Five Little Indians

by Michelle Good

  Clara shrugged and winced. “How would I know?” She thought of Sister Mary and how she could never make her cry. She had survived Sister Mary. This asshole wouldn’t break her. “I can’t say I ever seen that car before.”

  “What happened to your arm, Clara? What was in the box?”

  “I told you, I don’t remember. Nothing. It’s all a blank.” The anger started rising in her, and just as she turned to tie into Agent Frank and his silent sidekick, George walked back into the room with a couple of soft drinks and a burger joint bag, grease already marring the logo.

  “What the heck is going on here?” He put the drinks by the bed and the bag on the windowsill. He stood between Clara and the officers, forcing them to take a step back. “Have you read her rights to her?”

  “Now look here, we just want to know if she might have some information that might be helpful. Lot of strange goings-on around here right now.”

  “No, you look here.” George wasn’t backing down. “You’re just trying to trick her into saying something that will hurt her.”

  “Now, why would you think that?” Agent Frank leaned in now. “You got something to hide? Don’t you want to figure out what happened to your friend here?”

  “She’s got nothing to say.”

  “Why don’t you let her talk for herself, boy?”

  “I told you already, I got nothing to say.” Clara smiled at Agent Frank, hoping he didn’t see her hands shaking.

  “Well, don’t go far, girl. We’ll be back.” Agent Frank and silent Agent Arlen turned on their heels like some kind of nasty ballet and sauntered out of the room.

  George grabbed Clara’s hand, both of them afraid to speak until the policemen’s steps faded at the other end of the hallway. Clara looked at him, desperate. “George, we gotta go.”

  “I should have never involved you in this.”

  “Cut it out. It was my choice.” She slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Still.” George looked like he was going to cry.

  “Enough! Just get me the hell out of here. Close that door and help me get dressed. Those guys will be back. Who knows, they might want to take me with them next time.”

  George helped her slip into her jeans and struggled to get her into her socks and shoes. They ripped the neck of her T-shirt wide open to get it over the big bandage and wrapped her coat around her like a cape, doing up the top button to keep it in place. George stuck his head out the door and looked both ways, then came back and helped Clara slide off the edge of the bed. He grabbed the burgers and took her by the hand. “Come on, there’s an exit door down this way. We don’t have to walk by the nurses’ station.”

  They crept down the hall, Clara’s shoulder throbbing, her knees weak beneath her. George left her outside the exit and ran around to the main parking lot to get his car. She heard him gun the engine and then he was there, leaning over, opening the passenger door and jumping out. He helped her into the car and closed the door before running back over to the driver’s side.

  Clara slid down into the seat below the window so it would look like George was alone in the car. “Don’t rev the engine. You’ll draw attention. Slowly, now, let’s go.”

  The car crept out of the parking lot and picked up a little speed on the main drag. George drove past the freeway entrance and chose the secondary highway back to Billings, just in case.

  Clara fell sound asleep not long after their escape from the Willow Flats hospital. She didn’t rouse once until they were pulling into the driveway at George and Vera’s place. John Lennon was already on it, running alongside the car on the passenger side barking his high-pitched joy sounds.

  “George, let me out! I need to see him.”

  “Wait, Clara. Let me park and help you. He will knock you over or bash that shoulder of yours.”

  For all his kindness, Clara couldn’t wait for George. She opened the door with her good arm, clambered out and hunkered down with her bad shoulder toward the car, protecting it a little from her big boy. John Lennon ran for her and rammed his nose under her good arm, his massive tail almost invisible, it was moving so fast. “You big beautiful beast you!” She rubbed his head and he backed up a little, the happy whimpers amping up into a big howl that needed some room. “George, if there ever was anyone who loved me, it’s this dog.” The tears fell. “I would not be alive without him.”

  “I know, Clara, I know.” George decided to break his cardinal rule of no dogs in the house. “Come on inside, Clara. Bring John Lennon. You need rest, and he will be howling for you all night if we try to keep him out here.”

  Vera was standing by the door, her arms wrapped around herself, eerie-looking in the yellow glow of the porch light. “Clara, thank God you’re okay. Come on in.”

  John Lennon and Clara squeezed through the doorway together, and Clara sat down at the kitchen table, exhausted, her shoulder throbbing.

  Vera hugged her gingerly. “Thank God you’re here. Every day we hoped you two would show up. Do you need anything? Hungry? Thirsty?”

  Clara smiled at her. “Yeah, some water would be good.”

  George poured himself a cup of coffee and joined Clara at the table with a sigh. Vera brought the water and the three of them and John Lennon sat there silently, not able to even look at each other. How could it have all gone so wrong? They sat, sipping, the wind in the pines the only sound. Finally, John Lennon huffed, freeing them from their despairing silence.

  Vera turned to Clara. “We’ve got to get you home, back across the border.”

  “Where’s my car?” John Lennon pricked his ears up at the sound of the word, game for another road trip. Clara put her hand on his head.

  “It’s in the old barn,” George said. “Vera’s brother has been working on it. But the FBI knows your car. You can’t take it back across the line. The FBI will be looking for you now.”

  “I’ll go through Saskatchewan instead of BC. The crossing at Climax is a one-man show. He’s asleep half the time and there is a way where the border passes through the rez about twenty miles from there. You have to drive through a pasture, but it gets you there.”

  Vera had that worried, motherly look that everyone loved about her. “But what about your arm? You need care.”

  “I’ll be okay. It’s only four and a half hours from Billings to Climax. You’ve got friends on the rez there, right? Could you call them? Maybe I could stay for a while, rest up a bit before I head back to BC.”

  “Well, I’m driving you to the border.” George gave Clara one of his my-way-or-the-highway looks. “Vera can follow and bring me back home. You’re still too weak to be driving that kind of distance, much less running the border.”

  Clara raised her good arm in protest, but Vera shook her head. “No, Clara, we won’t have it any other way. We got you into this. We’ll get you out.”

  A wave of fatigue washed over Clara and she knew they were right. Waiting for death, helpless and alone in the badlands, was not something easily left behind. “Okay. But I need to sleep now.”

  The next morning, Clara woke with a start, gripping her pillow as though it were the steering wheel, seeing herself careening into the ditch.

  “John Lennon!” He jumped up on the bed and lay next to her, calm and warm. The images passed and the tension eased. Her shoulder throbbed, but it was no longer the sharp, breathtaking pain of a couple of days ago. George and Vera were stirring in the next room. The sun poured in the east-facing window. Clara lay still, wondering what it might feel like to not be afraid all the time. John Lennon nuzzled her.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll let you out.” Clara slipped out of bed and into the robe Vera had left for her and went outside with him. She sat on the veranda and watched him sniffing and peeing and wandering. He kept looking back at Clara as though expecting her to disappear again. “John Lennon, you are the best dog ever.”

  Vera was rattling around in the kitchen and it wasn’t long before she joined Clara with a cup of coffee in each hand
. They sat sipping, watching the morning sunlight spread through the birch trees.

  Vera turned to Clara like she was reading her mind. “You’ll be okay, Clara.”

  “Yeah. One way or another.”

  They were on the road by noon, George driving Clara’s one-eyed Falcon and Vera bringing up the rear in their pickup. John Lennon snored in the back seat, satisfied, on the road again. They got to the tiny town of Turner, Montana, just before five. George pulled into the grocery store parking lot and waited for Vera to pull up beside him. Then he rolled down his window.

  “Hey, is Grimley’s Diner still open these days?” He squinted up at her in the truck.

  “I think so.”

  “Well, let’s go have a bite to eat there. Kill some time. Clara will have to wait till nightfall.”

  They sauntered into Grimley’s, the one restaurant in town that served Indians without making them pay up front, and slid into a red vinyl booth at the back. George immediately started flipping the pages of the mini table jukebox and dumped in enough quarters to serenade them during their meal.

  The waitress, the deeper side of forty, with the most impressive beehive hairdo ever, smiled through her busy gum-chewing and tapped her pencil on her order pad. “We got a soup-san special on the back of the menu there for one seventy-five and we got Salisbury steak as the hot special with soup for two ninety-nine. What’ll it be, kids?”

  Vera smiled and for no reason they all burst out laughing. The waitress scratched her head with her pencil and laughed too. “Just one of those days, huh?”

  Clara nodded. “You sure got that right. I’ll have a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake.”

  Vera could hardly stop laughing. “He’ll have the hot special and I’ll have the soup and sandwich, and bring us a couple of colas.”

  “Okay, kids, I’ll be right back, and do you mind me askin’ what the heck happened to your arm? That bandage is almost bigger than you are.”

  “Oh, I just had to have an operation. Nothin’ special.”

  “Well, I hope it’s better soon.” The waitress walked off and called out their orders to the cook, never knowing what good medicine her beehive had been for them.

  They lingered there, sipping coffee, waiting for darkness. The waitress must have brought them four refills before they finally figured they’d better leave or they’d wear out their welcome. George left her a two-dollar tip and she smiled her thanks to them through the window as they walked back to the car.

  George handed Clara the car keys and she let John Lennon out for a quick romp. He looked at her, clearly a little pissed that she’d left him for so long. “Calm yourself, boy. All is well.”

  “Okay, Clara, we’re going to head back. Find yourself someplace to park and play with John Lennon until it’s dark. You never know if someone’s watching for your plates. Best be sure the border crossing is closed and the agent has gone home before you start.”

  “Yeah, I will, George.” Clara reached over and gave him a one-armed squeeze and stepped back. “Don’t worry, we’ll be okay.” She turned to Vera. “Take care of him, sister.”

  Tears filled Vera’s eyes as she gently put her arms around her friend. “Take care of yourself, little sister. Stay a few days when you get across. Rest up before you head west.”

  Clara sniffed for fear she would cry too, and turned and called John Lennon. “I will. Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”

  George jumped behind the wheel of the truck and Vera climbed into the passenger seat. She rolled her window down and blew kisses at Clara and John Lennon. Clara waved, turned and opened the passenger door for John Lennon, trying not to look as they drove away, as if that would make it easier. Loneliness and fear descended again, the silence of their absence thundering around her.

  Clara took George’s advice and found a local park. She closed up the car and sat under a tree, watching John Lennon meander around until it was almost dark. Satisfied no one was watching, Clara stood and headed for the car, and the ever-watchful John Lennon sped by her and waited by the passenger door.

  Clara pointed the car out of town and drove along the highway past the entrance to the border crossing at Climax. The road was gated, with a sign showing that the crossing was closed.

  “Okay, big guy. It’s on.” Clara drove for about six miles, watching the odometer carefully. The small dirt road came up as expected with its Dead End sign. She drove to the end of the road and across a shallow ditch into the pasture. She turned the headlights off and slowly crept across the lumpy terrain. She wasn’t even a third of the way across when blinding lights from her left suddenly flooded the pasture.

  A loudspeaker bellowed: “This is the RCMP. Turn off your ignition and step out of the car.”

  “Shit, John Lennon, what the hell?” Clara looked frantically around and, without a moment’s thought, gunned the engine and floored it. John Lennon fell back hard against the seat and the Falcon bumped and jumped over the stubble and lumps of turf in the pasture. “I’ll be damned if they’re gonna get me now. Not after all this.” She jammed the accelerator as hard as she could, wishing she had a second headlight in the pitch-dark. The beam landed on a small copse of spruce on the other side of the pasture and Clara headed there for cover. She imagined the cops scrambling into their cars, and a few seconds later she heard the sirens wail. “Go! Go! Go!” she pleaded with the Falcon. John Lennon started whining. “John Lennon, no bullshit, when this car stops, you run with me. You hear?” John Lennon whined.

  The car came to a screaming halt to the left of the trees and she threw open the door. “John Lennon, let’s go!” He was already halfway out the driver’s side door. They ran, Clara stumbling over tree roots and slapping branches out of her face. She could see the row of rez houses not a hundred yards away. She looked over her shoulder and the cop cars were stopped at the Falcon. She couldn’t tell if they were following her on foot. She stopped for a second, held her breath and listened for following footfalls, but couldn’t hear anything over the sound of her pounding heart. Run or hide? She looked desperately around and knew John Lennon wouldn’t be quiet enough if they hid. So, they had to run.

  About halfway across that endless hundred yards, Clara saw three shadows in the light from the houses running toward her. “Shit!” She turned to avoid them.

  She heard a voice. “Keep running! We’ll distract them.” Three men, their braids flying, ran by her, back toward the cops. “Go!” The closest one frantically waved her toward the line of houses.

  Clara ran. Seconds later, she and John Lennon made it to the first house, and she collapsed, her shoulder feeling like it was going to explode.

  “Get up. Come on, get up,” a woman’s voice whispered through the darkness. “Hurry.”

  Clara dragged herself up and followed the voice. A small black pickup stood waiting, its lights out, the engine running.

  “Get in the back.”

  She rolled in over the tailgate and John Lennon jumped in after her. There was a mattress and a tarp in the truck bed. “Cover up.” She lay on the mattress, called John Lennon, and pulled the blanket over herself and the dog. The truck moved slowly away from the house, in the dark, with no headlights or tail lights to follow.

  It seemed liked forever, but it might have been an hour later that the truck came to a stop. Clara sat up and looked around. She couldn’t see a thing. The driver threw the truck into park, came around back and lowered the tailgate. “Come on.” She led them through a thicket of spruce along a narrow trail. “You’ll be safe here for now.”

  “Where are we?” Clara looked around. John Lennon rubbed against her.

  “This is Old Mariah’s place. She knows you’re coming. Vera called and arranged it. She’ll doctor you up, take care of you till you’re well again. No one comes here but us. No one will know you are here. You’re safe.”

  Clara and John Lennon walked to the front door of the small, weathered cabin, and as they got there, it opened. An old woman stood there, he
r braids white and down to her hips, a coal oil lantern in her hands.

  “Astamikwa,” she said, beckoning to Clara.

  Clara walked through the doorway, and when she turned to thank the driver, she was gone.

  9

  Howie

  It was my seventh time before the Parole Board. I didn’t even pretend to believe they would hear anything I said. I’d said it all before. It was all there in the thick paper files in front of them. In their expensive suits and shiny shoes, they sat ready to judge me yet again. They explained the way the hearing would work and then started in, asking me questions about how I spent my time inside.

  I raised my hand to speak. “Look, I don’t want to waste your time. The only reason I am here today is because I need to hold on to my hope that I will get out of here sooner than later. I know what you need me to say. You want to know I’m sorry. That I’ve been rehabilitated. That I deeply regret my wrongdoing and I will never do such a thing again.” I shook my head slightly. “You all know already that I have a clean record in here. Not one disciplinary note. Not a single one. And this is the only crime I ever committed, if you must call it a crime. But I am not sorry. Not at all. You have no idea what that man did to me and a whole lotta other little boys. He deserved what he got and more. Where was the law then when he was beating us, breaking bones, and other, even worse things? That man never saw a day inside, much less inside a courtroom, and yet I am locked in this hell. You’ve got it all backwards. I am not sorry, and I would rather stay in here till my dying day than tell you a lie, pretending I am. He got what he deserved.”

  The panel shifted uncomfortably in their seats, not looking at me or each other. The one in the middle who seemed to be in charge finally lifted his pen off the paper and looked up at me.

  “Thank you, inmate. I understand this must be difficult for you. You must understand that we are sworn to protect the public safety and so we must.”

  I looked at my tattered running shoes. “And who was protecting our safety? No one. Not a damn soul.”