by Thomas King
Alberta had made the mistake of getting married young. She knew that. But there were those driving expectations that hemmed her in and herded her toward the same cliffs over which her mother, her brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends had disappeared.
And of course there was Bob. Handsome and witty. They met at university. She had resisted at first, delighted with the attention, but fearful even then of being lost in someone else. Bob teased her, said that their relationship was a slow burn, like igniting a peach. Alberta was sure Bob hadn’t thought that up, but she liked it. It was clever, and the idea of a soft, fuzzy peach, full of juice and sparkling flesh all aglow in flames, was intellectually erotic.
They were married that same year. There was love, good times, wonderful and consuming passion, and at the edge of her hearing, the slight change of pitch, the gentle tearing barely audible over the hiss of the flames.
Bob wanted her to finish her degree. It was the way he started when he wanted to explain to her why she didn’t need to finish it right away. Why didn’t she wait on her degree and help put him through? Sociology was a good investment. She could go back later, when the children were older, after Bob had established himself in a good government position.
It was, to Alberta’s mind, a ridiculous request. Bob just wasn’t looking at it properly. And she said no. Bob kept on smiling and talking. They should move into a larger apartment, he said. They should buy a car, too.
“We don’t have the money for those things.”
“One of us could get a job.”
“But we don’t need them.”
“Nobody needs those things. But everyone wants them. You want them. I want them. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life in a tepee, do you?”
Bob meant it as a joke, and Alberta tried to laugh.
“I don’t want to drop out of school. Why don’t you go to work and put me through? Then you can go back and finish.”
“And who’s going to have the children?”
“The children can wait.”
The following year they were divorced, and the only apparent casualty was the semester Alberta missed trying to convince Bob that there wasn’t another man.
After it was over, Alberta tried to remember the long, intimate conversations that they had had before they were married, conversations about their dreams and expectations. But she couldn’t remember ever saying or even hinting that she wanted to stay at home, and she didn’t think she had ever suggested that she would be willing to put him through university. And children at twenty-one? Where in the world had he got such an absurd idea?
Whenever Alberta went on a long drive alone, her marriage, its demise, and the aftermath were the first things she worked out. And she always came to the same conclusions. Bob wanted a wife; he did not want a woman. All of this was confirmed the year she graduated and Bob married a second-year history major who promptly dropped out of university and went to work for one of the large oil companies.
Just before she left graduate school, Alberta met Bob for coffee. They talked about the good old days, the fun they had had, and the plans he and Nancy (was that her name?) were making. He chattered on about their new apartment and how Nancy was anxious to start a family. The conversation hurt, but sitting there talking with Bob, she had never felt so free.
Alberta opened a bag of potato chips on the seat beside her. Calgary disappeared behind her, and the road ahead rolled out onto the prairies. The stars were everywhere and they reminded her, once again, of the last night her father came home.
There was no moon the night Amos slid his pickup down the reserve roads and drove into the outhouse. Alberta remembered the sound of the crash and the boards snapping and the tires spinning in the mud and the snow. Her mother went to the door and stood on the porch and looked out, but it was too dark to see much. Alberta and the rest of the kids gathered at the windows and in the doorway. The light from the house shone on her mother’s back, and Alberta could see her mother’s shoulders bunch and her fists clench.
Then the cursing began and the smashing and the laughter, high-pitched and wild.
“He’s just got bad times,” her mother said. “You kids go on to bed.”
But nobody moved. Alberta stood in the doorway behind her mother and listened as Amos called out to them from the darkness.
“Daarlink,” he shouted. “I’m stuck in the shit, Ada. God, I’m in the shit again.” There was more laughter and smashing. “They’re right behind me, Ada. You better come quick if you want to take a crap. You better come quick, ’cause it’s coming down. God damn it, yes, it’s coming down.”
Alberta’s mother didn’t move. She stood on the porch in the yellow light, blocking the entrance to the house.
“I can see you, Ada. I can see your ugly cow face. Get out here and help me!”
The smashing stopped, and there was no sound at all.
“Go to bed, you kids. Nothing to see here. It’s just your father had too much to drink. He’s just fooling around. Go to bed. He don’t want you should see him like this.”
It was then that Amos appeared out of the black, just on the edge of the light. There was a bottle in his hand, and he was naked from the waist down, his shirttails hanging on his bare thighs, his jacket pulled off his shoulders. His underpants and his trousers were bunched down around his ankles, and he moved forward like a horse hobbled, dragging his pants in the snow.
“Ada,” he called out. “You still mad at me, honey? Am I in the shiiiit again?” And he laughed. ‘‘’Cause there ain’t no shit house, anymoooore. Nothing but a hole. A shit hole. You hear me?”
He was fully in the light now, swaying, struggling, as if his pants were hooked on something. “Can you hear them? Can you hear them, Ada?”
Amos stopped and tried to shield his eyes from the light.“You hear me calling? You hear me calling you?”
“I hear you,” Alberta’s mother called out.
“I’m drunk, Ada.”
“Whole world knows that.”
“I can’t piss. I tried, but I can’t do it.”
“You’re just drunk.”
“No. It won’t work. I can’t walk, either.”
“Pull up your pants.”
Amos looked down at the ground. “My pants are full of shit!” he shouted. “Come out here and help me, you old cow. Help me. Give us a kiss, daaarlink!”
Alberta’s mother stepped back into the doorway and set her feet.
“God damn cow! Come here! Come here and help me!”
Alberta saw her father stagger forward, and the bottle came flying out of the dark and smashed against the side of the house. It must have been then that he saw the children at the windows, for Alberta remembered him stopping, and he shouted even louder, his voice beginning to crack.
“They’re right behind me, Ada.” And he sat down in the snow. His jacket fell further off his shoulders, trapping his arms at his sides. “I can’t stop them.” He tried to stand but pitched forward onto his face, lay there not moving, as if he had been shot.
Alberta’s mother watched him, and then she came back into the house, shut the door, and threw the bolt. “Go to bed now,” she said. “All of you. Everything’s okay.”
“What about Dad? He’ll freeze out there.”
Alberta’s mother took off her apron and sat down on the sofa. She didn’t say a word. She just sat there, her hands in her lap, her eyes fixed on the wood stove. Finally she stood up and put on her heavy wool sweater. “Alberta,” she said, “you and Grace and Sonny help me get him. The rest of you, go to bed.”
Amos was lying in the snow, unconscious. Alberta’s mother rolled him over and pulled his underpants up. She grabbed him under one arm, and Alberta and Grace took the other. Sonny got the feet, and they dragged him onto the porch.
“Leave him be,’” said their mother. “Throw that old blanket over him, and leave him be.”
In the morning, before the s
un was up, Alberta went outside. The blanket was folded and waiting on the wood table. The pickup was sitting in a small lake where the outhouse used to be, the water above the wheels and the doors. The air was clear, and Alberta could see all the way to the mountains and across the prairies until the land outran itself.
When Alberta got to Claresholm, she stopped for gas. Her back was sore and she found herself wishing she had stayed in Calgary. Men. In the end, Charlie and Lionel weren’t much different from Bob and Amos. They all demanded something, insisted on privileges, special favors.
Amos never came back. The pickup sat there in the water for years, slowly rusting and sinking into the depths. Her mother never said a word about the truck or the lake, never seemed to wonder where he had gone to or where the water had come from.
“There was just water,” said Babo, rolling the empty coffee cup around in her hands. “That’s what they said . . . nothing but water. Now, there were some animals, but they didn’t live on the water. They lived in the sky.”
“Heaven?” asked Jimmy Delano.
“I don’t think so. No, it was just another place. Like the moon or Mars. Wherever it was, this other place was getting crowded, and the animals had this meeting and decided to see if they could do something about all the water.”
“Maybe it was Venus.”
“Sure. Well, anyway, they had this meeting, and these four ducks volunteered to go down and see what could be done. So they swam around for a while . . . I don’t know, couple of months, maybe a year . . . just swimming around and looking things over. But after a while, they got bored. You ever do any swimming, Jimmy?”
“Yes, sir,” said the patrolman.
“Laps,” said Babo. “I used to swim laps. You ever swim laps?”
“You bet. I used to swim a lot, but the stuff they put in the pool gives me a skin rash and makes my hair go funny.”
Babe’s eyes brightened. “That’s right,” she said. “My grandmother had some stuff she put on her hair to protect it. They were barbers. You know, my whole family. All the way back. They knew about hair.”
“No kidding.”
“My great-great-grandfather was a barber on a ship. Sailed all over the place, cutting hair, shaving people.”
“Wow!”
“That other cop, the old guy . . . I’ll bet his wife does his hair.”
“How did you know that?”
“You can see it around the ears. And that rash on his neck. I’ll bet he uses a cheap electric razor, too.”
“That’s right. One of those cordless models.”
“Straight razor,” said Babo. “It’s the only thing to use. Good blade, good strop, and you can get the best shave in the world. Now, my great-great-grandfather could handle a blade. Have I got stories—”
“Those things are pretty dangerous, aren’t they?”
Babo waved her hand. “Nothing to it. Just practice. Got to be careful under the nose and around the neck.”
“I use a safety razor,” said Jimmy. “What about those ducks?”
“What ducks?”
“You know, the ducks in the story.”
“Oh, yeah . . . almost forgot. Well, those ducks swam and swam all over the place, just like swimming laps, and finally they had it with swimming, and one of them says, ‘Let’s make some dry land’ . . . No, wait. I messed it up. There’s this woman.”
“Was she nice looking?”
“Must have been. So, this woman falls from the sky.”
“Same place as the animals?”
“I guess. Now, how did that go. So, there was this woman and four ducks, and this woman was sitting on the back of a giant turtle—”
“Boy, Ms. Jones,” said Jimmy, “you can sure tell a story.”
“You following this, Jimmy?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“So this woman says that they could create some dry land, and the ducks, who are tired of swimming laps, say, ‘Sure, let’s do that.’ Anyway, one of the ducks dives down to the bottom, and she’s gone for a long time. But pretty soon she bobs back up looking half dead, and the rest of the ducks crowd around and ask her if she found any land.”
Babo looked out into the parking lot. There was no sign of the Pinto. “That’s not right either. I keep getting it wrong. I better start at the beginning again.”
“Sure,” said Jimmy. “We got lots of tape.”
“Okay,” said Babo, and she leaned back and closed her eyes. “In the beginning, there was nothing. Just the water.”
Sergeant Cereno sat in the white wingback chair, all green and glowing. Dr. Hovaugh leaned forward and cleared his throat. Cereno’s eyes were shut. “Sergeant . . . Sergeant . . . ?”
Cereno opened his eyes. “I was just reflecting.”
“About the Indians?”
“No, just reflecting.” Cereno opened his notebook again and wrote something on the page. “Could you describe the Indians?”
“Isn’t all that in the files?”
Cereno held up the folders and nodded. “Yes, it is. But it’s rather vague.”
“Vague?”
“Yes, doctor. You know . . . height, weight, distinguishing marks. That sort of thing.”
“Well, they were all about five foot three to five foot five, I would guess . . .”
Cereno stopped writing and held up his hand. “No, no . . . that’s in the files. I’m more interested in your impressions, your observations. For instance, was one of the Indians more or less their leader? How did they like to dress? What did they like to eat? Who were their friends? Did anyone come to visit them? Were they on drugs? Did they drink?”
“Oh.”
“Did they talk about escaping? Were they unhappy?”
“I see.”
“Did they have any friends on the hospital staff? Could someone have unlocked the door for them?”
“Why would someone do that?”
“Who, Dr. Hovaugh?”
Dr. Hovaugh squeezed his hands together. “Perhaps you would like some tea, Detective Cereno.”
“Sergeant.”
“Certainly.”
Sergeant Cereno adjusted himself in the chair so that his jacket fell free and the bulbous handle of the revolver poked out from his armpit. “Dr. Hovaugh, perhaps you can tell me exactly why these Indians were in this hospital.”
“Ah,” said Dr. Hovaugh. “That is a rather long and a rather boring story.”
“How long?”
“Well, I’d have to start at the beginning, I guess, with my great-grandfather and his vision. That’s how this hospital started, you know, with a vision.”
“But this story has to do with the Indians?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Do you mind if I record this?”
“Not at all.”
Sergeant Cereno set the tape recorder on the edge of the desk. He pushed the buttons and settled back in the chair. “Okay, you can start.”
Dr. Hovaugh leaned back. He was feeling better now. Tired, but better. “Well . . . let’s see. I never know where to start. I suppose I should begin by saying that in the beginning all this was land. Empty land. My great-grandfather came out here from the Old World. He was what you might call an evangelist. It wasn’t how he made his money. There was very little money in evangelism in those days. Not at all like now. He made his money in real estate. He bought this land from the Indians.”
“Our Indians?”
“No, no. He bought the land from a local tribe. They’re extinct now, I believe.”
“When was that?”
“Eighteen seventy-six.”
“And the Indians?”
“I believe they were all killed by some disease.”
“Not those Indians, our Indians.”
“Of course. Well, according to the old records, the Indians arrived in January of 1891.”
Sergeant Cereno held up a hand and looked at the ceiling.“That woul
d make them at least one hundred and one years old.”
“Hardly, sergeant. They were old when they arrived.”
“How old?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could you guess?”
“Doctors don’t like to guess.”
“So, you’re saying that they were old.”
“Yes, that’s safe to say.”
“Maybe you better start at the beginning, Dr. Hovaugh.”
Dr. Hovaugh looked out the window. The grass near the wall seemed unusually dry and the leaves on one of the new elms appeared yellow and curled. The big oak wasn’t showing any signs of improvement, either.
“Well,” he said, locking his fingers together and leaning back in the chair, “in the beginning, there was nothing. There was just the water.”
Norma started humming a round-dance song. The car was warm, and Lionel closed his eyes again. He wondered if Dr. Loomis was still alive. Maybe Cecil made it to Wounded Knee after all. And he remembered that night in the parking lot, standing there, watching himself in the window.
“Wake up, nephew,” said Norma. “Company up ahead.”
Lionel opened his eyes in time to see four old Indians standing by the side of the road.
“Better give them a ride,” said Norma, easing the car off the road. “They look about as lost as you.”
It wasn’t until Norma had stopped the car completely and Lionel had opened the door and stepped out that he noticed two things. The first was that he was standing ankle deep in a pool of water. The second was that one of the Indians was wearing a black mask.
“Where did the water come from?” said Alberta.
“Where did the water come from?” said Patrolman Delano.
“Where did the water come from?” said Sergeant Cereno.
“Where did the water come from?” said Lionel.
“Forget the water,” says Coyote. “What happens to First Woman and Ahdamn?”
“They go to Florida,” I says.
“Florida,” says Coyote. “Can I go too?”
So those soldiers take First Woman and Ahdamn to a train station. And then they take them to a train. And then the train takes them to Florida.
