Shell Shaker

by LeAnne Howe

  Isaac removes his bulky glasses and brushes a small tear away. Sunlight glints on his face like a mirror, the morning sky is bright blue.

  Many years after Nowatima’s death, he asked Auda to find out what the historians wrote about the Natchez war. She told him it happened in 1730, but that in addition to shooting the birds, the Frenchmen had called the swans worthless water fowl.

  Hekano, he does not question Nowatima’s stories. Her words were confident, rich with details. A long time ago—she would say. Isaac drifts into the world she made for him and the stone warms his hand.

  5 | Prayers for the Mother

  Durant, Oklahoma

  Tuesday, September 24, 1991

  Smoke.

  It coils lazily toward the hole in the roof of the green cabin like a feathered serpent. From her bed Auda watches the smoke rise. Hours seem to pass before she walks across the dirt floor to the smoldering fire. It’s then she realizes that this is not her bedroom in Durant. The walls are cane poles. Palmetto leaves thatch the roof.

  She doesn’t consider the enigma for long. A very strong desire, beyond understanding, makes her run outside toward the river where smoke hangs just above the water.

  She sees a man. At first he looks unfamiliar, but she runs to greet him. Robust and solid, his tight brown skin is so lustrous he seems to shimmer. He picks her up. Her legs go around his waist and her arms lock around his neck. Lust drools out of her mouth and she murmurs his name, Red Shoes.

  He looks at her. Lays her down on the ground, his long black hair falling around her face. She sees the zeal in his eyes. He wants to plunge in. They smile at each other.

  “You’re getting slippery, aren’t you?” he coaxes.

  Hearing his voice, her body absorbs him through a thousand open pores. She breathes like a horse running with an impatient rider, moans during orgasm, unable to say a word to the man who had once rubbed her painstakingly until he had deflowered her.

  They fall asleep. Wake up.

  Red Shoes whispers, “Here in the smoke with you, one more time.”

  She nods yes. “But first you must tell me what you know about the Inkilish okla and Filanchi okla. What is coming?”

  He answers. “Pitiful as they are, they will one day crowd us out of our homelands. Also, everyone in the world will eat our foods—Ahe, tanchi, tobi, isito, bapho, but they will be called potatoes, corn, beans, squash, and peanut butter. Everything we have they will claim as theirs.” He pauses. “For a time.”

  She asks. “Baska too?”

  “Yes. They will be called casinos.”

  They stop talking. She pulls him to her.

  He asks what she is doing.

  “I’m looking at the tattoo on your face. Is that the same pattern we carve on our pottery bowls?

  He smiles. “Yes, my father’s iksa, the Choctaw warriors from the town of Couechitto, tattooed my face with the sign of truth and friendship. When I was a messenger I was instructed to deliver the exact feelings and words of our people.”

  She laughs. “Do you groan with pleasure when you tell people exactly how I feel?”

  He grins a little mockingly. “Of course.”

  “I was sure of it.” She laughs, then is silent. “But what if you lie?”

  “Then I will be forgotten.”

  She takes his face between her hands. “What did you do?”

  “You know.”

  She cries softly. “No, I don’t know. My children are supposed to come from this marriage. My relatives will brag that I married the warrior Red Shoes, the Imataha Chitto, the greatest giver. Repeat my words exactly as I have said them. Say it,” she demands. “Then it will come true.”

  Red Shoes does not speak but looks at her with longing. Smiles. And behind the smile she sees his despair. They both cry.

  She kisses him. They hold each other, lost in the pain of knowing they cannot stop what is coming. She pulls him to her again, but he vanishes like a shadow in sunlight. Auda begins to whimper because she knows now that she is dreaming. She has no husband, no children. She sits on the edge of the bed. Tries to wake up, but hears gunshots, the ones that keep firing in her head. Black smoke fills the room. A sheriff’s deputy charges through the door with a gun in his hand. Screams when he sees the dead man whose face and mouth she has covered with red lipstick kisses, like a consolation.

  Enraged, she turns on the deputy. “Look at what is left of our people—a chin, a foot, a jawbone, and ten thousand feet of intestines hanging from the trees in Yanàbi Town. I demanded his head and got it,” she says, not really sure what she means. She stays like that, riveted amid the din of ringing gunshots until she doesn’t hear them anymore.

  Auda rolls into the fetal position. She wants to stop the nightmare. Finally she cries herself awake. She knows she’s awake because the photograph of Redford McAlester is still on her nightstand. She drops it into the trash can. He died on Sunday. They took him to the morgue. She told them that he had been nothing more than a common thief. That she could not stop what was coming.

  Bitter tears run down the pinch of her black lashes. Her head is exploding. She’s had headaches before, but nothing like this. She rushes to the bathroom sink and vomits water clear as rain. After standing beneath a warm shower, she feels more relaxed and returns to the sorrow of her bed.

  The bedroom door creaks open and Adair comes in and sits next to her. A whole minute passes before she speaks. “I heard the water running.” She gently pushes the wet hair off her forehead. “You’re going to be all right.”

  Auda turns her face to the wall. Something cracks inside her. It’s her voice. Noise comes out of this broken place. “I gave Redford McAlester everything. I didn’t mean to.”

  “I know.”

  Silence.

  “But just now, I was dreaming about Red Shoes.” She turns back around. “You know the one I mean?”

  Adair nods yes.

  “It’s the craziest thing, I know about him because of my research, but in my dream I was with him...” Auda puts her hand over her mouth to stop herself from speaking. After all, there are some things you shouldn’t tell.

  Her sister does not make a move to comfort her, nor does she act particularly surprised. “We’ve all been having weird dreams and hearing voices.” Adair squares her shoulders. “You’ve got to get up. Help us, help you. The sheriff came at eight this morning and took Ma to jail.”

  “For what?”

  “She confessed, again.”

  “Oh no, this is all wrong,” says Auda, softly. “It won’t help matters.”

  “Ma’s telling whoever will listen that she shot the casino chief. It doesn’t help matters that her gun was found at the murder scene. What else could the sheriff do but take her seriously?”

  Suddenly a commotion erupts downstairs; an old man’s voice reaches up to Auda’s bedroom. He’s speaking in Choctaw, saying that he does not accept things the way they are. Then they hear a door slam.

  Adair shrugs. “It’s been like this for the past four hours. Uncle Isaac, Hoppy, and a lawyer went to get Ma out of jail. The county transferred jurisdiction to the Choctaw Superior Court. Don’t worry about bail money, I brought plenty of cash.”

  Auda drops her gaze. All the problems she’s causing. Her sister seems to sense how she feels, but presses on.

  “Aunt Delores called from the road. She and Dovie should be arriving any time now. The lawyer we hired is Alabama Conchatys. His name is Gore Battiste and he’ll represent you, and Ma—if you agree. She said it’s okay with her, if it’s okay with you. He stayed up all night making notes about your case.”

  A truck pulls up in the driveway, the passenger door squeaks as if it needs oiling. Adair looks out the window. “More Indians. I think they’re waking up,” she says, lighting a cigarette. “The kitchen is overflowing with covered dishes. Some people have even brought money for Ma’s defense. And yours, of course,” she adds quickly.

  While her sister talks, Auda examines her
as a parent might. Weight same, fingernails smooth, a sign of good protein. Her clothes and hairdo, all retro, make Adair seem more exotic than ever. She’s the daughter who can most easily pass for white if she wants to. Her light complexion helps people mistake her for French, Lebanese, Spanish, Mexican, or Italian. Adair smokes filterless French Gitanes and sometimes reeks of ash.

  Auda understands; smoke is a screen you can retreat behind.

  “Ma’s worried because you were in shock, so I made appointments at the Choctaw clinic this afternoon with a doctor and a dentist.”

  Auda doesn’t answer, she’s stuck on the Gitanes. “Got any more on you?”

  Adair gives her the pack and a lighter. “Ma’s friends are organizing a gathering tonight at Blue Creek Grounds. I hope those old-timers don’t want to start another civil war.” She pauses. “About the lawyer...”

  “What about him, anything I should know?”

  Adair starts to speak, but merely shakes her head. “No, nothing I can think of. Ma’s pashofa is on the stove. Come downstairs.” Then pausing, she adds. “Funny thing, when the sheriff and his men arrived this morning, Ma offered them some soup before they handcuffed her. Then they asked us if we’d mind putting some of it in a Tupperware for them.” Adair smirks a little. “And we did.”

  When her sister leaves, Auda puts her head in her hands. She tries to remember exactly what happened at the jail. She told her mother about the spirit of the Shell Shaker, then her mother confessed to killing the chief, then the rest is blank, until she woke up in her own bed. She feels so ashamed. They’d spent so much time arguing about Redford McAlester, and now her mother has traded places with her.

  How did their feud begin? Perhaps at a feast her mother hosted, shortly after the election in 1983. They were having a venison roast, mashed potatoes, fried squash, and red beans. For dessert, sunflower cakes and her favorite, bahpo, a nut pudding made from peanuts. Several colleagues from Southeastern Oklahoma State University had been invited, along with tribal employees, and the neighbors. In front of everyone her mother suddenly turned on her. “Finish with that man,” she had commanded. “McAlester is a Osano. End of story.”

  Susan Billy’s fury had centered around an elderly Choctaw named Fred Tubby. It seems that same morning, the old Indian had asked McAlester to drill him a water well for his “punkins.” Everyone around Durant knew that Fred cultivated large tracts of land for corn, beans, squash, and pumpkins, and that he gave away the produce to single Choctaw mothers.

  “Fred comes to McAlester for a little help. Do you know what your chief told him?”

  Auda shook her head.

  “’This is not a welfare state, Mr. Tubby, we can’t help you.’” Susan Billy then passed her a plate of fried squash, and left the feast. Auda was humiliated. Her mother had purposely prepared all the foods that Choctaws had eaten before contact with whites. She was trying to make a point. Even though McAlester knew Fred Tubby was growing Indian crops for Choctaw women, he still refused to help him. In essence, McAlester was starving his own people.

  Later, her mother’s comments became even more cruel. “Still the Casino Chief’s whipping girl, huh?” Or, “How much money did he steal today?” Although she and her mother lived in the same house, they’d stopped speaking to each other, except when outsiders were present. Over the past year, she’d felt abused by McAlester and abandoned by her mother.

  It isn’t her fault that she’s not heroic like Susan Billy. Her mother is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. Powerful medicine. The story of the Billys is like the begats in the Bible. Auda can recite it from memory. There was Chunkashbili, shortened to Bili, later Billy, the family’s last name. Bili is the mother of Marie. Marie gives birth to Noga sometime around 1779 in Louisiana, near Houma Town. Noga is the mother of Pisatuntema, and they have a farm near Yanàbi Town. Pisatuntema gives birth to Nowatima around 1825, in the same farmhouse. But after the Choctaws walk to Oklahoma in 1831, Yanàbi Town and the Indian farms are taken over by white people. Nowatima settles in Durant. Her daughter Laura marries George Billy. Callie, the daughter of Laura, comes along next. She marries John Miko in 1914. Callie Billy has six daughters by John, all stillborn. Susan, the seventh, arrives on September 22, 1921. Auda’s great-great-grandmother, Nowatima, breathes into Susan the mysterious power of breath and mind, and she survives. Four years later Isaac is born, and the rest is history. Her mother marries Presley War Maker. Auda and her sisters have been raised in a house filled with ancestors, and their stories.

  Auda removes a nappy white robe from her closet. She didn’t ask for this. She’s a firstborn, only without the offspring. Another criticism. She’s the daughter who most resembles Susan Billy. Same eyes and hair, same height—five feet, two inches tall. Same brains, or so people assume. The eldest girl is supposed to take her mother’s place as the head of the family, but she never wanted to. As a teenager she wanted to see the world, date men, be out of range of her mother’s influence.

  In 1969, when everyone was demonstrating against something, Auda was protesting too. The Billy house was a kind of Choctaw day care center for adults, and children, and stray animals. It was always jammed with Indians needing something and Auda didn’t want to babysit. So she walked to the bus station, boarded a Greyhound for the two-hour trip to Oklahoma City, and never looked back. After a while, when the personal revolution wore thin, she started college. Later, in 1976, she entered graduate school, to correct the tribe’s eighteenth-century record. This work would become her progeny—a history book.

  Auda braids her long hair, then examines her broken front teeth in the mirror. She runs her tongue back and forth on the jagged edges. Strange feeling. She puts out her cigarette, pulls her robe belt tight, and descends the precarious stairs at the back of the house. When Nowatima built the house, she had the largest kitchen in Durant. Back then Billy women were well under five feet tall and the narrow wooden stairs were adequate. In 1991, they’re better suited for the errands of children. She stands on the last stair and inhales. The whole room smells of corn. Fried corn fritters, corn soup, plates of cornbread, corncob salads.

  In the corner of the kitchen a man sweeps up broken glass, the remains of his plate. Adair is holding a dustpan and Tema is talking on the phone. Standing silently on the stairs, Auda goes unnoticed. She decides the sweeper must be the Alabama Conchatys. He looks familiar. About forty—maybe older, it’s hard to know with Indians. His brown hair hangs straight down around his shoulders, and he dresses like all the other Oklahoma Indian lawyers: Cowboy boots, starched jeans, white dress shirt, dark blue sports jacket. He seems comfortable with her sisters, as if he’s family.

  “Mother says she killed the chief,” says Tema, into the telephone. “I know, of course she didn’t. Thank you.” Another long pause. “Yes, please do say prayers for the Mother, and for all of us. We appreciate that.”

  Tema hangs up. Seconds later, there is another ring. She repeats the conversation, nearly word for word, and listens patiently. “No, Auda’s fingerprints weren’t on the weapon, neither were Mother’s. It’s circumstantial evidence. Our lawyer thinks the case will be dismissed.”

  The lawyer carefully sweeps shards of glass toward Adair. “Have you seen today’s paper?” he asks, softly. “There’s another front-page story on Auda.”

  Adair nods and he corners her with the broom. Auda notices that, interestingly enough, Adair doesn’t seem to mind.

  Tema hangs up the phone and it immediately rings again. She answers, then smiles and takes the call in the other room. Phrases like, “you maniac,” mixed with endearing, muffled giggles, float back into the kitchen. Auda knows the caller is her brother-in-law. Tema never cooed until him. She’s always been a little envious of her youngest sister and Borden Beane. Who could have guessed that Tema would settle down with a man from England?

  “Yes,” says Tema, quickly dragging the phone back into the kitchen. “Good question. I’ll ask our lawyer that ... I miss you, too. Brea
k a leg tonight.” Then she hangs up and walks over to her lawyer.

  “Okay Battiste, I want to know something. Right after it happened, why was Auda taken to the county jail instead of the Choctaw Nation’s jail?”

  “Vernon Klinkenbaird, a sheriff’s deputy, was the first to arrive on the scene,” he says, matter-of-factly. “The sheriff knew he didn’t have jurisdiction; I think he was trying to protect Auda from a ‘lone gunman’ taking the law into his own hands.” Her lawyer takes the dustpan from Adair and collects one last sliver of glass on the other side of the room.

  At least he’s thorough, thinks Auda.

  “I went this morning and submitted our papers to Choctaw Superior Court; that’s where this case will be heard—with the tribe. When your mother was released, she left with Isaac and Hoppy to run some errands. They’ll be along any minute now,” he says.

  “Doesn’t it strike you as odd that a local sheriff’s deputy was there before the Choctaw cops?” asks Tema.

  “Not particularly.” Then he shakes his head. “I take that back. Everything I know about this case is off-kilter.”

  Tema continues probing. “What about Mother’s confession?”

  “Temporary insanity.”

  “Oh, Ma’s not going to stand for that,” says Adair, loudly.

  Here it comes, thinks Auda. When they were little, Adair was the one most likely to throw a wild punch, usually at her sisters. Later at boys. She’s never had any patience. For a Choctaw, she’s hot-wired. Auda steps down into the kitchen; as the eldest, she should do something. But without warning her mother’s voice roars out of her mouth, “I killed Redford McAlester! I did it and I alone will stand trial for his murder!” Everyone freezes. It isn’t really her mother’s voice, nor is it particularly loud, but she sounds so convincing, she can’t believe it’s her own self.