Winter in the Blood

by James Welch

  “How’s that—dead?” He dug his hands into his pockets. “Sometimes I wish … but not likely.”

  “Then you’re still called Yellow Calf.”

  “I’m called many things but that one will do. Some call me Bat Man because they think I drink the blood of their cattle during the night.”

  I laughed. “But you should be flattered. That means they are afraid of you.”

  “I have no need to be flattered. I am old and I live alone. One needs friends to appreciate flattery.”

  “Then you must be a wise man. You reject friends and flattery.”

  He made fists in his pants pockets and gestured with his head toward the shack. “I have some coffee.”

  It was only after he started walking, his feet seeming to move sideways as well as forward, that I realized he was completely blind. It was odd that I hadn’t remembered, but maybe he hadn’t been blind in those days.

  He gripped the doorframe, then stood aside so that I could pass through first. He followed and closed the door, then reopened it. “You’ll want some light.”

  The inside of the shack was clean and spare. It contained a cot, a kitchen table and two chairs. A small wood stove stood against the far wall. Beside the pipe a yellowed calendar hung from the wall. It said December 1936. A white cupboard made up the rest of the furniture in the room. Yellow Calf moved easily, at home with his furnishings. He took two cups, one porcelain, the other tin, from the cupboard and poured from a blackened pot that had been resting on the back of the stove. I coughed to let him know where I was, but he was already handing me a cup.

  “Just the thing,” I said.

  “It’s too strong. You’re welcome.” He eased himself down on the cot and leaned back against the wall.

  It was cool, almost damp in the banked shack, and I thought of poor old Bird tied to the pump outside. He might get heatstroke.

  “You’re a good housekeeper, old man.”

  “I have many years’ practice. It’s easier to keep it sparse than to feel the sorrows of possessions.”

  “Possessions can be sorrowful,” I agreed, thinking of my gun and electric razor.

  “Only when they are not needed.”

  “Or when they are needed—when they are needed and a man doesn’t have them.”

  “Take me—I don’t have a car,” he said.

  “But you don’t seem to need one. You get along.”

  “It would be easier with a car. Surely you have one.”

  “No.”

  “If you had a car you could take me to town.”

  I nodded.

  “It would make life easier,” he went on. “One wouldn’t have to depend on others.”

  I wondered how the old man would drive a car. Perhaps he had radar and would drive only at night.

  “You need a good pair of shoes to drive a car,” I said.

  “I have thought of that too.” He tucked his feet under the cot as though they were embarrassed.

  “There are probably laws against driving barefoot, anyway.”

  He sighed. “Yes, I suppose there are.”

  “You don’t have to worry—not out here.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “How so?”

  “Irrigation man comes every so often to regulate the head gate—he keep his eye on me. I can hear him every so often down by that head gate.”

  I laughed. “You’re too nervous, grandfather—besides, what have you got to hide, what have you done to be ashamed of?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know …” His mouth dropped and his shoulders bobbed up and down.

  “Come on, tell me. What have you got in those pants?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know …” With that, his mouth dropped open another inch but no sound came out.

  “I’ll bet you have a woman around here. I know how you old buzzards operate.”

  His shoulders continued to shake, then he started coughing. He coughed and shook, holding his cup away from the cot, until the spasm of mirth or whatever it was had passed.

  He stood and walked to the stove. When he reached for my cup, his hand struck my wrist. His fingers were slick, papery, like the belly of a rattlesnake. He poured to within half an inch of the cup’s lip, to the tip of the finger he had placed inside.

  “How is it you say you are only half dead, Yellow Calf, yet you move like a ghost. How can I be sure you aren’t all the way dead and are only playing games?”

  “Could I be a ghost and suck the blood of cattle at the same time?” He settled back on the cot, his lips thinned into what could have been a smile.

  “No, I suppose not. But I can’t help but feel there’s something wrong with you. No man should live alone.”

  “Who’s alone? The deer come—in the evenings—they come to feed on the other side of the ditch. I can hear them. When they whistle, I whistle back.”

  “And do they understand you?” I said this mockingly.

  His eyes were hidden in the darkness.

  “Mostly—I can understand most of them.”

  “What do they talk about?”

  “It’s difficult … About ordinary things, but some of them are hard to understand.”

  “But do they talk about the weather?”

  “No, no, not that. They leave that to men.” He sucked on his lips. “No, they seem to talk mostly about …”—he searched the room with a peculiar alertness—“well, about the days gone by. They talk a lot about that. They are not happy.”

  “Not happy? But surely to a deer one year is as good as the next. How do you mean?”

  “Things change—things have changed. They are not happy.”

  “Ah, a matter of seasons! When their bellies are full, they remember when the feed was not so good—and when they are cold, they remember …”

  “No!” The sharpness of his own voice startled him. “I mean, it goes deeper than that. They are not happy with the way things are. They know what a bad time it is. They can tell by the moon when the world is cockeyed.”

  “But that’s impossible.”

  “They understand the signs. This earth is cockeyed.”

  A breeze came up, rustling the leaves of the tall cottonwoods by the ditch. It was getting on in the afternoon.

  I felt that I should let the subject die, but I was curious about Yellow Calf’s mind.

  “Other animals—do you understand them?”

  “Some, some more than others.”

  “Hmmm,” I said.

  “This earth is cockeyed.”

  “Hmmm …”

  “Of course men are the last to know.”

  “And you?”

  “Even with their machines.”

  “Hmmm …”

  “I have my inclinations.”

  “The moon?”

  “Among other things—sometimes it seems that one has to lean into the wind to stand straight.”

  “You’re doing plenty of leaning right now, I would say,” I said.

  “You don’t believe the deer.” He was neither challenging nor hurt. It was a statement.

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “You do not believe me.”

  “It’s not a question of belief. Don’t you see? If I believe you, then the world is cockeyed.”

  “But you have no choice.”

  “You could be wrong—you could believe and still be wrong. The deer could be wrong.”

  “You do not want to believe them.”

  “I can’t.”

  “It’s no matter.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No need—we can’t change anything. Even the deer can’t change anything. They only see the signs.”

  A pheasant sounded to the east but the old man either did not pay atten
tion or thought it a usual message. He leaned forward into the shadows of the shack, holding his cup with both hands, looking directly at me and through me. I shifted from one buttock to the other, then set my cup on the table.

  “It’s not very good,” he said.

  “No—that’s not true. It’s just that I have to leave; we’re weaning a calf …”

  “I’m old.”

  “Yes.”

  “You must say hello to Teresa for me. Tell her that I am living to the best of my ability.”

  “I’ll tell her to come see for herself,” I said.

  “Say hello to First Raise.”

  “Yes, yes … he will be pleased.” Didn’t he know that First Raise had been dead for ten years?

  We walked out into the glare of the afternoon sun.

  Bird tried to kick me as I swung my leg over his back. “Next time I’ll bring some wine,” I said.

  “It is not necessary,” he said.

  “For a treat.”

  I started to wave from the top of the bridge. Yellow Calf was facing off toward the river, listening to two magpies argue.

  19

  Lame Bull jerked the pickup up the incline and pointed it west toward Harlem. He double-clutched the gears into high, then took a long gurgling pull from the bottle of beer he had between his thighs. An Eddy’s Bread truck roared past us from behind. Lame Bull waved and honked. Teresa sat between us, the sack of beer at her feet.

  “You’re going to kill us yet,” she said.

  He laughed. “You just wait till we hit that straightaway down by White Bear. By God, I’ll show you some driving.”

  She turned to me. “And what kind of nonsense are you going to pull this time? First you lose your best shirt, then you almost kill poor Bird—what’s next on your agenda?”

  “Leave the boy alone,” Lame Bull said. “I was plenty wild myself when I was his age.”

  “I’m thirty-two,” I said. Sometimes I had to tell myself.

  “And you never recovered—now you try to kill us.”

  “I think you’re due for a long walk, old woman.”

  “You seem to forget that I own this car.”

  Lame Bull took his foot off the gas pedal. “You want to drive?” Then just as quickly he pressed the pedal to the floor. “All right then …” He leaned forward and winked at me. “Boy, you’re going to catch her this time, I feel it in my bone—I mean bones—catchum, holdum, shrinkum—you got to treat these women rough once in a while or else they forget.” He squeezed the inside of Teresa’s thigh.

  The water behind the dam at White Bear was down. It was a good time to catch turtles.

  “You and your brother used to ride Bird down here for a swim—do you remember that?” She rested her hand on Lame Bull’s.

  “I was just thinking about that,” I said.

  “Do you remember the day you boys got caught in that lightning storm? Your cousin Charley was with you. You all three rode down here on old Bird.”

  “He wasn’t old then. He was barely three years old.” A three-year-old the year Mose got killed.

  “Nevertheless you all three rode him.”

  “We took shelter under those trees,” I said, pointing to a stand of cottonwoods. “Mose built a lean-to out of the old branches. We stuck it out, but Bird ran home—he didn’t understand the lightning.”

  “The only thing he understands is a good swift kick in the slats,” Lame Bull said.

  We had watched Bird take off, reins flying straight back, his shoulders bunched and legs a white streak in the downpour. Each time a slice of lightning crackled down, he jumped straight into the air. We watched him out of sight, then Mose gathered branches and willows for the lean-to. He was very deliberate, cutting and notching two poles and a crosspiece, until he was ready to lay the branches across. Charley and I stood soaked under one of the trees. The lightning crashed down around us, but Mose worked until the shelter was completed. He scooted under and grinned at us.

  Then there was the fire—he borrowed Charley’s matches, struck one and placed the flame in a small hole in a pile of twigs and leaves. “We should have caught a turtle,” he said. “If we had a turtle we could cook him and make soup in his own shell.” The fire smoked a lot but did little to keep us warm. Mose was satisfied. He kept poking the fire and coughing from the smoke. And the cigarette—we helped Charley smoke one of his Bull Durham cigarettes.

  And the magic—as suddenly as it had started, the storm ended, scattering clouds in four directions. The sun burned away the tail ends and danced on the waters of White Bear as we began the long walk home. The roads were dusty again by the time we reached the ranch, and Bird whinnied a welcome from the shadows of the horse shed.

  Mose was fourteen; I was twelve.

  “You boys had such a time.” Teresa laughed.

  It was noon when we reached Harlem and dropped her off at the priest’s house. He would find out that she hadn’t gotten his letter which I had torn up down in Malta. He probably didn’t even know Teresa had married Lame Bull. And Lame Bull didn’t know anything.

  He dropped me by Buttrey’s store and drove over to the John Deere place for more baling twine. A few Indians leaned against the buildings in the shade, some with hard hats, ready to go fight fire when the man from the agency came to collect them, others with stetsons and big-buckled belts, ready to help the fire fighters spend their money when they returned. Edgar Bullshoe fell in beside me as I passed Beany’s Tavern.

  “Hey, cousin, you got a smoke?”

  “I gave it up. Ask your cousin Musty there.”

  Musty walked over and asked for a quarter.

  Larue Henderson was checking the oil in a new Chevy. I kicked the bumper. He glanced up at me. As if I had caused him to lose his place, he frowned and pushed the dipstick back into the block. He pulled it out again, held it up to the light, made another face. The oil dripped on the fender. He was satisfied. He closed the car hood.

  “Now, what can I do for you?” he said.

  I couldn’t see his eyes—nobody could see his eyes because he wore black glasses, like a blind man. I don’t think anybody had ever seen his eyes, not even his wife. There were times, when I was drunk enough, and he was drunk enough, I could just see something glistening behind the glasses. Lame Bull told me once how he had gotten into a fight with Larue Henderson down at Beany’s one night and had knocked those glasses off, and how Larue Henderson just quit and held his hands over his eyes while Lame Bull knocked his teeth out. When Lame Bull had satisfied himself, he walked over to the drugstore and bought Larue Henderson a new pair. It may have been true. Larue Henderson had very few teeth.

  He wiped some of the fresher bugs off the windshield of the Chevy, then walked into the station, where the owner of the car was waiting. I followed him.

  “Oil’s okay, but you better watch that fan belt. I seen healthier looking fan belts in my life.”

  He charged the man an extra dollar for that advice.

  The man wore one of those see-through shirts that look like they’re made out of wax paper. He had soft breasts.

  “You won’t catch any fish around here,” I said.

  After the man left, Larue Henderson put the extra dollar in his pocket. “Do you know that guy?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “He looks kind of familiar.”

  “What brings you to town? I thought you and Lame Bull would be sitting around counting your old lady’s money.”

  “Naw—we’re not so rich.” But I felt a little proud. To be thought a rich man isn’t so bad. “Hell, I’m just looking for somebody.”

  He was neither impressed nor curious. He opened the display case and grabbed a salted nut roll.

  “You want to go get a beer?” I said.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you guys? Can’t you see I’m busy?” He pee
led the wrapper off the salted nut roll. “Christ, it’s getting tougher all the time to make a living in this damn town.”

  “I’m buying,” I said.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said, shaking his head. “Okay, okay—just one, just the one you’re buying.”

  He rang the cash register and took out a ten-dollar bill.

  “Just a minute.” He walked back to the door to the grease pit. “Hey you! You want to watch this garage, understand? And I mean watch it. I don’t want you jerking off in the toilet.”

  A whimper came from the other room.

  “Who’s that?” I said as we walked across the street.

  “Oh, that goddamn kid. He’s just reached that stage where all he thinks about is jerking off. Christ, I’ve found it on the mirror in the bathroom, those tires—even the goddamn souvenirs in the showcase.”

  We were in the shadow of the bank building.

  “Look at those petty bastards, up there counting their money.”

  I looked up at the plate-glass window, but the venetian blinds were closed.

  “I can’t fire him. His old lady’d have my ass.”

  “You own the place, don’t you?”

  “You kidding—those bastards up there own it.” He jerked his thumb at the window. “Christ, they don’t even know how to change a tire.”

  “They own just about everything,” I said.

  “His old lady’d cut my nuts off.”

  “How are you and her getting along?”

  “Christ, are you kidding?”

  Lame Bull was sitting in Beany’s. Beany himself was tending bar. He was very old and very white. Also very rich. Lame Bull was telling him about the hardships of being an owner. Beany nodded all the while, his fingers caressing the change on the bar. “It ain’t easy,” he was saying, “oh, it definitely ain’t easy.”

  Lame Bull insisted on paying for our beers, his arm around me, telling Beany how he was trying to be a good father.

  “Oh, it ain’t easy … being a father.” Beany scratched his white head and continued to fondle the change.