by Thomas King
It took Norma and Lionel and Latisha and Alberta and Charlie the better part of an hour to dig the post out.
“Now, that wasn’t too bad,” said Norma. “The rest of the logs will probably be a lot easier.”
Charlie smiled and rocked back on his heels. “I’ll think about you when I’m on the beach.”
“You’ll be back,” said Norma.
“But in the meantime,” said Charlie, “it’s time to get going. Just came over to say good-bye.”
Lionel looked at Alberta. She didn’t look pregnant, but then, he guessed, you couldn’t tell this early.
“So,” Lionel said, “I guess you’re going with Charlie.”
Norma stopped what she was doing and hit Lionel on the shoulder with the stick. “Why would she do something like that?”
Latisha shook her head and laughed. “Why on earth would she do something like that?”
“Why would I do something like that?” said Alberta. “I haven’t got time to be running after lawyers in Los Angeles. I work for a living.”
“You sure got a way with women, cousin,” said Charlie, and he began climbing back up the bank. When he got to his car, he turned and waved. “Send me pictures of the new place when you get it finished.”
“When you get to Los Angeles, Charlie Looking Bear,” said Norma, “tell your father hello for me. Tell him about Eli.”
Lionel waited until Charlie’s car disappeared down the road. “So,” he said to Alberta, “you in town for the weekend?”
“That’s right,” said Alberta. “Figured I’d give Norma a hand.”
“With what?”
“With the cabin,” said Norma. “You can help, too.”
Lionel stopped what he was doing and looked at Norma and then he looked at the dam. “You’re not serious?”
“Sure she is, brother,” said Latisha.
“Won’t take much,” said Norma. “We’ll get Harley’s truck and drag as many logs as we can back up here, and what we’re short, we can cut and bring in.”
“That’s a lot of work,” said Lionel.
“My mother did it,” said Norma. “Did it all by herself.”
Alberta set her feet in the mud and put her hands on her hips. “You can help or you can sell televisions.”
“What’s it going to be, nephew?”
Lionel squatted down and tentatively stuck a finger in the ground. “It’s pretty wet.”
“In or out?” said Latisha.
Lionel stood up and looked at the sun. “Well, maybe when the cabin is finished,” he said, “I’ll live in it for a while. You know, like Eli. Maybe that’s what I’ll do.”
“Not your turn,” said Norma. “It’s my turn. Your turn will come soon enough.”
Latisha put her arm around Alberta. “Come on,” she said.“We’ll catch lunch at the Dead Dog, get changed, and get to work.”
“Lunch?” said Alberta. There were tiny beads of sweat on the sides of her nose.
“Something greasy,” said Latisha.
“Don’t start,” said Alberta.
“Of course, I should probably go back to school,” said Lionel. “Maybe that’s what I’ll do.”
Norma stuck her stick in the earth. “We’ll start here,” she said. “So we can see the sun in the morning.”
Dr. Joseph Hovaugh sat at his desk and rolled his toes in the soft, deep-pile carpet. In the garden, the willows were beginning to get their leaves, the cherry trees were heavy with pink and white blossoms, the evergreens stood dark and velvet against the stone. Yellow daffodils lined the front of the flower beds, and the wisteria and the lilacs around the arbors were greening up nicely.
Dr. Hovaugh sat in his chair behind his desk and looked out at the wall and the trees and the flowers and the Swans on the blue-green pond in the garden, and he was pleased.
The knock, a sharp rap, barely gave Dr. Hovaugh time to swivel back toward the door and bring Mary into focus.
“Good morning, Mary. What do we have today?”
“F Wing,” said Mary.
“F Wing? The Indians?”
“Yes, sir. They’re back.”
“Again?”
Dr. Hovaugh turned back to the window. He stretched both his hands out on the desk and pushed down as if he expected to move it. “Look at that, Mary. It’s spring again. Everything’s green. Everything’s alive. You know, I thought I might get a pair of peacocks. What do you think?”
Mary stood in the middle of the room, unsure of what to do. Dr. Hovaugh seemed to shrink behind the desk as though it were growing, slowly and imperceptibly enveloping the man.
“It’s too bad about the Indians,” he said.
“They’re back,” said Mary. “They always come back.”
Dr. Hovaugh turned away from the window. Perhaps he should move the desk out and get another that didn’t seem so rooted and permanent.
“I need John, Mary.” Dr. Hovaugh leaned on the desk and spoke each word slowly, as if he was trying to remember exactly what he wanted to say. “Find me John.”
Babo pushed the heavy doors open and stuck her head into the room.
“Hi,” she said. “Everybody okay?”
“Hello, Babo,” said the Lone Ranger.
“Good to see you again,” said Ishmael.
Babo slipped into the room and put her mop against the wall. “So how was the trip?”
“It was very good,” said Robinson Crusoe.
“Yes,” said Hawkeye. “We fixed up part of the world.”
“All right!” said Babo.
“It wasn’t a big part,” said the Lone Ranger. “But it was very satisfying.”
“Unfortunately,” said Ishmael, “part of it got messed up, too.”
“Well, you got to expect that to happen from time to time,” said Babo.
“Yes,” said Robinson Crusoe. “That’s the way things happen all right.”
“Well, it’s good to have you back,” said Babo. “Dr. Hovaugh was very concerned about you.”
“That’s nice,” said Hawkeye. “Maybe next time, we’ll help him.”
“What a wonderful idea,” said Babo. “I think he’d like that.”
“We could start in the garden,” said the Lone Ranger.
Babo smiled and rubbed her shoulder. “Now, wouldn’t that be the trick,” she said. “Wouldn’t that just be the trick.”
“Boy,” says Coyote, “am I sore.”
“Coyote,” I says, “you are all wet.”
“Yes,” says Coyote, “that’s true.”
“And you’re covered with mud.” I says that, too.
“Just here and there,” says Coyote.
“So,” I says, “what happened?”
“It wasn’t my fault,” says Coyote. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“Oh, boy,” I says. “It looks like we got to do this all over again.”
“Gha!” said the Lone Ranger.
“Wait a minute,” said Ishmael. “Wait a minute. Before we begin, did anyone offer an apology?”
“Wasn’t Coyote going to do that?” said Robinson Crusoe.
“Apologize for what?” says Coyote.
“In case we hurt anyone’s feelings,” said Hawkeye.
“Oh, okay,” says Coyote. “I’m sorry.”
“That didn’t sound very sorry, Coyote,” said the Lone Ranger. “Remember what happened the last time you rushed through a story and didn’t apologize?”
“Yes,” said Ishmael. “Remember how far you had to run?”
“Yes,” said Robinson Crusoe. “Remember how long you had to hide?”
“Ooops!” says Coyote. “I am very sorry.”
“That’s better,” said Hawkeye.
“I am really very, very sorry,” says Coyote.
“That’s fine,” said the Lone Ranger. “It sounds very sincere.”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,”says Coyote.
&nbs
p; “Okay,” said the Lone Ranger. “We believe you.”
“Hee-hee,” says Coyote. “Hee-hee.”
“Okay, okay,” says Coyote. “I got it!”
“Well, it’s about time,” I says.
“Okay, okay, here goes,” says Coyote. “In the beginning, there was nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“That’s right,” says Coyote. “Nothing.”
“No,” I says. “In the beginning, there was just the water.”
“Water?” says Coyote.
“Yes,” I says. “Water.”
“Hmmmm,” says Coyote. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I says, “I’m sure.”
“Okay,” says Coyote, “if you say so. But where did all the water come from?”
“Sit down,” I says to Coyote.
“But there is water everywhere,” says Coyote.
“That’s true,” I says. “And here’s how it happened.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Thomas King is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, scriptwriter and photographer of Cherokee and Greek descent. His acclaimed bestselling fiction includes Medicine River; Truth and Bright Water; One Good Story, That One; and A Short History of Indians in Canada. In addition to its many award distinctions, Green Grass, Running Water was named to Quill & Quire’s Best Canadian Fiction of the Century list. A member of the Order of Canada and the recipient of an award from the National Aboriginal Foundation, Thomas King is a senior fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto and a professor of English and Native literature at the University of Guelph, Ontario.
PRAISE FOR
GREEN GRASS, RUNNING WATER
“An irresistibly funny novel. . . . King blends myth, folklore and contemporary events to create his satirical look at society.”
—Toronto Star
“Green Grass, Running Water is a novel novel. In many ways it’s a groundbreaker in an area that needed it. . . . Once you catch on to the style, it’s hard to get the book out of your hands. I read it in one sitting, accelerating through the pages, laughing out loud several times, silent with admiration at others.”
—Ottawa Citizen
“Original, witty and stylishly executed, and all adding up to more than a little bit of truth.”
—Maclean’s
“A witty, wild, woolly romp of a story; wonderful is the best way to describe it. . . . Green Grass, Running Water is a sharp-witted and warm-hearted novel fuelled by oral storytelling traditions. Its pages brim with titillating In(dian)-jokes and sparkle with puns, pokes and post-modern plot polkas. It may well be one of the most significant novels of the past two decades.”
—Edmonton Journal
“Elegant and outrageous: a richly rewarding saga from a first-rate talent.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“This is storytelling in the best tradition, with plot lines and people that wander in and out of things, ravelling and unravelling themselves to the rhythms of musical language. . . . The humour here is crackling dry.”
—The Vancouver Sun
“Green Grass, Running Water is wonderfully well written, and it highlights one transcendent aspect of human culture: the pervasiveness of storytelling. . . . Those who love ingenuity in storytelling will revel in this book and in Thomas King’s mastery of a difficult art.”
—Books in Canada
“Thomas King . . . introduces the reader to characters who will stay in the memory long after the last page is turned. . . . Like a metaphor for American Indian culture, the story evolves in a layered circle-fashion, in tune with nature.”
—The Milwaukee Journal
“The book’s devilish wit and fireside storytelling make it a marvellous read.”
—The Edmonton Sun
“Hilarious and deeply moving. . . . Cleverly written and structurally sophisticated, Green Grass, Running Water . . . describes the excruciatingly painful process of cultural annihilation with wit and humour, leavened with compassion and generosity of spirit.”
—Kitchener-Waterloo Record
“King has a marvellous way of mixing the past and present, the worlds of men and women, the worlds of white and native people, and the worlds of the real and the imaginary.”
—Times-Colonist (Victoria)
“King has produced a novel of great ambition and fun. . . . With its wonderfully crazy logic and its commitment to the multiple voices of storytelling, this novel promises to be one of the most successful ‘crossovers’ in Native American literature and contemporary American literature.”
—The Boston Sunday Globe
“King has established himself as a first-rate comic novelist . . . as savagely and darkly funny as Twain.”
—Newsweek
COPYRIGHT
Green Grass, Running Water © 1993 by Thomas King.
All rights reserved under all applicable International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2012 ISBN: 978-1443-41912-3
Published by Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
Originally published in hardcover by HarperCollins: 1993. First Harper Perennial Canada paperback edition: 1999. Harper Perennial Modern Classics trade paperback edition: 2010.
HarperCollins books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use through our Special Markets Department.
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
King, Thomas, 1943-
Green grass, running water: a novel / Thomas King.
ISBN 978-1-55468–525–7
I. Title.
PS8571.I5298G77 2009
C813’.54
C2009–905760–3
Part title calligraphy in Cherokee by Chris Costello
RRD 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
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