The Night Watchman

by Louise Erdrich

  “Are you . . . ?”

  She tried to shake his hand away. Back at the bar it had been dry and cold. Now it was moist and hot.

  “You should rest,” said Jack, petting her wrist. “This must be mentally exhausting for you. We’ll set up a cot in the dressing room.”

  She wrenched her arm from his humid grip. Then surprised herself by snapping her hand down on his wet wrist so hard that he flinched and stared at her. He grabbed at her with his other hand. She knocked that arm down with a quick vicious motion. A wood chop.

  “There’s one more place,” said Patrice. “I’d like to go there. A friend. Bernadette Blue.”

  “Bernadette. As in Bernie? Bernie Blue? She’s your pal?” Jack wrung his bruised hands and looked Patrice over in a harder, figuring way. He lighted a cigarette off the one he was smoking, and together they walked out of the building.

  “So tell me again. Bernie Blue’s your friend?”

  He stared closely at her, his face glazed with an unhealthy sweat. Patrice gave up.

  “No,” she swung her head. The air pressed on her temples. “I can’t say we’re actually friends. A friend gave me this address so I could stay with Bernadette in a pinch.”

  “Listen.” Jack seemed a little rattled, now, in earnest even. “You’re better off in the dressing room at Log Jam 26. I swear.”

  On the way back downtown, in the car, Jack spoke to her. “Seems you’re mixed up with certain places, certain people, and you just got here. At least you say you did.” He shot a glance her way.

  “I did just get here.”

  “But were you here before?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Because you don’t belong here.”

  “Of course I don’t. I wish I could go home right now.”

  “So what can happen to a girl in your situation, or your sister’s situation, is this: with the unpaid bills and all, she runs out on the landlord. Makes it hard to get a new place. So maybe she changes her name, or maybe she moves in with somebody else. A friend, let’s say. She pays the friend in money, or in services.”

  He eyed Patrice after the word services.

  “My sister could do any number of jobs,” said Patrice, oblivious. “But with a baby, that’s harder.”

  “Oh, a baby.”

  “Yes, she has a baby.”

  “That’s another story. Another complication. We should go, say, to where they go for help with babies. I wouldn’t know about that.”

  “Can we do that now?”

  “Jesus. No.”

  “We should go now. I want to go.”

  “They are almost closed. Besides.”

  “Besides what?”

  “You might want to take a little rest before your show.”

  “Let me out. Let me out right now!”

  “Doris Barnes, calm down. Please. This is not what we agreed to.”

  “No,” said Patrice. “We had no agreement. Because I never said yes. However, I might consider. Not tips every other night. I want the tips every single night.”

  “Done,” said Jack.

  On the second floor of Log Jam 26, Jack set up the canvas cot. He found a pillow with a rumpled but clean pillowcase on it, batted it into shape. In the closet, there was a red wool blanket bound with a silky red ribbon. Hilda’s. But what did it matter. The blanket and the pillow almost made Patrice cry. She could hardly stagger to the cot. Kick her shoes off. Lie down. A buzzing film of darkness came down over her and then she dissolved.

  Patrice woke to Doris Barnes, Doris Barnes, someone shaking her arm, the smell of strong acidic coffee. She cried out and thrashed. No idea where she was. For a splitting moment, who she was. Then Jack’s voice. “Settle down! You’ll spill hot coffee all over yourself!” The awful shape of her reality.

  “I can’t do it.”

  “That’s not what we agreed,” said Jack. “Drink the coffee. Eat the danish. Visit the bathroom down the hall. Then put on the suit.”

  He left her dressing room, leaving the lights on. The door creaked loudly. She ate the danish, which was cherry. Drank the coffee, black. She reached into her bag and took a handful of pemmican. Ate it slowly, pressing the tiny shreds up with a finger. At last she used the dirty bathroom down the hall. When she returned, the ox suit confronted her, unfolded in its open box.

  “Fifty dollars,” she said to the suit. “Plus tips. Every night.”

  She shoved a chair against the door, which creaked again. She took her clothing off carefully. There were nails in the walls, empty hangers. She hung up her blouse, skirt, light sweater. Her coat was already hanging and she could not remember having removed it. Her satchel sat on the extra chair. She was down to her brassiere and panties. Her money was in her brassiere. Unhappily, she removed her underwear. She looked around the room. Finally she folded her brassiere into a clump around her money, and wedged it into a space behind a drawer in the dressing table. She lifted the blue rubber suit out of its box and thought that she should start from the bottom.

  Her feet fit comfortably into the painted hooves. She tugged the warm, pliant rubber. Smoothed it carefully along her ankles. The ox legs gripped her calves, knee, thighs, encasing her in a firm and resilient extra layer of flesh. She rolled the suit up her hips, across her belly, then moved her arms into the front legs. The suit fit ingeniously, and fastened in such a way that no water could enter. The hooves were cleverly split so she could use her thumbs and fingers. The hood, which fit below the horned cap, was snug and fastened easily below her chin, tightly over her ears, muffling sound. The dressing room contained a full-length mirror like the one in the Rolla store. She stepped before it and saw herself as alien and fascinating. The white targets over her breasts were different once the suit was on, and didn’t bother her anymore. The shadow between her legs was just a trick of the light. A sinuous blue tail curled behind her, a droopy brush of hair at the end. She lowered the cap with the horns. Fastened the straps beneath her chin. The effect was not uncharming.

  Jack knocked on the door. When she opened it, he pulled the cigarette he was about to light from his mouth, and held it pinched between his fingers for a frozen moment.

  “Damn,” he said softly, eyes wide. “Damn.”

  “I am ready.”

  “Yes you are you are you are. The first show’s in half an hour. Does the suit feel okay?”

  “It’s comfortable.”

  “See? Quality.”

  He fiddled with the horned cap, adjusting the straps. She batted his hands away.

  “The objects at the bottom of the tank are weights. Pick one up to keep you down. Drop it when you need to surface. Oh, I forgot, do you know how to swim?”

  Patrice gave him a baffled look.

  “Just asking.”

  “Late to be just asking.”

  “I’ll assume yes. Now let me show you the standard waterjack moves.”

  Smoke eddied and wreathed around his head as he gripped his cigarette between his teeth and crooked his arms. Held both hands out as though cradling bowls of crystal goblets.

  “Up right shoulder. Down right shoulder. Swivel hips. Over-the-shoulder peek. Tush wag. Bubbles. Kisses. Surface. Breathe. Down again. Playful peekaboo. Tush wag with seesaw shoulder. Swivel hooves. Dukes up. Mock fight. Barrel roll. Ox writhe. Bubbles. Kisses. Surface. Breathe. Repeat and modify for twenty minutes. I’ll signal. You have half an hour break. Then on again. Four shows.”

  “Right after I get my fifty dollars,” said Patrice.

  “Did I say that?”

  “Plus tips.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s what we agreed to, Jack. And dinner afterward. Plus of course I sleep in this dressing room. Or I walk out of here, right now.”

  Jack laughed. “In the ox suit? I doubt it.”

  “Why don’t you try me?”

  “Such brinksmanship,” said Jack. “I was kidding. Of course that’s what we agreed to.”

  “Plus I want a bolt on my door.
A key to the lock. If I don’t get it, then I’ll poke a hole in this suit.”

  “You’re not very trusting. Are you sure you haven’t been around here before?”

  “My dad is a drunk.”

  “Oh, I get it,” said Jack. “Mine was too.”

  He unhooked a key from his key ring, and gave it to her. She tested it in the door. He promised the bolt tomorrow. They walked out and she locked her door. She fit the key beneath the blue hood, behind her ear, and followed him to the end of the hall.

  “Sit down,” said Jack, touching a chair. Then he labored to pull open a trapdoor in the floor.

  Noise surged up. And light. Wavering water light. Clinking of glass. Laughter. Bursts of talk. Jack left. Patrice sat in the chair alone, waiting to be lowered into the tank. One day ago, overnight ago, she had laughed with her mother. They had enjoyed the impudence of her disguise. What would her mother think now? Mayagi. Strange. Maama kaajiig. Strange people. Gawiin ingikendizo siin. I am a stranger to myself. Another person, harder and bolder than the usual Patrice, had taken her over. This Patrice was the one who forced Jack to bring her places, the one who bargained for a key. This was again the sort of feeling and thinking that could only be described in Chippewa, where the strangeness was also humorous and the danger surrounding this entire situation was of the sort that you might laugh at, even though you could also get hurt, and there were secrets involved, and desperation, for indeed she had nowhere, after her unthinkable short immediate future rolling in the water tank, nowhere to go but the dressing room down at the other end of the second-floor hall of Log Jam 26.

  Left Hook

  Barnes was waiting for Wood Mountain to enter the restaurant at the Powers Hotel in downtown Fargo. Jet-black glass. Mirrors. Plenteous breakfast. A snooty lady host with a small-town accent, who might not show an Indian boxer to his seat. He worried, but Wood Mountain saw Barnes’s big haystack of hair immediately and walked over. The lady host didn’t even follow him. Barnes had read over every item on the menu, twice. He loved a good breakfast. Wood Mountain sat down across from him in the low booth.

  “Let’s get the steak and eggs,” said Barnes. “On me.”

  Wood Mountain was pretty sure that Barnes was buying him the fancy breakfast because the fight was off, and sure enough, it was. He crushed his fingers together, hiding his disappointment.

  “All the way down here.”

  “Well, you nearly made it on the card. We’ll introduce you to the guys. Now, at least, you can eat.”

  Wood Mountain poured half the cream in the little pitcher into his coffee. He’d trained like the devil, got his weight perfect, had his hair cut and styled, and no fight. But on the way down, he’d sat with Pixie.

  “You know that girl Pixie?”

  Barnes sharpened.

  “What about her?”

  “Sat beside her on the way down.”

  “So is she here, in town?” Barnes tried to ask casually, but Wood Mountain wasn’t fooled. He took his time answering.

  “Just passing through. She’s on her way down to the Cities to look for her sister, Vera. Her husband’s off the rails. Nobody’s heard from her.”

  “Does Pixie have a place to stay down there?”

  “Don’t worry. She can take care of herself.”

  Barnes looked critically at his boxer. Wood Mountain was feinting. It was obvious to everyone, he supposed, that he, Barnes, was moony over Pixie. Well, who wouldn’t be? Why pretend?

  “You sure? Because my brother lives down there.”

  “Oh, I doubt she’d go stay with your brother!”

  “Somebody to call if she got in trouble.”

  “Since I don’t have a fight, I might just go down and be that guy.”

  Wood Mountain knew very well what he was saying, but he didn’t care. He was getting tired of Barnes dancing around Pixie Paranteau. And he knew from Pokey that she was tired of it too. Barnes hadn’t got him a fight, either, and Wood Mountain felt cheated. Yes, he’d work harder, he was no quitter, but seeing as he had some extra time on his hands now, and was carrying his field-work money, why not keep going on the train? Why not find Pixie and better, find her sister, be the hero he hadn’t been in the ring against Joe Wobble. When she’d watched him.

  “Yeah, I might just take that train,” he said, sawing into his steak. He drenched it in soupy egg yolk, chewed. The hash browns were crisp on top, creamy underneath. He relented. Barnes was devoted, coached him for nothing. What was he doing? Barnes was miserable enough, seeking hopelessly after Pixie. Give him a break.

  “Or maybe you should,” said Wood Mountain. “I have the addresses she is supposed to look up. You could check in on her.”

  “I wish I could,” said Barnes, slowly, meaning it. “I have to teach.”

  “Teaching. You can get out of teaching, can’t you?”

  “Of course not,” said Barnes, putting down his fork. He was stern, affronted. “It’s the beginning of the year. We review and lay down the proper foundation for the year’s progress. It’s essential. And by the way, have you applied yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What? Boxing isn’t a real job, not a lifetime job. We’ve talked about it. You were my best student. You could be a teacher.”

  Wood Mountain didn’t want to be a teacher. He didn’t want to apply to UND or to Moorhead or even to the State School of Science in Wahpeton. He wanted to keep doing field work, building up his muscles, keep boxing and keep training horses for Louis Pipestone. He loved racing those horses with Louie, trailering them to Assiniboine Downs in Winnipeg. Grace, Louis’s kid, their rookie jockey. Wood Mountain also wanted to look after his mother, even though Juggie was doing fine on her own. He didn’t say much about it, but he kept a clean house for her when she stayed in town at her cooking job. Or stayed with Louie. Wood Mountain, the boxer, son of Archille, grandson of a man who fought with Sitting Bull, wanted to stay home. Which, after all, was the same thing Sitting Bull had wanted to do.

  “Oh well,” he said. “I guess I could go down there, to the Cities. Help her out. But I don’t want to.”

  “You said she could take care of herself. And she has a place to stay.”

  “She’s not the kind of girl to get in trouble, is she.”

  “No,” said Barnes, “she is not.”

  “Then I guess I’ll go back home.”

  But when he returned to the station to buy his ticket back to Rugby, Wood Mountain found his words came out wrong.

  “Ticket to Minneapolis.”

  “Which train?”

  “The next one.”

  Louis Pipestone

  His father had brought the good horse from Red Lake and bred it with a wild buckskin paint back in ’38. That horse could run. Made some money, which was responsible for the presence of the 1947 Chevrolet pickup truck, green as the hills, that Louis drove slowly and deliberately down the main road. He’d mapped the reservation out in his head. He would start with the more remote places past the western boundary, where many tribal members lived, their land part of the original tribal agreement broken within only a few years of its making. He saw Awan, Moves Camp, Gardipee, and his friend Titus Giizis. Right across the line he parked his truck at the entrance to Zhaanat’s place, hoping to catch her and her husband and daughter, all in one go. But old Paranteau was on another tear, and Zhaanat told him that Pixie had gone down to the Cities to look for their other daughter. Pokey was too young to sign, but he listened to what Louis said, in Chippewa, and added his mother’s name in bold script with her hand lightly touching his wrist.

  “Mii’iw,” said Zhaanat. “A bite to eat?”

  “Wouldn’t go down bad,” said Louis.

  Zhaanat brought light bannock, a small dish of salt, fresh grease from a roasted duck, and a plate of shredded thigh meat. There was a bowl of dried berries, cold wild boiled turnips, pemmican, hot tea.

  “Old-time food,” said Louis, with pleasure.

  “I am afraid to sleep,
” said Zhaanat.

  Louis waited.

  “Afraid to dream about my daughters.”

  “I heard your uncle saw Vera alive.”

  “With a baby.”

  Louis nodded, thinking.

  “I am not in favor of this relocation. We lose our young people. The Cities keep them.”

  “I’m not going,” Pokey said.

  His mother nodded at him. “My boy.”

  “Pixie can fight anyone down,” said Louis, shifting in the chair. “They won’t mess around with Pixie. She’s little, but she’s tough.”

  “She chops wood,” said Pokey. “Piles it up all fancy.”

  “If that Barnes trained her, she’d be a top featherweight,” said Louis, sly.

  “She don’t have anything to do with him,” said Pokey.

  Louis raised his eyebrows, puffed his round cheeks, and winked at Zhaanat.

  “I know someone else sweet on her. Wouldn’t worry much,” he said.

  Louis got seven more signatures and then drove down the curved path to Thomas Wazhashk’s house. A brisk wind was taking down the yellow leaves of birches where they stood in graceful ranks at the edge of a broad hayfield. Thomas was plucking the marigold seeds and filling a tin can. Sharlo was collecting the tiny dried heads of the moss roses, the seeds fine as dust. She was a quick, stormy girl with a sharp gaze. She favored her mother.

  “Aaniin, Mr. Pipestone,” she said. “Where is Grace?”

  “On a horse somewhere.”

  “Did people sign?” asked Thomas.

  Louis showed him the signatures on the back of the petition. Many of them were meticulous, boarding-school penmanship. Others were laborious, crafted by tribal members who only knew the shape of their own names. Some, written out by relatives, were accompanied as in the old days by the faint inked print of a person’s thumb. It was an impressive number, to them both, and within the cardboard suitcase that served as Thomas’s desk he found a large manila folder and an envelope, which would protect the document. Thomas pointed out Zhaanat’s signature and asked after Pixie.

  “She’s down in the city looking for Vera.”