“Back by the caboose.”
“Let’s mosie down there.”
They walked the long line of idle squared cars, the man pausing to write in his notebook at each, the Indian, hands in his pockets, kicking at the oil blackened rocks.
“This the one,” the man asked, closing his notebook with a slap at the last car.
“Looks like it,” the Indian nodded.
“Open her up then.”
The Indian pulled the heavy holding board out of its slot, then shoved at one of the two high doors, pushing it back along the creaking rollers; the hot air from inside the car rushed out through the black opening. The Indian stepped back, wiped the sweat off his forehead and waved the hot air away from his face.
“Well Cap’n, are they in there or ain’t they in there,” the man thumped the notebook against his leg as he strained to see into the black opening, not taking one step closer to it.
“It’s the one I put em in Mr. Dolay. I don’t see how they would of got out.”
“I can see em now Cap’n, somethin is movin in there anyways.”
Out of the black came a form, a woman, her face wet, her twisted, matted hair hanging over the forehead, to the sides, falling on the shoulders like strips of black knotted rags. She spoke. The words came up lightly from her throat, shaped and held in the air like cuts of crystal, she moved no further, as if afraid to destroy the words.
“What did she say Cap’n,” the man turned away from the woman, looked only at the Indian in front of him.
“She says they’re very happy the journey is over, it is long, it is hot, it is dry.”
“Ain’t that nice,” the man knocked a finger against the blue cap and grinned. “You speak to them and tell them that the Railroad is pleased they enjoyed the trip and that they have a friend in the Railroad and any time we can give em a ride to a place where the pigweed grows thick along the tracks and they can pick it we shore will.”
The Indian spoke to the woman and she disappeared back into the darkness; a man came out where the woman disappeared, he had a fur headpiece pulled over the top of his cropped black hair and only one arm, he slipped down out of the doorway and moved off through the cars, saying nothing to the other Indian. The woman reappeared, a child strapped to her back on a board crossed with leather, a basket in one arm, packed thick with weeds. Behind her, others came, all carrying the large baskets, little children with fat brown faces and frail old bright haired men. The Indian watched this silent procession from the black hole until the slowest had slid into the Sunlight and moved away.
“That about all of em Cap’n?” the man asked, staring at the hole as he impatiently rapped his fingers against the notebook.
“Should be, I’ll take a look.” The Indian jumped up through the black hole, the man could hear his footsteps, wooden, hollow, coming from within. “That’s it,” the Indian jumped back out into the light. “They’re all gone.”
“Shut er up.”
He slid the door back even with the other and lifted the board into place behind its slots.
“Make shore they all go home. The Comp’ny don’t like strange Indians hanging round the yard.” The man walked toward the caboose, then turned, the pages of the notebook fluttering under his thumb, “Come round tomorrow for a couple a bits and some whiskey for your trouble.”
The Indian watched the man move off, put his hands in his pockets and made his way across the rows of tracks, between and around the cars, heading from the town toward the river running at the bottom of the slope that angled away from the tracks. He passed the dump, saw the brownskinned women picking their way nimbly over the discarded trash of the town, he saw his mother, standing on one of the cluttered piles, a rag of bandanna tied on her face across the nose, digging in the waste. She did not notice him and he did not call, he moved noiselessly past, the sound from the Trains and town above was dying quickly as he neared the river, going through a stand of pines which hadn’t all been cut. There were houses about him now, strips of frayed canvas which had been begged or painstakingly saved from the dump, stretched over sturdy stick frames open to the Sky. He went beyond these, closer to the river where there was one shack built up out of broken crate boards from the railroad yard. He brushed back the flour sack covering the small opening on one side and entered his house. It was dark, there were no windows, he could see his brother sitting crosslegged on the dirt floor in the shadows of a corner, his shirt off, the stub of his arm sticking out from the shoulder, deep brown and twisted, like half a broken Bird’s wing. His brother said nothing. He could feel the eyes on him, searching around his face. He moved in the cool shadows, felt under the Rabbit blanket, the dayoliti, piled softly on the hard dirt, the blanket made by the hands of his grandfather, a Rabbit Boss, passed to his father. Gayabuc, who did not have it when they found him, his body frozen in the snow, a naked brown outline. Now it was his, the first born. He reached beneath its softness, felt the smoothed glass surface of a bottle, brought it out, yanked the cork from the neck with his teeth and took a drink that burned at his throat. Ahhhh, he let the sigh into the close room and rested against the rough boarded wall.
“Musege.”
The word floated in the air, seeking a way out of the tightness, hugging at the earthen floor, growing to fill the space.
“Musege!”
He could see the top half of his brother’s body move, jerk forward in its shadow, slinging the word out from between his lips like a stone.
“Musege, white beast, mad white beast, wild man!”
The words slashed up against him, against the wall behind; he took another drink.
“I spit on you Musege,” his brother’s head whipped, the wet white ball hissing across the room, striking the earth in front of his boots.
“Do you want a drink,” he stretched the bottle out in front of him.
Rabbit Boss Page 6