I take a drink. It tastes like I’ve licked a pine-needle air freshener.
“She still hasn’t answered.” Anni stares at his phone screen like it is an enemy. “I mean, no offense, kiddo, but since you brought that thing here do you think you might know where your mother went?”
Kiddo.
Ever since Hazel first met Anni, he has called me son or bud or sometimes ingozis. But only Hazel can call me kiddo.
“No idea. Maybe back to Geshig? Back to Lake Anders?”
“My first thought too, but she hated that cabin.”
“I know.”
“I’m not worried about her,” he says. “I just can’t really sleep without her. Around three a.m. I probably will worry.”
“So, what’s this supposed to cleanse me of? Undead-dog rabies?”
“I don’t know, but if there was anything bad from the dog this’ll take care of it.”
“Like, lingering bad-spirit pollen?”
“You and your jokes.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just not into all this . . . tradition.”
“Oh, I can tell you stories about people who weren’t lucky enough to know the old ways. Men killed by wiindigoog. Children kidnapped by the memegwesiiwag. Mothers who touched dead bodies and then cursed their babies.”
I almost choke on the tea. “Wait, what? What about dead bodies?”
“If you touch a dead body, you shouldn’t touch a child before washing your hands in cedar tea. Bad things can happen. The person’s spirit might try to take the baby with them. I’ve seen it. Nothing but a black stain on the bedsheets is left.”
Another memory comes back, not my own, but something my mother told me about.
Kayden was buried in a blue-and-white star quilt, one he’d had since birth, and his funeral was held at the Gizhay Manido Chapel, with a reverend who spoke to Jesus and an elder who prayed in Ojibwe to the Great Spirit. Despite no previous tension between the families, no one related to the Haltstorms showed up, they only sent flowers and donations.
Except for Hazel, the woman who used to babysit young Kayden in preparation for the child she was expecting. As a Lafournier who didn’t really associate with the Haltstorms, she was welcome. She didn’t make me go with her, but she told me all about it.
At the open casket, she kissed Kayden on the forehead and put a beaded medallion on his chest. A gift for his journey. When she came home, she held me in her arms and cried, saying she never wanted me to leave the house again. Never leave Geshig. In my mind, I asked, Why not leave here if this is the town that killed Kayden? Aloud I just said okay, over and over. I would never leave her.
She held me for a while longer, and then, just as she had with Kayden, kissed me on the forehead.
I look at my reflection in the black tea. “Anni, when you say ‘child,’ just how old do you mean?”
Six
Just for Today
IT STARTED ON THE morning of the last day of the Geshig Labor Day Powwow.
Somehow, Brenda’s current work shift had turned her into a morning person. She never got home before midnight and rarely fell asleep before one a.m., but she always woke up at nine a.m. sharp. Perhaps only by coincidence it was the same time the Red Pine Diner opened its doors, though it didn’t start serving alcohol until eleven.
Brenda knew this as she dismounted her van and walked into the diner, ordering a Denver omelet, hash browns, and black coffee. She figured she would have plenty of time to eat and be on her way before the temptation of the taps opened.
And she did. Her plate was finished by ten o’clock and she spent the next half hour reading the previous day’s Geshig Herald. Absolutely nothing new was happening in town. It was just as cyclic and unchanging as usual, but after many years of not being able to handle the news, she now read it as often as she could.
Right as she finished the crimes report, a woman sat across from her.
“Who’s this dirty ol’ bitch?” she said.
Brenda looked up and saw her cousin Henrietta for the first time in three months. She was wearing a dark blue flannel and jeans, and her once ink-black hair was peppered with silver at the roots. Brenda’s own hair had begun to go this way long ago—either stress or just being forty-seven—but a frequent dyeing routine kept that hidden.
“The bitch that always kicked your ass growing up,” Brenda replied. “How you been?”
“Same as ever. Still at the tables. You still scrubbing toilets?”
Brenda had been working as a housekeeper in the hotel and casino just outside of town. For three years she had managed to keep the job, longer than any of her other jobs at the casino, and she had no plans to break that streak. “Every day. And they’re finally letting us keep the tips guests leave behind.”
“What’s that, like a buck and their leftover pizza?”
“On a good day.”
“I keep telling you to deal. Our tips are like a thousand a night at Magic.”
“Nah, I’m fine where I’m at.”
It was the first time in many years that Brenda could say that sort of thing and mean it. She had a steady job, a cozy house, and her children were not constantly hitting her up for money anymore. Life was comfortable, and Brenda had no desire to change that.
Henrietta led a different kind of life. For the next half hour, she filled Brenda in on the turbulence of the past few months. She and the two children she had custody of had been kicked out of her mother’s house, and the father of her other two children had rescinded her visitation rights. Her children had stolen her wallet and spent the remainder of her paycheck on cigarettes and beer, bought by an older cousin. She spent one night in the drunk tank and barely avoided another by sweet-talking the reservation cop with the as-of-yet unfulfilled promise of a wild night.
Brenda watched her cousin thoughtfully while she prattled, but her ears were barely attentive. It was nothing out of the ordinary for most of her family members, and probably better since Henrietta managed to stay employed through the ordeal. She even had some cash on hand, which she used to buy two bottles of beer.
“Oh no, that’s fine,” Brenda said as the waitress left their table behind. “I’m okay with water.”
“C’mon, you can have just one.”
“It’s not even noon.”
“We’re old bitches now. We don’t need to pretend we care about five o’clock.”
Brenda did not enjoy being called an old bitch, especially by a cousin older than her. Henrietta laughed and prodded more and more. Brought up this party and that one and how the two used to be.
“Remember when we stole a watermelon from Nelson’s? Brought it all the way across town and smashed it on the train tracks.”
“Must have been you. I don’t steal shit.”
“You hid it in your shirt!”
Brenda rolled her eyes, tapped her fingers, and sighed. What was there to be nostalgic about if she could hardly remember those days? Those blackout nights. Sticky hangover mornings. The only clear memories were how sick she could make herself, yet still get up and start over.
“Just for old times, since we’re old-timers now,” Henrietta pleaded one last time.
When the waitress came back with two frosty green bottles, Brenda followed in the footsteps of the many old barflies she had known since childhood and had a drink before noon. She thought about her book of meditations from AA class. All those inspirational quotes that started with Just for today. Does that work both ways? Just for today I can drink.
She had barely had a sip when the doors to the diner opened and a family walked inside. Gerly Pokegama, her daughter, Maya Kelliher, and Maya’s grandmother Kayla, all three beautiful and fine-skinned. The Kellihers married and bred young. Maya’s father, Kayden, even died young thanks to her son, Jared, a thought that made her take another drink. And another until her one drink became two, and Brenda’s old dance began.
The familiars came back, the lightness on her skin like small drafts in winter, the warmth
that began in her shoulders and spread in every direction, and finally the laughs. She and Henrietta were soon cackling at everything they said to each other. But her self-consciousness did not disappear with her sobriety. She wasn’t even sure if they saw her, but she wanted to leave the sight of the Kellihers quickly.
Fifteen minutes and one phone call later, tabs paid, and a scatter of green bottles on the plastic cloth covering the picnic table, Brenda and Henrietta stepped into a reservation transport van. The bingo shuttle. The last vehicle Indians from Geshig would see before the hearse.
Brenda scrambled into the back seat and tried to sit upright but on the first turn, her head became heavy as a ball of dough. She flopped onto the seat and closed her eyes. She laughed silently to herself and thought about her children.
All three, Jared, Natalie, and Tasha, were born to be dancers. The potential in them had shone brightly all through their youth and then slowly tapered away with the onset of puberty. Natalie and Tasha both stopped dancing around their teen years, Jared before ten.
As soon as she began to walk, Natalie did not like to stop moving. Her movements were fast and clumsy, and she would stomp around the house like a yearling in summer. Tasha was a late bloomer when it came to just about everything, and walking took her a lot longer than her older sister. But such patience and shyness gave her an easier, gentler gait.
When the music played, their polarities switched. Natalie’s feet were precise with the beat, and her posture was perfect for the jingle dress. She danced with pride holding up her shoulders and even after the last beat she did not break her statuesque composure. As soon as she was off the circle, she was back to her wild, clumsy self.
Tasha was not a wild child. She did not like to roughhouse with her sister, and she would not set foot near her cousins who were rougher than Natalie ever was. Typical for the youngest child, Brenda’s mother and aunt said. The girl was a gentle shadow behind her mother, until the day in Headstart when she was given an electric-pink shawl with blue butterflies.
Tasha flapped the shawl above her head like a startled chicken and screamed as she twirled in circles on the grass. It was as if the tiny gossamer sheet had freed her. She had no rhyme or reason to her movements and rarely stopped at the end of the song. But that’s okay, Brenda thought, when she saw her youngest child at her first powwow. The Tiny Tot dance was not a place for precision or judgment. It was pure innocence, and seeing her shadow come to life was one of the proudest moments in her life.
Now the bingo shuttle came to a sudden stop and Brenda rolled right off the seat and onto the mossy gray floor dappled with cigarette burns.
“You okay, ho?” Henrietta’s face popped over the seat and stared at the drunken mess she had created.
“I’m fine!” Brenda struggled to pull herself out of the tight space, finally managing to use a broken seat-belt strap as leverage. “I wanna dance!”
“Ain’t that kind of party, niij. Act sober or we’ll get kicked out.” Henrietta opened the van doors and smacked Brenda right on the ass as she jumped out onto the powwow grounds.
The pungency of fried food, tobacco, and campfires hit her. Even without seeing the whirlpool of Indians walking around the outer circle, she could tell it was a powwow with just a whiff. It used to remind her of home. Not her cozy shack, but that opaque sense of love and contentedness that she felt for brief moments when her children were young.
“Wanna get a hot dog?” Henrietta said. “I know you love a mouth full of wiener.”
Brenda draped her arm over her cousin’s shoulder and began to lead her toward one of the many concession stands at the edge of the circle. “We better get a few so you can sit on one in the bleachers.”
The two women laughed their way through the gate and into the circle. The events were usually heavily guarded to prevent this very situation, and this holiday weekend was no different, but being that Grand Entry had just started the guards were less inclined to make a scene or peel their eyes away from the high school girls.
Brenda and Henrietta stopped a few yards away from the inner circle, just behind the opening between two bleachers. For just a few seconds, Brenda could see the eagle staff and American flag in the center. The old men of the honor guard were dancing in place, feet stomping to the beat, and the next group of dancers were mixing in. The regalia shimmered with every color under the sun.
The moment was short lived as Henrietta took control of their conjoined adventure and led her farther around the circle. They passed three frybread stands before Henrietta decided on a rusty blue-and-white stand called Paula’s Perfect Breadstand, written in thick black Sharpie.
Hearing the crackle of the fryers and smelling the thick scent of flour suddenly made Brenda lose her appetite. Any dish that was served with the crustified paste that only rarely resembled real bread would have made her sick. Henrietta ordered an Indian taco loaded with every fixing they had, lettuce, jalapeños, diced tomatoes from a can, olives, sour cream, and Sam’s Club mild taco sauce.
Brenda ordered a bowl of hominy soup and hoped she could keep it down while Henrietta ate her own sloppy pile of grease. She stared at her first spoonful and wondered if it was worse than a taco. The chunk of ham was girthy and pink, with a strip of blackened skin on the end and a gelatinous worm of fat between skin and meat. The white puffs of hominy looked like punched-out toddler’s teeth.
The soup stayed down and Henrietta ate every part of the taco including the sauce on the bottom of the Styrofoam plate.
“I’m gonna get another,” Henrietta said.
“No!” Brenda latched herself on to her cousin once again and pulled her away from the concession stands. “Too much grease. You’ll get zits all over your nasty ass.”
“You can pop them for me like you used to.”
They began to walk the circle again, and when she looked to the center all the dancers were just now mixing in. Had so little time passed? Brenda felt like she had walked onto the grounds and eaten hours ago.
The children were the final group of dancers to blend into the crowd. Even through her drunken haze she could feel the song was coming to an end. All dancers except the children stopped in unison and silence followed the echo of the last beat.
The powwow emcee’s voice blared over the speakers. “Ah-hoka! Look at that beautiful Grand Entry! If you look up you can see two bald eagles soaring high!”
Brenda craned her neck and saw the black lines circling above. They always showed up at the gatherings. Because of the spiritual connection. Or because they were scavengers and they knew there would be scraps of food when everyone left. She was not a fan of eagles. Or eagle tattoos, like all three of her children’s fathers had. Chris on his shoulder, and Zhaawanong across his back. Dominic also had ink, but of images rare this far north: Guadalupe, a rosary, and a golden eagle on a cactus.
“Always, in recognition of our veterans, it’s time to honor the ogichidaag in our community with the flag song. Holding the veterans’ flag for the Geshig Honor Guard is Vinny Kelliher,” the emcee said.
Brenda stopped walking and stared into the center of the circle. Vincent was an old man. Short and stout with skin like wet peanut shells. Though he wasn’t speaking now, he could have been heard over the crowd and the speakers. He was a man who spoke as if he had never retired from his drill-sergeant days. He had served in three wars and lived to tell the tale.
But his grandson Kayden couldn’t even survive the reservation into adulthood. When Brenda saw Vinny—or any of the Kellihers—it was as if her son’s trial had started all over and she could do nothing to save him again.
“Let’s go,” Brenda said, tugging on Henrietta’s arm. “I need a drink.”
Her cousin had no objections. “We can’t ride the shuttle again. You know anyone here with a car?”
“Let’s just walk to the Classic Shack.”
Half a mile from the powwow grounds was a local watering hole, strategically placed by the non-Indian owners to make mo
ney during the summer. Most of the drunks kicked out of the grounds were either coming from or going to the Classic.
At the bar, Henrietta tried to order them another round of the disgusting beer she had given them earlier in the day.
“No,” Brenda insisted. “I remember what I’m doing.” She slammed one of her last three twenty-dollar bills on the counter. “Patron. No chaser.”
“Just one?” the bartender asked.
“Nope.”
She and her cousin clinked their glasses, took the shots, and wandered over to the gaming area. The last things Brenda remembered about her time at the Classic Shack were losing at cricket, which gave her another pint of Bud Light each time, and shutting off her cell phone at four p.m. when she was marked late for the first time in three years, and then eventually, as a no-show.
THE FIRST THINGS SHE saw when she came to were water and porcelain as hunks of whole hominy and chalky pink slime covered her toilet bowl. As her mind slowly came into focus, she remembered every awful thing and person that had led her to this place. Not just her cousin Henrietta or Kayden Kelliher’s daughter.
Who she remembered first was Eunice Lafournier. The woman her parents abandoned her with for a few months. Her Good Mother. Good in the way her own mother should have been: loving, gentle, warm.
Brenda did not hate Eunice for not fighting her birth parents when they came back and took her away, but she had a hard time remembering the love she used to feel for the Lafourniers. She knew it was there, a first memory of laughs and just enough food to not go hungry, a cabin made of faded red pine. Eunice was a mother and Hazel a sister. Now Eunice was a memory underneath reservation soil and Hazel just another cousin who never bothered to check in.
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