, as is the custom when a boy makes his first kill? Yes. Has he introduced me to his family? Yes. Were they nice? More cordial than his coworkers when Matt took me to his Christmas party. Has he invited me into his trailer—into his bedroom? No. But he talks about buying us all a house this summer. I think he’s still paying off Beth’s hospital bills. Do I make him happy? I think I really do. Will I leave him if he doesn’t say he loves me soon? I could never.

  Emmy begins her third semester at Berkeley. She sends her last journal at the end of January. None in February or March. It’s been two and a half years since those kids have seen each other. I don’t blame her. A letter arrives from Emmy the first week of April. I am so scared about what it might say and by the fact that it feels like there’s a feather enclosed in it that I call Reuben. I put in an emergency call for him, that is. He doesn’t have a phone. He calls two days later. The static on the phone line is horrible, and I swear I can hear the sea. I tell him there’s been no journals for two months and that a letter arrived—like a warm chinook—and it’s about to melt ever
ything he’s been working for in the bitter cold. “It’s time to stop,” I tell him. “It’s time to go get that girl.”

  20

  Emmy

  The first day of my senior year, Connor corners me in the hallway after third period. “What’s up, sexy?” he says. I’d been trying to avoid him. He wears a tie and bright green Vans. The last time I saw him, the tips of his hair were dyed that color green. Now they’re bleached. “I missed you, Emmy.”

  “You have no idea what it means to miss someone.”

  He moves in closer. “So, you want to chill in my room after school?”

  “No, thanks.” I think about the numerous fluffy pillows on his bed and how Reuben slept all summer on Teresa’s couch without a pillow. “There’s nothing between us.”

  He gives me the twice-over. “You look different.” He feigns anger. “Did you have an affair on me this summer?”

  “Screw you,” I say, but I should’ve known better.

  “Anytime.” He softens. “I really did miss you.” He touches my sleeve. “Don’t cry.” I’m not. He tries to rub my arm.

  “Stay away from me.”

  His best friend already approached me during first period to tell me that Connor wasted the last six weeks of summer “moping like a bitch” over me.

  “I can get any chick here,” Connor brags, and no doubt he can. He’s attractive and talented. Being an asshole only gives him more edge.

  “I’m happy for you.”

  “You don’t look happy.” He pulls his car keys from his pocket, so I can see he uses the Tibetan key chain I bought for him. “Where’s the necklace?” He dares to touch the spot on my neck where his diamond heart pedant had rested for a few short weeks. I shove his hand away. I should tell him I sold it at a pawnshop for thirty bucks, but he’s not worth it.

  “Please, Connor, just leave me alone.”

  He stares at me for a second, and then he smirks. “Did you heal your Bible-thumping aunt?”

  Reuben. I close my eyes, remember the wind in the poplars.

  “I had the best summer of my life.”

  I feel Connor’s eyes on my ass as I walk away and he calls me a cunt. He’s probably thinking, Let the games begin, but he’ll find out that I’m not playing.

  Reuben’s last words to me were to be sure I didn’t lose myself back in California. He tried to make me strong during our last week together, so I could make it through my senior year. He took me to the reservation. He tried to give me his spirit power. But I refused to accept it. He begged me, then the spirits of the rivers and the mountains and the land. But he needed to keep his own power. I was drummed over and sang to. I was held. And held.

  I will be strong, Reuben. I promised you.

  I write Reuben once a week. He never writes back. I tell him I sleep with his flannel Kurt Cobain shirt, and I carry the feather he gave me in my backpack just as he instructed. I tell him about my classes, clubs, homework, more homework. Physics. Economics. Calculus. I write out hard integral problems that I solved and mail them to him. Mom wishes she and I still did our schoolwork together at the table, but those days are over. I draw Reuben comic strips of Otis, the Stouthearted Baby Sea Otter, able to crack open abalone with a single pebble. I tell him about books I’m reading. I make him tiny origami frogs, foxes, elephants, and bears, but not salmon. I tell him about the house Spencer built us (every detail with Mom and me in mind). I tell him I don’t belong in Spencer’s house. I belong in eastern Washington, where the wind rattles the windows and Indians ride horses down a sheer cliff (I tried to cover my eyes, but he made me watch) and across the Okanogan River. I tell him I stare at the little map he drew me, which hangs on the wall next to my bed. I tell him about Mom and Spencer’s small wedding on the coast. I ask him what to do about Connor, who won’t leave me alone. Reuben doesn’t respond. I tell him that he’ll always be my best friend, and my letters will prove it. I tell him I can’t give back his heart, not yet, maybe never. I probably should, for his sake, though I assure him no girl will ever love him as much as I do. I ask him about school, football, his aunts, Lena, Ray, Teresa, his nieces and nephews. I ask him if he dressed up as Smokey the Bear for Halloween. I ask him about hunting and if he’s helping the elders fill the freezers of the old people before the snows get heavy.

  I tell him I know he wants me to make friends, but I can’t. I eat lunch with Hedda and Harpreet just like last year, so I don’t have to eat alone. I try to act as if my summer were as uneventful as theirs—as if the only time I was embraced by a boy was also in my dreams. They think I’ve changed. Mom and Spencer send me to a shrink. But then Spencer gives me permission to stop going. Mom is letting him make some of the decisions. I tell Reuben how at night, remembering the times we made love in that tent on the reservation, I touch myself. The sound of the coyotes scared me at first. Then I kept pretending they scared me to hear his laugh as he kissed my neck. He laughed his butt off at how squeamish I was when he took me fishing. I’d already been fishing a few times with my uncle and aunt and even caught a walleye. Reuben laughed even harder at how terrified I was when he tried to teach me how to ride a horse. He thought I cried because his laughter hurt my feelings, but that wasn’t it at all. Rather, I was beginning to feel the enormity of his absence.

  I was so watched over by Reuben from the very beginning that how can I not feel miserably neglected by him now.

  Mom is pregnant, I tell him, and in a fury that Republicans are trying to impeach President Clinton. “Better blow jobs than no jobs” is her favorite new saying. I tell Reuben I got accepted into Berkeley. I tell him I heard he won a scholarship to WSU, my dad’s school. I let him know how incredibly proud I am of him, but not in the least surprised. I’ll always believe in him. I ask him if he still wants to major in fish biology and help bring the salmon back to the reservation. I call him Coyote, then my coyote.

  I tell him that when I saw the images from Columbine, my first thought was of him and how we should be going to high school together. What if he’d been shot and killed at Omak High? Or been a student running for his life or jumping out an upstairs window?

  Connor asks me to prom, though he’s going out with another girl at Valley Art and two “virgins” at St. Francis. Spencer finds me a date, the son of an engineer, who is cute and polite. We dance close together but barely talk. I describe my dress for Reuben. I tell him my date liked how soft my bare shoulders were. I had two glasses of champagne. One more, I tell Reuben, and I would’ve let him kiss me. Not really. He doesn’t respond. Did he go to prom? Touch a girl’s bare shoulders? Worry about me when he saw the images of Columbine?

  Does he believe me when I tell him how lonely I am for the river and the wind? Lonely to drive the reservation roads again in his truck, with the windows down and Nirvana cranked on the stereo or with no music at all. But I am used to being lonely. And I can wait. All my childhood I read novels about British heroines who knew how to wait. Years and years. I can wait also. I tell him he has his Coyote and Beaver stories. I have Tess and Anne Elliot and Jane Eyre and Fanny Price. He’ll see how long I can wait. I may not have the courage of an old-fashioned heroine, but I have the patience. I am stubborn. Like him. He’ll see.

  He doesn’t respond when I write telling him I’ll come back for the summer—and stay. Mom can’t stop me because I’ll be graduated and almost eighteen. He is all I want. Fuck Berkeley. I can wait a year and apply to WSU. I will stay with him, get a job. I will stay forever this time. We can be like Salmon and his wife. Remember you told me that story, Reuben? They took shelter together under the falls, hiding from Rattlesnake and all the Land People who wanted to keep them apart. But you have to tell me you want me to come back.

  Tell me, Reuben.

  Uncle Matt says Reuben disappeared and no one knows where he is.

  I hold my breath and write against the panic in my chest. Where are you? Please be careful. I w
rite all that summer and all fall. Because I wasn’t officially accepted into U.C. Berkeley until the spring semester (“a spring admit”), I go to junior college in Sacramento for the fall semester. I drive myself. I finally got my license, thanks to Spencer’s persistence. Mom has her baby. A boy named Liam. I hold my baby brother all the time. If it weren’t for Liam, and the way Mom and I marvel over his toes, his every coo, whimper, blink, and yawn, I would’ve by now completely shut her out of my life. I’ve been retreating from her since returning from Washington, or maybe since the moment my aunt hugged me at the airport and I remembered her smell, and even remembered missing it. I’ve forgiven Mom for lying to me about my dad’s death, and I understand now why she had to leave Moses Lake—but I’ll never understand why she turned her back so completely. And I’ll never forgive her for not letting me stay. It’s good, though, that Mom is allowing herself to be tempered by Spencer’s generosity and love. He’s always thought the world of Mom, but even more so now that she gave him little Liam. Spencer kindly includes me in everything, to a fault even, forgetting sometimes that I’m no longer a child. They let Liam sleep in my room on occasion, his bassinet pushed up next to my bed. I sing to him: Aunt Beth’s songs.

  Reuben doesn’t go to college. He stays gone and misses his scholarship to WSU. It weighs on me every day at junior college. Where are you, Reuben? I’m so afraid for you. Maybe he joined the military. I noticed GO ARMY stickers on cars and trucks on the reservation and multiple memorials to veterans. Reuben explained that Indians defend the land, not the government, and that, regardless of politics, warriors are highly esteemed. But what if he got deployed to the Middle East or Eastern Europe? He would have gone to college if he’d never met me. Or if I had let go of his heart when I left. If I would let go of it now, maybe it could be wrapped in the skin of a buffalo, like the heart of the Okanogan warrior in a story Reuben told me. The Sioux had tried to burn the warrior’s heart, but the buffalo’s spirit brought it back to life.

 

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