by Will Weaver
The crowd surged around the Mercedes. In the swirl of people Guy saw the placard for the Township Defense League, and below it Mary Ann. Her big body blocked the path. For a long moment the crowd, unsure of what to do now that it had the Mercedes surrounded, fell silent. Mary Ann stared down at Guy, then Tom. She raised the heavy stick of her sign high above her head, raised it like a club above the hood of the Mercedes. The sign trembled. Suddenly Mary Ann’s eyes gleamed with tears and she began to flail her sign from side to side. She cut a path for the Mercedes. “Let them pass, goddammit!” she screamed. “Let them go!”
31
Guy steered the Mercedes slowly down the dusty gravel of Chippewa Highway. Tom and Madeline sat in the rear. Nobody said anything. Outside, the sun was shining on the reservation fields. Green John Deere tractors pulled multi-row potato planters in wide black sweeps up and down the fields. Guy gave way to a big truck that approached rapidly from the rear; it went around them in a roar of dust. A pyramid of brown seed potatoes jiggled at its apex. Two potatoes tumbled over the side, then bounded, rubbery, down the road, where they thudded against the grille of the Mercedes. Following the truck were two others. A long tanker truck of herbicide. Another tanker of anhydrous ammonia fertilizer.
Tom stared straight ahead, did not seem to notice the trucks. “Twelve million dollars,” he finally said, slowly. His face was as expressionless as the flat of a knife blade. “Twelve million dollars in return for the death of the Anishinabe.” For the first time he looked out the side window. He stared at the fields for a long time. “Someone ought to cut Stanbrook’s throat,” he said softly.
“No,” Madeline said quickly.
Tom turned to look at her. He narrowed his eyes. Then he looked at Guy the same way.
Tom wanted to work alone. Madeline and Guy left him at the Humphrey Center. Afterward, because they knew Martin was in town, they drove back to the farm together. There they took a long walk past the buildings, down the lane by the grove.
“Your Chevy,” Madeline said. She stopped over the underground garage and scuffed the dirt with a shoe.
Guy smiled. “Soul on ice. I’ll leave it there for now.”
They walked on.
The sun was warm on their necks.
“So what’s going to happen to Tom?” Guy said.
By the washout where Guy and Tom used to search for agates, Madeline paused to stare. She looked back toward the green timber of the reservation and said softly, “I don’t know. He’s got the right dreams but for the wrong times.”
Back in the farmyard, Guy heard the phone ringing in the house. At first he did not want to answer it, but the bell continued to jingle. He trotted into the house. It was Cassandra Silver.
“Ricardo Losano is having a reception at his house this afternoon for the senator,” she said. “Care to join us?”
Guy heard in the background a champagne cork pop and people laugh.
“Why would I want to?” he said.
She was silent for a moment. “Because most people never get close to a senator, that’s why.”
“Why would I want to get near Stanbrook?” Guy said.
“Look,” Cassandra said, keeping her voice down, “I think you and I are on different sides of this whole Indian thing. I’m sorry about that, and there’s not much I can do. But I can invite you to the party. If there’s anything you’d like to say to Stanbrook, here’s your chance.”
“Why the sudden big heart?” Guy asked.
“Good question,” she said, and the phone clicked dead.
Guy steered the Mercedes down the paved and winding tree-lined driveway that led to Ricardo Losano’s house. Madeline rode with him. She would try to talk to Stanbrook, tell him more about the Indians, about Tom LittleWolf, make him see.
Losano’s house, made of red cedar and glass, sprawled across a hillside that overlooked the south bay of No Medicine Lake. Greening lawns, their sprinklers pulsing little rainbows in the late-afternoon sunlight, sloped down to the lake, to a screened gazebo and a two-story boathouse. Beyond, the lake water sparkled blue.
Guy parked. Madeline looked at Guy before they got out. Not wanting to put off Stanbrook with her battered Adidases and braids, she had pinned up her hair, wore a hint of pink lipstick, a dress, and low-heeled shoes. She looked trim and fresh. She swallowed, licked her tongue over her lips, tugged at her dress.
“You’re gonna be the prettiest woman there,” Guy said. He grinned and led her toward the wide oak doors and their brass potato knocker.
***
“My mother, Madeline LeCouerbrise Pehrsson,” Guy said to Cassandra.
Cassandra’s eyes flickered down Madeline’s face to her dress, her shoes, then back up. “What a surprise,” she said with a small smile, Cassandra, who did not like surprises. “Hello.”
Then Cassandra turned to look at Guy. They stared at each other so long that Madeline looked away.
“Well, well—who have we here?” called a stout, swarthy man wearing a pink shirt and black bow tie. He was looking at Madeline. Ricardo Losano, after a brief wet handshake with Guy, steered Madeline away toward the center of the party. She looked back once to look round-eyed at Guy. He nodded slightly to her.
“Attractive woman, your mother,” Cassandra said, leaning lightly against Guy. “Your father’s a lucky man.”
“They’re separated,” Guy said.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“You don’t know my father,” Guy replied.
He looked beyond into the long living room. Before the cathedral window with its lake view, steam rose from dried ice in a swan-shaped champagne bowl; the swan’s beak exhaled steady, frosty breath toward the ceiling. Around the swan, men in suits and ties, women in cocktail dresses stood with long-stemmed glasses and ate shrimp and crackers. They were all from somewhere other than Flatwater. In the center of the champagne drinkers was the tanned face and glinting white teeth of Howard Stanbrook.
“Victory party?” Guy asked.
“There are no victories in politics,” Cassandra answered. “Only acceptable gains and losses.”
“So which is this?”
She smiled. “We think today’s town meeting went very well. We sensed wide support, a consensus.”
“What about the egg throwing, the fighting, the police?”
“Ugly. Distasteful,” Cassandra said.
“But not for the TV cameras or the newspapers,” Guy said.
Cassandra shrugged. “The media make of things what they will. If the fighting makes the senator look like a peacemaker, we’ll take the publicity as it comes.”
“I’m sure you will,” Guy said. He kept his voice even.
Cassandra took another glass of champagne and handed one to Guy. Ricardo Losano was talking earnestly with Madeline, who kept looking beyond to Stanbrook. Stanbrook was surrounded by women with short hair, red lipstick, and straight teeth. “It appears the senator is occupied,” Cassandra said. “Let me show you around the house that potatoes built.”
They passed down the wide hallway. A sauna. A deep conversation pit with fireplace. A grotto and indoor fountain. A swimming pool. A black-tile bar with “Happy Daze Are Here Again” stenciled in gold-leaf letters on the mirror behind. On the upper level were rows of bedrooms, all with balconies overlooking No Medicine Lake.
“Senate Command Post, Becker County,” she said, opening a door to an office near the stairs. Inside, a secretary looked up from her paperback, To Love and Honor. She sat in front of a large, two-receiver phone with several rows of lighted buttons. On the desk were papers, some of which protruded carelessly from a brown leather briefcase that Guy recognized as Cassandra’s. Guy saw the front page of the 1913 congressional report. He stared at it briefly, then followed Cassandra down the stairs to the champagne.
M
adeline had edged closer to Stanbrook, to the outer ring of women around him; Losano was regaling her with anecdotes about Ray Kroc and the American love affair with french fries. Two curly-haired men wearing wool suits and horn-rimmed glasses, lawyer types, angled in on Cassandra and pumped her hand. “Great fieldwork!” they said in unison. Cassandra smiled modestly, introduced Guy.
“And what’s your line?” one of the men said pleasantly to Guy.
“Cocaine,” Guy answered.
Cassandra turned to stare.
“Which reminds me,” Guy said to Cassandra, “I got busted today. Cocaine. I may need your help.”
Cassandra laughed. “Great sense of humor for a Norwegian,” she said to the lawyers. They laughed.
“Serious,” Guy said to her. “But don’t let me spoil the party. We can talk about it later.” He excused himself and went for more champagne.
In a minute Cassandra was close behind him. “What the hell are you talking about?” she hissed.
Guy explained.
“Shit,” she murmured. She began to blink rapidly, as if to clear her head of the champagne. She stared beyond Guy toward the sunlight from the big window. “Cocaine . . . Minnesota. I’ll have to look up some things,” she said. She turned back to him. “I’ll have to know all the details, everything,” she said quickly, looking about for something to write on.
“Later,” Guy said. He stared at her for a moment. At the shiny fall of hair across her forehead, her perfect nose. He saw her as a kid. She was a long, straight-legged colt kicking up its heels, flashing in the sunlight. He wondered what she would be like if she’d been born in the Midwest; what he’d be like if he had been born in the East. What if he and Cassandra had met when they were twenty-one instead of thirty? His hand suddenly came up and touched her cheek. She met his gaze, and for an instant Guy saw his thoughts mirrored in her eyes. A backward mirror. If Guy was from the East. If they had met at Harvard or at the Hamptons. If . . . But then another of the tanned men tugged at Cassandra’s sleeve.
“Bob,” she said, “I thought you’d gone to Justice!”
“I thought I had too.” Bob grinned and explained.
Finally Cassandra turned to introduce Guy. But Guy was gone.
Upstairs, Guy stepped into Stanbrook’s temporary office. The secretary was out. Guy heard a toilet flush in an adjoining room. He went to the desk, to Cassandra’s briefcase. He removed the 1913 congressional report, scanned it briefly, then slipped it inside his shirt and left.
Down the hallway he found a bedroom just off the main balcony. With the conversation murmuring and glasses tinkling below him, he sat in a deep-cushioned, white leather armchair and began to read.
62nd Congress, House of Representatives
INVESTIGATION OF THE WHITE EARTH RESERVATION
Presented by James M. Graham, Illinois
Chairman, Expenditures in the Interior Department
January 16, 1913
The 62nd Congress gave this committee general authority to investigate matters past and present concerning the White Earth Indians of Minnesota. Means were provided by the House to defray expenses of this work, including the journey to Minneapolis. Sessions were held from day to day in Minneapolis. For the convenience of the subcommittee, the Indians, and others, the subcommittee adjourned to the county courthouse in the city of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, about 200 miles north of Minneapolis, where its sessions continued from February 5, 1912, through February 21, 1912.
At both Minneapolis and Detroit Lakes the attendance upon these sessions was large and betokened great interest. This was particularly true at Detroit Lakes, where a very capacious courtroom, with gallery, was packed to its utmost, a large portion of the audience being Indians. During these sessions at Detroit Lakes your committee also visited the Indians in their homes (if such they might be called), saw their schools, hospitals, and other agency buildings, the trip occupying about three days, the party traveling the reservation in sleighs during the coldest period of the winter. . . .
The White Earth Indians are of the Ojibway or Chippewa Nation, a part of the grand division known as the Algonquins. They originally held sway from the west end of Lake Ontario through the Canadian province of Ontario, the northern portions of Wisconsin and Minnesota. They clung to the shores of the Great Lakes. They were a numerous people. When the French traders in their early period of their association with the white man began to furnish them [the Chippewa] with the white man’s weapons, the [Chippewa] forced the Sioux, who inhabited western and southern Minnesota, farther and farther to the west and south until they practically came into possession of all the northern half of Minnesota.
The Chippewa . . . were participants in the third treaty made with the Indians within this country. This treaty was concluded at Fort Mclntosh, Pennsylvania, 1785. This and subsequent treaties with them resulted in their removal to the north and west. By a treaty of 1867, there was set apart for their settlement and ownership the White Earth Indian Reservation in portions of what are now the counties of Becker, Mahnomen, and Clearwater, in northern Minnesota, embracing originally 36 townships.
The land on this reservation was an exceedingly desirable home for the Indians. It contained nearly every natural resource necessary to their subsistence and happiness. It embraced over 796,000 acres. It had very valuable forests of pine, probably 500,000,000 board feet in measure . . . several streams, a large number of beautiful lakes abounding in fish, many of them bordered with wild rice marshes. The rice served as an inducement to game, and was used by the Indians as wheat is by white people. Large portions of this land were of great fertility, and being prairie were easy to break and cultivate. To the north stretched a great territory, sparsely settled and calculated to furnish good hunting for a long time in the future. It was a valuable heritage.
Downstairs several champagne corks popped like faraway deer rifles. A ripple of laughter swelled, then faded. Guy read on.
The first inroad upon the reservation was for the acquirement of four townships in the northeast corner, and was made by the lumber companies. There still remained 32 townships. But the four townships had not appeased the timber appetite of the sawmills. Until 1905 neither the pine nor the land it grew upon was allotted to individual Indians, whereby it could be sold by them. Congress soon enacted such legislation, the Clapp Amendment of June 21, 1906. This provided a means whereby not only the timber, but the lands, could be obtained from adult mixed-bloods, and from the full-bloods when declared competent, and if both of these provisions failed title might be obtained by the sale of the land for taxes.
As a consequence of this legislation the greatest harm resulted. Land sharks, anticipating passage of the Clapp Amendment, had, by means of twenty-five-dollar mortgages, tied up a large and valuable part of the reservation. The subsequent enactment of the Clapp Amendment was followed by a period of debauchery and shameless orgies. The white and mixed-blood land sharks, the hirelings of the lumber companies, and the alleged bankers in the villages along the Soo Line Railroad were engaged in taking deeds and mortgages indiscriminately from mixed- and full-bloods, adults and minors. The most persuasive arguments with the Indians were contained in bottles and jugs.
Guy looked up briefly. Below him the conversation still murmured, the glasses tinkled like wind chimes. He let his eyes travel across the room. Across the black-walnut dresser, its matching bed table, the marble lamp, the brown velour bedspread, the pale carpet. He ran his fingers over the leather on which he sat, traced its soft skin with his own.
On the day the Clapp Amendment went into effect the mortgages began to show up. The Indians wanted money quickly and they found no trouble in getting it. Thinking they were full-fledged businessmen because they were no longer under the eye of a guardian, they willingly listened to friendly offers of money. The land speculators were wise enough to allow the Indians to visit the salo
ons first and talk business later . . . for several days a sober half-breed was hard to find.
Below, at the party, voices strengthened, the beginning of argument, but they were not yet loud enough to break Guy’s concentration.
Scenes more pitiful than these witnessed by your subcommittee during the trip over the reservation could hardly be imagined. In the district of Pine Point, in the southeast part of the reservation, where about 500 Indians live, nearly every man, woman, and child is afflicted with trachoma, and many are totally blind from its ravages. Twenty-five percent of these people suffer from tuberculosis and 40 percent from other dread diseases. Each hut visited was a chamber of horrors. Sometimes ten or more Indians were huddled together at night in a single room, trying vainly to keep out the intense cold, but succeeding only in keeping out the fresh air, with scanty bedclothes that reeked with filth and vermin. In unbearable stench and awful squalor little children, almost naked, aged women, blind and helpless, men, once strong but now broken by disease, live a life without hope.
Our party of the subcommittee consisted of 10 or 11 persons. Our entrance into their wretched huts late in the night, after they had retired, and without even the form of knocking, seemed to provoke not the slightest sense of resentment; their spirit seemed entirely broken, their hope entirely gone. Their demeanor eloquently voiced the belief that they had no rights left except the right to suffer in silence.
Everywhere convincing evidence of poverty and disease was plainly visible. But amid these conditions, which would seemingly melt a heart of stone, the land sharks continued to ply their nefarious trade. Your subcommittee found in one desolate hut three women who, although blind, were about to be ejected on a mortgage deal, and their case was also typical of many others.
These White Earth Indians, the remnant of the once powerful Chippewa Nation, are rapidly succumbing to the effects of the extreme poverty and the white man’s diseases, and, betrayed by their lawful guardian and their mixed-blood relatives, are now despoiled of their heritage.
