Medicine River

by Thomas King

  “I’m Susan Adamson,” she said and held out her hand. “You’re the photographer.”

  “For Bob. For the article.”

  “Are those the slides?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you hungry?” Her hair was black and cut short. Her skin was light, pale, like heavy cream. “We could look at the slides over lunch.”

  I don’t remember where we had lunch. Everything came with a wad of green sprouts on it. She looked at the slides. I made one or two inane jokes about cameras. She said she liked the slides, and I left my business card. If you need any more photography work done, I told her, just give me a call. The number is there on the card. So is the address. You can reach me at home, too. And I wrote my home phone number on the back of the card. I could hear my voice croaking along, the warts popping up everywhere.

  I took a long shower that night and watched the late movie with a pot of spaghetti on my lap and a carton of milk and a bag of chocolate-creme cookies.

  * * *

  —

  “A HOT SHOWER,” said Harlen, turning on the dome light and looking at the map, “is great for depressions. In the old days, we used to have regular sweats just for that reason. The old people were pretty smart, you know. Did you know that Carter Heavyman still has a couple of sweats each year? Should ask Louise about them.”

  Having to listen to Harlen reminded me that there were a few advantages to travelling in the Friendship Centre van with the drum going and the great clouds of smoke billowing out the windows and everyone singing at the tops of their voices.

  “Hey, Will,” said Harlen, folding the map over the steering wheel so I could see. “Look at this.”

  “We lost already?”

  “That’s better, Will. Little humour always helps. No, look. We’re going to go right by the Custer National Monument. Look, it’s just outside Billings. What do you say? Let’s stop by and see it.”

  “You think they let Indians in?”

  “Why would they keep us out?”

  “Harlen, it’s probably just a bunch of plaques and some farmer’s field with a fancy fence around it.”

  “History, Will. It’s part of our history.”

  “The Blackfoot didn’t fight Custer.”

  Harlen shook his head and patted me on the shoulder. “Pretty hard to see the bigger picture, when you’re depressed. Come on, Will. When we stop for supper in Casper, I’ll get one of those tourist books that tells all about the Little Bighorn. I can read it to you as we head north. Get you in the mood. Maybe you can call Louise, too. Nothing like a phone call to smooth over a quarrel.”

  “Who said we had a quarrel?”

  “Bertha.”

  “Bertha?”

  “You know Bertha.”

  We stopped in Casper for supper. Harlen picked out a place called the Casper Café.

  “Fancy that,” I said. But Harlen ignored me.

  “You got to eat at the local spots, Will. They got the best food. Looks like they’re full up. Sure sign of good food. Good food’ll cheer you up.”

  There were at least four tables empty. The waitress came over with the menus and told us that the special was meatloaf and that there was still some of the Casper Café’s famous apple pie left in case we wanted to reserve a piece.

  I looked at the menu, but I wasn’t hungry. Harlen ordered the meatloaf and reserved two pieces of pie. “Good pie is hard to find,” said Harlen, “and if I don’t like the first piece, I can always pass on the second.”

  It wouldn’t do me any harm to miss a meal. I might even lose some weight. I ordered a small dinner salad with no dressing.

  “Long trip home,” said Harlen, getting up. “Going to see about that book on the Little Bighorn. You know, you can smell that meatloaf from here. Maybe you should call Louise.”

  * * *

  —

  SUSAN CALLED ME a week later to say she would like my advice on a project that involved old glass photographic plates. “It’s Susan Adamson,” she said. “I don’t know if you remember me….”

  We had lunch again, and it could have been the same place. There were sprouts on the sandwich and on the salad, too. This time, I wore my blue blazer and my grey slacks. You couldn’t tell I was a photographer. We talked about glass plates and the upcoming show. We talked about the plays in town. I hadn’t seen any of them, but I said I was going to. She had seen two, but they weren’t very good. Had I read Basil Johnston’s new book? He’s Ojibway, she said, and the book’s quite funny. I had heard about it, I said, and planned to read it soon. She was from Prince Edward Island. I told her I was from Alberta. You’re Indian, aren’t you? she asked.

  Halfway through the meal, my nose began to run. Not fast. Just a slow drip. I tried dabbing at it, while I pretended to wipe my mouth. I had a handkerchief in my pocket, but I couldn’t bring myself to blow my nose there at the table.

  After lunch, we walked back to the museum. What are you doing Friday night? I asked her. Croak, croak. She was busy then, but would I like to go to an art opening with her on Thursday? Maybe dinner afterwards.

  “I love art,” I said.

  We went to the art show that Thursday, and we went to dinner. I don’t remember how we decided to go to my apartment. We weren’t drunk or anything like that. We caught a cab, and Susan said something that sounded like “let’s go,” and I gave the driver my address. She went up the steps as though she knew exactly where she was going, and we went to bed as though we had been lovers for years.

  “I’d like to see you again.” During the week was best, she said. Did I like Japanese food? Had I ever been to Harbourfront? Did I have a favourite wine? Would I tell her if she snored? Did I think she was fast? She talked with that soft voice of hers and those blue eyes and that mouth that only bent at the corners when she smiled. I chased after the answers.

  She left the next morning. I went into the kitchen and scrambled four eggs, fried two potatoes, grilled half-a-dozen sausages and ate warm toast and apricot jam until all the bread was gone.

  * * *

  —

  THE MEATLOAF ARRIVED before Harlen got back. It was thick and greasy and covered with a white sauce. You got some puckered green peas with it and a wedge of mashed potatoes covered with more of that white sauce.

  Harlen came back shaking his head. “Would you believe it, Will? They don’t have any of those booklets on the Little Bighorn. The lady at the desk said that we should try after we cross the line into Montana. All they had was a postcard.”

  “So, where’s the postcard?”

  “I didn’t want a postcard, Will. Hell, we’re going to see the real thing.” Harlen whacked off a large forkful of meatloaf and shovelled it into his mouth.

  “Mmmmmmmm,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut and dragging a bit of sauce off his lip with his tongue. “Nothing like these local places for good cooking. What’d Louise have to say?”

  “Too late to call.”

  He ate both pieces of pie.

  By the time we left, I was beginning to get a little hungry. Harlen hadn’t even offered me a bite of the second piece of pie.

  The road from Casper took us up through Sheridan and then across the line into Montana. By the time we got to Lodge Grass, the sun was dropping down behind the mountains, and Harlen was looking at the map again.

  “The Little Bighorn is just up the road. And look at this, Will. We’re on the Crow Indian reserve. Maybe we should drop in and say hello.”

  “Maybe they have a basketball tournament we could donate some money to.” I was still thinking about that pie.

  There was a storm waiting for us to the north. As we left Lodge Grass, I could see the occasional lightning flash in the mountains.

  “You still got some film in your camera, Will? I want to get a picture of us standing over Custer’s grave. Maybe send it to the Kainai News. Put a big caption under it says, ‘Custer Died for Your Sins.’ What do you think?”

  I wasn’t that depressed.

>   “Dumb idea,” I said.

  “Should have had that meatloaf, Will.”

  Harlen turned on the radio, and we listened to some cowboy sing about his pick-up truck and how bad life was since his girlfriend ran off with a longhaul trucker.

  “Saw Louise and South Wing at Woodward’s last week. How old is she now, Will?”

  “Nine months.”

  “Pretty girl. Looks like her mother.”

  “So they say.”

  “You see them regular, don’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Floyd says he thought he saw her and that Cree guy at Casey’s, but you know Floyd.”

  “Sure.”

  We caught the weather report, snow flurries in the mountains. There was more lightning now, and each bolt sent the radio crackling.

  “There it is, Will.”

  The big green highway sign said, Custer National Monument, One Mile.

  “Slow down, Will. Don’t want to miss the turnoff.”

  Harlen was rocking back and forth in his seat and looking out the window.

  “I’ll bet Custer wasn’t even close at half-time.” I don’t know why in the hell I said that.

  Harlen laughed and slapped his legs. “Hell, Will, Crazy Horse slam-dunked that bastard. Whoooeeee, slam-dunk.”

  “Time out,” I shouted. “That’s what Custer was yelling when all those Indians came riding out of the hills.”

  “Time out,” shouted Harlen.

  We missed the turnoff. We had to drive another five miles before we could turn around and come back. The Custer Monument was up a hill, and we got there just in time to see some fellow in a Bronco closing the gate.

  “Stay here, Will. I’ll go see what’s happening.”

  In the headlights of the car, I could see Harlen talking to the man. Harlen pointed off to the hill, and the guy shook his head. Harlen held his hands out, and the guy shook his head. Harlen turned around once, took a step or two back to the car, and then went back to where the guy was throwing a chain around the gate. Harlen pointed back to the car, and the fellow looked into the headlights. And he shook his head.

  Harlen came back to the car. “It’s closed for the night, Will.”

  “What?”

  “Young fellow, friendly enough. Told us to come back tomorrow.”

  “We won’t be here tomorrow.”

  “I told him that.”

  “Did you tell him we drove all this way just to see the monument?”

  “I told him that.”

  “Shit!”

  “He said he was sorry.”

  “Did you tell him,” I said, rolling down the window and shouting into the night, “did you tell him we’re Indians!”

  “I told him that, too, Will. He said he was sorry.”

  I got out and stood by the car and imagined I could see that kid hiding in the dark, hunkered down behind the fender of the Bronco, his hands shaking around his rifle, waiting for us to come screaming and whooping and crashing through the gate.

  * * *

  —

  SUSAN AND I went out once, sometimes twice a week. A poetry reading, a meal, and bed. An art opening, a meal, and bed. A play, a meal, and bed. And we talked about everything. We talked in bed, especially, and always before we made love, sometimes for hours, until it became part of foreplay. We joked about that and laughed.

  She brought some of her clothes by and hung them in my closet. I’m not moving in, she said, so don’t worry. I told her I wasn’t worried. It’s just more convenient, she said, and she was right. She was telling me to be patient, I knew that. It would be a slow process of trying each other out, and in the end, she would move in, and we would talk about other things.

  “Will,” she said, “If you don’t want me around, just say so.”

  I could smell her everywhere in the apartment, and I began to miss her when she wasn’t there.

  I called her at her office one afternoon. Leon Rooke was reading at Hart House that night. She had bought one of his books, she said, but hadn’t read it yet. She’s not here, the secretary told me. She wasn’t feeling well and went home. Did I have her number?

  I called when I got home. I let the phone ring.

  “Yes, may I help you?”

  “Susan?”

  “Nope. Mummy’s sick. Who’s this?”

  “I’m a friend of your mummy.”

  “You want to talk to Daddy?”

  I saw it too late, and I was caught like a thief in the middle of a room with all the lights suddenly thrown on.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Hello, yes, I’m a business associate of your wife’s. I’m calling about a photography project that we’re working on.”

  “Oh. She’s lying down right now. But if you call back in about an hour, I think she’ll be up.”

  “Great. Why don’t I do that.”

  “Can I tell her who called?”

  “Tell her it was Zneick’s Photography.”

  I wasn’t going to call back. I was going to leave it alone, but I rang the number at seven and at eight and at eight-thirty. The line was busy. I tried it again at nine, nine-fifteen, nine-thirty, quarter to ten. I gave up at eleven, the busy signal sounding for all the world like an alarm.

  * * *

  —

  “DO YOU BELIEVE THIS?” I shouted.

  “It’s okay, Will.”

  “Hell, we should just drive right through that gate.”

  “Pretty big chain.”

  “That chicken-shit bastard is probably pissing his pants. I’ll bet he can see us.”

  “Don’t think so, Will. He said you can’t see a thing in the dark. Said he’d let us in but the hockey playoffs are on tonight. Series is lied at three games all.”

  I got back in the car.

  Harlen had the map out. “You think we could get to Billings before the third period starts?”

  We drove back down the hill. Harlen could talk to himself for all I cared.

  “Better get some gas, Will. There’s that station we passed. Looks like a restaurant, too. Maybe you’re hungry now.”

  We got out of the car and stretched.

  “I’ll bet they got good food here. You know, Louise is probably still up.”

  There was a phone next to the washroom. Harlen had a big piece of apple pie in front of him when I returned.

  “Even better than that other pie. They got some chicken-fried steak left, too. You get hold of Louise?”

  “Too late to call.”

  I had some soup. I had some pie, too.

  “What if we stay here overnight, Will? Pretty late anyway, like you say. Get a room, watch the game, see the monument in the morning.”

  We finished our coffee. I went and washed up, again. The line was still busy.

  We got a room at the Big Chief Motel. It had a neon sign that flashed Vacancy and You Like-um. Harlen chose it because he figured that, since we were near the Crow reservation, the tribe probably owned it.

  “Got to help each other out when we can.”

  The room was clean. The bathroom had a shower. The television worked, and if you looked hard out the window, you could almost see the top of the iron gate at the Custer monument.

  “Fellow said we got the best room, Will. Has a view, he said, but you can’t see it at night. What do you think, Will? He could have been Indian.”

  Calgary won the game. Harlen fell asleep on the bed and began to snore. I left the television on and turned off the sound. I lay there in the dark on my side and dreamed about driving up the hill to the monument, busting through those gates, the tires squealing, bullets flying all around me, the kid yelling for reinforcements, the phone ringing busy in my ear.

  9

  Basketball practice for the Medicine River Friendship Centre Warriors was on Monday and Wednesday evenings at the Adams High School gym. We got the gym after the girl’s volleyball team finished around nine, and we practised until we were exhausted or the janitor threw us out. />
  Wednesday night, Floyd and I were shooting free throws, when Harlen walked in with a tall kid I didn’t recognize. I nudged Floyd. “Another one of Harlen’s recruits.” Floyd looked, and then looked again. “Holy cow,” he said. “That’s Clyde Whiteman.”

  Harlen was forever recruiting someone who was going to help propel the Warriors into a league championship. Two years ago, he had talked Peter Black Elk into playing with us. Peter was a track star. He could run circles around everyone on the team. But he couldn’t shoot. Paul Moon could shoot. Every scrimmage we had, he’d score thirty, forty points. But he froze during the games. Al Frank was a great shot and could move quick as a trout, but he had a girlfriend in High River who didn’t like him spending three nights a week with a “bunch of bums.”

  So most of us didn’t get too excited any more when Harlen showed up with another recruit. “Damn,” said Floyd. “It is Clyde Whiteman.” Harlen walked out to the middle of the court like he always does when he has an announcement to make.

  “Some of you boys know Clyde Whiteman. He’s Harper Whiteman’s nephew. He’s going to play for us. Pretty good player, too.” And Harlen smiled, as if someone had called him up to say that he could borrow Magic Johnson for the rest of the season.

  Clyde Whiteman was tall, as tall as me, maybe even taller. But he knew how to play. He was smooth and quick. The ball left his hands effortlessly, sliding into the net from all angles and distances. I tried to guard him. He shot over me. He moved around me. He muscled me off the boards. By the end of practice, I was bent over grabbing my knees, feeling as though I had been dragged along behind a large horse. Clyde had barely cracked a sweat.

  I leaned against the cool ceramic wall and let the water run over me. Floyd was standing at the next shower. “Who did you say that was?”

  “Clyde Whiteman. He’s Freda’s boy.”

  “Good player.”

  “The best. When he graduated, he had all kinds of offers from the big schools.”

  I stuck my head back under the water. “Where’s he been?”

  “In jail,” said Floyd.

  Harlen came into the studio the next day. “What do you think, Will?” he said, sliding into his favourite chair.