A Cottonwood Stand

by Chuck Redman

  Bill and Milt stare across at Kenny, and Ray wants to know what his insurance agent has against kids, all of a sudden.

  “I got nothin against kids, Ray. My kids.” He drains his coffee and shoots a look across the diner like he’s Elliot Ness staging a roundup of hoodlums.

  So far, none of them four has spotted the little article about a certain attempted robbery, buried on page fourteen. Next to the fascinating news that sorghum has went up three cents since yesterday alone.

  He says cut it out, and he halfway ain’t foolin.

  “I didn’t say a word.”

  “I told you stop gawking at me, hot shot. One more smirk and—”

  “I gotta look in the mirror, Trail Boss. It’s in the drivers manual.”

  “Since when did you become such a stickler?”

  “I’ve got a newfound respect for the law, you know? The law is a beautiful thing.”

  Cosetti tells J. Edgar Hoover to spare him the nauseating platitudes. They pull up at a medical office building, where Cosetti gets out and puts on his cowboy hat. “You’re not gonna fall in love with the meter maid, now are you?”

  “Cheee. That’s good, Steve.” The big guy loosens his narrow tie and gropes for yesterday’s Wall Street Journal and half a bag of mustard flavor pretzels among the debris in the front seat. His boss heads leisurely for the office of Dr. Daniel Huber, Chiropractor, Acupuncture and Weight Loss. On the way he closes that little list of names he’s got on his phone and calls up a certain smalltown newspaper gal and she and him trade each other a couple of Hi’s. You know the kind of Hi’s I’m talkin about, the kind of Hi’s that—hmmmh. Well. Maybe I, maybe I shouldn’t oughta really be listenin in right at this minute. You know?

  Anyways, if there’s anything goofier to have to sit and listen to than a sappy gal and a moony dude on the morning after they discover they was meant to be, it’s two of them moony dudes and the only thing worse is if one of them dudes has to look at the other one’s foolish grin in the rearview mirror of his limo all day. And snicker low enough that his boss don’t hear and end up downright touchy.

  “Does that hurt?”

  A wide brow swivels sullenly on a thick neck.

  “How about—”

  “Aaaaaah!”

  “—that?”

  “Great Spirit Almighty, Doc. That hurts like the—oh for crying out loud, Doc, hasn’t medicine advanced enough that you people don’t have to ask that question any more?”

  Good Sky gives his patient a patronizing nod and starts checking the strips of doeskin swathed round Red Moon’s swelled knee and tellin his young assistant what a skillful job he done wrapping the limb late last night. The other leg, by the way. Not the one Red was limping on when the evening was younger. Well the junior medicine man flushes and gives large credit to the Sioux princess who’d stood by and helped him administer the first aid under the moonlight, and when he tells his mentor what a good nurse she’d make it’s possible the young feller may be thinking more in terms of making babies than just delivering somebody else’s.

  “What exactly were you doing, Red Moon, when the trauma occurred?”

  Nearby on the new-swept floor of their compartment kneels Granny, weaving a straw mat while her worried eyes pingpong between her grandson and his healer.

  “Honest, Doc—I was just walking the Princess back to Wolf Chief’s lodge. I was simply pointing out our corn and melon fields and explaining how we grow the best of any people in the valley. ‘Possum poo!’ she shouts at me out of the blue, so I tell her, look, if she doesn’t agree with what I’m saying she can just say so, she doesn’t have to get insulting. So she’s excited, shaking her head, and jabbing her finger toward my moccasins. Well, she warned me a little late, I’d say. I stepped in it, my feet went out from under, and I twisted my knee, Doc. Remember that time with the moose who tried to run off with my prize squash? This was worse.”

  Good Sky closes his eyes and massages his high narrow forehead for several long moments. Then in a very flat voice he starts in advising Red Moon all the things he should and shouldn’t do whilst his knee heals up. Just as he’s tryin to find some new or better way of imparting to his number one patient the importance of watching where he’s going at all times, the loud roar of a major dogfight reaches their ears. Good Sky strides out after his assistant, their beaver hats attempting to get airborne. Outside the two medics come abruptly upon Little Brother, that friendly scout with the scalp-studded britches, breaking up a yelping, lunging cyclone of fur. The young brave has plucked a mangled mass from the snapping jaws of the village pack. The medicine man directs the feller to lay the suffering animal in a safe spot and, with the help of his assistant, starts to gently examine the poor critter in the shadow of Wolf Chief and Many Clouds’ tiny lodge.

  I guess the decibels of that dog scrap was pretty high, cause even old Wolf Chief has puttered outside to investigate, and Lark has trailed her host into the morning sun. Soon as she steps into the clearing and looks round, she clutches her head and screams out a word, a simple Sioux word but it leaves me shaken to the core. Lark runs half-hysterical and falls to her knees beside the Doc. With some heartbreaking garble of Pawnee and some pitiful hand signs, she makes Good Sky savvy that this here mauled and bloody creature’s her dog. Doc has Lark hold Scout’s big head in her lap while he and his assistant run their hands over the fella’s gouged belly and ripped shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Princess,” says Good Sky as his assistant starts handing him sundry kinds of herbal mixtures and poultice fixings. “He must have been a great loving dog to follow you so far.” Lark was on the verge. Doc’s words has plunged her over. “Weren’t you, boy?” he says, stroking the quiet head of the stricken animal. Little Brother, nearly on the verge himself, kneels and spoons a trickle of water down Scout’s gashed throat. Red Moon weren’t supposed to hobble out with his bad knee, but he done it, with one of his old hickory crutches. From the doorway of his lodge he leans and watches helpless. There’s a score of curious children from the surrounding lodges does the same. Not that none of them tykes ain’t seen animals kilt every day of their young lives.

  Top floor of the City-County Center, office of the mayor pro tem of the Cottonwood city council. Sounds like a mouthful but the whole point is that Cottonwood ain’t like a Grand Island or other big cities that need a fulltime mayor. So Cottonwood just goes and hires a guy to be city manager and run the day-to-day. Then the five city council members take turns being mayor. It’s kinda democratic.

  Well, after lunch Steve Cosetti is sittin up in Mayor Pro Tem Ted Racine’s office and is being told pretty plain that he oughtn’t to be there and better clear out quick before somebody gits the wrong idea. Most fellas don’t grin when they’re gittin throwed out of an office, but Cosetti ain’t most fellas. He tells the mayor once more that he ain’t there on behalf of his company whatsoever, he’s wearin a different hat and he’s only came there as president of the Kansas-Nebraska-Iowa Meatpackers Political Action Committee. Mayor Ted Racine don’t appreciate the distinction. “That’s all well and good, Mr. Cosetti,” frowns his Mayorship, “but your being here in any capacity while you have unresolved petitions pending before this council is absolutely unethical and is prohibited by city bylaws. And I didn’t teach Civics for thirty-five years without learning a thing or two about political ethics. This meeting never took place and you are on your way out.”

  “You’ve got a primary coming up.”

  “What’s that got to do with you?”

  “You’ve got a smart young stock broker running against you. A real dark horse.” The incumbent starts to darken himself. “My organization may feel that your opponent happens to be someone who will be more—sympathetic, shall we say?—to our industry. Someone we can support. Generously.”

  Once that little hint has a chance to soak in, Mr. Mayor don’t hesitate to enter a slightly outraged objection to blackmail when it’s waved in his face. Above his very own desk.

  Wo
uld a blackmailer wear such a personable grin? “Mr. Racine, you and I both know that political action committees are free to—”

  “Mr. Cosetti, I hope I don’t have to count to three.”

  Cosetti puts on his cowboy hat, and walks out, checking off the last name on his little memo, and then clicking delete. The Mayor Pro Tem slams shut his office door, and the walls shake. Them walls is thin. Can you imagine, a twenty million dollar government building with walls like wax paper? The Mayor can’t hardly doodle squigglies on his official city notepad but what they can hear it in the outer office.

  The little outer office ain’t empty, there’s some chairs, a coffee table, magazines like Platte Valley Life that Cosetti left open to the article called “Interstate 80: 10 Roadside Restaurants Worth the Drive.” There’s black and white pictures on the walls: the building under construction at different stages. Under one of them pictures rests a desk, with a computer, scanner, what have you. There’s even a person at that desk, trying to do background research on various city council bills, and eat celery. But Tanya Portillo has took a little break from her research, and even her celery. With very red hair and, right at the moment, face as well, she just sets briefly and stares at her phone. Like it’s the dessert menu at Jensen’s Drive-in. Then one freckled hand goes to the wastebasket and comes out with this morning’s Caterwauler and the foil seal from a Greek yogurt stuck to the sports page. Summer internships can be very educational things.

  “Mom, Dad’s acting weird,” says Jessica Benson. In flip-flops and a wet swim suit the little towhead makes a beeline toward pasture and barn. By the time Dad’s out of the pickup truck, Jessica has came back running and Dad and Mom is both acting pretty weird. Like they swallowed the canary. And Jessica wants to know where he’s at. And is ready to cry. He’s not in his pen. Gilligan, that is.

  She ain’t old enough to quite understand. “Dad’s going to get you a new little calf, Jessie, to raise up just like Gilligan. Maybe one of his babies. You can win another Four-H ribbon for your scrapbook.” Jessica don’t want another calf. Gilligan is special. Her fiery tears prove it, til long past dinnertime.

  When she calls and breaks their date and he wants to know howcome, she don’t say no comment. But it dang near amounts to the same thing. Cause if she has to work late on some big news story he still don’t see why they can’t get together after. Talk, have a nightcap.

  “No.”

  “Why not, Janet?”

  “I’ll be tired.”

  They’ll be tired together, he says. “It’ll be good.”

  “Not tonight, Steve.”

  Mmmmh. In a lonely motel room with no clues and stitches in his side that’s startin in to throb, it’s hard for a feller to figure out how the old Janet come back into the picture and where the new and improved Janet has suddenly went to.

  I guess the big hoedown was advertised pretty good, cause pert’ner everybody in the village has showed up, dressed in their best. The shindig don’t start til after sundown, so it’s nice and cool and still as folks come out and spread their feast around the big council fire, the central plaza of their little colony. They shoo away the dogs, who was pacing the area and salivating long before the food showed up. Like every dance, it’s the beat that gets the young people moving. The tom-tom players is startin out slow and steady, and little by little gettin up some speed and oomph, and the excitement of the crowd revs up like a old roadster. The young guys and gals hop into the firelight between the inner circle of stones and the outer circle of logs and begin their rhythmic steps, all movin clockwise, only the gals as graceful as herons and the guys like pouncing cougars. Every once’t in a while, one of the elders stands up and chants out an ancient song with raised fists, and the crowd joins in til the feller grows so tired and happy that he has to set down and let his wife revive him by fresh venison and tea.

  Now, a dramatic moment and a catchy name are not things to waste. So when Left Hand, flanked by his best scouts, makes his entrance, he carries his trophy lance in the vice-like appendage suggested by his name and stirs the crowd to a odd mixture of reactions. He stands quite satisfied, fer a minute, like Grand Marshall at the Rose Parade. Then, with a couple rolling twitches from his eyes to his nose and back, Lefty walks into the circle of young Pawnees, which opens for him, and joins the gyration. Ain’t a bad hoofer, have to admit. Could work on his posture and his timing just a bit.

  While them young folks that’s so inclined is dancing, Hill Seeker, that fierce oversized dude who is Left Hand’s steady right hand, he keeps himself occupied by parading around the circle with Lefty’s trophy lance held high. But every little while the big feller gets bored, so it seems, and for amusement he likes to come up to an unsuspecting brave, raise the deadly lance in a powerful hand and execute a sudden feint of striking to the heart. When, as most usually happens, the unfortunate dupe flinches even just barely, Hill Seeker will howl and whoop like a pack of coyotes bringing down a antelope. You can’t say, in truth, that the feller ain’t got a sense of humor, afterall. But it sure is an off-brand of humor, ain’t it? From the pulsing dance circle Left Hand gets a kick every time his big sergeant pulls this witty stunt. Eagle Chief, from his sharp-eyed vantage among the chanting elders, don’t seem to fully appreciate the hilarity of this charming horseplay.

  Well anyhow, speakin of food, there’s plenty of savories spread out by each family for them and their neighbors to feast on throughout the evening. But some of the more colorfuller and temptinger dishes is only now just arriving. Granny Bright Eyes squeezes through and finds a spot for her special potato, pumpkin and bean stew and for herself to set down beside and dish out to anyone with a bowl, plate or whatever receptacle. Some boys and girls from Granny’s lodge has followed her with more pots to set down, and last comes Red Moon tottering upon his crutch and hunched over with the weight of a great caldron tied round his neck. A pretty good cluster of villagers has soon lined up to sample what Red growed in his garden and Granny perfected over her fire. Little Brother is first in line, acts like he ain’t eat in days, and Granny’s tickled as anything.

  As out of the way as he can git, Red Moon stands and from time to time overhauls his face, which is glum when he rubs his sprained knee or his purple cheek, glummer when he gazes at the ecstatic dancers, but not-quite-so-glum when he chances to look over at his Granny. As he leans on his crutch and regards the old woman dishing out food and beaming bigger with every helping, Red don’t seem to notice a huge shadow coming and looming up over him. Nor the shadow slowly raising a monstrous arm. All at once a driven lancehead plunges to within inches of Red’s heart. Red don’t flinch, just frowns. “At some point in time, Cousin, you might want to think seriously about growing up. Some jokes wear thin after so many moons. And weren’t that funny to begin with.”

  Hill Seeker chuckles and marches on, shouldering Lefty’s trophy lance. Strangely enough, Red Moon follows exactly behind the other fella, sideways and stumbling, wailing in pain and swinging his crutch wildly at the air. Don’t seem likely but I’ll be danged if the big prankster hasn’t accidentally snagged a bundle of Red’s long hair around that lancehead before he shouldered the ornery weapon. Since Hill Seeker tends to be a sorta oblivious dude most of the time, and since the good villagers can’t but gape in wonder at this weird and spooky firelight spectacle, Red ends up gettin himself yanked and dragged nearly full circle before anyone figgers out the poor boy needs help. Granny knowed somethin was wrong but she’s went pale and fell back on her thin elbows and folks is fanning her and making her take a bit of her own soup.

  “Freeze!” shouts Doc Good Sky as he jumps in front of Hill Seeker and grasps the dude hard by the shoulders. “What is the motivation for this odd behavior? Do you understand the implications of such deviant acts of denial in inappropriate social situations?” While Hill Seeker is still working on the word “motivation,” Doc’s assistant hands him a scalpel-like knife and he swiftly frees Red’s tangled mane. The two medical men help
the shaken lad limp to Granny’s side, where they bathe the old gal’s forehead with a mistletoe balm to revive and comfort her before they start checkin out throbbing knees, burning scalp and so forth and so on across the beleaguered battlefield of Red’s sad body.

  Now, the midway point of Red’s painful spectacle happened to of been the moment when Lark Laying Eggs up and joined the party, along with old Wolf Chief and Aunt Many Clouds. By golly, don’t she look glamorous. With flowers and feathers, a new dress and all kinds of fancy doodads. Lark don’t look bad either. In fact, when the distracted crowd realizes the Sioux maiden is present and been sat in a special reserved spot, nothing but shushing and rubbernecking is heard and seen. The tom-toms cease, dancers halt in their tracks, children playing tag tag theirselves, and chewers of roast buffalo swallow what ain’t been completely chewed. Lark’s been anointed pert’ner head to toe with a murky red dye, and decked out swanky in a kinda sacred black gown and robe. If she decided to blush, or flush with anger or confusion, you’d never tell the difference.

  Well, in no more’n the fleeting spark of a firefly, this here jubilant party has became a still-life painting. Until at last there is movement. It is Left Hand. The lean warrior goes up to Hill Seeker and resumes possession of his trophy lance. Thus equipped, he goes and stands before Lark, breathing hard and smiling at a arm’s distance. The feller bows and she ain’t whatchacall flattered by the salute. Lefty don’t pick up on stuff like that. He’d rather speechify. “You are quite radiant, Evening Star. How can anyone say that the Great Spirit hasn’t brought you here in answer to the sacred Morning Star dream? My morning star dream. My destiny. This is all for you,” he says with a broad sweep of his lance at the whole gathering. The whole gathering obviously sees itself being indicated, but it don’t seem to be quite on the same page as Left Hand. It seems to be more on the page of whispers, shrugs and significant looks. “I have a gift for you, Evening Star,” says Lefty, whose deep-voice comrade the Crouching Panther steps from the crowd and extends to Lark a pretty ritzy jacket sewn of shiny otter pelt, with some of the little heads still attached.