by Thomas King
“I always wanted to go to Miami,” says Coyote.
“We’re not going to Miami,” I says.
“Fort Lauderdale is okay too,” says Coyote.
“We’re not going there either,” I says.
So First Woman and Ahdamn are on that train and there are a bunch of Indians on that train with chains on their legs. First Woman and Ahdamn have chains on their legs, too. Everybody is going to Florida. We are going to Florida, those Indians tell First Woman. Yes, says First Woman, I can see that.
So they get to Florida and First Woman and Ahdamn and all the Indians sit around and draw pictures.
Boy, says Ahdamn, this is fun, and he draws a buffalo. I am having a good time, says Ahdamn, and he draws a horse. Look at me, says Ahdamn, and that one draws a refrigerator.
And Ahdamn becomes a big star. People from New York and Toronto and Chicago and Edmonton come down to Florida to watch Ahdamn draw pictures.
I am famous, Ahdamn tells First Woman.
We better get going, says First Woman. Lots of work to do.
But I am famous. Ahdamn says that again.
This world is getting bent, says First Woman. We got to fix it.
Lots of time for that later on, says Ahdamn.
Okay, says First Woman, and she puts on her black mask and walks to the front gate.
It’s the Lone Ranger, the guards shout. It’s the Lone Ranger, they shout again, and they open the gate. So the Lone Ranger walks out of the prison, and the Lone Ranger and Ishmael and Robinson Crusoe and Hawkeye head west.
Have a nice day, the soldiers say. Say hello to Tonto for us. And all the soldiers wave.
“Wait, wait, wait,” says Coyote. “Who are those other people walking out the gate with the Lone Ranger?”
“We’ll meet them later.”
“But what happens to Ahdamn?”
“Who cares.”
“But what happens to First Woman?”
“Oh, boy,” I says. “You must have been sitting on those ears. No wonder this world has problems.”
“Is this a puzzle?” says Coyote. “Are there any clues?”
“We are going to have to do this again. We are going to have to get it right.”
“Okay,” says Coyote, “I can do that.”
“All right,” I says, “pay attention. In the beginning there was nothing. Just the water.”
This according to the Lone Ranger:
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” said Hawkeye. “You just had a turn.”
“That’s right,” said Robinson Crusoe. “Whose turn is it now?”
“I’m not tired,” said the Lone Ranger. “I can keep going.”
“It’s Ishmael’s turn,” said Hawkeye. “I remember.”
“Okay,” said Robinson Crusoe. “But let’s keep going.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
This according to Ishmael:
All right.
In the beginning there was nothing. Just the water. Everywhere you looked, that’s where the water was. It was pretty water, too.
“Was it like that wonderful, misty water in California,” says Coyote, “with all those friendly bubbles and interesting stuff that falls to the bottom of your glass?”
“No,” I says, “this water is clear.”
“Was it like that lovely red water in Oklahoma,” says Coyote, “with all those friendly bubbles and interesting stuff that floats to the top of your glass?”
“No,” I says, “this water is blue.”
“Was it like that water in Toronto . . .”
“Pay attention,” I says, “or we’ll have to do this again.”
So.
There was water everywhere, and when Changing Woman looked out over the edge of the Sky World, she could see herself reflected in that beautiful Water World.
Hmmmm, she says, not bad.
Every day, Changing Woman goes to the edge of the world and looks down at the water and when she does this, she sees herself.
Hello, she says.
And each day, Changing Woman leans a little farther to get a better look at herself.
“If she leans out any farther,” says Coyote, “she’s going to fall.”
“Of course she’s going to fall,” I tell Coyote. “Sit down. Watch that sky. Watch that water. Pretty soon you can watch her fall.”
“Does Changing Woman get hurt?”
“Nope,” I tell Coyote. “She lands on something soft.”
“Water is soft. Does she land in water like First Woman?”
“No,” I tell Coyote. “She lands on a canoe.”
“A canoe!” says Coyote. “Where did a canoe come from?”
“Use your imagination,” I says.
“Was it a green Royalite Old Town single,” says Coyote, “with oak gunnels and woven cane seats?”
“No,” I says, “it wasn’t one of those.”
“Was it a red wood-and-canvas Beaver touring canoe with cedar ribs and built-in portage racks?”
“Not one of those either,” I says. “This canoe was big canoe. And it was white. And it was full of animals.”
“Wow!” says Coyote.
So Changing Woman falls out of that sky. And she falls into that canoe. And she lands on something soft. She lands on Old Coyote.
“Oh, no!” says Coyote.
“Oh, yes,” I says. “Stick around. This is how it happens.”
“Is that our ride?” said Hawkeye.
“Yes, I believe it is,” said the Lone Ranger.
“So, what happens now?” said Ishmael.
“In that car?” said Robinson Crusoe.
“The newer ones don’t have as much room,” said the Lone Ranger.
“We were better off standing,” said Robinson Crusoe.
The Lone Ranger and Ishmael and Robinson Crusoe and Hawkeye stood by the road and watched a man get out of the car and open the back door.
“Is that him?” said Ishmael.
“I think so,” said the Lone Ranger.
“We were better off standing,” said Robinson Crusoe.
Hawkeye shielded his eyes and looked at the man and the car. “Why is he standing in a puddle of water?”
“Toilet’s backed up again!”
Latisha straightened the menus and watched the bus hit the pothole and lurch into the parking lot. “Bus coming,” she shouted back to Billy. “How bad is it?”
Billy began whistling “Ebb Tide.” Latisha could hear a mop sliding through water.
“Enough water here to make a dry land farmer grin.”
The bus had Montana plates. Tourists. Rita stuck her head out of the kitchen. “How many puppies you think?”
Latisha could feel an itch settling in behind her ear. “Start with fifteen.”
“What’s the flavor?” Billy sang out from the bathroom.
“American.”
“We got enough menus and cards?”
“What about the water?”
“We got plenty of that,” Billy shouted.
American tourists were the best. They almost never ordered the special, and they almost always bought the menus and the postcards.
Cynthia came out of the back room. “A guy called for you.”
“Who was it?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Lionel? Eli?”
“Don’t think so. Said he’d be in town on the weekend. Said he’d probably catch you at the Sun Dance. He sounded cute.”
Latisha nodded and wiped the blackboard. “What are we going to call the special today?”
“What did we call it yesterday?” said Cynthia.
“I forget.”
“Rita,” shouted Latisha, “what’d we call the special yesterday?”
“What difference does it make?”
“How about Old Agency Puppy Stew?” said Cynthia.
“Rita,” shouted Latisha, “it’s
Old Agency Puppy Stew, again.”
One of the secrets of a successful restaurant was to keep things simple. Every day Rita cooked up the same beef stew, and every day Rita or Billy or Cynthia or Latisha thought up a name for it. It wasn’t cheating. Everybody in town and on the reserve who came to the Dead Dog Café to eat knew that the special rarely changed, and all the tourists who came through never knew it didn’t.
“Toilet’s working.” Billy let the door swing shut behind him. “You want me to change the gas on the dispensers?”
“No, get dressed. We may need help out front.”
“Plains, Southwest, or combination?”
The itch was more persistent. “What’d you do yesterday?”
“Plains.”
“Do Southwest.” Something was coming. Latisha could feel it.
The food at the Dead Dog was good, but what drew tourists to the cafe was the ambience and the reputation that it had developed over the years. Latisha would like to have been able to take all the credit for transforming the Dead Dog from a nice local establishment with a loyal but small clientele to a nice local establishment with a loyal but small clientele and a tourist trap. But, in fact, it had been her auntie’s idea.
“Tell them it’s dog meat,” Norma had said. “Tourists like that kind of stuff.”
That had been the inspiration. Latisha printed up menus that featured such things as Dog du Jour, Houndburgers, Puppy Potpourri, Hot Dogs, Saint Bernard Swiss Melts, with Doggie Doos and Deep-Fried Puppy Whatnots for appetizers.
She got Will Horse Capture over in Medicine River to make up a bunch of photographs like those you see in the hunting and fishing magazines where a couple of white guys are standing over an elephant or holding up a lion’s head or stretching out a long stringer of fish or hoisting a brace of ducks in each hand. Only in these photographs, it was Indians and dogs. Latisha’s favorite was a photograph of four Indians on their buffalo runners chasing down a herd of Great Danes.
Latisha had some of the better photographs made into postcards that she sold along with the menus.
“What do you want?” Cynthia was holding up several tapes. “Chief Mountain Singers or that group from Brocket?”
The tourists milled around in front of the restaurant. Latisha stood at the window and watched them as they pointed at the neon sign of a dog in a stewpot and took pictures of each other.
“Chief Mountain, I guess. But keep the volume down.”
Trouble, thought Latisha, scratching at her ear. That’s what was coming. Trouble.
Eli Stand Alone stood at the window of the cabin and watched the water slide past the porch. It was getting higher, but they had done that before, open the gates just a little and let the stream come up over the sides of the channel and wash against the logs. A lot of trouble for nothing.
He took his cup of coffee out on the porch and sat down in the easy chair and looked back to the west. Four hundred yards behind the cabin, he could see the dam, an immense porcelain wall, white and glistening in the late morning light.
Eli could also see Clifford Sifton walking down the streambed, and he waved to Sifton and Sifton waved back.
“You want some coffee?” Eli shouted, though he knew Sifton couldn’t hear him above the rush of the water. Sifton raised his walking stick and shouted back, but Eli couldn’t hear him either.
Eli brought the coffeepot out and put it on the table. The water was still rising, and Sifton was having difficulty wading through the thigh-deep, gray-green water as it tumbled over the granite riprap. The water buffeted Cliff’s legs, and Eli could see the man rocking and balancing as he stepped from rock to rock, picking his way across the stream.
“Guess they’re mad as hell about the new injunction,” Eli said.
“Guess you’re right,” said Sifton, making the porch and looking at the coffeepot. “Brewed or instant?”
“Always make brewed. You know that. You always ask me that, and it’s always brewed.”
“That one time it was instant.”
“You guys flooded me in for two weeks. What’d you expect? Besides, that was seven years ago.”
“Always pays to ask.” Sifton pulled a package out of his knapsack. “Here,” he said. “Where do you want it?”
He poured a cup of coffee and leaned his walking stick against the porch railing. “How you think the fishing is going to be this year?”
“Should be good. Be better if your dam wasn’t there.”
“Not my dam, Eli. And you know it.”
“So you say.”
Sifton sat on the railing and squinted at the sun. “That’s the beauty of dams. They don’t have personalities, and they don’t have politics. They store water, and they create electricity. That’s it.”
“So how come so many of them are built on Indian land?”
“Only so many places you can build a dam.”
“Provincial report recommended three possible sites.”
“Geography. That’s what decides where dams get built.”
“This site wasn’t one of them.”
Sifton rolled his lips around the cup. “Other factors have to be considered too.”
“None of the recommended sites was on Indian land.”
Sifton swirled the coffee in the cup until it sloshed over the rim. “I just build them, Eli. I just build them.”
“So you say.” Eli settled into the chair. “What do you figure? Now or later?”
“Now, probably,” said Sifton. “No sense wasting good coffee and a beautiful day. You know, we haven’t had any wind for almost a week.”
“Weather pattern,” said Eli. “It’ll change.”
“I know it’ll change. I just want to enjoy another day without that damn wind.”
Eli leaned over the arm of his chair and watched the water.“Looks like it’s going down.”
“Just before I left, I told them to back off.”
“Came pretty close this time.”
“We know our business.”
“Guess they’ll be turning on the light again, too,” said Eli.
“We know our business,” said Sifton.
“So ask the question.”
Sifton put his coffee cup down and pulled a white card out of his jacket pocket. He looked out over the stream, cleared his throat, and began to read.
Eli’s mother died while he was living in Toronto. No one told him about her death until his sister called.
“Mom died,” Norma said.
“When?”
“Couple of weeks ago.”
“What? Why didn’t you phone me?”
“Last time we saw you was twenty, thirty years ago.”
“Norma—”
“Haven’t written in four or five years, either.”
“It hasn’t been that long.”
“Thought you might have died.”
“I could have helped.”
“Didn’t need you. Camelot and I took care of everything. I was going to call, but then I forgot. I remembered today, so I called.”
“I could have helped,” Eli said.
“You can help now,” said Norma.
There was the matter of their mother’s house, Norma told him. No one could live in it because it was right in the middle of the proposed spillway for the Grand Baleen Dam, but Norma thought Eli might want to see the place or take a picture of it before it was flooded or torn down or whatever they did to things like that that were in the way of progress. There was even some furniture in the house that Eli could have if he wanted.
“You were born there before you went off and became white,” Norma told him, “so I thought it might be of sentimental value. I hear if you’re a famous enough white guy, the government will buy the house where you were born and turn it into one of those tourist things.”
Eli hung up before Norma could really get rolling. The next day he caught a plane to Blossom, hired a car at the airport, a
nd drove all the way to the reserve without stopping.
It was morning when he walked out of the trees and across the meadow to his mother’s house. Off to the west, he could see bulldozers and semi trucks and a couple of portable offices. There was smoke coming from one of the offices.
His mother had built the house. Log by log. Had dragged each one out of the small stand of timber behind the house, barked them, hewn them, and set them. He and Norma had been too young to help, and Camelot was only a baby then. So they looked after their sister while their mother coaxed the trees into place.
Clifford Sifton had come down from the dam site that day, the morning sun in his eyes, and walked the length of the meadow, his walking stick stabbing at the ground. He had stood at the bottom of the porch and looked up at Eli. “Morning,” he said, shading his eyes. “Saw you drive up.”
“Morning,” Eli repeated.
“You must be Eli Stands Alone.”
“That’s right.”
“Your sister says you teach in Toronto. At the university?”
“That’s right.”
“What do you teach?”
“Literature.”
“Don’t suppose you have any coffee?”
Eli couldn’t put a name to it, but he didn’t like Sifton. He didn’t want to make him any coffee. And he didn’t want the man on his mother’s porch.
“Looks like you’re thinking about building a dam.”
“That’s right,” said Sifton. “She’s going to be a beauty.”
“This is my mother’s house.”
“Your sister said you might want some things out of it before we tore it down.”
“She built it herself, log by log.”
“If there are any big pieces, sing out, and I’ll send some of the boys to give you a hand.”
Eli ran his hands along the railing, feeling for the carvings that he and Norma had cut into the wood. In the distance, he could hear a diesel motor turn over.
“Don’t know that I want anyone tearing this house down.”
“Construction starts in a month.”
“Maybe it will,” said Eli. “And maybe it’ll have to wait.”
Sifton looked at Eli, and he looked back at the bulldozers and the semis and the portable offices. “Nothing personal,” he said, smiling and extending his hand.
Eli took Sifton’s hand and held it for a second with just the fingers, the way you would hold something fragile or dangerous. “Okay,” he said, “nothing personal.”
