The Night Watchman

by Louise Erdrich

  “The combination’s wrote down, dumbhead. He’ll find it. Grasshopper knows it. But doesn’t know it by heart.”

  “Anyway, LaBatte’s no thief. You’re making all of this up, Roderick. Saying these things.”

  “Sure I’m the dumbhead? Don’t think so. You don’t know everything, Thomas. Why else would I be here? Ask yourself that question.”

  “But you’re not here,” said Thomas, looking at the crust of a sandwich in his hand, a sandwich he did not remember eating.

  * * *

  How could it be that someone who was a fiction of his own brain told him something that was true? Because Thomas just knew Roderick was right. He had to confront LaBatte before he got himself in jail and ruined a good job for other Indians. He stuck around that morning, knowing that LaBatte was supposed to show up to solder some buckets. As his old school friend walked across the parking lot, Thomas stepped toward him. He was too annoyed to beat around the bush.

  “Saw Roderick last night.”

  LaBatte’s eyes popped. His crew-cut hair seemed to bristle with fear. He set his lunch box down next to Thomas, on the hood of his car.

  “Roderick told me he was there to save you. Told me you were stealing from the plant. Working up to stealing the jewels.”

  LaBatte didn’t even make a pretense of denying it. Who can argue with a ghost? He broke down, wiped at his face, told Thomas that he’d had a string of bad luck. And that was even before the owl.

  “What owl?”

  “Your owl.”

  “Owls are good luck for me. Especially the white ones.”

  “Nothing is going good for me, Thomas.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Broke again.”

  “But you have a job.”

  “Don’t feed twenty. Or thirty.”

  LaBatte’s family was a sprawling tangle of need and he was the only one with regular work. Thomas took out his soft old billfold, handed over what money he had to LaBatte, who took it and said, “Merci, cousin. I was going down a bad path, me. But I knew Roderick would help me. I saw what you wrote about the owl and thought I was a goner.”

  LaBatte began to sob like his heart was breaking through his chest. Thomas put his hand on his old friend’s shoulder.

  “Quit stealing. Ever seen the eyes on a grasshopper?”

  LaBatte choked back a moan. “Grasshopper. Probably can see around corners. Don’t know what made me such a dumbhead.”

  “That’s what Roderick said.”

  Thomas shrugged off the chill LaBatte’s word gave him.

  “You better make a good confession and move forward.”

  “Yes,” said LaBatte. “I been confessing my theft every week. Father’s getting tuned up at me. ‘Here,’ I said last time, ‘a little sack of sugar for you.’ He roared out, ‘Stolen?’ Oh man alive, he kicked me out the confessional.”

  “I have to go,” said Thomas. “I’m late for another one of those meetings.” He picked up his lunch box.

  He didn’t want to hear the details of why LaBatte needed the money so badly. It would be the same as every story, including his own, though with the jewel bearing paycheck things had eased up considerably. There weren’t enough jobs. There wasn’t enough land. There wasn’t enough farmable land. There weren’t enough deer in the woods or ducks in the sloughs and a game warden caught you if you fished too many fish. There just wasn’t enough of anything and if he didn’t save what little there was from disappearing there was no imagining how anyone would get along. He couldn’t have it. He wouldn’t have it. Halfway back to town the car coughed and began to coast. He steered onto the shoulder. The gas tank was empty. He’d given LaBatte the money he was going to use to fill it.

  For a long while, Thomas sat there with his empty tank, on the empty road, looking over the empty field, at the empty sky. Not a cloud in it. Blue as heaven. Then of all things LaBatte tore right by him in his old clunker and didn’t stop.

  Thomas watched the disappearing mismatched back bumpers of LaBatte’s car. It seemed to lift off the road and drift into the trees. He reached over to his lunch box. Maybe he’d left that crust. It was LaBatte’s lunch box, full. A meat sandwich with real butter. More bread, this time with butter and sugar. A baked potato, still warm. Apples.

  “Did it ever hit the spot,” he said later to LaBatte. “Set me up for the walk to town, for gas.”

  LaBatte sighed. “And me, one dusty little candy.”

  The Missionaries

  Two young men wearing white shirts and black pants, with slicked-back brown hair, carrying two brown paper sacks, came walking down the dirt road to the Wazhashk house. It was a warm day for late September. Thomas saw them approach as he walked from the old house to the outhouse. He thought about putting off his visit, but they were proceeding slowly. They seemed to be having a disagreement. One stopped and turned around to walk away, then the other caught up with him and they started talking again. When Thomas came out of the toilet, the young men were closer. He walked into the house, washed his hands and face, dried off with a towel, and walked out to meet them in the yard. They looked as though they were from the government, though they were young.

  “Good afternoon,” he said.

  He shook hands with each one.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Have you ever wondered why you are here?” asked the taller of the two young men, eyeing him intensely.

  “No,” said Thomas. He was startled, but then, they were obviously from far away, from Bismarck, even farther. Maybe Washington. They, too, seemed taken aback by his reply. One recovered and said,

  “Why not?”

  “Because I know,” said Thomas. “Don’t you?”

  The shorter of the two turned to the other and blurted out, “See?”

  The taller hung his head and tried to sting the shorter fellow with his eyes.

  “How about a cup of water?” said Thomas.

  “Yes,” said the shorter, who seemed to have control now of the situation.

  “Follow me,” said Thomas. He walked toward the house, up the three steps, through the door. The two young men hesitated.

  “May we come in?” they both asked at once.

  Thomas nodded and they followed him. A tiny child was creeping across the floor, and at the sight of them reared back, fell over, and started crying. Rose was taking care of a baby from down the road.

  “Who are they?” shouted Noko, flattening herself against the wall.

  Rose appeared from the next room, fists on her hips. She put her hand on her mother’s shoulder.

  “You scared her,” she said ominously.

  “We’re sorry,” said the young men, fumbling with their paper sacks.

  Rose picked up the baby, jostled her in a comforting way, and flared her eyes at Thomas.

  “They just want to know if we wonder why we are here,” said Thomas.

  “You took our land,” said Noko. “Where else were we supposed to go?”

  Rose looked down at the part in her mother’s white hair, impressed by her answer and her vicious stare.

  “Excuse me,” said the shorter one. “Perhaps we can start over. I am Elder Elnath and this is Elder Vernon. How do you do?”

  “Elder?”

  “We were really asking if you ever wonder why you, as an ancient people, are here on this land?”

  “I’m old, not ancient,” fumed Noko, her hearing suddenly acute.

  Rose patted her mother’s bony shoulder.

  “Wet your whistles, boys,” said Thomas, dipping from the can. He handed each of them a cool cup of water. “Now, is there something I can help you fellows out with?”

  “Elder Vernon didn’t ask you the right question. We didn’t have luck telling people who we are right off the bat, so he thought he’d ask a question with a bigger scope is the way he put it.”

  “Bigger scope?”

  “Who put us on this land. What we are here to do. That sort of scope. Our job is reall
y just to see if you want to read The Book of Mormon and pray with us.”

  “Mormon!” Thomas stepped back. “Do you young fellows know Arthur V. Watkins?”

  “He’s a writer,” said Elnath, surprised. “He wrote The Nephite Shepherd.”

  “Is it a good book?” asked Thomas.

  “Goodness, yes! In the Awakening of Zemnarihah the shepherd learns he is part of a secret society. But there are setbacks because of the Lamanites who still atone for the sins of Laman with their swarthy hides.”

  “Watkins wrote that?”

  “I think he’s our senator,” said Vernon, the taller elder.

  “You’re from Utah.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why does he want to do away with us?”

  “He doesn’t want that!”

  “He wants to terminate us.”

  “No, not at all!” Elnath became passionate. “We are charged with bringing you the gospel! You’re all Lamanites.”

  “We’re Chippewas here, Crees, and some French.”

  “It was revealed,” said Vernon earnestly, “to Joseph Smith that you are people of the house of Jacob and children of Lehi.”

  “I’ve never heard of Joseph Smith, or those other people,” said Thomas.

  “Joseph Smith was a prophet.”

  “We get a lot of prophets coming around here,” said Thomas in a friendly way. “And I have a religion. I’m more interested in politics. Why is this senator after us? Who is he? What’s his message? Those are the things I want to know.”

  “Maybe you’d be interested in this.”

  Vernon reached into his paper sack and pulled out a small book with a black cover. He offered it to Thomas, who took it and thanked him. The young men finished drinking their water and Thomas walked them down the steps. He watched them as they disappeared down the road. They didn’t look alike anymore, but they walked in exactly the same straight line, full of mystifying purpose.

  The Beginning

  As he did at the change of every season, Thomas gave his father a pinch of tobacco and asked for the story of his name. This story tied them together as Thomas was named after his grandfather, whose name had become the family surname. The original and real Wazhashk was a little muskrat.

  “In the beginning,” said Biboon, “the world was covered with water. The Creator lined up the animals who were the best divers. First the Creator sent down Fisher, the strongest. But Fisher came up gasping, couldn’t find the bottom. Next Mang, the loon, ducked under the way they do.”

  Biboon curved his hand. “Loon tried. But failed.” Thomas nodded in appreciation, loving the gestures he remembered from childhood.

  “The Hell-diver flashed into the water, bragging it would succeed. That Hell-diver pulled itself deep down, and down. But no!”

  Biboon waited, took in a deep breath.

  “Last the humble water rat. The Creator called on that one. Wazhashk. The little fellow dived down. He took a long time, a very long time, and then finally Wazhashk floated to the top. He was drowned but his paw was clenched. The Creator unfolded Wazhashk’s webbed hands. He saw that the muskrat had carried up just a little off the bottom. From that tiny paw’s grip of dirt, the Creator made the whole earth.”

  “Mii’iw. That’s it,” said Biboon.

  They were sitting outside. Biboon stared at the bright popple leaves, trembling and flashing as they swirled thickly off the branches. Once, the wild prairies had been littered with bones. Bones thick and white as far as he could see. He’d gathered and hauled the buffalo bones with his father. Eight dollars a ton down at the railroad yard in Devils Lake. His family had all dived to the bottom to scrape up dirt. But now his son was sitting with him. Their chairs tipped back against the whitewashed wall of old logs. The sun struck Biboon’s face, no warmth to the light, a sign his own namesake was just over the horizon.

  “I’m an old pinto pony, scrawny and always hungry. This winter might do me in,” he said. His voice was light, amused.

  “No,” said Thomas. “You have to stick around here, Daddy.”

  “I’m a weight around your necks,” said Biboon.

  “Don’t say that. We need you.”

  “I can’t even dig a potato! Yesterday I fell over.”

  “I’m sending Wade down to stay with you. We need you, like I said. This thing that’s coming at us from Washington. I need you to help me fight it.”

  “Oh, fine,” said Biboon, putting up his fists.

  The Temple Beggar

  After she’d locked herself into her room, Patrice stripped and looked at herself in the mirror. She was not imagining it. A subtle but undeniable blueness was seeping into her. She touched her streaked belly. Her armpits ached and stung. A smell clung to her skin—the chemical perfume of the pest-killing powder that she’d dusted into the ox costume. She stared hard at herself. Was this really Patrice? Or was this itchy blue woman who’d just pretended to be a watery sexpot her other self? Pixie. Definitely Pixie. But she would leave that girl behind starting now.

  Patrice put her bra back on, and packed it with money. She reached into her satchel. Her arm was weak. She was suddenly, alarmingly, so exhausted she could barely move. She managed to pack her bag and lay out the clothing she would wear. Then she shut off the light and rolled beneath the ribbon-trimmed red blanket. As she was falling asleep, she directed her body to exit sleep in a couple of hours. She told herself to remember exactly where she was when she woke up. There would be total darkness. She must escape without turning on a light that might bleed out under the door. She would have to rely on the fact that Freckle Face needed sleep, too.

  She did wake. Fire was flowing down her legs. It shocked her, but she didn’t cry out. By the feel of the air, she knew it was only a few hours into the deepest night. She rose, alert, found her bag, her shoes, her coat. The money was still wadded between her breasts in the little bra pocket. She sat on her bed, invisible, and went through the instructions she had given herself before sleep. When she was satisfied that she had followed each directive, she sneaked to the door.

  She used the key, slipped the bolt, eased the door open. It was silent on its oiled hinges. She stepped forward and there was Jack, sitting on the floor directly across from her.

  Jack’s legs were stretched straight out, ankles elegantly crossed. His suit jacket was folded neatly beside him. Oiled strings of hair hung to his chin. The skin of his face was rippling like water. Expressions flowed across his features, a swift array shifting from surprise to joy to horror. He tried to lock his muddy yellow irises on her, but his eyes rolled back like the tiny windows in a slot machine. With his gilded skin and golden orbs, with his shirtsleeve rolled up and his hands open in supplication, he was a picture she’d seen somewhere, maybe in a magazine. A beggar at the door of some temple. She put her hand out and tucked the strings of hair behind his ears.

  “Jack?”

  He smiled at her like a child, face clear, then his eyes rolled back again. She slipped away, down the back stairs, out through the kitchen into the back alley. A man at the end of the passageway rummaged through garbage cans. He didn’t notice as she walked by and turned down the street to find the Josen House. The wind was brisk, the temperature dropping. She went into the hotel, stepping over the bodies of men who had paid their dimes to sleep in the entry. There was nobody at the window, so she walked up three flights of stairs. 328 was at the hallway’s far end. The hall was filled with the sounds of sleepers muttering, gasping, shifting, snoring, and the patter of rats across the metal mesh of the ceilings. The wind came through the cracked windows, cheeping and chattering. Occasionally, a rippling growl of thunder. At the end of the noisy hall, she tapped on the door. She heard him leave his bed and the door opened.

  “Pixie.”

  He dragged her inside. She dropped her satchel on the floor. There was a window in the room. A low radiance from the lamps and signs below. She could see that his lip was swollen, his face cut. Her skin still burned, but her m
ind was icy clear. All that happened was now in focus and each incident stood out sharply in her thoughts. She sat down on his bed. He spread his jacket out and crouched on the floor. They began to whisper.

  “I know, know, they took her,” said Patrice. “Took Vera.”

  “She could be dead,” said Wood Mountain, less gently than he meant to speak, but she shook her head.

  “No, she’s not. They took her someplace.”

  “I said I’d go back for the baby.”

  “Let’s get her . . . him.”

  “Him.”

  “Then let’s get out of here.”

  “We should sleep a couple hours. If we show up at Bernadette’s now we could get ourselves killed. You take the bed. I’m good here on the floor.”

  She gave him the stiff-with-dirt blanket and covered herself with her coat. She breathed herself into a trance. As they slept, deeply, the wind rose and by morning a cold rain smashed against the window. Patrice woke lying on her side, and looked out at the gray field of sky. The hotel walls were made of cardboard, plywood, and pliable tin that shook stormily. She realized that what had registered earlier as thunder was the sound of men moving about in their rooms. Occasionally someone fell against a wall and a crashing boom reverberated down the hall. Wood Mountain lay sprawled on the floor. She thought of Jack’s eyes of ancient gold. An inch above Wood Mountain’s head, copper-colored water bugs darted and shifted, sensitive beings that froze at the sounds of false thunder. As the vibrations fell away, they began again their earnest travels.

  “Everett Blue,” she said, and the insects scattered. He put his hands on his face before he opened his eyes, and mumbled, “They been after me all night.”

  “We have to go to Bernadette’s now. And I have to use the . . .”

  “Outhouse,” he said. “You’ll wish it was an outhouse. I’ll go with you and guard the door.”

  A few minutes later, they left through the back entrance. Halfway down the alley, Wood Mountain stepped over what looked like a pile of clothes. Patrice recognized the pile as Jack. She bent over him, put her fingers to his throat.