Two Roads

by Joseph Bruchac

  When nothing else roused me—not Possum tickling my nose with a feather, or Deacon prodding the sole of my bare foot with a stick—C.B. knew what to do. He heaved me up over one broad shoulder, carried me outside to the horse trough, dropped me in, and worked the handle of the pump so vigorously that I near drowned in the torrent of cold water.

  “No, sir,” I say.

  I sit straight up and throw off my covers.

  C.B. laughs.

  “You slept in your uniform?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I pull on my boots, quickly put on the wrap leggings that were so much trouble for me to figure out six days ago.

  I don’t have any hair to comb, so that morning task’s not needed. I didn’t drink water before climbing into my cot, so I don’t need to use the latrine down the hall.

  Thank goodness for that!

  I’ve had enough of that latrine to last a lifetime. First job I was assigned was to clean it several days ago. Walking in there, kerchief tied over my nose, brought to mind something I read in my mythology book. The Labors of Hercules. But Challagi Creek, the stream that runs through the school grounds, is half a mile away. No way I could divert it to flow away the stinking mess in that boys’ room the way the world’s strongest man ran a river through the Aegean Stables.

  No latrine for me.

  Each night I follow the lead of Possum and Deacon and the others. They climb out the window after dark, go down the vine to use the old outhouse claimed for our gang fifty yards behind Building Four.

  None of us go alone. There’s something about being alone outside in the night that’s unsettling. Not in the woods, but around the school campus.

  I realized that the first night here. I woke up in the dark feeling the need to relieve myself. No one else was stirring, but I remembered the outhouse Possum had pointed out to me. I figured I could find it by myself.

  Better than walking into that stinky washroom in the dark and stepping on who knows what.

  I crept down the narrow aisle between bunks to the open window. I descended the Virginia creeper—easy as going down a ladder. Then I stood looking off to the east.

  There was a bright half moon in the sky. The night was warm. When I looked west, in the direction of the low stone building that was the lockup before it was locked shut for good, a chill went down my back. I thought about climbing back up the vine. But then I heard a soft scrabbling sound, like a big squirrel on a tree trunk. A second later, Little Coon dropped to the ground beside me.

  “Don’t want to come down here alone,” he said in a soft voice, rubbing his hands together.

  There was enough light from the half moon for me to see his face—how serious his expression was. He pointed with his lips to the west. The direction of the old jail building half a mile away, a deeper shadow in the center of the dark field.

  “Don’t never go near there at night, Jay Bird.”

  The hair stood up on the back of my neck. A chill went down my back.

  “Haunts,” Little Coon whispered. “Some died in there, you know.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. The last thing I wanted was to know more about that. Or to be back there in one of my visions. Somehow, that worked. I opened my eyes and I was still in the present.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s keep going.”

  Then, without another word, the two of us made our way east to the outhouse.

  I thud down the stair, one ripple in a stream of boys all dressed alike in doughboy duds. Army surplus and never used, we’ve been told. But Ira, one of the boys in our all-Creek gang, swears that the uniform his older brother was issued when he was here five years ago had a bullet hole in it. Right over the heart. So I suppose it is possible I am kitted out in a dead man’s clothes. Which seems only fitting seeing as how I am sleeping in a dead boy’s cot, right under those initials of C.C. carved into the wooden rafter over my head.

  Fortunately, though, since arriving here I’ve not shared any past lives in my dreams.

  I line up proper. Back stiff, eyes straight. I don’t twitch a muscle, having learned my lesson at inspection the first day. I shifted one foot and had it stomped on hard by our company officer. Ray Chapman is his name. He’s determined, despite the fact he’s been saddled with me in mid-semester, to win ribbons during Sunday Dress Parade. He’s full-blood Cheyenne-Arapaho.

  A real Indian. That’s what Possum called him.

  I’ve learned a lot in the seven days I have been here.

  Little of that has been in the classrooms. The academic teachers here are lifelong employees of Indian schools and all are white. They know what to expect of us—pretty much nothing. So they give in proportion to their expectations. The only academic teacher who seems to give a hang teaches English to the middle grades. She’s a round widow lady with snowy hair and pale skin. Her name is Mrs. Tygue.

  “ATTENTION!”

  I’ve let my mind drift again. As a result I’m a second late snapping to attention. Since we’re all in one straight line, my slowness stands out like a sore thumb.

  Ray Chapman, Sergeant Chapman, has the eyes of a prairie falcon. He sees my mistake right away.

  “BIRD!” he bellows. His voice when displeased has the same volume as an angry bull.

  “YES, SIR!” I reply, yelling as loud as I can.

  I learned to do that my first day of being lined up. But only after doing a hundred push-ups. Ten for every time I didn’t shout out loud enough.

  Sergeant Chapman plants himself in front of me. He gives me what Possum calls “the stare.” I keep my eyes front, not moving a muscle. Fewer push-ups that way.

  “You are a useless pile of dog dung,” he says.

  “YES, SIR!”

  The hint of a smile flickers across his face. Chapman’s not a bad sort out of uniform. He has a sense of humor. It shows itself now and then in pranks he plays on us. Yesterday he had us all standing at ease, eyes front, hands behind us. Then he walked around behind us with a pot of mush ladling sizable spoonfuls into everyone’s open palms.

  Chapman’s also the best dancer in the Indian Dramatics Club formed here two years ago.

  “Man,” Little Coon said, “you ought to see how he moves them feet of his.”

  I won’t be learning any of that dancing. Every member of the club is a western Indian. Comanche, Cheyenne, Kiowa, and so on. No students from the civilized tribes like the Cherokees and Choctaws and Creeks—who make up half the population at Challagi—belong. Being so civilized, us eastern tribes don’t dress up fine with such feathers. The stomp dances we do are not dramatic enough to show off to the public.

  For the public.

  That means, aside from when special guests are invited here to see a “real” Indian show, the members of the Indian Dramatics Club don’t dance where the rest of the students can see them. Even their practices are private.

  The Indian club’s main job is to perform off campus. Civic groups, fairs, and the like. They do it to raise money and represent the school in a positive way to the general public. That way the surrounding towns don’t just see Challagi as the place Indian boys and girls are always trying to escape from.

  Nearly a hundred, I’ve learned, tried that in the first three months of this new year.

  Deserters is what they are called.

  It’s a big problem. The school pays local law enforcement officers for returning runaways. Everybody here knows that. Some have even seen the superintendent counting out bills into the outstretched hands of men bringing back runaways they’ve caught. As much as three bucks a head, Possum told me.

  That explains why Sheriff Boyle, back in the hobo jungle, was smiling so much when he mentioned Challagi. Catching deserters has been earning him a pretty penny.

  FORWARD MARCH!

  We step out as one at the command. For once my feet are in
perfect step. Sergeant Ray nods and turns his critical eye on the light-skinned boy behind me.

  GET IN STEP, ARNETT!!

  Staying in step. That is what the government decided was needed to keep a bunch of wild Indians in line. Turn them into imitation soldiers rather than have U.S. soldiers fight them.

  “Idea here,” Possum said, after my second day of drill, “is to kill the Indian and save the man.” He chuckled. “Even if it means marching us to death.”

  A few days ago I didn’t really understand that.

  How could you kill someone and still have them be alive?

  Since I’ve been here I’ve begun to see the meaning of it. Make you obedient. Dress you like a white soldier. Drown whatever’s free inside you so they can boss you around. Even though I don’t feel like I am really an Indian—despite what Pop told me—I don’t feel good being treated this way. I understand why so many would rather run than keep marching to a white man’s tune.

  Pop ran away from here. So could I. But if I ran, would Pop be glad to see me? Probably not. Much as I wish I wasn’t here, I don’t want to disappoint him. Not only that, would I even be able to find him? No, my only option now is marching, not running.

  ABOUT FACE!

  I’ve been so deep in my thinking about everything that I have almost forgotten where I am—marching in formation with my unit. But a week of drilling has made my feet more attentive than my brain. I’m turning and staying in step with everyone else before having a chance to think about it.

  Our unit’s no longer anywhere near the dorm where we started. We’re at the parade ground area, half a mile from where we started. My body’s been marching while my mind was on vacation.

  COMPANYYYYY HALT!

  And here comes Sergeant Chapman walking right up to me. Am I about to get it for messing up our formations by marching like a sleepwalker? It’ll probably mean a hundred push-ups for me if not five hundred.

  Eyes front. Spine straight. Shoulders back.

  “Bird,” Chapman says. “Bird.” Then he smiles and pats my right shoulder. “Best job yet, cadet. Not a wrong step.”

  I’m so shocked that I hardly hear him say dismissed. I stand there for a moment. But no longer than that. The sound of the bugle—number two of the more than twenty calls that punctuate our daily schedule—comes a second later.

  Sergeant Chapman has played a joke on us again. He’s marched our unit so far from the dorm that we’ll have to scoot like the dickens to avoid being marked tardy.

  I start trotting with the rest of the boys in our company. Back toward the dorm, to change into clothes for classes or work.

  “Hustle up!” Ray yells after us. He’s watching us, hands on his hips. Then he takes off himself, sprinting past us all as if we were standing still.

  “Come on, slowpokes,” he yells, turning to run backward. “Get the lead out. Catch up!”

  I’ve heard Chapman is the fastest runner in the school, captain of the track team. There’s no way I could ever beat him in a race. However, he’s not running forward and I haven’t gone my fastest yet. And this chance to run, really run, makes a voice in my head say Yes!”

  I kick myself into a higher gear. Head down, arms pumping, I sprint past Ray Chapman. He’s so surprised he almost tangles his feet as he turns to run in earnest.

  Of course he reaches our dorm ahead of me. But I’m not far behind him. Everyone else is at least fifty yards back.

  Ray Chapman nods. We’re both leaning forward, hands on our knees as we try to catch our breath.

  “Bird,” he finally says, a smile on his face “You can fly. Think about the track team. Okay?”

  I’ve run so hard I can still barely breathe. How can I explain to him that the last thing I want to do is join anyone’s team? My plan is to get out of here as soon as Pop gives me the okay. The sooner the better.

  But I appreciate what he said. So I manage to gasp out, “Yes, sir, Sergeant.”

  “After drill it’s just Ray,” he says, straightening up. Then he walks away.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  EXPECTING INDIANS

  When I first arrived I was expecting Indians. Maybe not like those in dime novels or in James Fenimore Cooper’s stories about the Mohicans. But real Indians, people way different from the kids I’d gone to school with.

  I never envisioned what I did find here at Challagi. Full-bloods, Indian-looking boys and girls with black hair and brown skin, make up only about four of every ten students. The next big group are mixed bloods, kids with only one Indian parent who tend to be lighter skinned, lighter haired. They are real sensitive whenever a full-blood says they’re not real Indians.

  Then, there are the white kids. All of them have some Indian ancestry—or claim to. All of them are on the tribal rolls of one Indian nation or another. Most are from one of the historic communities that were reservations before allotment and the Oklahoma land rushes. A bunch of them look real white. Blond-haired and blue-eyed white. They’re the ones who get called stahitkey, white boy, by some of us Creeks.

  Us Creeks. I just said that, didn’t I?

  Some of those white-looking Indian kids grew up thinking of themselves as Indians, maybe even speaking some of the language. Me, I grew up just thinking of myself as a person. Being white means you have the luxury to do that. It means not worrying about who you are. You know your identity, even if you’re a hobo.

  It also means, outside of an Indian school, not being told you don’t belong if you have light skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. Like what happens almost every day with Tommy Wilson. White-looking, he calls himself Creek. He grew up on historic Creek land. His father, like Pop, is full-blood and went to Challagi. Then he married a Norwegian lady.

  Tommy sits next to me in Mrs. Tygue’s class.

  Tommy is a good kid. My first Monday at Challagi, he greeted me in the hallway.

  “Welcome to Indian hell,” he said. “So you’re Muskogee, eh?”

  I nodded.

  “Tommy,” he said, patting his chest. “Muskogee Creek like you.”

  Like me, I thought. Right.

  I nodded again.

  “Teacher here’s old, but she’s a good egg.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said as we walked through the door.

  “Got your English book?”

  I shook my head.

  He opened his to a page with the corner bent down. “This old poem,” he said. “We had to read it. Today we talk about it.”

  I looked at the page and smiled. I already knew that poem.

  “Thanks,” I said as we took our seats.

  “‘Oh East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,’” Mrs. Tygue read. She looked over the top of her thick glasses at the class. “Who can tell me what that means?”

  No answer.

  “Does it mean that those from other lands can never get together, never understand one another?”

  She was met by silence. No one was raising a hand. Way different from my old white schools where those who knew an answer would be just about dislocating their arms waving to get the teacher’s attention.

  Mrs. Tygue’s gaze settled on Tommy.

  “Mr. Wilson,” she said. “Stand up.”

  Tommy stood, an uncomfortable look on his face.

  “Yes or no?”

  Tommy looked over at me. I’m not sure why. I lifted one finger from my desk and then dropped it. He looked back at the teacher.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice barely audible.

  Mrs. Tygue smiled. “Good. Now why?”

  The uncomfortable silence that followed was even longer. Tommy wrapped his hands together and squeezed so hard that his knuckle popped.

  I raised my hand.

  Mrs. Tygue looked at me. “New student?” she said, pointing a short finger at my c
hest. “Can you tell us why? Stand.”

  I stood as Tommy sat, letting out a sigh as he sank back into his chair.

  “The next lines,” I said.

  “Really?” Mrs. Tygue said, a skeptical smile on her face.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Are you certain?”

  I nodded and then did something I could never do in my own voice, me being reticent to say more than a few words at a time. I recited Kipling’s next lines of “The Ballad of East and West” from memory.

  “Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

  “But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth.

  “When two strong men stand face to face, though they come

  from the ends of the earth.”

  That earned me some funny looks from the other students, along with a very big smile and a “Well Done!” from Mrs. Tygue.

  Right after that the bugle sounded to mark the end of the hour.

  “Mu-to,” Tommy said to me under his breath as we left the classroom side by side.

  But he quickly peeled off as I turned to join up with Possum and Bear Meat outside the academic building.

  “You like-um white boy?” Bear Meat growled, pretending he only spoke broken Indian English—like Mr. Parker, the old Cherokee man who’s the boys’ adviser in Building Two.

  “Hunh?” Bear Meat said. “You like-um him, that white boy?” He punched me in the shoulder. Playful, but still like getting kicked by a mule.

  It’s a big thing here, I knew now. Being labeled as a white student here at Challagi was almost as bad as being seen as an Indian in the white world. Maybe you were not in danger of being driven off your land—or even shot—but you still might be made to feel like an outsider a lot of the time. I’d come to realize just how lucky I was not to be seen that way. But it still didn’t mean that I felt good about seeing people treated bad just for being born who they were.

  “He’s okay,” I said, rubbing my shoulder to try to restore some feeling in it.