Two Roads

by Joseph Bruchac

  Before it was closed down, the folks of the Kansas county where Pop and I had our farm were mighty proud of their four-room school. It was so much larger than the one-room schoolhouses in the adjoining counties. But every building I have seen thus far at Challagi makes my old place of learning look like a henhouse in comparison.

  Possum cocks his head to squint up the steps at the big double doors.

  “Hunnerd and eleven of us in here,” he says. “You will make it an even one hunnerd and twelve. But first you got to get mowed and pincushioned.”

  He points his lips at a normal-sized door set to the left of the steps on ground level.

  The word INFIRMARY is printed in black letters above it.

  “Yup,” Possum says, that big grin on his face again. “As many inoculations as any man could want. All free of charge.” He plucks my shirtsleeve. “Nurse’ll be waiting. Old Man Morrell sent her to get ready.”

  He gives me a gentle shove. “Go right on in. I’ll be waiting till she’s done with you.”

  I look at my pack. Possum took it from me as we started our walk. It’s slung over his shoulder.

  He nods. “It’ll be safe with me, Jay. You can trust me.”

  The joking tone that’s been in his voice since we met is gone. And somehow I know two things. First, that I can trust him. Second, that I’ve already found a friend.

  Possum grins. “Don’t keep her waiting too long or she just might make it worse for you.”

  I grasp the door handle, turn it, and try to pull the door open. I pull harder. Nothing happens.

  Possum reaches a hand past me to tap his index finger on the word written right in front of my face on the door.

  PUSH

  Possum chuckles. Then he pats me on the shoulder. “Won’t be that bad,” he says. “Go on.”

  I push the door open and step inside.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  INFIRMARY

  As soon as I pass through the door I’m greeted by the strong reek of alcohol. Not the drinking kind. It’s what you smell in hospitals, like when I was seven and Pop took me to one after the scythe fell off the barn wall while I was trying to hang it up.

  Remembering that makes me look down at the white scar that winds across my right forearm like a snake. Twenty stitches. But it doesn’t remind me of the pain. It reminds me of how much I miss the life we had.

  “Young man!” a woman’s voice snaps.

  How long have I been standing here, lost in memory, someone in a fog? Long enough for that voice to sound impatient.

  Standing in front of me, tapping her foot, is the person who must be the nurse. The bone-thin woman who was studying Pop and me while we were talking with Superintendent Morrell back at the parade grounds. She’s still wearing white, but has on a long white coat, like the doctor in that hospital six years ago. There’s gray in her hair and frown lines across her forehead. Around her neck is one of those instruments that hospital doctor wore. Stethoscope, my dictionary told me.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, making my voice as polite as I can.

  Her severe expression lightens a little. Good manners can do that when you meet someone for the first time.

  “I am Mrs. Wilting,” she says. “Coat off.”

  I take off my coat.

  Mrs. Wilting nods. “Good. You speak English. Easier for me.”

  She tosses my coat over her shoulder onto a small cot behind her without even watching it land.

  “Hmmm,” she says, looking me up and down. “Fairly clean.”

  Her voice is as sharp as her features. Clipped, precise. Almost mechanical.

  So is everything else in this room. It is all hard edges, white, so white that it hurts my eyes. Every object in here, medical things for which I do not know the names, seems hard and cold. Being an infirmary, this is where people get fixed up when they’re hurt. But there’s nothing comforting about it.

  Mrs. Wilting raises her right hand in a fist. She pops up her index finger. Then she drops that hand so fast, like throwing a dart, that her wrist makes a clicking sound.

  “Over there. Sit!”

  I go over. I sit in the hard, metal chair she’s just pointed out.

  As soon as I’m down she steps behind me and grabs my shoulders. Her fingers dig in like a hawk’s talons.

  “Straighten up,” she commands.

  I do that right quick.

  “Now,” Mrs. Wilting says, sweeping a sheet around my neck and pinning it so tight in back I can barely swallow, “I am no barber. But no barber is needed for this.”

  I catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of the large, shiny shears she now has in her hand.

  “Eyes straight. Do not stir unless you wish to lose an ear.”

  I don’t move a muscle as she begins to chop. She does it methodically, grabbing a handful in her left hand, yanking it straight, then lopping it off with those razor-sharp steel shears.

  SNIP!

  A hank of my long black hair is carelessly tossed into the basket in front of the chair.

  SNIP!

  More of the hair I’ve never had cut before is sheared from my head.

  SNIP!

  Mom loved how black and shiny my hair always was.

  SNIP!

  Even though Pop wore his hair the same, saying that the Creator meant us men to have long hair, it was Mom who showed me how to wash it clean.

  SNIP!

  It was her who ran the comb through it, humming as she did so, her hands firm but careful not to hurt me, not jerking my head back and forth like Mrs. Wilting is doing now.

  SNIP!

  That thought of Mom’s gentle hands, of the song she hummed as she combed my hair, is making a lump form in my throat. It’s like losing her all over again. I feel tears forming at the edge of my eyes. I press my lips together. I’m not going to cry.

  “Done.”

  There’s a metallic click from behind me as the nurse puts down the shears. I start to lift one hand toward my head.

  “Stay still!”

  She grasps my head on either side, turning it roughly one way and then the next as she peers closely. Her hands are cold. It’s as if her fingers were touched by the winter wind.

  “Hmm,” Mrs. Wilting sniffs. “No sign of little beasties. But we do not take chances at Challagi. Hold this!”

  I free my hands from under the sheet, grasp the can she’s thrust at me. There’s a metal-toothed comb in it. The can’s half filled with clear liquid. Kerosene, my nose tells me.

  “Eyes shut!”

  Pressing down so hard I wonder if she’s drawing blood, she runs the kerosene-soaked comb over every inch of my skull.

  There are actual tears coming out of my eyes when she’s finally done. The combined result of the sharp scent of the kerosene and the pain of her scraping away nonexistent critters.

  She unpins the sheet, whips it off me. Plops the steel comb into the can that she plonks onto a shelf.

  I need to wipe my eyes. I start to reach into my pocket for a kerchief.

  “Did I tell you to move?”

  I drop my hands back into my lap.

  Mrs. Wilting steps back, studying me again.

  “Roll up your left sleeve.”

  I do as she asks. She grabs my wrist with one hand, pushes my sleeve farther up with the other. Then she presses her finger against the rough circular scar on my upper arm.

  “Hmmm. Vaccinated for smallpox?”

  I nod my head.

  “Good. Easier for me.”

  And me, as well. If this nurse gave me a smallpox inoculation she’d probably scrape a hole to the bone.

  She moves over to a cabinet on the wall.

  “Typhoid,” she says, picking up a syringe with a needle on it big enough to kill a bull. “The
n diphtheria . . .”

  She rattles off the list of injections I’m about to get. Possum was not exaggerating when he said I was going to get mowed and pincushioned.

  One needle after another goes into my left arm. Efficiently, if not gently. It’s hard to say which hurts worse now, my burning scalp or my arm that feels as if it was hit with a baseball bat.

  “Now for the physical. Stand up.”

  I do that. Somehow manage to avoid falling forward on my face from dizziness.

  “Open your mouth.”

  I do, but not fast enough or wide enough to avoid her grabbing my chin and prying it down as she shoves in a stained, flat wooden stick to depress my tongue.

  “Say AH!”

  “Aggghhh.”

  “Good.” Mrs. Wilting tosses the stick back into the cabinet. She rams her stethoscope against my chest, sticking the listening pieces into her ears.

  “Hmm,” she says. She moves it to my back.

  “Cough!”

  I cough.

  “Good. Lungs clear. No tuberculosis to share with the other boys and girls.”

  She grabs a card from atop a table, sits down, and picks up a pencil.

  “Name?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “I thought you spoke English. Your name.”

  “Cal Black . . . Blackbird.”

  “Blackbird, Calvin.” She slowly prints my name at the top of the card.

  “Born?”

  “Twenty-fourth of June, nineteen twenty.”

  She writes that down, too.

  “Race?” she asks.

  When I hesitate, not sure what to say she looks up at me and nods.

  “Indian,” she says, writing down the word that now defines me.

  “Father’s name?”

  Railroad Will, I think. Knight of the open road.

  “Name?” her voice impatient.

  “William Blackbird.”

  “Hmmph! Of course. That roughneck boy! I should have recognized him from all the times he spent in here being patched up.” She looks down at the card as she prints his name. “Tribe?” she says.

  Then answers her own question. “Creek. And . . .?”

  She looks at my face and makes her decision by what she sees. “Full-blood.”

  I don’t try to correct her as she prints it on the card. I just want this to be over with.

  She taps the card with her pencil.

  “Father’s occupation?”

  I pause again, but not long enough for her to form a conclusion of her own this time. “Farmer,” I reply, hoping it’ll again be true.

  “Mother’s name.”

  “Mary,” I say.

  “First name is enough. Alive or deceased?”

  My throat feels like it’s still being choked by that sheet. I swallow hard.

  “She . . . died,” I manage to say.

  “Deceased it is.”

  She puts down the card, taps it again with her pencil. “This is not my job,” she says. “But the school registrar is away this weekend. So I am filling in.”

  She stands, wipes her hands down the front of her coat several times as if brushing away dirt.

  “Done,” she says.

  “Ma’am?”

  She walks to the door, opens it, and points for me to go.

  I grab my coat off the cot and barely make it through the door before it is authoritatively slammed shut behind me.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

  GOOD ADVICE

  Possum’s waiting. He’s well away from the infirmary door, leaning back against one of the elm trees by the steps.

  “Any survivors?” he asks, walking forward to help as I struggle to pull my coat over my aching arm.

  I almost say no. I’m pretty sure that would get a laugh from him. But nothing seems funny right now, not even the way he is scrunching up his face at me. Getting my hair hacked off and needles stabbed in me was no picnic. But the truly painful thing for me was answering questions about my family to someone as cold and uncaring as Mrs. Wilting.

  If that’s what everyone’s like here at this place, I’m ready to run away right now.

  I blink, fighting back the tears that are ready to flow like a river.

  “Jay Bird,” Possum says. His voice is soft. He puts one arm around my shoulder. “I know. When you first get here, it feels like the end of the world. Right.”

  I have to nod my naked head at that.

  “But don’t you worry,” he says. “From here on in . . . ,” he pauses. “From here on in it just gets worse.”

  That does make me laugh. Possum is laughing now, too. He leads me over to the elm tree and sits me down against it.

  “Just breathe,” he says. “This old elm here’s my favorite tree. It’ll help you some.”

  It’s the sort of thing Pop would say. It does make me feel better as I lean my head back against the rough bark and close my eyes.

  When I open my eyes again, Possum is still here. He’s squatting down in front of me, his back turned, tossing bits of twig at a fallen leaf. I appreciate him doing that, giving me some space to recover while standing by to help if need be.

  I remember one of the three words Pop said to me. He only said it once, but it stuck in my mind like a burr caught on wool pants. I speak it slow so as to get it right. “Mu-to.”

  “Holy cow!” Possum says, turning his head around so far on his neck that he looks like an owl. “So he can talk? Ehi? Yes? And talk Indian, too, after all?”

  I nod, then shake my head. I look down, running my right hand back over my prickly scalp.

  “Yup,” Possum says. “Can’t get you to shut up, can I?” He favors me with that wide grin. “Seriously, though, you always this quiet, Jay Bird?”

  That’s a good question. And the answer is that I’ve never been overly talkative. Most times, I’d rather listen. However, over the last couple of days I have been much more—what was that word I read in my dictionary? Taciturn. That’s it. I’ve been taciturn ever since Pop sprung it on me that he was Creek Indian. Which meant that I was sort of Indian, too. And that, he was leaving me at a new school. An Indian school. This Indian school.

  Possum is still waiting for my answer. It’s hard to start talking—other than grunting out a word or two—when you’ve been silent for a while. But he deserves an answer. He doesn’t even know me, but he has been acting like a real friend. Not that I’ve ever really had one. In all my years at my old school I never did find anyone I felt as close to as I’m feeling toward Possum after just meeting him. So instead of staying silent, like I always used to do, I answer him.

  “No,” I say. “I usually talk more.”

  “Jehosaphat!” Possum says. “The seas are parting. Five whole words in a row.”

  I smile at him. “I can do better than that,” I say, counting off the words on my fingers for him. Six this time.

  “All right,” Possum says, slapping my shoulder in a friendly way.

  I grit my teeth. That slap would have felt a whole lot friendlier if that was not the side where I just had those inoculations.

  “Ooops,” Possum says, seeing me wince. “Forgot about that.”

  “It’s okay,” I reply. I stand up, sling my pack over my other shoulder.

  “Hold on,” he says. “Is that pack all you got?”

  “Yup,” I say.

  “What’s in it?

  I slip off the pack and sit back down, cross-legged, with the tree at my back.

  I take everything out, place it on the ground between me and Possum, who’s squatted down to his heels. He pokes the three books—Bullfinch, Dictionary, London’s novel—with his fingers. Then he picks up The Call of the Wild.

  “This a good one?” he asks.

  “Real good.�
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  “Can I borrow it? Library here ain’t worth an owl’s hoot.”

  “It’s yours,” I say. “I read it three times.”

  His right eye twitches when I say that—which makes the scar on his cheek stand out more. What I just said surprised him, me offering that book. To be honest, I’ve surprised myself. Just a few days ago I never could have imagined myself parting with one of those books. But things are different now. Maybe I’m even different myself. And I can tell just how much having that book would mean to Possum. So I am okay, for certain, with letting it go.

  “Really! You sure?” he says.

  “Ehi,” I say.

  “You might not know it to look at me,” Possum says, “but I love reading adventure stories—there aren’t many in our library. It seems as if when I am reading such that I’m no longer here.”

  Like me, I think. The last time I read The Call of the Wild was just after Pop and I took to the road and I was missing Mom real bad. But reading it every night for a week straight helped me out of that sadness.

  He looks up at me. “Ever read that Treasure Island book?”

  I nod and hold up four fingers.

  Possum chuckles. “I read it twice before it disappeared from the library here. Wasn’t a student took it. The old superintendent figured it was giving us boys the ideas about running away and all that.”

  He picks up the book with both hands, touches it to his forehead, then slides it into his shirt. He touches his chest, bows his head, and says real soft that second of the Creek words I know. “Mu-to.”

  He turns back, picks up a small stick. He uses it to lightly touch the remaining items exposed to view. Canteen, spare shirt, extra pair of well-worn cotton socks, my extra drawers. Mom’s forlorn comb. Just about all my belongings.

  Possum picks up the comb.

  “Won’t need this now, will you?”

  He drops it back among my pitiful possessions.

  “That,” he says, speaking each word slowly, “is . . . all?”

  “Yup.”

  “Left everything else back home?”