by LeAnne Howe
“I’m using the word ‘protect’ the way the old-timers used the word. If we protect him he can’t harm our people,” she says. “If we don’t take him to Mississippi, something awful is going to happen, I just know it.”
“You mean more awful than the murder and mayhem that’s already erupted in Choctaw Country?” Adair says, in a sarcastic voice.
Tema shoots her sister a hard look. “I’m sorry Auntie, Adair isn’t intentionally disrespectful, it’s just that—how can we take McAlester’s body to Mississippi, unless we steal his coffin? It’s a great risk.”
“You’ll see; no one will notice,” says Delores.
She can see that they are skeptical, so she scoots the bowl across the table and urges her nieces and sister to touch it. “The whole Nanih Waiya area represents the cradle of the Choctawan civilization. A long time ago people came from all directions to settle there. It takes a sacred space like that to heal a troubled spirit.”
Tema raises her hands up in the air to expose the sticky goo. “But Auntie, your vision started in your family’s farmhouse on top of a Queen Anne table, what does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” she answers, impatiently. “I’m not Moses with the clay tablets, just an old lady with a bowl of mud.”
“Shu-u-sh,” says Dovie, pushing her muddy palms out in front of her. “I’m encouraging my body’s chi, or vital energy flow. This is all very unsettling. I need to get in harmony with my surroundings.”
Delores watches her eighty-year-old sister step in slow motion to the basic movements of tai chi. First she lifts one leg, then the other. She mistrusts Dovie’s wacky practices. Sometimes she’s into tai chi, sometimes it’s astrology, then for no apparent reason she’ll return to the ways of their ancestors and act as though she barely speaks English. Perhaps Dovie is the best actress in the family, after all.
“Everyone breathe deeply,” instructs Dovie. “Wait, I’ve got it! Adair’s sleek bob just reminded me.”
“What?” snaps Delores.
“Just now, I was thinking about Louise Brooks.”
“Dovie, does this have anything to do with what’s going on here?” asks Delores.
Her sister continues unperturbed. “Of course it does. Remember when we first met Louise?” She turns to Tema and Adair, “We didn’t know her well enough to call her ‘Lulu’ like some of her friends. It must have been 1928, still a jazzy time for us. We’d moved to Santa Monica the year before and were having a high ol’ time. Louise was from Kansas, not far from Chilocco Indian School. Anyway, we all wore too much rouge and ruby lipstick to this party. Seems like the three of us were running away from wheat, cattle, and cowboys, ‘cept Delores and I ended up making movies about it.”
Dovie puts her muddy hands together as if she about to pray. “The whole thing went to my head. Went to Delores’ head, too.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“Did too,” says Dovie. “Anyway, we never saw Louise again because she went to Germany to make that film Pandora’s Box. Adair’s hairdo reminded me that Delores and I and Louise shared something in common. We believed having enough money could save us from our troubled pasts.”
Adair chimes in. “I see what you mean. The dining table represents consumerism. The things the English and the French taught the Indians: to love foreign things above all else. Auntie, you’re describing internalized colonialism. If you think foreigners’ things, ideas, and religions are better than what your own culture has, then you’re internally colonized. Then you don’t care about your own things, culture, or land. In Delores’ vision, one Indian can’t do anything alone, but needs the help of ancestors and young people to build the future.”
“That was a high definition event,” says Dovie, matter-of-factly. “Not your run-of-the-mill vision.”
Delores could kiss Dovie. She gives her a hug, and accidentally smears mud on her cheek. When she tries to wash it off, both her palms and Dovie’s cheek are stained. Tema and Adair do the same, and realize that their palms have become stained dark brown.
“Look at the mud!” cries Tema, “It’s spilling out of the bowl!”
Delores and Tema begin scraping it up into a trash can when they hear a Jeep screech to a halt in the driveway. Within seconds Hoppy and a young Indian woman burst in the kitchen door.
“Why haven’t you been answering the phone? We’ve been calling and calling,” says Hoppy, out of breath.
“There’s nothing wrong with the phone,” snaps Adair. “What’s happened?”
“Uncle Isaac’s been taken to jail. Gore needs to help me post bail,” he stops short, measuring his tone more carefully, “and Aunt Auda’s in a coma.”
No one moves or says a word. At last, Adair propels herself into action. “Gore’s upstairs asleep.” Turning to the young woman beside Hoppy, she says, “First bedroom on the right.” Then to her nephew, “Tell us everything that happened.”
Hoppy looks at the growing pile of mud. He looks at Adair’s hands. Curiosity, rage, amazement all filter across his young face. “The official report is that a dental hygienist named Vergie Reagan accidentally gave Aunt Auda an injection of insulin, but Grandmother doesn’t believe that. Neither do I. We don’t trust the hospital administration, so Auda’s on her way home in an ambulance with Grandmother. Grandmother’s Chevy was impounded by the police, so finally I had to call my girlfriend, Kelly Kampellubbi, to come and get me.”
Tema raises her eyebrows at Hoppy’s news, but a hot disbelieving outrage seizes Delores. “Why is Isaac in jail?”
“On the way to the clinic,” says Hoppy, controlling his anger, “the cops pulled everyone off the road until we were the only car left. We made it to the clinic, but the police arrested Uncle Isaac for reckless driving. I wanna find out how they knew exactly what time to expect us. Someone must have tipped them off.”
“It was me. I told them,” Tema says, in a voice filled with remorse. “A man called from the clinic and asked what time he could expect Auda ... so I told him.”
“Oh, Tema, how could you fall for that? Do Indian docs ever call to find out what time their patients will arrive?” asks Adair.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t think.”
“It’s no one’s fault, we know why this is happening,” says Delores. She gently touches Hoppy’s forehead. “How did you get this?”
“A man ran out of the crowd toward Grandmother and Auda. I jumped him, but he clobbered me. Now I realize it was only an act to divide us, to get Auda alone.”
“It’s Redford McAlester’s spirit,” says Delores solemnly. “Every hour that he remains above ground, things are going to get worse.”
Just then Gore walks into the kitchen, his eyes drowsy and half-asleep. He asks for a gallon of coffee. “Where’s the guy with the Peanutmobile?” he asks, yawning. “C’mon Adair, Hoppy, let’s ride in a car that’ll piss off the cops.”
The Billy house braces for a siege. The walls thump, the windows snap shut, and the floors creak loudly as furniture is moved around in preparation for Auda’s return. Outside, a dozen or so Choctaws stand guard against an ambush by D’Amato’s hired thugs. When the ambulance arrives Auda is wheeled into a downstairs bedroom, and Susan remains by her side. After the equipment is set up, Buster Jones comes out of the room and explains to Delores what happened. “There’s a wound inside Auda’s mouth,” he says quietly. “It looks like the Reagan woman cut Auda’s gum to catch her off guard, then shot her up with insulin. A dose like that mimics a heart attack—shortness of breath, dizziness, sweating, nausea, and fainting. It took us a while to diagnose what was wrong. No one knows where Vergie Reagan is. The tribal police are hunting for her, but my guess is that she’s long gone.” Buster looks around the living room to see who is listening. “It doesn’t look good, Auntie. If Auda does comes out of the coma, no one can say what shape she’ll be in.”
Dovie leans on Delores for comfort. They take time to pull themselves together, then, holding hands, they enter the makeshift
hospital room with its bleeping machines monitoring Auda’s blood pressure and heart rate. Susan is bent over with her forehead on the edge of the hospital bed. She seems to be praying. Tema is moistening Auda’s lips with a cotton swab.
Auda has a sickly death pallor. Her rubbery neck seems unattached to her body and her eyes, half-open, ticktock from side to side like one of those plastic wall clocks shaped like a cat’s face. A ventilator tube down her throat pumps her chest up and down, swelling, sucking, then repeats the cycle. For a moment, Delores sees the little Ponca girl at boarding school, lying in a pool of her own urine. She blinks; it’s Auda, again.
Delores makes a silent vow, her niece is not going to die like that. She grabs Susan Billy’s hands, rigid as rocks. Susan seems to draw Delores into her, turning her over and over in her mind. Finally she says, “Yes, Delores, it is what you must do, but you and Isaac must go together.”
“Susie, how did you know?”
Susan holds up her brown stained hands and answers mysteriously, “These are the mud of the Nanih Waiya.”
Back in the kitchen, there are a dozen or so young Choctaws gathered around the growing mud mound. They seem unperturbed by its percolating action and are instead devouring the chicken, mashed potatoes, and other assorted dishes, while watching it grow across the kitchen floor.
“Ever seen the old movie The Blob?” asks Kelly, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “It looked just like this.”
“I think we should move the bowl and mud outside,” says Delores. “It’s going to cover the floor soon.”
As the teenagers begin taking the mud outside, a report of Tonica’s death airs on the 11 o’clock news in the next room. According to a reporter, the Acting Chief of the Choctaw Nation, Carl Tonica, died from injuries sustained when an eighteen-wheeler hit him as he was crossing the street. So far, Tonica’s death is being considered a freak accident; the truck driver hasn’t even been charged with accidental manslaughter. The reporter reads a list of sorry events that have occurred in the Choctaw Nation since September 22. Two dead chiefs in three days. Rumors of missing casino money. Former Assistant Chief, Auda Billy, in a coma. The reporter goes on to say that charges are expected to be filed against the Choctaw Nation and their New York bank for violating federal money-laundering statutes: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced this evening that they are sending teams of agents to Durant to begin a full-scale inquiry into the murders and the tribal mismanagement of funds,” he says. When the film clip comes on the screen of an unconscious Auda Billy being carried out of the Choctaw clinic, Delores turns off the set.
Everyone in the house falls silent. Slowly Dovie steps between the teenagers, adults, and children seated on the floor of the living room. “Looks like Tonica got himself absentmindedly killed,” she says. Dovie holds up her brown-stained hands to the crowd. “We’ve got a sign from our ancestors. I think we’d better do what they ask.”
A young boy sits with his back against the wall. He is focused on Delores. He has dark brown skin, a round face, his straight coal-black hair hangs like a bowl on his head. He doesn’t move, as though nailed in place waiting for instructions. Finally he speaks. “Tell us what to do, Aunt Delores.”
“Take the chief and the mud to Mississippi to be buried in a mound.”
There is a long pause before the boy replies.
“Okay, we’ll do it.”
The boy reminds Delores of why the people will survive. Because he will try with all his strength.
When Hoppy, Gore, and Adair return with Isaac, the four of them head straight for Auda’s room. After a few minutes Isaac emerges to speak to the people on behalf of the family.
“We’ve decided to take action,” he says. “My friend Gore Battiste and my niece Adair are going to New York City to gather evidence to show that it is the D’Amato brothers, Redford McAlester, and Carl Tonica who are the ones guilty of laundering dirty money. We think this is the best way to clear our tribe and get the FBI out of Choctaw business.” Isaac pauses. “My sister Susan and the docs are keeping a careful watch over Auda, so I’ve been asked to take McAlester back to Mississippi to be buried. I’ll be calling on our Mississippi Choctaw relatives to help us find a spot not far from the Nanih Waiya. Anyone from here who wants to come along, let me know.”
There is a show of brown-stained hands. He smiles and tells them to be ready to leave first thing tomorrow morning.
Isaac is accommodating when Delores asks him to speak with her alone in the library. She brings along two cups of coffee and puts them on the table, then closes the door behind her for privacy. They sit on the sofa. She knows Isaac has already forgiven her.
She tells him about her vision and all the things she saw that relate to Redford McAlester. “All we know is that we do not know. We know nothing about what happens when a man makes a decision to try and control everything that is beyond his control. Now he has died for it, and he will have to beg pardon in the afterlife for what he’s done to the Choctaws. But I must have a good heart to bury him, to be able to say the words that will soothe his troubled spirit.”
Isaac takes the stone from his pocket. “Auda took a beating as the assistant chief, I can see that now. And she did it to atone for something that happened long ago. I think I know why, but I don’t have all the answers. One thing is certain—by tomorrow afternoon, Durant will be crawling with federal agents.”
“We better leave early then. After we bury McAlester, the healing can begin. Somehow I know it will reunite the two Choctaw communities: the ones in Oklahoma with the ones in Mississippi. We’ve been separated too long,” she says, sadly. “Each of us has only half a heart until we’re rejoined.”
“Are you talking about the Choctaws, or us?”
“Both.”
Isaac places the tiny stone in her hand and continues speaking quietly. “The first day I returned from overseas, I don’t know why I didn’t come to you. I was afraid that you’d turn me down again,” he says. “Then I decided if I had lots of women following me around you’d be jealous and come after me.”
“I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”
He tells her that he’s been angry with her for making them live apart. For all the lost years, but that he loves her as before. He says from now on, they will be together. “I will never forsake you.”
“I remember the first time you said that.”
“And I never have.”
He closes his eyes and Delores senses that he’s stretched out in a basin of memories. The fall of 1942. The day he came back to the Love Ranch just to say good-bye.
She read the documents he’d shoved in her hands.
“When will you go?”
“I leave tomorrow for Tulsa. Then on to boot camp.”
They sat across the room from each other in her living room. In neutral corners. They didn’t look at each other. Couldn’t look at each other. She thought that after a moment it would be too painful and he’d run away, but he didn’t. He sat perfectly still.
Finally she spoke up. “So you married WaNima. I’m glad for you. I want you to be happy.”
“Aholabi.” Liar.
Delores winced. “I am speaking the truth,” she cried. “It has to be this way. I’m not jealous, really I’m not. I’m just very, very sad.”
“It’s sad, that’s all. No point in crying. This is not one of your funerals. No one has died. This is about our life, the one we could have made together, not your list of reasons why we couldn’t be married. My age. Your age. Our fifteen years.”
She didn’t answered. She was defenseless. She thought of how Isaac looked the first day he arrived at the ranch. Growing up in an Indian boarding school had marked him. The small desks and tiny oblong beds. His shadow crammed inside angry muscles and bone. He had held the gray stone that had belonged to Nowatima as he’d asked for the job. He had no money. What had charmed her about Isaac was what remained inside of him. Choctaw things. The language. Childhood memories. Animated stories of
their most heroic and ancient towns. He could lead her to the edge of them, two hundred and fifty years ago in Mississippi, and draw the battle scenes from the lullabies of Choctaw children.
Although she was fifteen years older, they had made a good couple. Teacher and student, they switched roles easily. He worked the ranch and together they had doctored horses, lanced leg wounds, pulled foals from the wombs of mares. They’d also danced around the fire during Green Corn. He sang the ancient warrior songs and she followed him. A Shell Shaker and her warrior.
The blue-green smell of summer paraded over their first time together. He was barely seventeen. They had rolled around in the pasture like horses at play. When they were both full they moved indoors. What she still remembered of that day were his blue overalls on her bed, like another body. Mingling her blood with his. Hoping Dovie would not find them melded together, bent over a chair, making love.
Isaac had pushed the wild strawberries in her mouth with his tongue, and then kissed her until she swallowed. No white man had ever done that. Choctaws call it pishechi. Baby feeding. All summer they’d seemed to live “over there,” across the century from their families. Hidden from Dovie and Susan, and the gossip mongers of Poteau, who would say she was too old and worldly for the Billy boy. And it was true, she’d been with many men, while he’d only been with her.
“No, you’re right. A Choctaw man needs a woman who can make children. I’m thirty-two, you’re seventeen. By the time the war is over, I might be too old to have any. Then one day you’ll come home and tell me you want a younger woman. I couldn’t stand that. At least this way you will leave me now.”
“I will never forsake you.”
“How can you say that now that you are a married man?” she asked.
“Because you know it’s true.”
Isaac opens his eyes and quickly takes off his glasses to brush away a tear. When he puts them back on, she smiles and gingerly places the stone in his palm and curls his fingers around it.
“This should go to Hoppy: it holds the Billy family together.”
