The Round House

by Louise Erdrich

  Grace Lark claimed that an illness contracted after Linda underwent a difficult medical procedure left Linda severely depressed and mentally confused. Grace Lark openly stated that she was interested in developing the 160 acres that she claimed had been left to Linda after her adoptive parents’ death.

  The last paragraph was handwritten, an aside for my father’s eyes only.

  As Linda is non-Indian by blood, as there is no legal evidence that the Wishkobs formally adopted Linda, as Grace Lark made no attempt to contact the other three inheriting children involved, and as, moreover, Linda Lark Wishkob, in the opinion of the court, was not only mentally competent but more sane than many who have come before this court, including her biological mother, this case was dismissed with prejudice.

  Strange, I said.

  It gets stranger, said my father.

  How can it?

  What you see is only the tip of a psychodrama that for some years consumed both the Larks, who gave their child up, and the Wishkobs, who in their kindness rescued and raised Linda. When the Wishkob children caught wind of the action, a clumsy, greedy, mean-minded attempt to raid and profit from an inheritance that never was, and land that never could be passed out of tribal ownership, they were furious. Linda’s older sister by adoption, Sheryl, took direct action and organized a boycott of Lark’s gas station. Not only that, she helped Whitey apply for a business grant. Everybody goes to Whitey’s now. Whitey and Sonja have put the Larks out of business. During this time, Mrs. Lark’s son, Linden, lost his job in South Dakota and returned to help his mother run the failing enterprise. She died of a sudden aneurysm. He blames the Wishkobs, his sister, Linda, Whitey and Sonja, and the judge in this case, me, for her death and his near bankruptcy, which seems now inevitable.

  My father frowned at the files, passed his hand over his face.

  I saw him in the courtroom. People say he’s quite a talker, a real charmer. But he didn’t say a word during the trial.

  Could he be the . . . ? I asked.

  Attacker, I don’t know. He’s troubling for sure. After his mother died, he got into politics for a while. During the trial, he probably became unpleasantly aware of the jurisdiction issues on and surrounding the reservation. He wrote a crank letter to the Fargo Forum. Opichi clipped it. I remember it was full of the usual—let’s dissolve reservations; he used that old redneck line, “We beat them fair and square.” They never get that reservations exist because our ancestors signed legal transactions. But something must have sunk in because, next I heard, Linden was raising money for Curtis Yeltow, who was running for governor of South Dakota and shared his views. I’ve also heard—through Opichi, of course—that Linden is involved in a local chapter of Posse Comitatus. That group believes the powers of the highest elected official of government should reside with the local sheriff. Lark lives in his mother’s house, last I heard. He lives very quietly and goes away a lot. Down to South Dakota, it’s supposed. He’s become secretive. Opichi says a woman is involved, but she’s only been seen a few times. He comes and goes at odd hours, but so far, no sign he’s dealing drugs or in any way breaking the law. I do know that the mother had a way of inciting emotional violence. Other people absorbed her anger. She was a frail-looking little old white lady. But her sense of entitlement was compelling. She was venomous. Maybe Lark moved on, or maybe he absorbed her poison.

  My father went out to the kitchen to fill his mug. I stared at the files. Perhaps it was then that I noticed that every one of my father’s actual published opinions was signed with a fountain pen, the ink a lyric shade of indigo. His handwriting was meticulous, almost Victorian, that spidery style of another age. I’ve learned since that there are two things about judges. They all have dogs, and they all have some special quirk to make them memorable. Thus, I think, the fountain pen, even though at home my father used a ballpoint. I opened the last file on the desk and began reading it.

  September 1, 1974

  Francis Whiteboy, Plaintiff

  v.

  Asiginak, Tribal Police, and Vince Madwesin, Defendants

  William Sterne, Attorney for the appellant, and Johanna Coeur de Bois, Attorney for the respondents.

  On August 13, 1973, a Shaking Tent ceremony was conducted at the old round house just north of Reservation Lake. The Shaking Tent is one of the most sacred of Ojibwe ceremonies, and will not be described here except to say that the ceremony served to heal petitioners and to answer spiritual questions.

  That night there were over a hundred people in attendance, several of whom, at the edge of the crowd, were drinking. One of those who were drinking was Horace Whiteboy, brother of Francis, the appellant in this case. The leader of the ceremony, Asiginak, had asked Vince Madwesin of the local tribal police to act as security for the ceremony. Vince Madwesin asked Horace Whiteboy and the others who were drinking to leave the premises.

  It is culturally unacceptable, even offensive, to drink at a Shaking Tent ceremony, and Madwesin behaved appropriately in asking the drinkers to leave. Several of the drinkers, realizing they were in gross breach of sacred etiquette, did leave the grounds. Horace Whiteboy was seen to stumble away from the ceremony with those drinkers, down the road. However, as affirmed by several witnesses, the spirit in the tent inhabited by Asiginak warned those listening that Horace Whiteboy was in danger.

  Horace Whiteboy was found dead on the afternoon following the ceremony. Having apparently left the group of drinkers on the road, he had turned around and attempted to return to the round house. At the bottom of the hill, he apparently decided to lie down. He was found beneath some low bushes, lying on his back, and had choked to death on his own vomit.

  Francis Whiteboy, brother of Horace, charges negligence in the actions of Asiginak (who was in the tent and had knowledge from the spirits that his brother was in trouble) and Vince Madwesin (who was off-duty in his capacity as security and not paid).

  The court found that Asiginak’s only responsibility was to allow the spirits to voice, through his presence, what they knew. This responsibility was carried out.

  Vince Madwesin’s actions to guarantee the security of the Shaking Tent ceremony were appropriate and as he was off-duty and unpaid this case cannot be brought against the tribal police. Madwesin’s responsibility was to make certain that inebriates were warned away. He was not responsible for the actions of the drinkers.

  An individual who drinks himself into a state of stuporous sickness runs the risk of succumbing to accidental death. The death Horace Whiteboy suffered, though tragic, was the outcome of his own actions. While compassion for alcoholics should be the rule, caring for them as one must care for children is not the law. Horace Whiteboy’s behavior resulted in his death and his own decisions guided his fate.

  The court ruled in favor of the defendants.

  Why this one? I asked, when my father returned.

  It was late. My father sat down, took a sip of coffee, removed his reading glasses. He rubbed his eyes, and perhaps in his exhaustion spoke without thinking.

  Because of the round house, he said.

  The old round house? Did it happen there?

  He did not answer.

  What happened to Mom, did it happen there?

  Again, no answer.

  He shuffled away the papers, stood up. The light caught the lines in his face and they deepened to cracks. He looked a thousand years old.

  Chapter Four

  Loud as a Whisper

  Cappy was a skinny guy with big hands and scarred-up, knobby feet, but he had bold cheekbones, a straight nose, big white teeth, and lank, shiny hair hanging down over one brown eye. Melting brown eye. The girls loved Cappy, even though his cheeks and chin were always scraped and he had a gap in one eyebrow where his forehead had been opened by a rock. His bike was a rusted blue ten-speed Doe had picked up at the mission. Because their house rattled with tools on every surface, Cappy kept it halfway fixed. Still, only first gear worked. And the hand brakes gave out unexpectedly.
So when Cappy rode you’d see a spidery kid pedaling so fast his legs blurred and from time to time dragging his feet to stop or, if that didn’t work, throwing himself suicidally over the crossbar. Angus had a beat-up pink BMX that he meant to paint before he realized the color kept it from getting stolen. Zack’s bike was new, and a cool black, because his dad brought it after he had not shown up for two years. Since we couldn’t drive legally (although of course we drove whenever we could), the bikes gave us freedom. We didn’t have to rely on Elwin or on Whitey’s horses, though we did ride the horses, too, when we could. We didn’t have to ask Doe or Zack’s mom for a ride, which was good on the morning after school let out because they wouldn’t have taken us where we wanted to go.

  Zack had confirmed, from listening in on his stepfather’s burping police radio (he did this constantly), where the crime against my mother had taken place. It was the round house. A two-track bush road led to the old log round house on the far side of Reservation Lake. Early that morning, I got up and stepped quietly into my clothes. I slipped downstairs and let Pearl out. Together, we peed outside, in the back bushes. I didn’t want to flush the noisy inside toilet. I sneaked back in, barely opening the screen door so it wouldn’t whine, easing it slow so it wouldn’t whap shut. Pearl entered with me and watched silently as I filled a bag with peanut butter sandwiches. I put them in my pack together with a jar of my mother’s canned dill pickles and a water jug. I had agreed to write a note to tell my dad where I was—all summer, he made me swear. I wrote the word LAKE on the legal pad he’d left for me on the counter. I tore off half a sheet and wrote another note that I stuck in my pocket. I put my hand on Pearl’s head and looked into her pale eyes.

  Guard Mom, I said.

  Cappy, Zack, and Angus were supposed to meet me in a couple of hours at a stump we used—just off the highway, across the ditch. There, I left the other note, telling them I’d gone ahead. I had planned this because I wanted to be alone at the round house when I first got there.

  It was a lofty June morning. The dew was still cold on the wild rose and sage in last fall’s mowed stubble, but I could tell that by afternoon it would be hot. Hot and clear. There would be ticks. Hardly anyone was out this early. Only two cars passed me on the highway. I turned off onto Mashkeeg Road, which was gravel, enclosed by trees, running partway around the lake. There were houses by the lake, screened by bush. An occasional dog popped up but I was pedaling fast and I came and went so quickly through their territories that few barked and none followed me. Even a tick, spinning through the air off a tree, hit my arm and could barely cling. I flicked him off and pedaled even faster until I reached the narrow road that led to the round house. It was still blocked by construction cones and painted oil drums. I guessed that was the work of the police. I walked my bike, looking carefully at the ground and beneath the leaves of the bushes along the way. The area had leafed in thickly during the past weeks. I was looking for anything that other eyes might have missed, as in one of Whitey’s crime novels. I didn’t see a thing out of place, though, or rather, since it was the woods and everything was out of place and wild, I didn’t see a thing in place. A neatened area. Something that did not look or feel right. An empty jar, a bottle cap, a blackened match. This place had been minutely combed clean of what didn’t belong already and I reached the clearing where the round house was set without finding anything of interest or use.

  The grass had not been mowed yet, but the area where cars parked was covered with scrubby little plants. Horses had pulled all the good plants up by the roots and now tense little weeds rasped beneath the tires of my bike. The log hexagon was set up on top of a slight rise, and surrounded by rich grass, vivid green, long and thick. I dropped my bike. There was a moment of intense quiet. Then a low moan of air passed through the cracks in the silvery logs of the round house. I started with emotion. The grieving cry seemed emitted by the structure itself. The sound filled me and flooded me. Finally, it ceased. I decided to go forward. As I climbed the hill, a breeze raised hairs on the back of my neck. But when I reached the round house, the sun fell like a warm hand on my shoulders. The place seemed peaceful. There was no door. There had been one, but the big plank rectangle was now wrenched off and thrown to the side. The grass was already growing through the cracks between the boards. I stood in the doorway. Inside, it was dim although four small busted-out windows opened in each direction. The floor was tidy—no empties or papers or blankets. All had been picked up by the police. I caught the faint odor of gasoline.

  During the old days when Indians could not practice their religion—well, actually not such old days: pre-1978—the round house had been used for ceremonies. People pretended it was a social dance hall or brought their Bibles for gatherings. In those days the headlights of the priest’s car coming down the long road glared in the southern window. By the time the priest or the BIA superintendent arrived, the water drums and eagle feathers and the medicine bags and birchbark scrolls and sacred pipes were in a couple of motorboats halfway across the lake. The Bible was out and people were reading aloud from Ecclesiastes. Why that part of the Bible? I’d once asked Mooshum. Chapter 1, verse 4, he said. One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever. We think that way too. Sometimes we square-danced, said Mooshum, our highest Mide’ priest was a damn fine caller.

  There was one old Catholic priest who used to sit down with the medicine people. Father Damien had sent home the superintendent. Then the water drums and feathers and pipes had returned. The old priest had learned the songs. No priest knew those songs now.

  From Zack’s report of his stepdad’s radio conversation, and my father’s silence after he mentioned the round house, I knew the general location of the crime. But I didn’t know the exact whereness of it. At that moment, a certainty entered. I knew. He had attacked her here. The old ceremonial place had told me—cried out to me in my mother’s anguished voice, I now thought, and tears started into my eyes. I let them flood down my cheeks. Nobody was there to see me so I did not even wipe them away. I stood there in the shadowed doorway thinking with my tears. Yes, tears can be thoughts, why not?

  I concentrated on the escape itself, just as my father had described. Our car was parked at the base of the rise, just past a scraggle of bushes. Nobody would come up the road that way, anyway. There was a beach farther down that you could get to easier by a road along the lakeshore, around the other side. Of course the rapist—except I didn’t use that word: I used attacker—the attacker had bet on this lonely place remaining deserted. Which meant he had to have known something about the reservation, and meant more planning. People drank down on that beach at night, but to get there from the round house you had to cross a barbed-wire fence and then bushwhack. The attack had happened approximately where I was standing. He’d left her here, to get a new book of matches. I blocked out the thought of my mother’s terror and her scramble for the car. I imagined how far away the attacker had to have gone to fetch the matches, in order not to run back in time to catch her.

  My mother had gotten up and bolted through the doorway, down the hill to her car. Her attacker would have walked down the opposite side of the hill, to the north, not to have seen her. I walked the way he must have gone, through the grass to that barbed-wire fence. I lifted the top line and side-legged through. Another fence line led down through the heavy tangle of birch and popple to the lake. I followed that fence all the way down to the edge of the lake and then kept walking to the water.

  He must have had a stash somewhere or maybe another car—one parked near the beach. He’d gone back for more matches when his got wet. Probably, he was a smoker. He’d left behind extra matches or a lighter. He followed that fence down to the lake. He’d reached his stash. Heard the car door slam. Ran back up to the round house and after my mother. But too late. She’d managed to start the engine, stomp on the accelerator. She was gone.

  I continued walking, across the narrow sand beach, into the lake.
My heart was beating so hard as I followed the action in my understanding that I did not feel the water. I felt his overpowering frustration as he watched the car disappear. I saw him pick up the gas can and nearly throw it after the vanishing taillights. He ran forward, then back. Suddenly, he stopped, remembering his stuff, the car, whatever he did have, his smokes. And the can. He could not be caught with the can. However cold it was that May, the ice out but the water still freezing, he’d have to wade partway in and let water fill the can. And after that, as far out as possible, he had surely slung the water-filled tin and now, if I dived down and passed my hands along the muddy, weedy, silty, snail-rich bottom of the lake, there it would be.

  My friends found me sitting outside the door of the round house in full sun, still drying off, the gas can placed in the grass before me. I was glad when they came. I had now come to the understanding that my mother’s attacker had also tried to set her on fire. Although this fact had been made plain, or was at least implicit in Clemence’s reaction at the hospital and my father’s account of my mother’s escape, my understanding had resisted. With the gas can there before me, I began shaking so hard my teeth clacked. When I got upset like that, sometimes I puked. This hadn’t happened in the car, in the hospital, even reading to my mother. Maybe I was numbed. Now I felt what had happened to her in my gut. I dug a hole for the mess and covered it with a heap of dirt. I sat there, weak. When I heard the voices and bikes, the drag of Cappy’s braking feet, the shouts, I jumped up and started slapping at my arms. I couldn’t let them see me shaking like a girl. When they got to me I pretended it was the cold water. Angus said my lips were blue and offered me an unfiltered Camel.