Medicine River

by Thomas King

  “Walk it all the time.”

  “Maybe you want some coffee. Maybe talk some.”

  Clyde pulled his sweatshirt on over his jersey. “No, just need to walk.”

  I caught Harlen as he was leaving the gym. “You say anything to Clyde?”

  “Just encouragement.”

  “Anything in particular?”

  “Just encouragement.”

  When the phone rang at two in the morning, I knew it had to be Harlen. It was Floyd. Floyd always comes to the point.

  “Guess who’s in jail?”

  “Not Clyde again.”

  “Give that man a basketball.”

  “Drunk?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do I keep guessing?”

  “Borrowed a car.”

  “Shit.”

  “I haven’t called Harlen yet. You want to do the honours?”

  “No.”

  “Should I call him?”

  “Yes.”

  I turned off the light and took the phone off the hook.

  * * *

  —

  THERE WAS ONE STORY, in particular, that my mother liked to tell again and again.

  “When you kids were real small, George Harley and that Howard Webster took all of us to a rodeo. He had some money, you know—Howard, that is—and he was always trying to impress us Indian girls. Wilma’s sisters thought he was cute, but Wilma and me thought he was just goofy. But he was nice, too. He bought you one of those little cowboy hats, Will. Do you remember that?”

  “Sure, I remember that.”

  “James, you slept through the entire rodeo. All that noise, and you slept right through it.”

  “I remember that, too.”

  “Well, we were all sitting there and pretty soon they call the bucking-horse contest. That was my favourite part. Those horses would come out flopping around like fish on a rock and those smart-alec cowboys would go flying in all directions.

  “So we’re sitting there watching the show, and the announcer calls the name of the next cowboy, and it’s Howard Webster. George tells Wilma that Howard is doing it because he loves her, and Wilma gets embarrassed and tells George to shut up and starts whacking him on his shoulder. But just then, Howard comes out of one of the chutes on this big chestnut.

  “I got to say he looked pretty good. He had his legs up high on that horse’s neck, and his arm was in the air. And he was smiling. Then that horse turned hard, and Howard took off and landed right on a big pile of horse poop.

  “He got up out of the dirt, and you could see it all over his nice shirt. He tried to brush it off, but it was pretty wet. The worst thing was that that goofy guy had only one shirt, and we had to drive home with him smelling like a horse. George wanted to make him sit on the hood, but it was Howard’s car, and he just laughed and said he’d smelled worse.

  “And you know what you did, Will? You begged him to let you drive. You sat on his lap all the way home and turned the wheel. There you were with your head against Howard’s shirt, horse poop and all, pretending you were bringing us home.”

  * * *

  —

  HARLEN WAS ALREADY SITTING on the bench when I arrived for the championship game the next evening. He didn’t say a thing. I dressed and warmed up with the rest of the boys. It didn’t take me long to get up a sweat. I went back to the bench and sat down.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’re going to win this game.”

  “You bet, Will.”

  “Clyde’s just unlucky. Like you said. Runs around with the wrong crowd.”

  “He was by himself.”

  “Some people are just unlucky.”

  We won the game. None of us could believe it. It wasn’t even close. There we were, league champions. It didn’t sink in until we were back in the locker room, and Floyd began prancing around in his bright red-and-blue championship jacket and his jock strap.

  “The Warriors…champiooooons. How do I look, boys, in my new jacket?”

  “You look like a fruit,” said Elwood.

  “Hey, Harlen. You buying?”

  Harlen took out two twenties and gave them to Floyd. “Here, buy a couple of pizzas and some soft drinks. You boys did real well.”

  “You not coming?”

  “Don’t feel too good. Maybe the flu.”

  The season was over, and everyone sort of forgot about Clyde. I guess I figured that someone should go out and see him. When I finished work on Thursday, I drove out to the jail.

  “Whiteman’s in the gym,” the guard told me.

  A bunch of the inmates were playing a game of four on four. Clyde was moving through the defence smooth and sure. I walked over and sat on the bench. The game ended, and Clyde came over and sat down.

  “Hey, Will. You didn’t have to come out. Hear you guys won the championship. Didn’t need me at all.”

  “Could have used you, Clyde. How you doing?”

  “Okay. Keep screwing up. But I’m okay.”

  “You going to be okay?”

  “Sure. Harlen stopped by, you know. Brought me a championship jacket. Real good looking. That was pretty nice of him.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “You know…talked to me. Hey, it’s going to be okay. Learned my lesson this time. Not going to disappoint anyone any more. You watch, just like that jump shot of mine. Swooosh! No rim.”

  “Sure.”

  “You watch. Going to be different. I can feel it.”

  Clyde went back to the game, and I watched him for a while. He moved from side to side with the fluidity of a dancer. Everyone else seemed half a step behind, as he wove his way through their arms and legs.

  * * *

  —

  I ALWAYS MEANT to talk to my mother about Howard Webster, and the time I rode home from the rodeo on his lap. I started to once, just before I left for Toronto, but she laughed and turned away and said I was probably too young to have remembered, and anyway, it was a long time back.

  * * *

  —

  I WALKED OVER to the door. It was nice that Harlen had brought Clyde a jacket. After all, Clyde was one of the reasons we had got to the championships. I knocked on the door to get let out and looked back to see Clyde float to the top of the key and take that jump shot of his. I watched as the ball left his hands and arched smoothly towards the hoop, spinning backwards as it dipped over the lip of the rim and fell tangling in the chains.

  10

  Every so often, Harlen could be as blunt as a brick. “Morning, Will. I bet Bertha a cup of coffee that you forgot.”

  Harlen had a favourite chair in my studio. Sometimes it would get moved out of position—a large sitting, the cleaning people, furtive decorating. Wherever it was, Harlen would drag it out to the centre of the room in front of my desk and sit down.

  “Tomorrow’s South Wing’s first birthday,” said Harlen, dragging and sitting all in one motion. “Have you got your daughter a present yet?”

  Harlen’s being direct always set me back a few seconds.

  “She’s not my daughter, Harlen, and no, I haven’t bought her a present yet. But I’m going to.”

  “Bertha says that South Wing can almost say Daddy.”

  “Bertha can talk, but South Wing can’t. I’m her uncle, just like you.”

  “She’s always happy to see you.”

  “She’s happy to see anyone.”

  “That’s close enough. You’re just crabby because you almost forgot her birthday.”

  “I didn’t almost forget her birthday.”

  “Bertha was afraid you’d forget.”

  “I didn’t forget.”

  “Well, we better get moving then.”

  I had lost Harlen. Somehow he had gotten away from me. “I came to take you shopping.”

  “Harlen, I have to work.”

  “Stores won’t be open tonight. Tomorrow’ll be too late.” And he sat forward in the chair with his hands on his knees, looking at me with his mouth closed
. Harlen chewed on a lot of people this way. It was best to cut your losses and give up.

  We started at Eaton’s.

  “If you had planned ahead, you could have got her a beaded dress or a ribbon shirt.”

  “Harlen, she’s one year old.”

  “You could have got it large, for later on.”

  “I could get her a pair of moccasins. Friendship Centre might have some.”

  Harlen shook his head. “Already looked.”

  The salesclerks were no help either. The current rage, so one woman told us, was Fiona Faithful, a doll with a built-in cassette tape-recorder and a Velcro strap that went around your waist so you would never be without her. Harlen didn’t stick around to hear the price, which almost made me laugh in spite of the good manners my mother raised me with.

  We looked at teddy bears at Woodward’s and a Fisher-Price tub toy that squirted water and made six different noises. Woolco had a toy lawn mower that also made noise. Harlen found a little red drum with white maple leaves around the sides that he thought South Wing would like.

  It only took us an hour to exhaust Medicine River.

  “Maybe the drum wasn’t such a bad idea, Will.”

  “It was a bad idea.”

  But it wasn’t as bad an idea as it had been an hour before.

  “Maybe you should call Louise.”

  Louise and I hadn’t gone out much since South Wing was born, but I would generally go over for dinner about once a week. We still joked about the mistake the nurses had made.

  Louise wasn’t in. Harlen and I were left to our own devices.

  “You know, Will, I’m not one to butt into other people’s business, but you and Louise should probably get married.”

  “Harlen….”

  “I know you like being single, but everybody can see how much you love South Wing. Bertha figures you’re pretty fond of Louise, too.”

  “I like being single. Louise likes being single.”

  Harlen shook his head. “Maybe you two could try living together.”

  “I like living alone. Louise likes living alone.”

  Harlen nodded, jammed his hands in his pockets and looked back down the streets towards the river.

  “I guess we better go out to the reserve then,” said Harlen.

  “What for?”

  “The present. I just thought of where we can get one.”

  “You thinking about Grey Horse Crafts?”

  “No. Got another place in mind.”

  I didn’t have any afternoon appointments, and Wednesdays were always slow.

  “We better take your truck, Will,” said Harlen. “We got to go out past Rolling Fish Coulee.”

  We were halfway to the reserve, before I figured out exactly where we were going.

  “Harlen,” I said, in as friendly a voice as I could manage, “who lives out past Rolling Fish Coulee?”

  “Not to worry, Will. You’ll see.”

  “Wouldn’t be we’re going out to see Martha Oldcrow, would it?”

  “Lots of people live out there.”

  Which was a lie of sorts. Lots of people lived on the reserve, but only Martha Oldcrow lived out past Rolling Fish Coulee, and Martha Oldcrow and South Wing’s birthday present didn’t seem to have much in common.

  Martha was a doctor. People with problems went to see her. She was known as the “marriage doctor” because that was what she fixed best.

  “Harlen, is this about Louise and me?”

  Harlen had the window rolled down. He was sitting there singing to himself, which is what he does on long trips or when he’s trying to ignore me.

  The road past Old Agency out to Rolling Fish Coulee was always a surprise. I’d only been on it once before. It was a standard joke on the reserve. The council didn’t bother grading it like they did the other dirt and gravel roads, because no one lived out there except Martha, and she didn’t drive. Every year, the snow and run-off would cut new gullies through the road, and the road itself would change as the pick-ups and four-wheel drives found new ways around the cuts. Last winter, there was a slide that took the road out about ten miles from Old Agency. From there, you went cross-country and found your own way.

  “Slide’s up ahead about two miles, Will. Better head west.”

  We left the road, climbed a low embankment, and headed out on to the prairies.

  “This is just like the explorers, Will,” said Harlen. “Head south. Those trees over there look familiar.”

  We headed south. We got lost. We headed north. We got lost. We headed west. We got lost.

  “Those trees over there look familiar, Will. Head east.”

  I looked at the gas gauge. With any luck, we could just make it back to Standoff. And Harlen’s luck held. We came to the edge of a coulee and couldn’t go any farther.

  “There it is, Will.”

  Martha’s cabin sat on a small flat across the river.

  “Just have to walk down. Best to leave the truck here.”

  It was almost a mile down the ridge to the river.

  “Water’s not too deep this time of the year.” Harlen was ever the optimist. The river was only about twenty feet wide, but you could see it was going to be over our heads. We looked at it for a while, Harlen measuring it up for a jump. “What do you think, Will?” In the end, we took our clothes off, tied them up in a ball and threw them across. The water was green and murky and freezing.

  “Something to tell your kids about, Will.”

  Martha Oldcrow was sitting in a white Naugahyde Lazy Boy recliner under a cottonwood tree.

  “You boys come all this way to go swimming?”

  “Afternoon, Granny,” said Harlen. “No, we didn’t come to swim. Came to see you about a present for a little girl.”

  “You get lost or something?”

  “Big slide across the road. We had to come around.”

  “Council fixed that two months back.”

  I looked at the river and my truck up on the ridge.

  “We need a present, Granny,” said Harlen. “You know Louise Heavyman’s little girl, South Wing. Her first birthday’s tomorrow. Wanted to get her a real Indian rattle. Like the ones you make, you know.”

  “This her father?”

  I jumped in, before Harlen got started. “I’m a friend.”

  “Don’t need a friend,” said Martha. “Needs a father, that one.”

  “This is Rose Horse Capture’s boy, Will. Granny Pete’s grandson.”

  “Sure, I know him. No father that one, too.”

  Martha got up and headed for the house. “Maybe you boys want to swim some more?” As she got to the door, she stopped, turned around, and looked me up and down like she was measuring me for a suit. “That little girl needs a father. You see her born?”

  “I was there.”

  “Okay. That’ll do. You love her?”

  On the way back, when we crossed the river again, I was going to drown Harlen.

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t sound too sure.”

  “I love her.”

  “Okay. How about the mother? You love her?”

  I was going to drown him slow. Let him up a couple of times, before I shoved his head all the way into the mud.

  “You deaf or you thinking?”

  “No. Yes, I like Louise.”

  “Okay. Like is close enough. Come on. The present’s inside.” Martha’s house was one big room, and it was dark and cool. There was an old stove in the middle of the floor and a bed near the south wall. There was one window and a table underneath it. All around the room were boxes, and in the boxes were books. There were novels, stacks of Harlequin romances, chemistry textbooks. There were travel books, books on physics, a box of English textbooks, a couple of French dictionaries, a Greek grammar book, along with dozens of Reader’s Digests, newspapers and a 1964 Farmer’s Almanac.

  “You read all these?”

  “Nope.”

  “Where’d you get them?”


  “Found some of them,” said Martha. “Others, people just bring them by.”

  “What do you do with them all?”

  “Look after them,” and she said it as though it was the stupidest question she had heard for a while.

  “Real nice place,” said Harlen.

  Martha went over to a dresser and rummaged around in the drawer.

  “Here’s what you boys want. Good present, this one.”

  It was a small leather rattle made out of willow and deer hide. It was painted blue and yellow and had several strands of horsehair tied to the side. There were stones or seeds inside. Martha shook it and sang a song. “You know that song?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Good thing you know how to swim then,” and she handed me the rattle. “Young boys don’t know anything today. Anyway, you give this to your daughter. Everything will be fine. You’ll see. No cost. Next time you come maybe bring a book or maybe some oranges. Better learn that song.”

  “How about that,” said Harlen, as we took off our clothes again. “I told you Granny Oldcrow would have something.”

  I carried the rattle in one hand as we crossed the river. The water cut into me, and my legs began to cramp, but when we got to the middle, I reached out, and with my free hand, shoved Harlen’s head under water.

  He came up spitting cold, green river water and cursing. “Damn, Will. Why’d you do that?”

  Everybody came to the party the next day. South Wing was in her high chair with ice cream all over her face and her dress and the chair.

  Louise had some in her hair.

  “You’ve got ice cream in your hair,” I said.

  “And you don’t,” said Louise, and she handed me the spoon. “Everybody gets a turn.”

  I put the present with the others and sat down next to South Wing, who gave me a big smile and opened her mouth. The first spoonful of ice cream wound up on her nose. The second wound up on the floor. I reached out and rubbed her head, but she was having none of that. She leaned forward in the chair and squealed and opened her mouth.

  We lit the cake and sang “Happy Birthday,” and Louise began to open the presents.

  “This one’s from Grandpa and Grandma.

  “And this one’s from Auntie Sue.