Winter in the Blood

by James Welch

  13

  Lame Bull had decided the night before to give me a ride into Dodson. From there I could catch the bus down to Malta. We left early, before the gumbo flat could soak up enough rain to become impassable. The pickup slipped and skidded through the softening field as the rain beat down against the windshield. There was no wiper on my side and the landscape blurred light brown against gray. Patches of green relieved this monotony, but suddenly and without form. I had placed a piece of cardboard in my side window—the glass had fallen out one night in town last winter—to keep out the rain. I could have been riding in a submarine. At last we spun up the incline to the highway, and now I made out the straight ribbon of black through the heart of a tan land.

  “Looks pretty good, huh?”

  Lame Bull was referring to the rain and the effect it would have on the new growth of alfalfa.

  “Not bad,” I said. I didn’t even want to think about haying again, not after we had struggled through that last field of bales.

  “You know it.” He hunched forward over the steering wheel. “I think we need a new rig, pal—the windshield wiper is slowing down on this one.”

  We passed Emily Short’s fields, which were the best in the valley. They had been leveled by a reclamation crew from the agency. Emily was on the tribal council.

  “Looky there!” Lame Bull slowed down.

  Through his side window, I could see a figure in black shoveling a drain in one of the shallow irrigation ditches. A lonely moment—that man in the green field, the hills beyond and the gray sky above. His horse stood cold and miserable, one back leg cocked, the others ankle-deep in mud.

  “Poor sonofabitch …”

  When we got to Dodson, we went straight to Wally’s. Lame Bull bought me a whiskey, then made out a check to me for thirty dollars. The bartender cashed it and brought another drink, including one for himself. He took the amount out of my check.

  Out of habit, I decided to check for mail. As I hurried through the rain, my leg began to ache—not bad, just a dull pressure around the knee. Though it had been operated on twice, they had never managed to take away the stiffness or the ache that predicted endless dissatisfactions as surely as Teresa predicted lightning storms with her holy water.

  The interior of the post office was dark and mahogany; rows of box windows reflected the gray beyond the larger gold-lettered window that looked out on the only street in town. I turned the combination dials to the numbers I had known since a child. Mose and I used to fight to see who got to open this box. There was a letter to Teresa from the priest in Harlem, a perfectly white envelope with his name stamped in silver in the corner. I started to put it back, but on second thought, more likely on no thought, I stuck it in the breast pocket of my Levi jacket. On my way out, I glanced at the men staring into the gloom of the post office from the wanted posters. They were the same faces I had memorized so many years before. Only the names were different.

  I had another whiskey with Lame Bull. I thought of the hours my father had put in here, joking with the white men, the farmers from out north, the cattlemen to the east, the men from the grain elevator—they were acquaintances; they had bought me beers on those few occasions First Raise dragged me in. But they were foreign—somehow their lives seemed more orderly, they drank a lot but left early, and they would be back at work in the morning, while First Raise …

  Now, except for the bartender and us, the place was empty. I said goodbye to Lame Bull and walked down to the café to wait for the bus. Then I walked back to the drugstore to buy a toothbrush.

  14

  The bus was two hours late. The driver, a small man with tufts of black hair sticking out his ears, took my money, then sat down to a cup of coffee. I picked up my paper sack, which contained clean underwear and socks and an extra shirt, and walked out to the bus. It had gotten noticeably darker, though it was early afternoon. I sat across from a young woman and listened to the rain drum against the roof. The driver climbed aboard, shut the door and announced that we were headed for Malta. I stared at the woman’s white legs and tried to imagine what she looked like under the purple coat, but I fell asleep.

  An hour later we were in Malta. I stuffed the sack up under my jacket and hurried down the street to Minough’s. Dougie, my girl’s brother, was sitting at the bar. Beside him a large white man dozed, his head resting on his freckled forearms. His hat was pushed back almost to his shoulders. A cigarette smoldered in the ashtray next to his curly red hair.

  I set the sack on a table behind me.

  “I’m looking for your sister,” I said.

  “How come?”

  “A personal matter.”

  “How come?” Dougie took a comb out of his shirt pocket and blew flecks of dandruff from it. “What are you going to do when you find her?”

  “That’s up to her, I guess.”

  “You going to beat her up?” He ran the comb through his hair, fluffing the wave with his other hand.

  “I don’t know, maybe …” I tried to keep my voice down.

  “What did she do to you?”

  “She took some things that don’t exactly belong to her,” I mumbled.

  He laughed. “That’s her, that’s the way she operates …” He punched me on the shoulder. “Man, you’re lucky you got any nuts left—do you?” He made a sudden grab for my crotch. I flinched away. He leaned over and whispered: “See this guy here?”

  “Is he the guy she’s been running around with?”

  “He drives a big-ass Buick.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Help me get him back to the can and we’ll see how much money he has on him. He drives a big Buick.”

  “You mean he used to—she probably stole it.”

  “No, hell, it’s parked right outside—we been riding around all day. Come on, give me a hand.”

  “Then you’ll tell me where she is?”

  “Sure.”

  “What if he wakes up?”

  “Shit, this guy’s so far gone he wouldn’t know it if a cow pissed in his eye.”

  We dragged the big man back into the toilet. He was half a foot taller than I was. Dougie was lost under the other armpit, but he already had the man’s wallet in his hand. We sat him down on the toilet.

  “How much is in the wallet?” I said.

  “Nothing. The sonofabitch is empty.”

  But I saw Dougie’s small hand sneak a wad of bills into his pocket.

  “Wait a minute—give me some of that.”

  “Bullshit. The deal was I was just going to tell you where my sister is. We never said anything about any money.” He turned to the urinal and peed.

  “But I didn’t think we were going to find anything,” I whined. “Besides, it would be compensation for what your sister took.”

  “I’m not her goddamn keeper.”

  “But my gun alone …”

  “Look, do you want to know where my sister is or not?” He buttoned his pants indignantly.

  Just then the white man toppled off the seat, banging his head against the washbowl. He slid to the floor, his hat upside down in the basin.

  “We been drunk for practically a week.” Dougie grinned, disappearing out the door.

  I looked down at the pale sleeper’s face. His red hair seemed strangely out of place among the white fixtures. I placed the hat over his eyes to shield them from the glare.

  Dougie was not in the bar. I ran to the door and looked up and down the street, but he was not in sight. A big yellow Buick was parked at the curb. It was covered with mud, the only clean part the windshield where the wipers had fanned their trails.

  Although I knew it would be useless, I searched all the bars and cafés in town, even the hotel and movie house. I paid seventy-five cents to walk up and down the aisle until the usher, a young bald man, told me to either sit down or leav
e. Bewildered, I sat down and looked at the screen but nothing made sense. I recognized Doris Day. She was drunk and had gotten her toe stuck in a bottle. Then I remembered the Buick. I ran down to Minough’s, but the car was gone.

  The rain continued to fall. My shoulders slumped under the weight of my soaked jacket and my leg ached. In the gray light of dusk, the sidewalk glistened beneath Minough’s neon sign.

  15

  “Nothing to be done about it,” the man said. He dabbed his cigar into the bottom of the ashtray. “Happens all the time—hell, you’re not unique. Happened to me plenty of times.”

  We were sitting at the bar of the Pomp Room, which was connected to the Regent’s Roost Hotel. The man was from New York. He had shown me his credit cards when I said I didn’t believe him.

  “Well, you take me—do I look like the sort who would run out on a wife and two beautiful daughters? Hell, by your standards, I was a rich man!”

  “You look rich enough to me,” I said, and he did. He had on one of those khaki outfits that African hunters wear. I thought of McLeod and Henderson in the Sports Afield. His outfit was crisp, with a flowery handkerchief tied around his neck.

  “Well, that’s another story … we’re trying to solve your problems.”

  Problems?

  “Of course.”

  The only problem I had now was trying to stay out of the way of the man I had helped Dougie roll. That was the only problem that was still clear to me. The others had gone away.

  “Chance, dumb unadulterated damn luck—I was on my way to the Middle East, had my tickets in my hand …”

  I drained off my beer and pointed to the empty bottle.

  “Barman! Damned if I didn’t just turn around, halfway to the plane and everything, tore up my ticket right in front of her …”

  My jacket was drying on the stool next to me. I had stopped shivering hours ago, just after he bought me my first boilermaker. I had felt a little self-conscious coming in, but the second one took care of that. Now even the fear of a beating, or even getting killed, was subsiding. I lit one of the cigars that lay on the bar.

  “… picked up my fishing gear and drove away!”

  “You won’t have much luck here,” I said.

  “What? Fish?”

  “You won’t have much luck here.”

  “Caught a mess of them yesterday.”

  “But there are no fish around here.”

  “Pike—three of them over five pounds. Caught one big northern in Minnesota that ran over thirty.”

  “That was Minnesota. That wasn’t here. You’d be lucky to catch a cold here.”

  “Caught some nice little rainbows too. Pan size.”

  “There aren’t any rainbows.”

  He looked at me. He was a big man, soft and healthy, like a baby. He combed his gray hair straight back, so that his red-veined nose seemed too big for his face.

  “Tell you what—” He snorted into his hand. “I’ll take you out with me tomorrow and if we don’t catch any fish, I’ll buy you the biggest steak in—where are we?—Malta! You have an outfit?”

  “At home—but that’s fifty miles away.”

  “No problem. I’ve got a spinning rig you can use. Furthermore, I’ll use my fly rod and if I don’t catch more fish than you, you can have both outfits. Now you can’t beat that deal.”

  I calculated how much both outfits would be worth. “What if neither one of us catches any fish?”

  “I’ll throw in the biggest steak in Kalamazoo.”

  “There are no fish in the river,” I said confidently. “Not even a sucker.”

  “Hell …” He winked at the bartender, who had been listening, then ordered another boilmaker for me and a double Scotch for himself. “Get one for yourself,” he called after the bartender.

  Two men in suits opened the door. Then, as though they realized this was the wrong place, they hesitated. After a short conversation, they came in, moving down the bar like cows on slick ice, their eyes not yet adjusted to the dimness of the small blue lights in the ceiling. As they passed me, I smelled the wet wool of their suits. One of them giggled.

  The bartender followed them down the other side of the bar as though he were stalking them. He was a skinny man. His red vest and black string tie made him look like a frontier gambler. But he knew all the baseball scores and had been to New York once.

  Standing a few feet away from me, a barmaid leaned on her tray. She poked the ice cubes in her Coke with her finger and glared at herself in the mirror. Although I couldn’t see a cigarette near her, she was blowing smoke rings.

  The two men sat down on the other side of the man who had torn up his airplane ticket.

  “What do you think—shall I ask them?”

  “About the fish?”

  “What else? What else were we talking about? Or would you rather admit you made a mistake?”

  I shook my head. “You said you caught a mess of goldeyes?”

  “Did I say that? But you’re mistaken—there aren’t any goldeyes in this river. I’ve never even heard of goldeyes.” He turned to the men in suits. “This man says there are no fish around here.”

  The two suits looked up. One had a red tie.

  “He says there are no fish around here,” he repeated.

  “Why, that’s false,” the first suit said. “There are pike in the reservoir south of town. Just the other day I caught a nice bunch.”

  “In the reservoir south of town,” the second suit said.

  “Ah, you see,” said the man who had torn up his airplane ticket.

  “But not in the river. It is too muddy and the fish can’t see your bait.”

  “Not likely. It’s clear and cold and the fish are firm.”

  “Yes,” said the second suit. “Just the other day my wife and her girl friend fished in the river and they said it was clear and cold.”

  “I have often remarked on the clarity of the water. It isn’t muddy like the reservoir south of town.” First suit tasted his drink. He fished out a cherry and nibbled at it. “No matter—no fish there anyway.”

  “In the reservoir?” I asked.

  “Hell no,” said the man who had torn up his airplane ticket. “In the creek west of here. The reservoir is full of sunfish.”

  Second suit, who had finished his drink, ordered another round. He lifted his replenished glass to the mirror and said: “I don’t understand these people around here.”

  “Neither do I,” said the man who had torn up his airplane ticket. “Hell—it’s uncanny.”

  I began to feel the effects of the boilermakers. I winked at myself in the mirror and the barmaid, who had returned, glared back.

  “I don’t understand the people around here—like that man down there.” I pointed down the bar to second suit. He was fiddling with a camera.

  “I wouldn’t know—I’m new here.” She blew more smoke rings. There was still no cigarette near her.

  “Wait a minute, just a minute here.” The man who had torn up his airplane ticket looked past me at the girl. “Don’t I know you from someplace?”

  “How should I know?”

  “But I’ve seen you before, somewhere else. My memory is like a steel trap.” He narrowed his eyes. “Bismarck? North Dakota?”

  She shook her head.

  “Minneapolis?”

  She blew a smoke ring at the mirror.

  “That’s funny. You sure it wasn’t Chicago?”

  “I’ve never been there. I might be from the West Coast.”

  “That’s it! Seattle!” His elbow bounced off my ribs. “Ha, you see?”

  “Seattle?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t be from Seattle for all the rice in China.” She counted some coins on her tray. “Now, Portland might be different—they’ve got roses there.”
/>   “My mother raises morning glories,” I said.

  “Los Angeles?”

  “I hate morning glories. I hate anything to do with morning.”

  “But that’s just the name. They bloom in the evening too—even at night I can smell them outside my window. Our cat used to lie in them because it was cool.”

  “Our cat smothered my baby sister. He lay on her face one night and she couldn’t breathe. She would have looked just like me, only she had a birthmark right here.” She pressed her finger into the side of her neck. She leaned closer, still without looking at me, and whispered: “That’s why he thinks he knows me. He remembers my sister’s birthmark.”

  “But why doesn’t he remember you?”

  “San Francisco?”

  “Oh, he will. Can’t you see he’s trying right now?”

  “San Francisco?”

  “I used to dance all the time. That’s why he doesn’t remember me, because I was always dancing and the faster I danced the less he saw of me.”

  “But he’s from New York,” I said.

  “He used to pay me. That’s why I hated it. He used to pay me a dollar to dance for him.” She laughed. “It was such fun, twirling around the room, faster and faster until I must have been a blur. That’s why he forgets my face.”

  “San Francisco? Santa Rosa! My wife was from Santa Rosa but she’s dead now.”

  “I could just tell him who I am. Do you think I should?”

  “No,” I said. “Let him guess.”

  “I suppose … but it might make him mad. That’s one thing you learn about men—you don’t joke with them unless you mean business.” She picked up her tray and walked back to the booths.

  The two suits watched her.

  “Nice little twitch,” said the first suit. His red necktie had worked its way out of his coat.

  “Yes,” said the second suit. “I wouldn’t mind a little bit of that myself.”

  “Ah, but she would wear you out. You can tell by the hips.”

  “My wife has hips like that and it’s all I can do to stay in bed with her.”

  “My wife has hips like that,” I said, “but she has smaller breasts.”