by S. Rose
“You mean . . . blood comes out your pooper?”
“Naw, it don’t come out your pooper. It comes out of the vulva, like where I showed you on the goat. We ain’t much different. We bleed out of the same place that the man’s seeds go in, and the baby comes out—someday when you have one, that is. Ma says it’s because your womb is getting ready to grow a baby. When you get pregnant, the bleeding stops for nine months. The rest of the time it flows out once a month, lasts about four days, give or take a couple. Depends upon the lady.”
“Four days? What the heck are you supposed to do all that time—sit on the toilet ’til it’s over?”
“Ha! ’Course not. You use sanitary napkins. They sell them at the drugstore—it’s a big wad of cotton that goes in your underpants . . . to soak up the blood.”
“Yuck!”
“Yeah, I seen my ma’s stuff in the trash. It’s pretty nasty, but what’re ya gonna do?” She shrugged fatalistically.
“So this has been going on for all time, with all the ladies . . . with my mom and Aunt Gudrun . . . and all our teachers . . . and I never even heard of it?” I lamented out loud. “Why didn’t my mom tell me about the ministration before I got old enough that it might start up on me?”
Sparrow shrugged again. “You want I should ask Pa to drive you home?”
“No . . . I think I’ll be alright. Nothing actually happened, at least so far. But I was wondering if I could take a shower.” There was no tub but fortunately, there was a little metal shower stall in the bathroom. “I got hay and dirt all down my back; it’s itchy.”
“Sure, I plan on doing the same. Grandpa always complains about me using up the hot water, but,” she made a face and stuck out her tongue, “to him. I’ll get some towels. Hey, do you want a couple aspirin?” She opened the mirrored door to the medicine cabinet. “We got a bottle.”
“I suppose it can’t hurt.” I swallowed two with a gulp of water from the sink. “Thanks.”
After a hot shower my cramps passed off; Sparrow said the aspirin likely kicked in. I decided I could stay the night.
Mr. Wind made a nice fire and then went over to the office. Grandpa Wind went to bed early, so we sat toasting marshmallows in privacy for a few hours. I was clean and warm in my thick flannel pajamas with an Indian blanket around my shoulders. Even in September it was bitterly cold by nightfall. I soaked up the heat of the flames to carry me off to bed.
“Well, morning’s gonna come awful early,” Sparrow said, stretching. “I expect we’ll hear the men get up at a quarter ’til four, even though we don’t have to. The rooster crows at the crack o’ dawn. We gotta get up then, about a quarter ’til six.”
“Let’s hit the hay,” I said.
I slept like the proverbial log, blissfully unaware of the early risers. Next thing I knew, Sparrow was shaking my shoulder hard.
“Cassy, wake up!”
“Huh?” I blinked, trying to make out my surroundings. “But it’s still pitch dark . . . I didn’t hear the rooster . . .”
“Shhh; listen. Hear that?” Something went bang outside. Then I heard the unmistakable call of Olaf, howling and carrying on like a soul in torment. Sparrow jumped up and pulled the chain to turn on the overhead light. She stood frozen in place, listening intently; her eyes were wide with fear. I heard another noise, a strange, rhythmic creaking and groaning of strained wood. The does started bleating; my instincts told me they were terrified. “Shit!” Sparrow cussed, stuffing her overalls on over the long underwear she’d slept in.
“What is it?”
“Something’s out there . . . something big,” she said, dashing from the room. I heard the backdoor bang shut, followed by a bloodcurdling scream. A chill of fear rushed down my back; Sparrow would protect the animals no matter what the danger. I leapt from the bed to go after her and instantly felt something warm running down my leg—thought I was so scared I peed myself. But it wasn’t pee.I’d been cursed.
Dressed only in soggy PJ’s, I ran through the house and opened the backdoor. Sparrow was hollering and swearing to beat all, but it was hard to make out what was going on in the dim light of the yellow bug bulb. Then I saw a black hulking shadow. The men had long gone. The bear had returned.
He’d already ripped down the gate and was inside the does’ pen, clawing at the shed door. Sparrow was behind him, waving her arms and chucking pieces of firewood.
“I thought bears hibernated by late September,” I shouted.
“Guess no one told the damned bear,” she hollered back, chucking another log. “Yaaaahh! . . .” Sparrow rushed forward brandishing a hay rake, trying to scare the beast out of the pen.
“Sparrow, get outa there!” I cried. “Let’s go get help!”
“You go. I gotta try and run ’im off before he busts the door.”
I threw on a big man’s jacket that hung on a peg and went outside without stopping for shoes, but couldn’t bring myself to go for help. Jesus, I couldn’t just leave her in there. “God-damnit, Sparrow, listen to me! You’re more important than the goats—get out.”
She ignored me. I stood wringing my hands. The bear reared up and faced her with a roar that made Olaf sound tame. I put my hands over my ears and screeched.
Crack! Behind me, the thunderous sound of horns on wood let me know that Olaf was madder than hell at the intruder. He reared tall as the bear to ram the confines of his pen.
The bear had been bent on getting a meal of goat and thus far, Sparrow had been no more than a nuisance, like a pesky fly at a picnic. But you can only shoo that fly so many times before you decide to redirect your attention, to squash it once and for all so you can eat in peace. There was no time to get help; I had to do something fast.
When Sparrow finally managed to clock him full on the snout with a stout stick, the animal whirled and charged. She wasout of the pen like a bat outa hell with the bear in hot pursuit, but I was one step ahead. Having remembered Grandpa Wind’s warning never to let loose the buck, I’d gone and done just that.
Olaf looked as though he was charging straight at Sparrow, but sped past with his head down like an angry bull to meet the bear with a butt to its skull. That didn’t drop him, but it slowed him down. He shook his big black head like a wet dog, then reared up to attack in earnest.
“Com’ on!” I shouted. I stood inside Olaf’s stinky pen, holding the sturdy gate wide open—I’d never smelled anything so good. Sparrow paused to look back. The bear was standing on his hind legs, swiping and swatting at Olaf, but the buck didn’t back away from the fight. “Get in here!” I urged her on. Sparrow scooted inside the pen and we slammed the heavy gate.
The two unlikely combatants bellowed and roared. Olaf was slammed to the ground by a blow to his neck.
A rooster crowed.
A shot rang out from close by.
I screamed.
Three more shots.
The bear fell.
Two men with guns rushed over to where the animals lay. One pumped another bullet into the bear. Olaf bleated plaintively, lifting his great horned head, kicking his legs and struggling to rise. The other man dropped to one knee and examined him, then stood abruptly and shook his head. He put his rifle to the goat’s temple.
“No!” Sparrow cried, as the bullet ended his agony.
26
GRANDPA WIND REMARKED that he hated to lose Olaf, but it might’ve gone worse. He might’ve lost Olga. The old man called us before him and said simply, “You girls done alright.” Sparrow said that coming from him, it was high praise.
Even though I downplayed the danger, my mother pitched a holy fit about the bear—declared it would snow in hell before she’d ever let me sleep over at the rez again. She also apologized profusely for delaying the talk until it was too late, explaining that she didn’t start until age fourteen. Mom ordered me into a hot bath while she ran out to the drugstore, ’cause she just happened to be out of, “ahem . . . supplies.” Later she came to my bedroom and discreetly handed me
a brown paper bag. I peeked inside; it contained a packet of Modess and some assorted elastic belts with clips. Mom blushed like a rosebud and studied the back of her hands as she asked if I had any questions. I was bursting with questions. I shook my head no. “Well, then, I’ll leave you to it,” she said, exiting the room. Under the Modess, I found a little booklet called, Growing up and Liking it. I laughed out loud at the picture on the cover—a young lady in a blue party dress with a white hat and little white gloves, primping before a mirror. (I guess we should always look our best for our monthly period.) I thumbed through the pages, which illuminated the wonders of menstruation (aha, so that’s how you say it), complete with drawings of reproductive organs. Any mention of exactly how the woman’s eggs got fertilized was conspicuous by its absence.
Later that evening Mom whispered, “Uh . . . are you all set now?”
“Uh . . . ya sure,” I said, to her visible relief.
By Wednesday the twenty-seventh, we’d heard back from nearly all of the invited party guests. It’s a good thing I didn’t get mauled by the bear, because just about everyone was coming. Lucy was the first to return her R.S.V.P. without waiting to see what Amanda Jane did. She was even going to bring Billy as her dance partner. Her bold move raised her in the eyes of the group and all but Caroline Rose quickly followed her lead.
On Thursday, Dad took Grandpa Reuben’s truck to pick up folding tables and chairs from the rental store. The furniture he’d ordered wasn’t due for another week—he tried to get the company to hurry up, to no avail. Mom fretted about the cost of renting when they’d already spent so much to buy. Dad shrugged and said, “It is what it is.” As he was picking up the tables and chairs, he got the bright idea to rent a helium tank. Mom was speechless when he came home with a huge, cylindrical metal canister, along with two hundred balloons from the Five and Dime. Dad enthusiastically explained how we’d tie two balloons on the back of each chair and a cluster around each of the vertical posts. Most of them would be left to float to the rafters.
We lugged in three long tables and sixty chairs. I was worried that sixty chairs wouldn’t be enough for everyone if all the parents stayed, but Mom said that people would mostly stand and mingle when they weren’t out on the dance floor. The food would be set up buffet style toward the back of the room, with lines of chairs along each side of the wall so the floor could be used for dancing. The Never too Pooped to Polka Band would stand off to one side of the fireplace. It was already chilly enough to have a fire in the evening, so the great stone hearth would be lit for the first time.
My mother made sure the bathrooms were clearly labeled, Girls and Boys. We taped a bunch of pink paper flowers on the door of the girls’ room. Mom made a blue paper cutout of a train for the boys’ room; she wrote Choo-choo on it.
“Aren’t we a little old for choo-choo trains?” I asked.
“I thought it looked cute,” she said.
Dad was in the process of tacking up the brightly colored party lights shaped like little lanterns when he realized we were short an extension cord. He decided to head back to town before the stores closed.
“Can’t it wait ’til tomorrow?” Mom asked.
“Naw, I wanna get it done tonight and see how it looks, in case there aren’t enough lights.”
“I think there’re more than enough lights,” she said with a hint of exasperation. “But if you’re going, you’d better go now. At this rate, you won’t get supper until midnight.”
“CAREFUL MOM . . . DON’T go so far up the ladder.” She’d decided to save time by finishing the party lights but couldn’t reach the high ceiling beams without climbing on the top rung—the one with the label that said you’re not supposed to stand on it.
“Why did they put it there if you aren’t supposed to use it?” she asked.
“I have no idea. Just come down, and we’ll let Dad hang the lights. Let’s blow up the balloons.”
Mom was coming off the ladder when a postal truck drove up. The postman hopped out and lifted a large package from the back. I opened the door as he approached, assuming it was more stuff for the chalet, but the box was addressed to me—from Tanta Gudy. I even got to sign for it. What should have been a happy event filled me with dread, for I held in my hands not only a gift, but tangible evidence that my aunt would not be with me on my birthday this year.
“What is it?” Mom asked nervously. I can only imagine the expression on my face as I tried to suppress a snowstorm of emotions—sadness and longing, anger at my mother and guilt for feeling angry after all she’d done for me.
“It’s from Tante . . . must be my birthday present,” I said casually, afraid of looking overly excited.
“Oh, of course. Well, why don’t you open it,” she said flatly. “Then you can call her up and thank her this evening. That is, as soon as I tell Grandpa that I intend to pay for the long distance phone call,” she added with a look of annoyance.
I hadn’t spoken to Tante Gudy since July—I could’ve jumped for joy. “That’ll be nice,” I said.
My aunt had sent me a wonderful oil paint set, complete with brushes, canvas board, an easel, and two beautifully illustrated books on technique. I laid it all out on one of the folding tables. “Holy cow,” I exclaimed, no longer able to conceal my enthusiasm. This was no child’s paint set. It must have cost a lot.
“Hmm, that’s very nice,” Mom said guardedly. “But I don’t know where she thinks you’re going to paint. You can’t make a big mess in Grandpa’s kitchen.”
“The living room?”
“Oh no, you might splatter—oil paint stains. I just painted the walls and besides, Grandpa will complain. I don’t know where you’re going to set all that up.”
“Set all what up?” Dad’s voice rang out from behind. He’d come back with the extension cords.
“Daddy, look what Tante Gudy sent!” I ran across the floor with one of the books. It had a picture of Van Gogh’s Starry Night on the cover. He laid aside the package from the hardware store and pulled me into a hug. I hooked my other arm around his skinny waist as I smiled up at him.
“What a swell book,” he said, thumbing through the illustrations.
“But that’s not all,” I gushed. “Come see.” I tugged him toward the table by the hand.
“Whoa, easy, Puddin’ . . . I’m coming. Wowee, will ya look at all that.”
“All that indeed,” Mom said, looking like she’d swallowed a piece of lemon.
“It’s great,” he countered. “She’ll turn out to be a lady Michael Angelo. Someday, maybe you can paint The Creation on the ceiling,” he said, pointing to the rafters. “Just like the Sistine Chapel. Whada ya say?”
“Sure, Dad,” I said jovially. My spirits were soaring.
“Hey . . . maybe I could pose for the figure of Adam,” he added with a wry look, then busted out laughing. I didn’t get it. It took Mom a moment, then a look of realization crossed her face, and she shook her head incredulously, as if at a naughty child.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, eager to laugh with him.
“Adam is buck naked.” He guffawed with laughter and I joined in.
“George,” Mom chided, “what’s got into you?” She tried to be serious, but her resolve was cracking. My father’s exuberance was contagious.
“HELLO?”
“Tante Gudy?”
“Cassandra, what a wonderful surprise. Happy birthday, darling!”
“I can’t believe it’s really you. I . . . I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you too, but it will only be a few months longer. Thanksgiving will be here before we know it.”
“I can’t wait. Mom let me call to thank you for the paints and the books. It’s the best present I ever got. Dad said I could set up a studio space in the chalet—when it’s not being used for functions, that is. Then I’ll have to clear it all away.”
“Your father suggested it?” she asked in surprise.
“Ya, it was his idea
. The chalet has a whole wall of great big windows overlooking the Stony River. He said the natural light would make it a good spot to paint.”
“It will indeed. And you’re sure it’s okay with your mother?”
“Ya sure—but I had to swear on my life that I’d stay on the canvas drop-cloth and won’t drip oil paint or turpentine on the hardwood floors.”
“Ya, that’s very important.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Your mother told me all about the chalet in her last letter—it sounds pretty fancy.”
“It is.”
“And you’re going to have quite a birthday party there—I couldn’t believe it when you wrote that there’d be a polka band.”
“And I can’t believe Mom didn’t invite you to come up,” I blurted in a hushed whisper with my hand cupped around my mouth. I’d tiptoed around my feelings for long enough. “It just won’t be the same without you.”
“Ya, she never mentioned it, and I took the hint. But you mustn’t think badly of her, Cassandra. Your mother just needs a chance to do things on her own for a while. By the way, I mailed the recipe for your special fudge cake with the buttercream frosting. Was she able to make it okay?”
“Uh, no. I mean, she didn’t even try, because it wouldn’t be nearly enough to serve everyone. Tante, at least sixty people are coming to this shindig. Dad ordered a huge cake from the bakery—we’ll pick it up tomorrow. And he must’ve strung up a hundred yards of party lights—we blew up two hundred helium balloons!”
“Two hundred? Uff da.”
“Uff da.” We had ourselves a laugh.
“So, how are you going to do your hair for the party?” she asked. “You can’t wear a braid with a formal dress.”
“Mom is going to put it in rollers.”
“That should work.”
“By the way, my braid is so long I can sit on it. I haven’t had a haircut since . . . since the last time you did it for me.”
“Then we’ll be sure to take care of it this Thanksgiving,” she said, laying to rest the question of whether I would get a professional haircut anytime soon.
