“They called it their war paint,” Mom says. “That’s what Grey Cook told the police, at least. He said it stood for the blood of all the people they were going to kill.”
As I sit here in the hospital bed with my arm in a sling, I listen quietly as my mom and Uncle John tell me about what happened after I blacked out. Officer Hal has filled in my uncle on everything that happened—including the details that probably won’t make the news.
“That Cook boy is a sad young man,” Uncle John says. “The only thing he ended up shooting off was his mouth. Once they got hold of him, he couldn’t stop talking. He never pulled the trigger once, thank the Creator! As soon as he heard the sirens, he panicked, threw the gun out the window, and ran for it. The police officers tackled him in the hallway when he came running out of the bathroom door.”
He was scared even before then, I think, remembering how Grey’s voice had sounded from the other side of the closet door. If Stump hadn’t pushed him, none of it would ever have happened.
“He didn’t shoot anyone,” Mom continues, “but the other boy did.”
Who had Stump shot?
“His father,” Uncle John says. “They’d agreed that they’d both kill their fathers first, but the Teeter boy was the only one who tried to go through with it. Three times with a .22 target pistol. But it’s not that hard to survive a small-caliber round if it doesn’t hit a vital organ.”
Uncle John’s gaze goes far away for a moment and his right hand starts to drop down toward his left side before he catches himself and puts his hand back onto my good shoulder.
“Even though he was left for dead, Mr. Teeter is going to live,” Mom continued. “Not that he deserves to if he did all the things to his son that the boy says he did in that little brown notebook he had on him.”
“He wrote it all down,” Uncle John adds. “All the names of everyone who mistreated him, and he described the things they had done to him. It was a long list, dozens of names, all under the heading ‘KILL FIRST.’ Then there were subheadings. ‘Teachers,’ ‘football players,’ ‘super-Indians,’ ‘cheerleaders,’ ‘smart kids,’ ‘skaters,’ ‘preppies,’ ‘pretty girls’—pretty much every group in the school, I’d bet.” My uncle shakes his head. “The last name on that list it was his own. He really was at war with the whole world.”
I know he’s thinking, as I am, about the things that must have happened to Stump to fill him with so much hate for everyone and everything, himself included.
My uncle puts his hand on my chest.
“You know, Cody, Hal told me that your name was in it, too. But it was in the back of the book where he had a separate list. A very short one with the heading ‘DO NOT KILL.’”
“It’s a good thing you kept them from those other weapons,” Mom says. “Those hand grenades alone . . .”
Uncle John nods. “As it was, all they had left were just two small-caliber target pistols, and the other thing that the Teeter boy apparently had been carrying around with him at school for the last two months. No one even knew he had it.”
The image of a fat, mistreated kid dressed in black and huddling alone inside a bathroom stall comes to me. It made me so sad, fills my heart with such pity that I can barely ask the question.
“What happened to Stump?”
Mom bites her lip and then squeezes my hand, forgetting, I guess, that it has over forty stitches in it. I try not to wince.
“When the police tactical squad realized he was alone in the bathroom, they decided to wait him out, especially after he started firing that .22. He wasn’t shooting it at anyone. He was shooting out the mirrors.”
“The Cook boy told them that Teeter only had the one gun,” Uncle John says. “So they waited until the shooting stopped.”
My mom and my uncle are still talking, but I’m no longer only hearing their voices. I’m seeing the events unfold in my mind’s eye, as if I am an invisible observer.
The bathroom door is propped open and you can see inside. The broken glass from the mirrors is everywhere, reflecting shattered images. You can’t see Stump, but from the spent shell casings near the last stall, you can guess that’s where he’s taken refuge.
“No one’s going to hurt you, son,” the negotiator on the Tac Squad calls in to Stump.
“Hah!” Stump laughs. “You’re a little late for that.” His voice sounds both hurt and defiant.
“Just throw out the gun.”
There’s a long, tense silence. Then a hand reaches out from behind that last stall and flings a gun that comes skittering across the floor toward them. An empty .22 Ruger.
“That’s good, son. That’s the right thing to do. Now come on out with your hands where we can see them.”
What answers them this time is a broken sob.
“I can’t get up. I hurt myself. I’m really hurt. You’ve got to help me.”
The men in their flak jackets exchange glances. The false bravado is gone from the boy’s voice. He sounds like nothing more than a confused, scared child.
The head of the team stands up and motions for the others to follow him, guns ready. They move slowly, heavy-booted feet crunching the shards of mirrors. Half a dozen men in black, the adrenaline pumping through their bodies, making them tense as coiled springs. And they also feel a little foolish as they creep forward. It’s only a little Indian kid, for cramp’s sake. He’s only what, fourteen years old?
When they reach the last stall, they look inside. The boy is sitting there, waiting. His brown, chubby face looks almost like that of a clown, marked with thick, wavy, red lines.
His hands are behind his back.
“What took you so long?” the boy asks. Then his face twists into a sickly grin. “Thanks for the help, suckers.”
He holds out his hands, palms up. A grenade is balanced on one. The other holds the pin he’s just pulled.
Chapter 20
TWO FINGERS
TO THE SKY
Knowledge holds power.
Wisdom lets go of it.
—Master Net
“And in this corner-r-r-r,” the announcer’s voice echoes over the packed crowd, “John Fighting Bear A-wa-ssos-s-s-s-s-s-s.”
Mom turns to me. She’s trying not to show how nervous she is, but even though her smile seems relaxed, her tension shows in how hard she squeezes my hand. “At least they pronounced your uncle’s name right this time,” she says.
They should, I think.
After all, this is the fourth time he’s been introduced in the tournament. And he’s in the final match of the day after having beaten his first three opponents. If the announcer and the excited throng of people in the sold-out Koacook Moon Casino arena didn’t know who he was before the start of the War at the Shore, they sure know him now!
My uncle bows to each of the four directions and then raises his right hand, just as he has done each time he’s been introduced, two fingers pointed to the sky. He makes a little circle with his hand, then drops it to tap those two fingers against his chest.
Then he turns and sweeps his hand out in an open-palm gesture that ends at Mom and me where we sit at ringside. A spotlight shines down from the array of lights above the octagon, and I can see that at least one of the TV cameras has been pointed at the two of us. I lift my still-bandaged right hand, tap my own heart, and give a peace sign to the camera.
I’m kind of used to cameras now—or at least I don’t let them bother me the way they did during my first interview. I suppose some people watching on TV at home might even still remember who I am, even if it was four weeks ago— which is like four hundred years in news time. When I was in the hospital, I was being visited by a different news crew every hour. But that only went on for a little while.
I was glad for that. Even though lots of kids think that being famous is the greatest thing in the world, I’d learned fast just how intrusive it can be to have your name and your story beamed to the world. Especially when all I wanted to do was get some sleep.
The media blitz would probably have lasted longer if anyone had died. But Jackson Teeter’s dad is recovering from his gunshot wounds. And even though the tactical squad dove for cover when they saw that armed hand grenade in the boy’s trembling hand, no one got hurt. As they gritted their teeth waiting for the explosion, all they heard was silence . . .
. . . then Stump’s wailing voice, “I can’t do anything right!”
Like the other grenades that had been packed in the black bag I hid in the dumpster, the one that Stump had been carrying around with him turned out to be a dud. The only way his father could bring back hand grenades as souvenirs from his tour of duty was if they’d been disarmed— although that hadn’t kept Mr. Teeter from bragging about his collection of “live” grenades.
Stump might still be tried as an adult for shooting his father and “attempting a terrorist act,” but the rumor around school is that he’s not going to be sentenced to a juvie detention facility like Grey Cook. Jackson Teeter is probably headed for a psychiatric treatment center.
Another reason my face vanished so fast from the news shows probably was my usual unexciting reply whenever a reporter asked me how I felt about what I’d done.
“What I did was nothing,” I said.
They didn’t understand that. The only part they liked was one answer I gave to CNN: “If I did do anything worthwhile it’s because of my uncle, who’s been teaching me about The Way.”
I was sorry as soon as I said that. They tried to spin it that I’d been training to be a ninja or some kind of superhero.
I got a little teasing at school when I went back, but it was friendly. Some kids actually came up to me and shook my hand and said things like they hoped I was healing up okay and they thought I was cool. (Maya among them. Which truly is cool.)
But now it’s like nothing happened. True, I do get a nod from the A.P. whenever he sees me in the hall, but that’s about it. Nobody pays any special attention to me anymore. Which is okay by me. I’ve learned that being anonymous is not bad at all.
What’s sad is that most of the kids at Long River High just act as if the whole incident never happened. Same cliques, same music, same stuff, different day. The school has started a new program to counteract bullying, but who knows how much that can really change things? I can only hope.
Dad called from the West Coast while I was in the hospital. He’d gotten the message from Mom on his answering service at about the same time he saw me being interviewed on FOX.
“Are you okay, son?” I knew he was asking me much more than that.
“I’m okay, Dad. I really am.”
“I’ll be back East in a week. I know we have a lot to talk about. I’m so sorry, Cody.”
What little hope I might have had that my parents were going to get back together left me then. But so did some of the pain I’d been feeling about my family being torn apart. My mom was still my mom. My dad would always be my father, even if the two of them weren’t able to live together. I didn’t understand why things were that way. I didn’t like it. But I knew that if I had to, I could accept it.
“It’s okay, Dad,” I said. I was crying by then, and I could hear that he was crying, too, at the other end of the line.
“This summer,” he said, “we’ll take a week and go camping together. I promise.”
“I know we will,” I said. And I meant it just as much as he did. We were telling each other the truth.
We kept talking for a while after that. Because of all the medicine they were pumping into me, I don’t remember much of the rest of our conversation, aside from his saying two or three times that he was really looking forward to meeting Uncle John. And the words he spoke just before we hung up.
“I’m so proud of you, son.”
So I guess some good did come out of it.
Plus my being on TV did focus some attention on Uncle John, and even though he didn’t particularly care for it, the organizers of the War at the Shore saw it as great publicity for them. They conveniently forgot that they’d refused him entry when he first applied and only grudgingly let him in because of my mom’s influence. Even though they figured him for a “fish,” an inexperienced guy the others would eat up, they played up his being part of the tournament.
But after his first win, and then his second, they realized that what they’d let loose wasn’t just a fish, but a shark.
The coolest part for me was the way Uncle John won each of his matches. In a mixed-martial-arts fight with six-ounce gloves, some fighters prefer to do their work as strikers, throwing blow after blow and kick after kick from a standing position or by getting on top of their opponent and going to what they call “ground and pound.”
Uncle John, though, won each of his first three fights with as little violence and as much finesse as possible, ducking, blocking, pulling guard, and then putting his opponents into Gracie ju-jitsu holds that have led to their submitting by tapping out. A triangle choke in match number one, a flying guillotine in the second, a kimura wrist lock that quickly transitioned into an arm bar in the third. Fighting without fighting.
This last bout, though, is supposed to be his toughest. This opponent looks twice as big as my uncle. He’s been a UFC fighter for four years and was a finalist in the Ultimate Fighter TV show.
The referee starts the fight. They tap gloves. The other guy has seen Uncle John’s last two fights and is determined not to let it go to the ground. As soon as they’ve tapped gloves, the other guy does a lightning-fast spinning backfist.
But to me it looks like he’s moving in slow motion. And I know it’s that way for my uncle, too, as he ducks under that fist and leaps like a panther onto his opponent’s back, pulling him down to the canvas. He has an arm locked around the guy’s neck. It’s a textbook rear naked choke.
And it’s over. The guy has tapped. Uncle John wins. He is helping his former adversary to his feet, and the two of them are hugging and shaking hands. Even though the other fighter lost, he’s smiling in admiration at Uncle John’s technique. It’s the kind of sportsmanship that has made my uncle love this fight game so much.
There’s stunned silence from the crowd. It all happened so fast that most of the people didn’t even see it. Then the twenty-second-long match starts to be replayed again and again on the big screens around the octagon. The referee raises Uncle John’s hand, and people finally start cheering and applauding.
Uncle John makes that gesture again. Two fingers raised to the sky in a circle before bringing them back to touch his heart and then thrust forward. Indian sign language silently speaking an old wisdom from the heart of all creation.
My left arm is still in a sling, so Mom helps me climb up on the ring apron where Uncle John is now pressing the palm of his hand against the mesh of the cage. I put my palm against his.
“We did it, Cody!” he says, leaning his head close. “Remember our deal? Fifty-fifty on my winnings. You and your mother are going to get a new car and move out of that ratty trailer!”
I grin back at him. Then, as Mom holds me up from behind, I raise my own hand in that same gesture my uncle made.
All power comes from our Creator.
All things are connected.
There is peace within me as I follow The Way.
The straight branch
may be bent into a hoop.
—Pendetta Satu
About the Author
With more than 120 books and numerous awards to his credit, Joseph Bruchac is best known for his work as a Native writer and storyteller. However, he was also a varsity heavyweight wrestler at Cornell University and is a former high school and junior high wrestling coach. And, for more than three decades, he has also been a devoted student of the martial arts.
He holds the
ranks of pengawal and pendekar in pencak-silat, the martial art of Indonesia, and has studied various forms of tai chi, capoeira, kung fu wu su, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu with numerous teachers. He does not regard himself as a master.
His two sons—and frequent collaborators in writing and storytelling—Jim and Jesse, are also martial arts teachers. Jim is a sensei and fourth degree black belt in karate, and Jesse is coowner of a mixed martial arts academy. (See www.wnymma.com)
Mr. Bruchac lives in Greenfield Center, New York, with Carol, his wife of 42 years, whose oft-repeated mantra to her slightly crazed husband and sons has been: “Please try not to get hurt too much.”
Olakamigenoka
Make Peace
The Way Page 10
