Shell Shaker

by LeAnne Howe

  “White people,” he mumbles, turning onto Lost Arrow Road, a tiny dirt lane that points north toward his ranch. He’s grateful he learned to read and write English so he could earn a living in the white world, even though he still doesn’t understand what the missionaries thought they were doing to the Indians at the boarding school. When he was a boy the government boarding schools were notorious for hiring sadists. Whites called them “strict disciplinarians.” Or “preachers.” From time to time he sees their faces in the dark. A ghost banquet of mottle-eyed strangers trying to nibble their way inside him. His impression the first day of school was that all white teachers were fat. The woman who led them to the kitchen had a mouth like a snout. When that mouth came nattering up close behind him, just like a feral hog, he spit at her and yelled, “Niah sipokni.” Old Fats. Isaac thinks he was about seven at the time. Susan was eleven and protective of him, so she started a fight with Old Fats, yelling in Choctaw, which was strictly against the rules. They dragged Susan away and Isaac didn’t see her again until a week later. It was snowing. They’d just shaved her head. Ice crystals glimmered on her scalp where the barber’s straight razor had scraped too closely. Her face was swollen, her eyes like sad almonds, but she was still on her feet. Wrapped proudly in the blanket Nowatima, their great-grandmother, had given her, Susan looked just like a star in heaven.

  Yesterday was the same. He stood in his newspaper office and watched helplessly as the television reporter interviewed the Acting Chief, Carl Tonica. Tonica said he’d personally felt for a long time that the entire Billy clan was out to get McAlester so that Auda Billy could become chief. Isaac believed that Tonica was upset, talking nonsense, so he drove to the tribal headquarters. He thought he could reason with the man, explain that this must be a mistake. His niece and his sister could not have murdered Chief McAlester. In the old days, his family were Inholahta; everyone knows that peacemakers never take up arms. When he arrived at the parking lot, there were dozens of non-Indians with deer rifles slung over their shoulders, standing around their cars talking quietly among themselves. There were guards at all the entrances of the tribal headquarters. Isaac spotted Hector D’Amato smoking cigarettes among the strangers in front of the building. Hector had only shown up in Choctaw Country last June. He was much younger than Vico. Auda disliked him, even more than his older brother, saying that Hector was the more dangerous of the two. He always wore fancy clothes, and charmed all the ladies at the tribal headquarters with chocolates and flowers on their birthdays. “So he could pump them for tribal secrets,” said Auda. She also said that while Vico had bad diction and often spoke like a gangster, Hector had impeccable grammar. Finally she discovered why: Hector and McAlester had been roommates at Dartmouth.

  Hector saw Isaac walking toward him and motioned for a tribal policeman to stop him. Isaac was frisked and told not to move. “I’m sorry, Mr. Billy,” he said sincerely, “the tribal headquarters are off-limits to you. Mr. Tonica will explain why.”

  When the acting chief came outside, Isaac could see that Tonica was truly afraid of Hector. One eye was swollen, and both hands were bruised, as if he’d had a run-in with someone big and mean. Probably one of Hector’s hired thugs. As Tonica spoke, he was huffing and belching foul-smelling stomach gas into the air. Poor bastard, thought Isaac, he doesn’t know that he’s also being poisoned.

  “This place is for Choctaws only,” said the acting chief. “I’m revoking your Choctaw voter registration cards. All the Billys are prevented from using the Choctaw hospital if, God forbid, something terrible should happen to you. The tribal council also requested—before they were disbanded—that I petition the President of the United States and ask him to repeal your family’s “Degree of Indian Blood” cards. In other words, you and your family are de-tribed.” Tonica paused, then laughed like a lunatic. “Poof! You Billys are no longer Choctaws.”

  “This is Sunday, Carl, you didn’t get all that done in one day,” said Isaac.

  “Don’t be so sure. I’m in charge now and the Bureau of Indian Affairs will approve whatever I think is best to keep the peace. Things have changed since yesterday when your sister and niece killed our beloved chief.”

  Hatred boiled in Isaac’s throat like lava. How could this ignoramus think that a piece of paper could dissolve Indian blood?

  Tonica waved the documents in Isaac’s face. “Oh, it’s legal, and you’re trespassing on Choctaw land. Your family is in for more trouble than you can imagine. Two BIA agents are on their way to search your sister’s house and conduct a thorough investigation,” he said, looking at Hector D’Amato for approval. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let them in.”

  Isaac spat in his face. “Chishke ala aiathto!” Your mother’s vagina.

  Tonica understood the insult and leapt at Isaac. The two men tumbled down the steps, punching and hitting each other and Isaac lost his hat and glasses. A tribal cop pulled them apart. “Gentlemen, please,” Hector said softly, “we don’t want to draw a crowd. It’s not good for business.”

  “You’re a dead man, Billy!” Tonica screamed. “Hatak illi! The words have been spoken. You’re dead.”

  “Let’s finish this right here,” snorted Isaac, picking his cowboy hat off the ground. Tonica lunged at him again, but Isaac side-stepped him. The Acting Chief of the Choctaws landed flat on his face. Still pretty quick for a sixty-six year old, thought Isaac. Cutting steers for the past fifty years had taught him that move.

  “Get him out of here,” yelled Tonica. “I’m going to kill you, Isaac Billy!”

  “Just like you killed McAlester!” shouted Isaac, as the tribal cop shoved him off Choctaw land and into the street.

  The words were out now in the open. Even those backing Tonica would have to admit they’d heard his death threat. “Carl, you better think twice about starting a civil war—this is the 90s,” he said, looking around for his glasses.

  “Are these yours?” asked Hector, politely. Isaac reached for the glasses, but Hector dropped them on the pavement and mashed them with his shoe heel. “Whoops,” he said smiling, “accidents happen.” Then he walked back inside the building.

  Isaac headed for his truck. He dug around in the glove box until he found a pair of old black-framed glasses. Adair called them his “Buddy Hollys.” She’d teased him so much the last time she was home that he bought a pair of gold wire rims. Now they looked like they belonged to some caved-in skull.

  That’s when Isaac started thinking about all that had happened in such a short time: land all burned up; his family behind bars; the fool, Carl Tonica, running the tribe for Italians. He blamed himself for not being more active in tribal politics. Maybe he should have been sitting on the tribal council all these years, but he’d preferred to take refuge at his ranch and talk to his cattle. Hide out. Even last year, when Susan openly accused Redford McAlester at a tribal council meeting of becoming a blood-brother of the Mafia, Isaac didn’t take action. Rather, he’d criticized Susan for showing her true feelings in public. “All McAlester’s going to do is prevent you from attending any more council meetings,” he had said. And he was right.

  The following week, McAlester had passed a law barring anyone from speaking at the tribal council meetings, except the chief. All future business of the tribe would be conducted in McAlester’s private offices. When Isaac finally decided to call the elders together, Auda had asked him to wait a while longer. She said she was trying to reason with McAlester, to convince him that a chief couldn’t make a law that so blatantly violated Choctaw traditions. Isaac had to blame himself for not following his instincts. He could have gathered all the elders together and peacefully removed the Osano from office, but he hadn’t. For years he’d been shirking his duty, no denying it. Now he will have to make amends for failing his family. But under no circumstances did he believe his sister and his niece killed the chief.

  He started the truck and headed toward his sister’s. It was the home where so many Billys had lived.
He and Susan had been born there, and it’s where they returned after boarding school. The stately two-story, red brick house was built in 1888 by Nowatima. She’d gotten the money from Dixon DuRant, the Choctaw-Frenchman who founded Durant. Nowatima wanted a house large enough for all her descendants to live under one roof. When she was forty-three, though never officially married to DuRant, she had her only daughter by him, Laura Billy. Laura helped create Durant’s first library—a big controversy among the Billy family, since Choctaws preferred to tell their stories out loud. Laura cultivated a field of sunflowers in order to host a yearly sunflower festival to honor Hashtali, although that last piece of information, from what Isaac heard, was withheld from the public. She finally married a fourth cousin, George Billy, and gave birth to Isaac’s mother, Callie Billy, on June 22, 1898. He knows the exact date because his mother’s birth is listed on the Dawes Rolls, officially documenting them as “Full-bloods.” Callie grew up shaking shells on the dance grounds in Southeastern Oklahoma. Met his father, John Miko, at a dance in Tushkahoma. Nowatima told Isaac that Callie had had six stillborn babies before Susan. And then Isaac had come along four years later. He was seven when Callie and John were killed in the car wreck. Things got really bad for Susan and Isaac after that. Since Nowatima was so old, outliving her daughter and granddaughters, the court appointed a white guardian for them, and they were sent to a boarding school for Indian orphans. It wasn’t until Susan turned eighteen that they were allowed to leave and return to live with Nowatima.

  The house appeared lonely as he pulled into the driveway, but inside it still smelled of homemade bread. The aroma acted like a sweet tonic on Isaac’s nerves. Susan must have been standing over the kitchen table with her sleeves rolled up to the elbows, patting dough into round balls, when she decided to confess to murdering McAlester. Isaac surveyed the upstairs to make sure deputy Vernon Klinkenbaird hadn’t broken in. As he passed a mirror in the hall, he couldn’t help but notice that he was a mess. His khaki shirt was dirty and torn at the pocket from the fight. Behind his Buddy Hollys, his dark brown eyes seemed lost in wrinkles and time. He combed his salt-and-pepper hair, kept short since his army days. He tucked in his shirt and walked downstairs. He no longer looked anything like he pictured himself. He was an old, dark-red Indian man with a little potbelly, and he sensed that he didn’t have too much longer to put things in order.

  The huge west windows in the downstairs foyer warmed the wooden floors with sunlight. Toys belonging to neighborhood children were scattered everywhere. The library seemed like the most comforting room. In a way, it was the family museum. A French musket that once belonged to a famous Choctaw warrior rested on the fireplace mantle, and two ancient Choctaw burden baskets sat on a side table. The family’s most precious possessions, however, were stored in a small trunk in a corner of the room: a tiny black and white porcupine sash, and some turtle shells. Both were said to have belonged to a powerful ancestor, a Shell Shaker. Isaac looked at the turtle shells, but did not touch them. He was afraid he might drop them. He gently lifted the sash out of the trunk and fingered the delicate hide. The quills from the porcupine had been stitched across the front in various designs, although now they were nearly unrecognizable. When the doorbell rang, he carefully put the sash away before answering.

  Two sturdy bodies stood before him with dark coats, fierce heads, and lapping tongues. Doberman pinschers. At first, this strange turn of events reassured him. Dogs can sense the truth of most any situation and, fortunately, they are mute. Isaac pictured them nosing the empty house at a quick gait. He saw them sniffing in his direction, their tall ears pointed and ever alert, the smell of fur and urine about them. One of them barked at him several times. A long moment passed before Isaac realized this was not a dog’s bark, but in fact a government agent attempting speech.

  “Isaac Billy, we have a warrant to search—,”

  “Uh-oh ... looks like a trickster’s after me.”

  “Old man, don’t cut me off before I’m finished telling you why I’m here. If you try to interfere with an official Bureau of Indian Affairs’ investigation you will be prosecuted to the... ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff.”

  Isaac stared blankly at the two agents. “Sorry boys, I’m a little confused, I thought you were the barking dogs I heard.”

  One of the agents smiled at Isaac, but addressed his zealous partner. “This old-timer is really a dinosaur of another era.”

  “Yup,” said Isaac, affecting feeble-mindedness.

  “C’mon, I don’t wanna spend my entire Sunday with some old man,” said the other.

  Isaac whistled softly and gestured to the BIA men to come in, as if they were really dogs. Neither seemed offended, but the whole house reacted violently, creaking and groaning at the invasion. A foul odor tracked the two men around as they snapped pictures and dug through Auda’s drawers, pulling out her underwear and pantyhose and holding them up in the light. “Evidence gathering,” the nasty one said. When they split up to widen the search, it was the nasty one Isaac continued to follow.

  From Susan Billy’s bedroom, the agent decided to take the only surviving picture of her husband, Presley War Maker. What he wanted with a picture of a dead Indian, Isaac couldn’t imagine. Susan never let her daughters use his last name, War Maker. Some thought it was because they were never officially married by a white preacher, but that wasn’t the reason. His sister maintained it was against her culture. “We are Billys,” she had said. “That is final.”

  Isaac had always thought it was a good thing. Susan was following a very old tradition. In the old days, Choctaw children always traced their kinship through their mother’s family. Not their father’s. “It’s a good way,” he muttered. “Women outlive us anyhow.”

  When the toilet flushed, Isaac knew the government was finally leaving the house. He watched as they headed next door to pester the neighbors. That’s when he discovered Auda’s pet rabbit, Jean Baptiste, was missing from his cage. Someone must have let him out. He searched along the foundation of the house but finally gave up. Their lives were chaotic, now the missing rabbit. He had to get in touch with his nieces, Tema and Adair, so he drove to his office and faxed them two short notes. Later he would contact his distant relatives in Mississippi, and also Delores Love and her sister Dovie Love, in Poteau, Oklahoma.

  And that was yesterday.

  Isaac tells himself he has to move on as he drives toward his trailer in Soper. “I haven’t missed work since the day I quit the Love Ranch in 1942,” he mutters.

  Like all other major events in his life, this must revolve around Indian women. The fire, the chief’s bloody death, Durant’s Big Peanut theft, all these events occurred during the autumnal equinox. Of course, this is Tek inhashi! Girls’ Month is a time when things break open. Major changes happen during this time. The old is sloughed off and discharged, the new begins. He doesn’t understand what it all means, but he’s going to find out. If two jailed Billy women are so dangerous that Tonica and the Italians have raised an army of non-Indians to protect them, what will they do when four women come together?

  “Tek inhashi,” he whispers, as he pulls to a stop in front of his trailer. Tema and Adair will be arriving tonight and he’s glad they’ll be taking charge of the situation. He wonders where Delores and Dovie are. They should be arriving soon too. When he steps out of the truck, the big yellow dog GeorgeBush runs to greet him. Isaac grabs handfuls of yellow fur and dogtalks with GeorgeBush, telling him about his broken glasses, the doberman pinschers, and all the other terrible things that have happened. He frequently names his favorite animals after U.S. presidents, it jacks up the price. Four years ago he sold Richard Nixon, his prize bull, for fifteen thousand dollars. Not that he will sell GeorgeBush, he just liked the name. He lugs his computer and printer into his trailer and begins heating up some red beans and fried potatoes. He pours a glass of cold buttermilk that he crumbles cornbread into.

  Outside, the wind vibrates with the call of bullfrogs, and inse
cts churning the last leaves of autumn into their death canopy. After he’s eaten, Isaac boils a cup of white corn in a small amount of water. He takes the plate of corn outside and puts it on a tree stump. He stands facing the evening sunset. Everywhere he went today people stared back in astonishment. He caught whiffs of their conversations. “Shot him in the head.” “Red lipstick all over his face.” Isaac clears his mind, holds his hands upward and sings in a low voice:

  “Tubbi itid abachi kiah heh. Tubbi itid abachi kiah heh!”

  In an instant the answer comes. He remembers someone who can help, an old lady he met years ago at the stomp grounds. She was a wild-looking thing, with wiry hair down to the middle of her back. She wore awful-looking clothes and scared everyone she came in contact with, including him. She had once showed up at boarding school and talked to Susan. When he asked his sister what the old lady wanted, Susan shrugged and said the old lady only wanted to tell her stories. Isaac can’t believe he’d forgotten her; surely she must be over a hundred years old by now. He nods politely to the wind and to the setting sun, then walks back inside the trailer, leaving the food, a gift for the spirits. Everything will be all right now.

  In the late evening, he pours himself a cup of coffee and begins opening the mail for his weekly newspaper column. When he first started the paper in 1960 it was called The Choctaw Swapper. He began it as a way to advertise his cattle. Several years later, after seeing the Woody Allen movie, he changed the name to Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Choctaws, But Were Afraid to Ask. He introduced an inside column by the same name. He wrote about Choctaw dances, and the best way to cook pashofa, a Choctaw delicacy. He used his mother’s recipe as the standard everyone should follow. He wrote a long treatise entitled “The Choctaw Warrior’s Shirt: What Is It?” He cited historical articles that Auda had published and made pronouncements on the correct color real warriors should wear. This issue sparked a debate of gigantic proportions among his old lady friends. He was soon forced to underwrite a newspaper contest to end the controversy. He judged the contest and reaped the rewards—three shirts of varying shades of red. “Perks” is what he wrote in his income tax file, a term he learned after attending an Indian journalists’ conference in Oklahoma City.