Chasing Painted Horses

by Drew Hayden Taylor

  Saying her children were pleased would be an understatement.

  “Really!” Shelley knew Marilyn. Shelley’s good friend Vanessa was her daughter. Though both girls thought the woman’s clothes were a little out of fashion and she needed a better haircut, this was definitely a step in a more proactive direction. “Are you gonna phone? Like now?”

  More an observer of the story than a participant, Tye contributed his own curiosity to the conversation. “Yeah, you gonna?”

  Standing up from the corner of the bed, Liz appeared obviously more fortified. There was a direction to move, and she was the one everybody expected to do the moving. “This is important. This needs a personal touch. I’m gonna go see her.”

  Both kids, considering themselves way too old to jump up and down in happiness, merely smiled and cheered. But deep inside, they were indeed doing handstands and somersaults.

  “Uh, Liz, it is a Saturday, you know. I think she’s off the clock.”

  Walking out the door, Liz dismissed her husband’s concern. “Child welfare workers are never off the clock.” Tye heard his wife’s voice say, as she walked down the hallway, “I assume you can finish packing by yourself.”

  The kids raced after their hero, leaving Tye behind, an unpaired sock in each hand.

  “No problem.”

  Downstairs, Liz got on her coat and shoes. It was the second time that day that Liz had suited up for battle. Hopefully this time there would be a victory involved.

  Her children started to don their winter attire, but Liz stopped them.

  “No. I should do this alone. You two stay here.”

  Almost in unison, both kids said, “But we can help!”

  “Ah, that’s so sweet that you think you have a say in this. We’ll talk when I get back. Stay here. Look, there’s some soup on the stove, and feel free to make yourself some toast or a sandwich if you get hungry.”

  “Uh-huh.” The two high-fived each other. For all their mother’s embarrassing faults, the Thomas siblings knew she would ride to the rescue. That’s what mothers were supposed to do — except for those like Hazel Gaadaw.

  Buttoning up her coat, Liz kissed her children goodbye and promptly left the house. With a determined stride, she walked out to the road, down four houses, and then up Marilyn’s driveway. It was one of the benefits of living in a small reserve. Glued to the window, they watched every step their mother took until she disappeared from their sight.

  “I’ve gotta phone William, let him know.”

  Oddly enough, Shelley didn’t say anything snarky.

  When Ralph called him, William seemed quite delighted. He hadn’t been able to think about much else since he’d returned home. Sitting in his room, he’d occasionally looked out the window towards the trailer park. Once his mother had looked in to see if he was feeling better. A sedate and solemn William was an unusual event, enough to warrant investigation. After some parental interrogation, William was allowed to be introspective.

  On the desk in front of him was a blank piece of paper. Beside it, a pencil. A seemingly innocuous pair of inanimate objects. For a second, the boy’s fingers pushed the pencil back and forth on the desk, wondering why he was doing this. Then, in a burst of conviction, William sat in the chair. Pencil in hand, paper in front of him, he tried to remember what Danielle had said about the Horse and how it came to her. What had she said? She … called … it. William wondered, just how was he supposed to call an imaginary horse? His mind wrestled with the concept. Maybe he was thinking about the question wrong. “Too literally” was how one of his teachers would put it. A person usually called something when they wanted it. So, maybe, if he wanted something, something good and amazing, and just somehow put it out to the universe, something might happen. It sounded silly when he thought of it that way, but he’d seen it work. Really work. Danielle’s Horse was the proof.

  Instinctively he knew he couldn’t, shouldn’t, call on the Horse. He was hers, and William had no right to try. But there must be something. For the next hour, he tried. Dogs. Cats. Motorcycles. Cars. Boats. A multitude of different things, using up a fair stack of white paper. All were well drawn and showed imagination — William had always been a good artist — but nothing really leaped off the page and into the world around him as he’d seen happen with Danielle and the Everything Wall. Whatever he was looking for wasn’t there.

  Though only ten, William had been slowly developing an interest in drawing. He was experiencing just an inkling, a tiny seed of awareness: there was to be more art somehow down his youthful road. He knew there were real artists out there, even a lot of successful Native ones. His siblings would, of course, ridicule him for such a thing, but that would be a battle for later years. At the moment, he was desperately trying to find his Horse. Maybe his Horse was deaf.

  If it was okay with Danielle, maybe he could ask her about how she was able to draw like that. Maybe she could teach him, but only if she wanted to.

  WHEN LIZ GOT home, Shelley and Ralph were on her like she was carrying an armful of freshly baked pies. Even a curious Tye came down the stairs. “Well?” they all asked in one manner or another.

  “She’s gonna look into it.”

  All three of them looked at each other, but it was Tye who spoke. “She’s gonna look into it? What does that mean?”

  Liz took her coat and boots off, showing an unusual amount of weariness. “It means she’s gonna look into it. That’s all she can do. Hazel and Danielle have been on her radar for some time. So, she’s gonna look into it. She’ll keep us posted.”

  Tye hung his wife’s coat up. “I thought all this stuff was private, confidential.”

  “Yeah, you’d think so, huh? I need a tea.”

  Without saying much more, Liz went about making herself some tea. She didn’t ask her husband or her children if they wanted any. This one time, this moment and this tea was to be hers entirely.

  WILLIAM RAN UP to the siblings as they walked to school. “Hey. Anything happen with Marilyn and your mother? About Danielle?”

  Ralph shook his head. “Not really, but she was there for about two hours. You know adults, there’s a … what was the word Mom used, Shelley?”

  “Protocol.”

  For a second, William’s consciousness focused on that word. It didn’t sound like a good word. “What the heck does that mean?” There were some words the boy instinctively had a dislike for. The way the syllables of those words were strung together were unpleasant to his ears. He reacted to the sound of words as much as what they meant, and this generated his overly negative response. Protocol was such an uncomfortable word for William, as were such equally distasteful things as yogurt, caterpillars, and people who smile with their lips parted, showing their teeth.

  Shelley listened to William’s questions, equally disliking the word protocol — along with shrimp, snakes, and people who are too touchy. “She says there’s a process for dealing with things like this. There are things to do. Doors and hoops, stuff like that. She told us it takes time.”

  William, another Otter Lake individual cut from the same black and white cloth as Tye, mumbled aloud, “So nothing then? That sucks.”

  Ralph shook his head. “Not right now. Luckily, Marilyn had heard stories about Hazel Gaadaw and that guy who lives there, and what kind of shape the trailer is in. She said she’s gonna look into it today.”

  “Look into it?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “Well, I guess that’s better than not looking into it.” William made the choice to be pleased at the outcome. “All right.”

  They continued their walk to school, their camaraderie re-established, with the added bonus of their joint interests making Shelley a little less critical of William. Casually, William picked up a chunk of hard snow and threw it against an aged oak tree, where he watched it dissolve. Ralph followed his lead
but missed, his snowball falling into a bush at the side of the road.

  “So, what did you do last night?” Shelley seemed oddly uninterested in tossing portions of snow at flora.

  William searched for another chunk of suitable snow. “I tried to draw.”

  “You always draw.” Ralph tossed him a good-sized, apple-shaped piece of ice.

  “I tried to do that Danielle thing,” William said.

  This caught both Ralph’s and Shelley’s attention.

  Shelley spoke first. “Did you draw the Horse?”

  That got a very emphatic response. “No way. That thing scares me. No, I just tried to, I forget how she put it, but I wanted something really good. Really impressive.”

  Ralph spoke. “And?”

  Without looking at either of them, William shook his head. “Nope. What about you guys? I mean, have you ever tried?”

  Looking down at the snow, Ralph shook his head. “I was never good at art to begin with. I don’t need to prove that.”

  Shelley’s eyes were on the school in the distance. “Almost. A couple days ago, I was looking at the Horse. And I wanted something of my own. But I couldn’t.” They were all quiet as they walked the rest of the way.

  As they crossed into school territory, skirting past the parking lot where Ralph and Danielle had had their first run-in a scant three weeks or so ago, Shelley caught William’s eye. “William, I’m a little confused. Last week … you hated Danielle.”

  Immediately, the boy looked down to the dirty snow under their feet. “No. I don’t hate her. Not anymore. I just … I don’t know. Just never mind.” An uncomfortable silence descended on them as they crossed the playground. It was there that Shelley saw a lone little figure walking up the road coming from the trailer park, slowly making her way to the school.

  “I think …” Shelley then started shouting, “Danielle! Hey! Danielle!” Both boys pivoted in the direction of Shelley’s gaze. They saw the little figure start running towards them. William actually smiled as Ralph spoke.

  “Looks like she’s going to school today.”

  “Yeah. Look at her run,” commented Shelley. Out of breath, Danielle practically ran into Shelley’s arms with a thud, knocking her back a foot. It was an interaction worthy of William’s physicality, but for a far different reason.

  “Hi,” was all she said. They assumed that’s what she said, as it was difficult to hear her with her face buried in the bigger girl’s coat. Shelley hugged her back. Still feeling a bit sheepish over his earlier treatment of the little girl, William stepped back for fear of spooking her again. Reluctantly emerging from Shelley’s arms, Danielle then hugged Ralph and even managed a small smile for William, who felt a genuine glow inside, though he was unsure why. And he didn’t care. As the school bell rang, signalling another day of education, all four finished their walk to the school entrance.

  During the rest of the day, Danielle spent both recesses and the lunch hour with the three of them. At one point, Julia and Vanessa came up to Shelley to invite her to participate in some recess activity. The Thomas girl begged off, astounding everybody, saying she was busy. Even William struggled to be friendly in his own way; discovering that Danielle had a lone bag of chips for lunch, once again he magnanimously gave her one of his sandwiches. It was ham and cheese on brown with lots of mustard. He also gave her half his orange. Danielle really liked it, and William was pleased. By the end of the day, Danielle ended up hugging him goodbye after they all walked her to Twin Pine Lane, where, as usual, she demanded they leave her. Waving enthusiastically, Danielle disappeared down her street, leaving the three friends to think about their day.

  “Well, that was a good day,” summed up Shelley. The boys heartily agreed.

  Though it was a cold day, they all felt comfortably warm as they made their way to the Thomas home. Equilibrium had been restored in their lives, in their homes, and on the Otter Lake reserve.

  Walking up the driveway, they saw Liz in the big bay window, looking out at them. They all immediately had the same idea and went racing in, hoping there was good news on the other side of that glass window.

  The first words out of Liz Thomas’s mouth were, “There’s nothing Marilyn can do.”

  Simultaneously, all three of the kids’ hearts sank. “She went over and interviewed Hazel and Arthur — that’s her boyfriend’s name — but —”

  “Couldn’t she see —” argued Shelley.

  “Listen to me. Yes, she saw everything. But the Children’s Aid Society can’t just yank every kid who lives in poverty away from their families. It wouldn’t be right to the parents. The way the cas official policy puts it, you can’t fault a family for not giving a child what they don’t have. It’s not deliberate neglect.”

  Shelley wasn’t buying this. “It’s not just because they’re poor. They told Danielle that she was a bad girl and that’s why Santa didn’t bring her any presents. I don’t care how poor you are, that’s not right. And they drink —”

  “No, it isn’t right, and I told Marilyn that. She promised me she’d help them with stuff.”

  “What stuff?” Now it was Ralph’s turn to question authority.

  “Marilyn said she’d help them with social assistance and counselling.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I’m afraid so. cas policy is to try and keep families together as much as possible.”

  Admittedly, this was a far cry from the CAS of Liz’s parents’ and grandparents’ time, but supposedly society marches forward. The arc of justice and all that. But one thing was for sure: at some point in their development, children begin to become disillusioned with the adults around them. Monsters under the bed and Santa coming down a non-existent chimney get replaced by different kinds of monsters and shopping mall Santa Clauses. Children’s loss of belief usually begins around the ages of ten or twelve, but not with a loss of faith in government agencies.

  “I’m sorry.” And Liz truly was.

  The problem with children is they often can’t see beyond their own disappointment. The problem with parents is they often take on their children’s disappointments and magnify them under their adult lens. This was a situation where truly nobody was happy. Even William, deep in his own funk, went home early.

  LATER, AS HE was preparing to go to bed for the night, Tye, who was the most distantly touched by what was going on under his roof, felt the pangs of impotency. Originally he had had no interest in having another child in his house, they both had long ago accepted that, but under the circumstances, if everything he had been told was true — and he believed his family wholeheartedly — he’d be the new villain in this scenario if he chose not to take Danielle in. More importantly, he would feel that about himself.

  “And that’s where Marilyn is gonna leave things? I don’t think I like that.”

  Brushing her hair, Liz concurred. “I absolutely do not like it, either. I don’t like it so much, it almost burns.”

  “You know, I’ve met that Arthur guy once or twice.”

  “You have? Where? I can’t imagine you wandering around in the same social circles.”

  “At the bar in Bayfield.”

  “I stand corrected. And …”

  Tye pulled back the sheets on the bed and crawled in. “I haven’t seen him there in a while. He was barred.”

  “Barred from the bar. Even better.” Liz put her brush down and looked into the mirror. She saw herself. She also saw the woman she used to be, as well as the woman she one day wanted to be. But, most of all, she saw what she wasn’t: a woman with the power to fix this situation.

  “The kids are really disappointed in us. I’m disappointed in us.” Her eyes could not leave her mirrored reflection. Maybe on that side of the mirror, she could have been more effective.

  Had this all started with the Horse? Or had it all started with the Everything W
all? It had been such a good idea. And look what it had caused. Part of her, on this side of the mirror, wished she’d not created the Everything Wall. Nothing would have changed. Would that have been better? It is often said that ignorance is bliss. Would she, Liz Thomas, have been happier not knowing about Danielle and the awful living conditions she herself had seen? After everything — the drawing, the children’s friendship — nothing on either side of the mirror would have changed. Was it wrong for her kids to get Danielle’s hopes up? To get their own hopes up? Only to have them come crashing down, a terrible lesson in the reality that not everyone grew up in happy homes. Maybe maintaining the status quo was the right path in life, a statement Liz never thought would enter her mind.

  But, on the other hand, maybe she was grossly misjudging Marilyn. After all, she was a professional. This was what Marilyn did for a living — and had been doing for a good seventeen years. This had to be the necessary step, the right one, a good one, the first in forward movement. She had the wisdom and knowledge of decades of CAS experience to back her up — again, another sentence Liz had never thought would enter her consciousness. Marilyn did say she was going to do what she could, that she was going to help.

  Help is always good.

  It has to be.

  “What are you thinking?” asked her husband, noting the silence.

  “Nothing I’m sure you haven’t thought.” Later, after a bad night’s sleep, in the early hours of the morning, while the house slept, however restlessly, Liz descended the stairs to the kitchen. To the Everything Wall. As silently as possible, she poured herself a bucket of warm, soapy water. The Horse watched her as she stood before it: It seemed to know, and to acknowledge, that it was to be the object of artistic euthanasia. Swipe by soapy swipe, the Horse left the Thomas home.

  “I’m so sorry,” Liz said. As she spoke the apology, she wasn’t sure if she was addressing the Horse as she made it disappear or if she was addressing herself. About an hour before dawn, the kitchen was pristine and ready to face the new day. Both the Horse and the Everything Wall had been retired.