“Hi, Pixie.”
She forgot to tell him to call her Patrice because she was so glad to see someone from home. The train ride had only lasted an hour so far, but already she was homesick. She was ready for the adventure to be over.
“Where are you going?” she asked him.
“Fargo. I’ve got a fight. Maybe.”
His hair was newly cut, oiled, and swirled down over his forehead.
“You were good the other night. You should have won.”
“Oh, you were there?”
He knew very well that she had been there with his cousin. He had wanted to win even more on their account. He’d felt their eyes on him.
“Yes, that timekeeper cheated. And you were good,” she said again.
“That’s what Barnes says.”
Patrice nodded. Barnes.
“He’s always talking you up. You like him?”
“No.”
“How come? What’s wrong with him?”
“There’s nothing wrong with him.”
“So . . .”
“Should I like him just because there’s nothing wrong with him?”
“I guess no.”
They sat there, awkward. The conductor announced the next stop, not long enough to get a real lunch. Patrice had packed some food, to save money. She brought out her yellow pail and removed the lid. It was packed with Zhaanat’s pemmican—deer meat, sweet juneberries, musky Pembina berries, sugared tallow, all these ingredients dried and pounded to a fluff. Wood Mountain took a small handful. Patrice took a pinch.
“Fills you up good,” said Wood Mountain.
“I’m counting on that,” said Patrice. “I’m going to the Cities to find my sister.”
“I heard. What about your job?”
“Valentine gave me her days.”
“That was decent.”
His remark didn’t seem to lead anywhere, only requiring agreement, and they sat again in silence until the train stopped.
“Let’s get out and stretch our legs,” said Wood Mountain.
“I don’t want to lose my seat,” said Patrice.
“If that guy tries to take it again, I’ll fight him.”
“Then I’m staying. No fights on my account.”
Wood Mountain got out at the stop and jogged up and down the station platform. Patrice put her coat on his seat so that nobody would sit down, but still, when the train was boarding again a wiry little woman stopped by the seat, nodded, and asked, “Whose coat?”
“His,” said Patrice, nodding at Wood Mountain, who stood in the aisle. The woman frowned at the incongruity of the blue swing coat, and the sturdy Indian, but moved on. Wood Mountain sat down. He was still catching his breath. His hair had flopped down on one side. He combed and pressed it back into place.
“Wind sprints,” he said.
“What are those?”
“Short bursts of speed.”
“That makes sense. You have to fight in short bursts.”
He was surprised that she understood right away. She asked him about his training regimen. He told her that he had a hill he sprinted up about a hundred times every day. He told her about the cans he’d filled with sand and welded shut. About the rope skipping and the speed bag he’d hung on a branch. He tried not to mention Barnes because there was something about her not liking him. A feeling. He wasn’t one for giving names to things. Or finding their basis. His feelings were like weather. He just suffered or enjoyed them. And now she was taking a little jackknife from her pocketbook and cutting a tiny shred from a thumb-shaped piece of bark. She folded up the pocketknife and popped the shred in her mouth. She opened her hand: there was another shaving, fragrant.
“Have some.”
He held the piece of bark on one side of his jaw, then the other, letting the mellow tang of spice fill his mouth.
“What is this stuff?”
She shook her head. “It’s, I don’t know, miswanagek.”
“What’s it good for?”
“Cramps.”
“What kind of cramps?”
He looked at her and she bent her face away, flinching at herself, and mumbled, “Muscle cramps!”
“I get those.” He hid a smile, as if he hadn’t noticed.
“You can make a tea. The tea is better.”
“So where are you going when you get to the Cities?”
“I have a couple addresses.”
“Where your sister lives?”
“No.”
“So the plan is you walk the streets until you run into her?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s not a plan.”
“Maybe not. But what would you do? Go to the police?”
“Not exactly.”
“What?”
“Go to the not-police. Sorry to put it this way. She might have got into trouble. So, what I’m saying is, go to the scum.”
“Oh, well, okay, but I don’t know. How do I find the scum?”
“Rises to the top. Just look around. Find the questionable people who are in charge of things.”
“What things?
He didn’t know that much about Pixie. He wasn’t sure how far to get into it.
“Not good things,” he finally said.
“Liquor?”
“Yes.”
“What else is there that’s bad?”
He gazed at her. She simply wanted to know.
“You worry me,” he said.
A Bill
To provide for the termination of Federal supervision over the property of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in the States of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana, and the individual members thereof; for assistance in the orderly relocation of such Indians in areas of greater economic opportunity; and for other purposes.
There it was, in the first line of the dry first sentence, the word termination, which instantly replaced in Thomas’s mind that word emancipation with its powerful aura of expanse. In the newspapers, the author of the proposal had constructed a cloud of lofty words around this bill—emancipation, freedom, equality, success—that disguised its truth: termination. Termination. Missing only the prefix. The ex.
The wind rattled the metal blinds of the plant’s industrial windows. Thomas pulled on his jacket. He had not finished eighth grade until age eighteen because he had worked with his father. They had harvested and planted, weeded and sweat. One summer he had dug that well. After he’d finished grade eight, Thomas had tried to educate himself, mainly by reading everything he could find. When he needed to calm his mind, he opened a book. Any book. He had never failed to feel refreshed, even if the book was no good. So it wasn’t the words in the rest of the bill that stymied understanding, it was the way they were put together.
Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the purpose of this Act is to provide for the termination of Federal supervision over the trust and restricted property of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewas in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana, for the disposition of Federally owned property acquired or withdrawn for the administration of the affairs of such Indians, for the intensification of an orderly program of facilitating the relocation and placement of such Indians in a self-supporting economy to the end that federal services and supervision with respect to such Indians may be discontinued as no longer necessary, and for the termination of Federal services furnished to such Indians because of their status as Indians.
He threw down the pages. Walked his round. But after he finished, he picked up the papers, put them back in order, and replaced them in his briefcase. He was empty of response. There was a hollow feeling, a thrumming, a sense that his body had become a drum. That anyone could knock on him and get a sound. That the sound, even if defiant, would be meaningless. And that whoever used the drumstick knew this and was pitiless. That person would strike and strike until the hide was worn out.
Who was that person? Th
e person beating this drum? Who had put this bill together? Thomas wondered.
That same morning, Thomas made an expensive phone call to his old friend and boarding-school buddy Martin Cross. Martin was the tribal chairman of Fort Berthold, a reservation in western North Dakota, shared by the Mandan, Arikara, and Hidatsa, which was Martin’s tribe. From a fellow boarding-school cutup, Martin had become a source of wisdom and a strategic fighter for Indian rights. Martin told him who was beating the drum: Arthur V. Watkins.
“He’s the most powerful man in Congress,” said Martin Cross.
“That’s not good.”
“No. And I don’t know if it matters, but he’s a Mormon.”
Thomas paused. What Cross said sounded vaguely familiar.
“You know any Mormons?” asked Martin Cross.
“I don’t think so.”
“They haven’t got to you. They’ll come around yet. It’s in their religion to change Indians into whites.”
“I thought that was a government job.”
“It’s in their holy book. The more we pray, the lighter we get.”
“I could stand to drop a few pounds.”
“Not that kind of lighter,” Martin laughed. “They think if you follow their ways your skin will bleach out. They call it lightsome and gladsome.”
“They’ll have some work to do on your tough old hide.”
“Yours too.”
Thomas cut the call short, remembering the tribe was broke. In fact, they were broker than he’d thought when he took the job, which supposed to pay thirty dollars a month. He hadn’t yet actually paid himself. But the senator who’d pushed this bill from his side of Congress had a name, anyway. Arthur V. Watkins.
Who?
At work the next night, he laid out the pages again.
So it comes down to this, thought Thomas, staring at the neutral strings of sentences in the termination bill. We have survived smallpox, the Winchester repeating rifle, the Hotchkiss gun, and tuberculosis. We have survived the flu epidemic of 1918, and fought in four or five deadly United States wars. But at last we will be destroyed by a collection of tedious words. For the disposition of, for the intensification of, for the termination of, to provide for, et cetera.
He was back at his desk and had just punched 2 a.m. The last good sleep he’d had was how long ago? In the old house. He put down the paper and began to write to Archie. As you know, Mama has taken over the care of a bright and beaming young fellow. Martin is a sort of altar boy to Wade. I don’t mean to be sacrilegious, but when I see Martin standing by Wade with his shoes, or alongside him with a pitchfork or shovel, whatever he might need, I can’t help but remember my old job at Holy Mass. Martin listens to Wade, too, and the other morning he said to me that Wade kept mentioning my clock and how I’m always punching it. With a sad look, Martin then observed, “With all that punching, it must be broke to a hundred pieces by now!”
Thomas propped his head up in his hands, shielding his eyes. The next thing he knew, he was jolted awake. Brain swimming, pulse scudding, he was sure that someone had tried to break into the plant. He turned off his lamp and lifted the steel flashlight, useful as a possible bludgeon. He didn’t punch the clock because the click would echo. Soundlessly he stepped across the floor of the main room and into the acid washing room. He had always thought it entirely possible that someone, imagining that the jewels were typical gemstones, might break in hoping to find treasure. He had the flashlight and his keys. He could wallop them with his flashlight and rake with his keys. But he would probably be overpowered, tied up, slung into the bathroom. He hoped his head wouldn’t hit a fixture. If he couldn’t think and reason, he would not be able to oppose this bill.
Thomas crept along and at each new checkpoint found the jewel plant empty. Humming where it should hum. Silent where it was always silent. Booming and rattling in the usual places. Then he stepped into the dark workshop and saw the great silver arc of a white owl plastered against the window, stretching its wings. It was pecking at the glass, fighting its own reflection. The sky behind the owl was black, moonless, glinting with stars. Thrilled, he felt for his keys then tiptoed outside to see the owl more clearly.
Who?
He moved slowly around the outside of the building. The snowy swiveled its head to watch him, then stretched out its down-plumed leg and flexed its black talons. The bird seemed annoyed, blinked, eyed Thomas severely, and with a last suspicious peck at its glass rival, began to preen its feathers. Thomas watched it for a long time before it flowed soundlessly upward. He stood there a moment, waiting to see where it went. But it was gone, sucked into the black sky. Thomas had no jacket and no cigar so he went back inside and punched the time clock. Beside the time, which should have been entered on the hour, he wrote, Went outside to answer Snowy Owl’s question, Who? Owl not satisfied with answer.
Indian Joke
Walter Vold adjusted his reading glasses and peered more closely at the time card. Snowy Owl! He passed the card back across the desk to Doris Lauder.
“Typical Indian joke,” said Vold.
He had noticed that she’d entirely stopped wearing perfume. That she edged away when he tried to get close. That when he had gotten close, she smelled oddly of mold.
“How so?” said Doris. “I don’t get it.”
She’d washed her hands with the mildewed rag from under the sink. She did this every day. She was willing to bear the smell so he didn’t sniff her every time she passed.
“How shall I put it.”
Vold tapped ostentatiously at his chin, hard as brass.
“The word is . . . the word is . . .”
To his relief, a word came into his head.
“Cryptic.”
“Oh. I still don’t get it.”
Doris took back the time card with her moldy fingers, and studied the words again. LaBatte dawdled outside the door with a trash bin he was emptying into a larger trash bin. Vold took the card from Doris’s hand.
“Mr. LaBatte,” called Vold, nodding and gesturing as though he was signaling an airplane, “please come into my office and clear something up.”
LaBatte came in, hard round belly leading, looking like an expert. Vold handed Thomas Wazhashk’s time card to LaBatte.
“Miss Lauder is curious about what this means,” said Vold.
LaBatte held out the card away from his face and scowled, mouthing the words. He looked up at the two of them and overassumed an air of expertise.
“It means that Thomas the Muskrat went out to smoke a cigar. He sometimes will smoke a Snowy Owl brand. I’d say he got locked out, had to get back in through a window. Or he could have gone right through the wall, like a mist.”
LaBatte walked off, laughing. Vold and Doris began laughing too.
“Very funny! Walked through the wall like a mist. Typical Indian joke right there!”
LaBatte stopped laughing as soon as he was out the door, rumbling down the hall. His eyes popped as he wheeled the cart ever faster. The mention of the owl was too disturbing. If Thomas had seen an owl, it meant a death. Soon. LaBatte was whisking through mental lists of people who might die. People he wouldn’t mind if they died. People he would mind very much if they died. People he would be terrified and sick at heart if they died. And then himself, very close to Thomas, in a way, as they went to school together and sometimes overlapped at work. Yes, he was close enough to Thomas for the victim to be himself. Plus, he was guilty and in danger of being punished.
Very low, to the empty hallway, he muttered, “Help me, Roderick.”
Who?
Thomas was of the after-the-buffalo-who-are-we-now generation. He was born on the reservation, grew up on the reservation, assumed he would die there also. Thomas owned a watch. He had no memory of time according only to the sun and moon. He spoke the old language first, and also spoke English with a soft grain and almost imperceptible accent. This accent would only belong to those of his generation. This indefinably soft but firm way of
speaking would be lost. His generation would have to define themselves. Who was an Indian? What? Who, who, who? And how? How should being an Indian relate to this country that had conquered and was trying in every way possible to absorb them? Sometimes the country still actively hated Indians, true. But more often now, a powerfully glorious sensation poured forth. Wars. Citizenship. Flags. This termination bill. Arthur V. Watkins believed it was for the best. To uplift them. Even open the gates of heaven. How could Indians hold themselves apart, when the vanquishers sometimes held their arms out, to crush them to their hearts, with something like love?
Flags
That year, his father was gaunt, his cheekbones jutting out. Thomas was always hungry. They were down to desperation food then—a bit of bannock smeared with deer fat. The day schools on the reservation gave out just one meal. The government boarding school would feed three meals. The government boarding school was a day’s wagon ride if you started well before dawn. Thomas’s mother, Julia, or Awan, wept and hid her face as he went away. She had been torn—whether to cut his hair herself. They would cut his hair off at the school. And to cut hair meant someone had died. It was a way of grieving. Just before they left, she took a knife to his braid. She would hang it in the woods so the government would not be able to keep him. So that he would come home. And he had come home.
The first thing Thomas noticed about the school was the repetition of striped cloth—red and white. Also blue parts. Flags. They were everywhere, dangling or hanging off poles, pinned onto collars, surrounding the blackboards, draped over doors. At first, he thought they were pleasing decorations. The teacher showed him that he must place his hand on his heart and repeat words the other children already knew. All while staring at the flag. Thomas copied the teacher’s words though he did not know what she was saying. Gradually, the sounds took shape in his mind. And still later, bits and pieces were added to the design. He had been there a few months when he heard the phrase a flag worth dying for, and a slow chill prickled.
The Night Watchman Page 8