by Will Weaver
He stooped and touched his hand to the damp soil. He felt the cool vertical edge that divided green earth from black. A gray and red-spotted salamander twisted its way down the square lane of the wheel furrow. The salamander was headed down a one-way path a half mile long. Guy hoped it would think to stop and wiggle up over the edge into softer dirt.
He stood up to look at the sky. It was high and blue and cloudless. The temperature had warmed to near seventy. Around him the plowed ground smelled like fresh coffee. He felt his heart start to beat faster. He looked back to the faraway farmyard, to the buildings. If he squinted his eyes, it all looked the same as it had when he was a boy.
Guy climbed back into the tractor and began a new land, a reverse path this time. As he drove, the sun played light and shadow across the field. The acres changed from green to black as easily as a painter drew his brush across a canvas. He forgot about the night out with Wicks.
About the FBI agent.
About Stanbrook.
About Cassandra.
About Tom and Mary Ann.
About Martin and Helmer and Madeline and Martin.
The rumble of the big diesel engine was like ocean surf. Repetitive. Hypnotic. Reassuring. Behind him the plow turned the earth in continuous waves, and soon, from the regularity of its rolling, he stopped watching the land turn. Forward and forward and forward he drove, the land beneath him bowing to the plow, bowing furrow by furrow by furrow, like a long line of black dominoes on a green table falling and falling. . . .
Suddenly a faraway thumping broke his trance. He jerked upright in the seat. He looked behind. The plow bucked and staggered like a cow with a broken back. The plow’s rear axle had shattered, its rear wheel was nowhere to be seen. Guy cursed and grabbed for the throttle release.
He got out to inspect the damage. The plow was repairable, but barely so. Two acres of furrows lay twisted with high slabs of green and low clods of black earth. It was as if a truckload of tightly rolled sod had overturned on a freeway. He cursed again. The air was colder now, the sky partly cloudy. He looked from the broken plow beyond to the farm. He did not squint his eyes, and so saw it clearly this time. The farm looked the same as before. Only smaller.
***
Guy picked up Madeline at Tom’s house. In the trunk of the Mercedes were the plow wheel and broken axle. Detroit Lakes had the nearest parts.
He and Madeline would drive to Detroit Lakes, get the axle pulled and refitted, have lunch together, shop for a winter jacket for her.
A tall black column of smoke rose from behind No Medicine Town.
“Tire fire,” Madeline explained. “For Sonny Bowstring. His funeral is this afternoon. Tonight there’ll be dancing.”
“You’ll go?”
“Tonight, yes. But not today. Not to the funeral.”
“You didn’t know him?”
“I knew him pretty well, but Tom didn’t want me to go. He said it would be a family affair.” Briefly she looked away, across the reservation, then turned her eyes to the highway ahead.
In Detroit Lakes they dropped off the axle, then found a cafe on Main Street. They were talking about Howard Stanbrook when Guy turned to look at an old man limping by the window. The man was stooped, wore two winter jackets and a black wool cap jammed low over his forehead with the earflaps down. It was sixty degrees and sunny outside. The old man’s lips twitched in some tight-lipped monologue. Something about the point of his chin, the length of his nose made Guy lean closer to the glass.
“It’s old Henry Schroeder,” Madeline said. “You remember him?”
Guy remembered him. He remembered Hank Schroeder had sold his farm to Ricardo Losano and, according to the late Brad Wicks, now lived on Easy Street.
Schroeder flailed his arms once and glanced through the window at Guy. He squinted briefly, rheumily, then looked away and walked on.
“Wait here,” Guy said to Madeline.
“Mr. Schroeder, Henry Schroeder, Hank,” Guy called, catching up with him.
Schroeder’s blue eyes darted up from the sidewalk, then back down. He smelled strongly of piss in wool.
“I sent the check,” Schroeder said quickly. “It’s in the mail. I told you I’d send it. You got to have lots of insurance nowadays, I know that. You don’t have insurance, they take everything from you. Leave you with nothing. I sent the check.”
Guy stared for a moment. “I’m not your insurance man, I’m Guy Pehrsson.”
Schroeder shook his head and kept walking.
“Helmer Pehrsson’s my grandfather. You used to help us on the farm. Our farm was just south of yours.”
For an instant Schroeder’s eyelids ticked rapidly, but then he shook his head. “No. I never farmed. Never had a farm. Not me. I always lived in town. In town you’ve got to have lots of insurance. You don’t have insurance, they take everything from you. I sent the check.”
Guy glanced back to the cafe. Schroeder kept walking, rapidly, like some hard-shelled beetle trying to escape the sunlight. A block ahead was a four-story apartment building, plain brick without balconies. “Golden Age Apartments,” the sign read. Nearing the door, Schroeder hunched his shoulders as though a sudden wind had risen. He paused and looked briefly side to side to make sure no one was watching, then ducked through the door.
Guy thought of Helmer. What for him in another year or two? What for Martin? For Madeline? What for himself?
He thought of Susan at Stanford. He saw her walking through a portico whose floor was slatted with sun and shadow; then she emerged into the full sunlight of the quadrangle, a flat yellow field of cobblestones below red-tiled roofs, but he was behind her and could not see her face. He called to her. She turned. It was Cassandra.
He shook his head to clear it, and turned back to the cafe where Madeline waited. At the door he paused and looked briefly down the street. Two cars waited at a red light, which did not change.
That evening, at the Lumberjack, the pink drapes glowed orange. Cassandra was out of bed and mostly dressed, though the curtains of her hotel room were still drawn. It was 7:00 PM. Back from Detroit Lakes, Guy had driven to Flatwater to see Cassandra. He brought with him the congressional report.
Cassandra, dressed in jeans and a rumpled white nightshirt, sat barefoot at the pink writing table. Her briefcase and papers were spread across it. In front of her one white page was filled with black doodling.
“You’ve been out today?” he asked.
She was silent. A large ashtray full of cigarette butts sat by her right hand.
“You eat anything lately?”
“Not hungry,” she murmured.
Guy swung her chair around, away from the desk, then swept all her papers into her briefcase. He pulled the drapery cord and opened the window. Yellow light spilled across the floor and pulled a wave of fresh air into the room. Cassandra shivered.
“Come on, let’s go get something to eat,” Guy said.
She didn’t move from her chair. She squinted at the sunlight. “I’ve never seen a dead person before,” she said.
“Well, now you have. Two of them.”
She turned to stare at him.
“One with a four-point broadhead through his lungs, the other with his leg shot off.”
Cassandra looked away.
“Both men bled to death—one filled up his own lungs, the other tried to fill up a field.”
“Stop it!” she shouted.
“All right,” Guy said. “I’ll stop. I’ll change the subject.” He pulled the congressional report from his pocket and threw it onto the bed beside her. “You can’t stop thinking about dead people. But you’ve never started thinking about living ones.”
Cassandra looked sideways at the pages of the report. “What do you mean?” she said.
“This report.”
> “What about it? It’s part of my research. That’s what I do.”
“Part of your research?” Guy repeated. He grabbed the report and held it close to her face. “This is your research?”
“Yes,” she said cautiously.
“Look at what you’ve got underlined. Look!” He turned the pages for her.
“What do you mean?” she said angrily. “I don’t know what you mean!”
“Jesus,” Guy murmured. He leaned away from her, let the report drop beside her.
She was silent.
“You underlined dates. You underlined the names of treaties. You underlined the location of the hearings. You made notes about the acts of Congress and how they related to 1984,” Guy said.
Cassandra stared, confused.
“But you never once underlined the name of a real person. Oh, maybe one or two old senators. But I’m talking about the Indians. Never once did you draw a line under tuberculosis. Under trachoma. Under firewood or lack of it. Under firewater and too much of it. Not once did you underline Indian shacks or cold weather.” Guy stood up. “Maybe Madeline was right,” he said. “People for you are just numbers to crunch, cards to play.”
“What do you know about me? What do you know about politics?” she shouted.
“Just what I see,” Guy said.
“Well, there’s a lot you don’t see. Politics is a rough game. It’s bloody. But it’s played for the benefit of the crowd, just like football or hockey or any other rough sport.”
“And Stanbrook?” Guy said. “What about him? What’s he to you?”
“I work for him. That’s all.”
“It didn’t sound that way the other night on the phone.”
“I was getting rid of him. I was glad you called. He tries stuff all the time. He’s an asshole.”
“Jesus Christ, then why do you work for him?” Guy said.
“Because Stanbrook for me is one rung on a ladder.”
“Up,” Guy said.
“Yes, up,” Cassandra said. “Up—so that at some point I’ll have some power. I’m a woman and so I’m second-team, can’t you see that? The big boys have all the first-team spots and they aren’t about to let go of them. I’m the water girl, just like all the rest of women in government. We stick to business. We do what’s expected of us and twice that. We play all the little games. We become indispensable. We keep our eyes open. We wait.”
“Which is all a way of saying you understand second-teamers—the little people—the ones who sit out the whole game.” Guy said.
Cassandra stared. “You could put it that way,” she said.
Guy was silent.
“Fuck you, if you don’t believe me,” she said.
“So prove it,” Guy said softly. “Tonight.”
Guy parked the Mercedes along the road at the end of a line of Indian cars. Cassandra rode with him. It was dark. The sound of a single drum came through the trees, where they could see a house-high pile of tires burning orange at the bottom, then red, then purple, then with black smoke that billowed darker even than the sky. A few Indians moved beside the fire behind a black lattice of oak trees. The tree trunks took quarter steps from the dancers, added a jerky rhythm to the dance.
“It’s a tire fire for Sonny Bowstring,” Guy explained. “His funeral was today.”
Cassandra followed Guy past Indian cars, many filled with teenagers. From the cars came thudding music. REO Speedwagon. AC/DC. Twisted Sister. Prince. Guy recognized the songs because it was the same music that the young Chicanos at his company played loudly on their night shift. From some of the darkened Indian cars came the molasses smell of marijuana, the kiss of pop-top cans opening. A Becker County sheriff’s car traveled by too fast to grab on to but slow enough to get a good look at the Indian cars. Three Indian kids scrambled from a car and pitched rocks after the sheriff’s car. The stones fell short. The car did not stop.
“What if the Indians don’t want us here?” Cassandra whispered, walking behind Guy, looking from the stone throwers to the fire ahead.
“Not to worry, of course they won’t want us here.”
Cassandra began to step on his heels.
Near the firelight they felt its heat on their faces. A tall Indian stepped forward to block their path. “Hey—this ain’t Jellystone Park and we ain’t bears.”
Indian faces shone in the firelight as they turned to stare. A shorter Indian came from the side and said something to the tall Indian. Guy recognized the second Indian. He was the Indian who had knelt over Bradley Wicks with the knife.
The taller Indian looked back to Guy. “Him, maybe, but not her,” the taller Indian said. “She’s Stanbrook’s spy.”
“She’s off duty,” Guy said.
“So is Wicks—for good,” the tall Indian said.
Cassandra’s mouth came open.
“It’s all right, Bobby,” Tom LittleWolf said. Guy turned. Tom and Madeline stood behind them.
Madeline stared at Cassandra. “Well, here you are at our gathering,” she said. “We don’t have champagne.”
“I’m sorry . . . ,” Cassandra began.
“About what?” Madeline said immediately. “About the champagne or about Indians?”
“Ladies, ladies,” Tom said, his big teeth glinting white as he waved beyond for the drumming to begin anew, “let us be civilized.”
Guy and Cassandra and Tom and Madeline stood in the steady glow of the fire. Cassandra’s eyes moved from the dancers to the Indians who watched. Closest to the fire and to the dancers were the younger Indians, in their twenties, those with long hair and tribal dress. In the next ring were stockier Indians with shorter hair and department-store jackets; they stood in small groups, some with their backs to the firelight. They passed bottles. Beyond them, visible only when the tires shifted and threw the firelight farther back, were a few couples Guy’s parents’ age.
“This is a . . . powwow, right?” Cassandra asked Tom.
“More like a wake,” Tom said. “Powwows are more formal dances. Powwows are like cotillions, only with Indians instead of debutantes.”
Cassandra didn’t answer. She stared at the Indians. “If this is a wake, where is the family?”
“Here and there,” Tom said. “Some came, some didn’t.”
“Some went to the funeral but wouldn’t come here?”
Tom nodded.
“Some went to both?” Cassandra asked.
“Yes. And some came only here, tonight.” Tom let his eyes move among the Indians with the longest hair.
“There were a lot of teenagers out in the cars,” Cassandra said. “Why aren’t they here?”
“It’s not important to them right now,” Tom said. “Later it will be.”
“Later . . . tonight?” Cassandra asked.
“No. Later. When they’re older.”
Cassandra looked among the crowd. “I don’t see many older Indians.”
“They’re dead, remember?” Tom said.
At that moment an Indian came up behind Cassandra and tapped her on the shoulder. Cassandra turned. Her eyes widened. He was a fat Indian man and he held out to her a bottle in a paper sack. Cassandra stared at the bottle, then at the Indian. His face was sweaty in the firelight and pitted with smallpox craters deep enough to hold shadow. He smelled fruity with wine and smoke and sweat and piss. Cassandra’s mouth came slowly open. She turned to Guy. Then she looked back at the fat Indian. Squinting, she set her jaw, slowly raised the bottle, put her lips to its glass neck, and drank. An instant later she gagged and coughed and the wine spewed back out of her mouth. A moment after that she broke from the firelight and ran, stumbling among the trees, toward the road and the car.
35
The next morning in the Ford Guy and Kennedy started f
or Flatwater with a wagonload of oats and corn for grinding; Martin had let the bin run dry. Guy drove and thought about Cassandra, about what there was inside him that had stopped him from running after her. Suddenly ahead on the road he saw cars and people.
Indians. A line of Indians stood like fence posts driven into the road. Their corner post was the big green sign that marked the east boundary of White Earth. The Indians stood with their backs to Guy. Before them, like a chess player glaring across a table, was the tall, square face of a tanker truck with “Losano Potato Farms” painted on the door. The tanker was loaded with anhydrous ammonia fertilizer. The driver remained in his cab. He held a CB radio mike to his mouth and was counting Indians with a finger as he talked.
An Indian wearing mirrored sunglasses and a red headband waved Guy to a stop, held out a flier.
“Customs check?” Guy said.
“You got it, man.” The Indian grinned. Then his smile faded. “Read through this.”
“White Earth Tribal Council Natural Resources Preservation Ordinance”—a long list of rules and regulations about land use.
The Indian jerked his head toward the tanker truck. “No chemical fertilizers, no herbicides, no pesticides are allowed on White Earth. It’s all on the sheet,” he said. He glanced briefly at Martin’s truck and wagon before waving Guy on. “You farm on our land, you better read up.”
Guy sat in the sunlight on the loading dock of the feed mill. Cassandra was not at the hotel or at the Caboose. He read the Indian flier. Faint oat dust drifted around him; below the floor grates the big grinder hummed its high, single note that was punctuated only by the crackle of ears of corn disintegrating to meal.
“Irrigation by farmers on the White Earth Reservation is theft of Anishinabe water (nibi)—theft of the greatest magnitude. One deep-water well for one irrigator can pump up to one thousand gallons per minute. One thousand gallons per minute times eight hours in a day is 480,000 gallons; 480,000 gallons per day times 15 or 20 days in a growing season equals nearly ten million gallons—from one well in one field. Ten million gallons times dozens of irrigators across the reservation equals billions of gallons of water stolen not only from the Anishinabe but from all people on the reservation, for all water to drink and cook with comes from the same underground table.
